Excellent article on Flaxoil

FLAXSEED OIL AND COTTAGE CHEESE

Flaxseed and flaxseed oil sound too simple to be a cancer therapy. Yet there is strong technical evidence to show that flaxseed helps. Combining flaxseed oil with cottage cheese gives a spectacular set of testimonials. For someone dying of advanced cancer, the combination has essentially no risk, negligible cost but great hope and a reasonable possibility of cancer remission. It appears that actual tests on a specific group of patients have not been reported. But if patients have advanced cancer, what have they got to lose? More important, what have they got to gain? Life!

Testimonials indicate that many advanced cancer patients taking flaxseed oil can have good pain relief within 2 weeks. Measurable improvement in the cancer size and blood cell counts can be expected within about 3 months if the therapy is working for a particular patient. Side effects are apparently negligible.

The procedure for using flaxseed oil, FO, is simple. For a 150 pound person, 3 to 6 TBS of fresh flaxseed oil are mixed with half to 1 cup of low fat cottage cheese, then flavored to taste such as with fruit or honey and eaten in one or more servings during the day. The success rate is unknown but some reports give 90 % with many types of cancer including breast and prostate cancer. In a few cases where the patient could not swallow, therapy was started by an enema of flaxseed oil and skim milk.

There are important warnings. The flaxseed oil must be cold pressed and kept refrigerated to prevent oxidation of the omega 3 fatty acid. In your local health food store, “Barlean’s” is one brand. Storage life of the oil is 1 year in the freezer and 4 months in the refrigerator. Do not substitute any processed or heated flaxseed product for the oil. Three TBS. of flaxseed can be used instead of one of the TBS of flaxseed oil if the seed is ground (in a coffee grinder) immediately before use. After the cancer is in remission, the above dosage can be cut but FO and cottage cheese must be continued or the cancer will return.

Dr. Johanna Budwig, M. D. (1)(2) in Germany apparently developed and publicized the flaxseed oil and cottage cheese therapy. Budwig added the steps of using very fresh flaxseed oil and mixing it with low fat cottage cheese before consumption. For some patients, she recommended a vegetarian diet as well as FO.

Budwig claims that cottage cheese is a necessary ingredient for cancer therapy and that without cottage cheese, flaxseed oil is harmful to cancer patients. Dr. Charles E. Myers, Jr., M. D., (3) also advises against flaxseed oil for prostate cancer patients. He cites several studies showing that flaxseed oil increases the risk of getting prostate cancer. Dr. Myers did not include cottage cheese in the flaxseed oil therapy.

Some patients have taken chemotherapy or radiation with FO. Frequently the white blood cell count will go up or not drop as rapidly as a doctor would expect. Some of these patients have continued FO therapy only and gone into remission. Some patients who continued FO plus chemotherapy or radiation have DIED. A possible guess as to the cause is that the FO improves the blood cell counts more than it strengthens the body’s ability to withstand chemotherapy or radiation. This could lead the doctor to give an excessive dose. As a possible alternate, a patient can consider continuing the FO, discontinuing or minimizing the chemotherapy or radiation but checking frequently to see if the cancer is going into or staying in remission. Remember, vitamin therapy strengthens the immune system while chemotherapy and radiation weaken it. In addition to cancer, flaxseed oil and cottage cheese are reported by some to also be good for arthritis, cardiovascular health, diabetes, energy and impotence.

The effectiveness of flaxseed oil and cottage cheese has not been proven nor do I know of a good demonstration. Boik (4) lists good technical references on flaxseed and omega 3 fatty acids. Karmali (5) finds that omega 3 fatty acids and flaxseed oil are beneficial in the control of DU-145 human prostate cancer implanted in mice. Other references are included.

Flaxseed oil contains 55 % of an omega 3 fatty acid called linolenic acid. Linolenic acid tends to balance the omega 6, hydrogenated and saturated fatty acids that we consume. Boik lists the following ways in which omega 3 fatty acid can help control cancer.

1. Inhibits the development of colon and pancreatic cancers.

2. Inhibits the growth of prostate, mammary, colon and pancreatic cancers.

3. Increase the fluidity of tumor cell membranes and thus their sensitivity to chemotherapy drugs.

4. Omega 3 fatty acid is cytotoxic to human breast, prostate and lung cancer cells but not toward normal cells when tested in cultures.

5. Increases the amount of PGE3 prostaglandin, which is good, and decreases the amount of PGE2. PGE2 promotes the spread of cancer to the bone, decreases survival and inhibits natural killer cell activity.

6. Decreases new blood vessel growth, angeogenesis.

7. Decreases cachexia or body wasting which finally kills many cancer patients.



The following anecdotes are by permission from Cliff Beckwith.

“In ‘How to Fight Cancer and Win’, (6) an account is given of a young women, 35, who had cancer so advanced she could no longer eat. She was given enemas of flaxseed oil and skim milk. In a short time she was able to eat and in 3 months she was home taking care of the family.”

In another case from a man using flaxseed oil and cottage cheese: “the doctor said his bladder had crystallized and lost its elasticity. He couldn’t stay out of the bathroom 15 minutes . . .. The doctor said it was a condition he’d just have to live with. After taking flaxseed oil and cottage cheese for a while, he went to the doctor for a physical . . . . . The doctor examined him and said, “Mr. C., you’ve had cancer in your bladder and it’s gone. The bladder is elastic again and everything is back to normal.”

“A friend of ours has an uncle, 72, who was badly off with prostate cancer and preparing to die . . . . . He got the information and began using the oil. We didn’t hear for some time, but one day I saw his brother-in-law and he said, ‘Oh, he’s doing great! He’s going to meetings and there’s no more thought of dying. He’s telling everyone about the value of flax oil’.”

FLAXSEED ALONE Dr. Wendy Demark-Wahnefried (7), a research professor at Duke University, recently had a prostate cancer patient whose biopsy showed high levels of pre-cancerous cells throughout his prostate gland. He was put on a low fat (20 %) diet plus 30 grams (3 tablespoons) of freshly ground flaxseed. Cottage cheese was not included. Three months later, his PSA had fallen from 5.9 to 2.7. Six months after the start, his PSA was 2.6 and a biopsy indicated a complete absence of pre-cancerous cells. Next, the doctor worked with about two dozen patients who were scheduled to have a radical prostatectomy. They were put on about the same diet. In 2 to 3 weeks, their average cholesterol dropped from 196 to 162 mg/dl. For those patients who started with a Gleason score of 6 or less, the average PSA dropped from 8.3 to 6.7. Pathological examination of the prostate showed beneficial changes, even in this short period. The authors commented, “These data provide evidence that a flaxseed supplemented, fat restricted diet may have a biological effect on established prostate cancer which may be mediated through a hormonal mechanism...” Flaxseed might be helpful with Breast Cancer since that is also hormonal.

Testimonials are generally a poor basis for choosing a therapy. However the cost and hazards are minimal with flax.



References for Flax

1.Erasmus, Udo, Fats That Heal - Fats That Kill, Alive Books, Vancouver, 1994

2. Budwig, Johanna, M.D., Flaxoil As a True Aid Against Heart Infraction and Cancer

3. Myers-CE, Prostate Forum, August 2000

4. Boik, John, Cancer & Natural Medicine, Oregon Medical Press, 1996, 618-389-0768

5. Karmali, Rashid, The effects of dietary omega-3 fatty acids on the DU-145 transplantable human prostatic tumor, Anticancer Research, 7:1173-1180, 1987

6. Fisher-W, How to Fight Cancer and Win, Fischer Publishing Corp. 1987

7. Demark-Wahnefried, Wendy, research professor at Duke Univ., as reported in Cancer Communication Newsletter, p. 7, April 2000.

8. Wilner, Robert, MD, Dr Johanna Budwig Diet, this can be found at http://209.170.56.239/imo12267/cancer_dr_budwig.html.

9. Simopoulos, Artemis, The Omega Plan (hard cover) or The Omega Diet (paperback)

10. Gillian-EC. et al, The effect on human tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-1 production on diets enriched in n-3 fatty acids, Am Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 63, No. 1, Jan 1996

11. Yan-L, et al, Dietary flaxseed supplementation and experimental metastasis of melanoma cells in mice, Cancer Letters, 124(2): 181-6, Feb 27, 1998

12. Thompson-LU. et al, Flaxseed and its lignan and oil components reduce mammary tumor growth at a late stage of carcinogenesis, Carcinogenesis 17(6):1373-6, Jun 1996

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