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Literature Review General Plant and Juice Facts Facts About Buying Noni Online Blog on My Parents Cancers
Potential Dangers from Ingestion of Noni on the Liver
Final Update May21, 2006
A Scientific Approach to Considering Noni Juice as a Supplement
(Or
My Search Through the World of Holistic Medicine)
Dr.
Joseph F. Sinski
Department of Chemistry, Bellarmine University
If you have just reached this
page, chances are you are considering using Noni juice for some
condition. Welcome!
Let me say that we are in the same boat right now.
Below I offer links to scientific literature I feel is decent on the
topic, simply because if you just type in a search you get tons of sites from
people trying to sell you stuff and you may be like me, just wanting the facts
without the hype. First some
background into how I got interested in this juice.
For perspective:
In September of 2003 my cat got
sick. Kept going to the cat box
constantly and losing weight rapidly. I
took him to an all night vet here in Louisville where I live.
He turned out to be a very interesting man who used regular procedures
mixed with holistic medicine. After
an initial diagnosis, we treated the urinary track problem in the standard way,
along with some essential oils to rub on the cat.
Also, I was to give the cat Noni as a supplement.
Now I am a chemist and that stuff
smelled of free amino acids right away, so to me I was surprised the cat could
stand it. But he got better, so I
finished the medication. Sure
enough in a couple of weeks, the cat looked a bit bad again, and I gave him the
syringe of Noni. (Orally).
He was right as rain again. Of
course I thought this was odd, but what even turned odder was the fact that the
cat regained his weight and whenever I completely stopped the Noni he would
slowly get lethargic again and lose weight.
So I am a busy man with way too many animals of my wife’s to deal with
and I took the path of least resistance. To
this day my cat is somehow addicted to Noni every other day, about 3 ml. I don’t ask questions, the problem I solved and I move on.
Then in November my mother went to
the doctor. She has a rather large
growth in her lower abdomen. This
had been going on for a while, slowly for years most likely, but now she was
losing rapid weight at 75 years old. They
did a scan and saw a mass around the ovaries.
They recommended a biopsy. She
simply would not do it. Farm woman,
whatever, she wouldn’t. The
Ca-125 test was done, but to make a long story short, I figured she was not
going to go for an operation and I decided to step in.
I sent her cans of Boost nutritional drink. But that only helps maintain weight. The swelling of the abdomen was a major concern as well.
So I put her on Ibuprofen maintenance for the swelling.
But if she was still fighting whatever this was she would be scavenging
skeletal muscle, so I put her on cod liver oil to give her body something to
make antibodies with instead of skeletal muscle.
(All this after massive reading of available literature.)
So as a chronic fixer, I decided I was treating the symptoms but not
shrinking whatever was growing.
Thus believe it or not, I went to talk to my vet. (PhD in chemistry, and I do this, but the doctors only have one plan and she was not going to do it period.) He told me to put her on Noni, about a bottle a day. Told me how he treats many animals with Noni and cancers, with normal treatment as well of course. I had nothing to lose, but she clearly can’t drink a bottle of Noni a day; every 3 days is the fastest. The vet was using Noni juice for the cat and every other animal, so I called them and ordered cases for my mother.
It’s been about 6 months and she
looks the same, which is good. Pretty
stable actually, and remember, she has never been officially diagnosed and
won’t consider the prospect. Seems
to have a little less swelling on top which makes it easier to move, and is
still maintaining her weight. But
she is happy. Plus she says her
hair looks great. I’ll update her
progress on this site, and date this right now, April 11, 2004.
By the way, my wife now drinks the juice and also says her thin hair is
thicker. What all this means, who
knows. I don’t drink Noni myself,
but I must admit I like the fact that it may perhaps do something with fast
growing cells like hair for obvious reasons as other fast growing cells are a
problem. Again, the jury is still
way out on all of this and I will keep you updated.
Quickly I got annoyed as I
searched the web. (I know I needed
to search the proper way first in our scientific review sites, but I am busy and
this is always my first approach.) As
you probably know, there is a whole host of people who feed off of desperate
people in search of help with disease. I
just wanted scientific studies.
First I wanted to be sure I was doing no harm, so I found this article from the European Union. They don’t endorse the product in the article entitled, “Opinion of the Scientific Committee on Food on ... Noni”. But what they do is very interesting. They have their chemists rip it apart and elucidate the components. (These are extensive for a fruit in my opinion, but it seems to be a healthy mix.) Then they force many many mice to take as much as they can stand in many different ways. And it doesn’t hurt the mice for the most part. So in my opinion, it’s a good place to start understanding that Noni is safe to ingest. Especially if one is giving large quantities to a loved one. Below is the link and yes it’s a pdf. I hate them also on a 56 K modem, but it’s a good read. (For opening a pdf or Acrobat file on a slow machine, I find it best to just right click the file, and click "save target as", to my desktop. At least I can gauge the time it will take to open. I respect what Acrobat is doing by making files that can't ever be changed and always open the same on every machine, but there is a limit to my patience.)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/out151_en.pdf
Next I tried government web sites. And the best place to try is www.cancer.gov. Why? Because they will be completely honest and don’t have a vested interest in the product in my opinion. They linked me to a current clinical trial. This is good simply because they are taking it seriously. If they can take it seriously, I certainly can take this seriously I figure. I'll post any results they give in the future on this site.
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/gui/show/NCT00033878?order=1
By the way, in the trial they use a pill form. Since I don’t know what is exactly working yet in the Noni, if anything, I am sticking with the juice because who knows if a volatile component is lost in the process to make the capsule etc. I admit I have no basis to say which is better however, so this is just an opinion. Also, a good sign is they are specifically looking at “anti-tumor” properties.
Next, on the anti-tumor line, here is an article in which the researcher at
Rutgers University finds evidence of anti-tumor activity in mouse epidermal
cells. So they are giving mice
cancer and working on tumors essentially. (At
least at the cellular level.)
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/61/15/5749
Now this article is referenced on a Noni company website, but
it does not automatically disqualify the source. The researchers ultimately received National Institute of
Health support for this work. The
company links to it only, as it is a good article, and they warn that you are
leaving their site. Hey, I have had
NIH support as well in the past, it’s a good article.
Here is another paper for you to look at. Great stuff really talking about Noni being a vascular agent, thus limiting the blood flow to tumors. In my mind I think that is what is happening with my mom, just a point of stability potentially. Not killing the tumor but hindering it's growth. And the tumor still serves to send out info telling other potential tumors not to grow so this is probably a good place to be at, again, if this is what is happening. Below is the link. It is interesting what type of cells are being used to study, (From the paper: ) "We tested the effects of Noni juice in a three-dimensional fibrin clot matrix model using human placental vein and human breast tumor explants as sources for angiogenic vessel development." Pretty good reading actually. I will keep everyone updated on now both my dad's and mom's condition. The paper below is unbiased as always as that is the only type of article I want to link to on this site.
On a final note for now, many of the articles I am finding can be opened
at my university, but not from home as they are protected and we subscribe.
If I am to maintain this site, I really will have to find a way around
this, or copies of the papers that are not protected etc.
For example, that Rutgers study above has great live links in the
references section if you can get your self to a University library with Medline
access. I’ll figure a way around
this as I said. Be looking to this site for more links to papers I trust.
I’ll leave you with this fact for now:
As chemist we often find ourselves forced to copy nature.
Take the Taxol story for example. Before
I graduated with my undergraduate degree in the mid 80’s I saw so many hour
long presentations of folks trying to copy Taxol, a drug found in the Pacific
Ewe Tree. Still to this day they
haven’t got it perfect and still try hard, because it’s an excellent
anti-tumor agent. Below is the
“Taxol-Story” link. Sadly,
these trees are actually in some danger and we really need to copy the drug in
the lab without using them all up. If
Noni ends up being a new “Taxol” like product accepted by the government,
luckily the fruit is in ample supply unlike the tree bark of the Pacific Ewe.
Why do I write this? Because
you really must realize we chemist stumble on stuff looking for other stuff all
the time. And it very well may be
the fruit of this plant has a great potential to help us, and that the vast
majority of other things you see on the web claiming to help may or may not.
So I believe we need both an open mind and a sharp mind so that people
don’t separate us from our money too quickly.
Thus an open mind with scientific facts to back it up.
Be careful friends and good luck. As
they say, none of us will get out of this life alive anyway.
http://www.pfc.forestry.ca/ecology/yew/taxol_e.html
Hepatotoxicity of NONI Juice: Potential Dangers from Ingestion
Report of Three Cases
(This section added November 21, 2005)
Below is a full article which discusses the potential toxicity of drinking Noni Juice on ones liver.
From the Journal of Gastroenterology reporting two cases:
http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/11/4758.asp
Note: I drink about a liter a week now. These people drink much less and had this happen so any potential effect varies. Still you need to be informed.
And just an abstract from a Pubmed search on a separate single case.
Noni Production Info and Basic Plant Facts
Here is a great, and in my opinion largely unbiased (my criteria for this site as you remember) review article on the Morinda Citrifolia plant written be Will McClatchey, Department of Botany and Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, Natural Products Program, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. Below that is a species profile. I believe, having read the guidelines, I can link to them but not use the material directly. Aside from that all the photos you see on this site are used by permission expressed on the University of Hawaii's web site.
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/noni/downloads/MorindaCitrifolia.pdf
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/noni/downloads/morinda_species_profile.pdf
The above links comes from a plant pathologist's home page at the University of Hawaii. Pretty interesting and well done site actually, with everything you could ever want to know about the growth cycles etc. Click below to go to their main site.
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/noni/
The page below tells you all about how pure noni is made from the same site. With a pH less then 3.5, this stuff reminds me of which hazel for some reason.
Good Site on How Pure Noni is Made I took all the pictures on this site from the University of Hawaii Site above, as stated with their permission.
This concludes my Literature review section:
Dr. Sinski
Facts about Buying Noni Juice Online
Before we go any further, here are some facts as I see them about buying Noni. First, there is a company that sells the best tasting mix hands down. But depending on where you are at on their system you can pay anywhere between $30 and $50 a liter bottle. That works out to between $115 and $192 a Gallon. Again, please understand they make the best tasting mix in my opinion. I can't see why other companies don't pull this off as mixing the stuff should be not that hard. If you have the money, and your family member is very ill by all means make their experience as pleasant as possible and buy the stuff. Here is what they are doing really. They take it down to the pulp, then add back water and some grape and blueberry juice. But darn it they achieve the success of getting rid of the acidity with this method. Every other producer for the most part thinks this is somehow wrong and thus they are more pure etc with the traditional method. But it is really hard to tolerate the pure juices acidity. If some other company slightly copied this method they would probably do really well because the expensive company is a multi level marketing company and lots of the purchase price goes to people above the seller etc.
On the other hand, if you want as much pure Noni as possible, I will provide this one link to the absolute cheapest price I can find on the web. Please understand, this is not an endorsement of their particular form of Noni juice, but if you have cancer I feel inclined to believe you will be needing higher doses of the stuff to have the maximum desired effect. They grow their own in Hawaii, (have the largest farm in fact), and sell bulk such as 8 gallons for $160. Unlike other companies this is completely pure Noni so you probably will want to mix it with some other juice. Is it better pure? I can't say for sure, but I do know this, nothing on this planet can quite possibly taste that bad. And I have mixed it and no matter what I mix it with I can't make it taste like the expensive stuff. That said, you can make it quite drinkable and it is only about $33 a gallon after they ship it from Hawaii.
These companies get into huge disputes about what is better, to grow it in Tahiti or Hawaii and the expensive company I mention above has a set up that if you sign up folks under you as distributors you may very well get some free even each month.
I don't care about all of this and hopefully some day we will all realize it's just a fruit that grows in the ground put there by whatever God you believe in and if it does do anything for Cancer they should be selling the best tasting mix they can make as cheap as possible, because if you are suffering from Cancer, you really have other things to worry about in my humble opinion. Don't get me wrong, if you are interested in Noni to start a business more power to you, but if you find you are dieing of cancer you should not have to start a business to get a fruit God put in the ground just like apples or any other fruit. It should be available and it should be as cheap as possible for you to obtain period.
Click Here to go to the Best Price I Can Find on the Web for Noni
(Again, if I find pure stuff cheaper, I'd switch to that link as long as I had tried the stuff. For now, these guys win my cheapest pure stuff test, and that is the only reason I link here. If you wish to, do like me and buy lots of fruit juices from the store. Then spend a day mixing with the cheap noni. Grape juice really does cut the acidity well. Also each batch you buy will taste different as it depends on the fruit that day.
Does it really matter where you get Noni Juice From?
I wondered this as well. And unless I wanted to force my lab manager Bob to work through the night with the mass spec etc, I decided to find a government comparison to link to. Why a government comparison? Well one can only hope this is the most unbiased source we can find.
Apparently a group of Noni juice distributors decided to petition the United Kingdom's Food Standard's Agency for an official analysis. They provided a sample and asked it be compared to the larger more established company's mixture I mentioned above. Here is what they found and notice this is a gov.uk web site:
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/nonijuice.pdf
I will not be commenting on any potential differences for 2 reasons. First, two apples are different so using statistics I can say at some level all apples are different. Thus we would need to employ all those simple tests you an find in any first year statistics book to make acceptable statements on the matter. Second and perhaps more importantly, whatever my take on the difference would be questioned as biased by someone reading this I am sure. It's really a great document as they ripped up the sample and reported what they found.
Below are all updates on my family in a Blog Style:
(Remember, this section contains updates on my parents conditions, and I assume the reader has read the very beginning text of this site that goes into the history of how we got to this point.)
July 13th, 2004 Update
Well, my dad has gotten out of the hospital. His Prostate cancer is pretty bad and he needed to be on a catheter for weeks. They did some surgery to clean out a pathway and he is off the catheter now but after the biopsy the doctor said, "This is a very hard prostate and the bad kind of cancer." Whatever that means. They have been calling and telling him to make chemotherapy appointments but he won't and I guess it makes sense at 80 years old. He will do some radiation and will take the shot to stop the testosterone to potentially shrink the prostate. Anyway, he is beginning to take the same level of Noni as my mom now. (About half a glass a day.) Will it help? Who knows. But if he is not doing anything else it can't hurt. He had tried it before and couldn't stand the problems going to to the bathroom all the time, but they apparently are the least of his worries right now. As for my mom, she is still doing fine oddly enough and I will see them both at the end of the month.
August 5th, 2004 Update
Well, my dad went to the radiation doctor. He is getting stronger so he is making more of his own decisions, as when he was weak in the hospital whatever they wanted to do they did. The doctor was a fun guy, who said on a scale of 2-10, (10 being the worst type of tumor or cancer I guess), dad had a 10 and he had only seen a 10 three times in his life. Then he asked dad how long he wanted to live. (He turns 80 in a couple of days.) Dad did not answer, so he asked us and we did not answer. So he went into the side effect of the radiation and dad finally said, "I don't want any of that." So mom and now dad are officially not doing anything in terms of chemo or radiation. Dad will get the shots that stop testosterone but that is it. God help them both I guess. Mom was very cute and said, "Joey has us drinking Noni..." That went over like a lead balloon, or more specifically a blank stare from the doctor was the response. Both are now on the Noni / Ibuprofen / Cod Liver Oil / Boost drink plan I devised, so as always I will update you. Hope you read that last paper above, as it is very good.
November 10th, 2004 Update
Life is normal. But I thought you might like an update. If you had told me a year ago my mother would be this stable, especially after how the doctors were talking, I am sure I would not have believed you. But she is. Now, to be fair, what I know about her condition I can't say because she states she is fine and I respect that. In August she took down the Christmas tree from 2003 finally, and just put on back up this month. (She had not wanted to take it down for fear of not being able to put it up again etc etc, but this act on her part showed me she now believed truly she was fine and would see another Christmas, and perhaps many more.) Again, she is stable and lives quite well, wearing maternity smocks of course. I talked to her doctor in the summer and what we discussed again will not be discussed here because as I said, she says she is fine and is. But what I will tell you is he said had she done what he wanted in November 2003, the whole operation and all the treatment, well he didn't think she would have been doing so well right now to say the least. I mean really, can a 77 year old woman who is 90 pounds without the stomach weight really have stood the immune system being attacked with modern medicine to the level they do? Believe me folks, I am not saying a person should do what we have done, but if I get that age and something similar happens to me I know I would just take this route. I firmly believe, and this is only a belief of course, that the immune system in tack goes a long way at that age. Again, I can't talk anymore about her condition, she is fine thank God. As for my dad, he seems OK, doing what he is doing. He might be OK because of the shots for the testosterone control, as he has only had 2 so far. Time will tell if anything I send them is having an effect. With a slow growing cancer vs. what was suspected she had, I always wondered if the Noni could help him as much. We will see and I will update everyone. But the bottom line is my conversations on the phone with them are mostly about pet rabbits and the family etc. Completely normal and no crisis in months. (Knock on wood of course.)
And as for the cat who started all of this? Well he never regained to the heavy weight again. So he has plenty of flabby skin from his time as a fat cat. And there have been times in which I have not given him Noni for about a week, just because I got really busy, and he gets very lethargic. So now I do 10 ml's a day, and he is happy. There is something in there he surely is missing in his normal cat food. My other cat doesn't need it at all and does well on the same food. The 15 year old little black dog is doing well as well on 20 ml's a day. I can now say, after almost one year on Noni, that dog's cataract that completely covers one eye has not changed a bit, so Noni had no effect there, but he also has not needed pain pills for his arthritis that he needed before we started this. Or he just got better naturally perhaps.
Update, December 22nd 2004 on my Mother
As you have heard in the past here, I am always quite careful about talking about my mothers condition. Here is the reason. Last November, when she went in to the doctor she was told she probably had Ovarian Cancer. This did not sit well with her at all. She decided just to go back home. She did have a CA-125 test that scored about 500. After talking to her over and over the doctor got the idea to just say sure, the test was fine, and leave it at that. So she had never accepted the diagnosis, and it was not a diagnosis yet anyway. Then I put her on the Noni / everything else treatment. What I didn't tell you was the doctor called me and said, "Your mom is all full of cancer Joe", but I told her the test was fine because she refuses to treat it. (This was about 6 months later.)
So a few days ago she went into the hospital with a prolapsed uterus. The pressure of the ascites was that great. The gynecologist talked to me and said she refuses surgery and just wants to be drained, but that since her condition was so grave "she is the boss". He wanted to do a full removal of everything then biopsy, then chemo then radiation, like she was told a year ago. So she convinced them to just drain her. 9 liters! or 16 pounds. She is much happier. The tested the ascites and sure enough it is cancerous. So they are telling her that she needs surgery of course and everything else. Mind you she is about 97 pounds and really has no reserves. I talked to the doctor and asked him what this would accomplish and he said, "Look, it is not if this will kill her it is when." So that is encouraging.
Anyway, she is home, really happy to be free to walk and breath normally etc. She feels fine, and the uterus went back in once the ascites was drained. The doctors called the house to protest again and to state the ascites will just come back in a week. She doesn't believe that, as it took 2 years to get to this level. I will be there next week and if it does come back we will make a decision then. But if it takes months, a draining cycle is not the worst treatment. Just palliative treatment I guess. So here is the big test I guess:
If the Noni is just limiting the tumors growth this would be a good time to do it's best work! If this goes another way I will be sure to write whatever happens on this page. She is remarkably healthy, blood pressure did not even drop when she was drained. Still good blood-work except for the cancerous ascites of course. Hey, for Christmas she is happy. That is a good thing.
Update January 3rd 2005
My mother left the hospital roughly 2 weeks ago. When she left she weighed 97 pounds. Now she is stable at 100 pounds on our home scale. Thus she has not put back on the 16 pounds of Ascites that the doctors predicted might happen in one week. Her goal is to only be drained every 6 months or so. She has been able to eat well and states she probably just put on weight instead of ascites, but there is no way of telling if that statement is correct. What is good about it is her positive outlook that she believes the ascites is not going to come back quickly. I hope to be able to write to all of you in 6 months she still doesn't need to be drained. Whatever she has clearly produces ascites because we drained off 9 liters after 2 years of buildup, but it also clearly produces ascites at a slow rate compared to many other women's cancers. And that is all that can be said to date with certainty. Remember, this treatment we are experimenting with does not propose to get rid of the cancer. Most of the papers I list state about inhibition of cancer growth. Perhaps that is all that can be expected. Don't get me wrong, a reversal of the Cachexia would be wonderful with return of some noticeable skeletal muscle, but I think both she and I would be happy with an equilibrium in the cancer process, of something close to that.
Update February 4th 2005
Well, my dad went to the doctor yesterday. He has not walked in about a month. Mostly because he is worried about falling, but he seems to be having some bone problems in one leg. The doctor visit was to get the 3 month shot, which could actually be causing the problem apparently or bone cancer of course which is common in prostrate cancer progression. He will get a full bone scan next week to determine as last summer the bone scan was clean for cancer. I got him a wheelchair, and he still looks decent, thus no major loss of weight like my mother had. After falling 3 times in December he simply will not chance that leg will not give out apparently.
My mother is at 110 pounds. So there is weight gain. Interestingly enough she shows quite a lot of mobility, even touching her toes and my sister thinks her face is fuller and this gain my not be ascites coming back necessarily. The bottom line is she eats very well now and before she was drained she couldn't. Either way my sister was quite happy with mom's condition.
Update April 3rd 2005
The good news is we're still here. Now their conditions. My mom picked up a pretty painful case of shingles. That is a horrible illness really and it's hard to believe its apparently the same virus as the chicken pox. The blisters are gone but now she still feels lots of pain. This is normal and there is a good chance the pain will subside in a few weeks. But if she scarred the nerves this can be permanent. Yes I understand that if she had taken some antiviral drugs early this could have been greatly lessened, but I am not there and secondly I really only learn about diseases after they get them. So when she thought she had a very bad muscle pain and put a heating pad on the area or tried that route, I didn't question her decision on the phone. Really they are out there alone at this point in terms of medical support, even though there is lots of family around. Because the minute she would walk in a hospital the only thing they would see right away is the ascites and the ovarian cancer. Speaking of which she does not mention that condition much and apparently is at a stable point. Like before she discussed being drained in the summer. Now she doesn't see the need to worry about it. My sister said a very interesting thing the other day. Paraphrased, "Sure there are plenty of studies of ovarian cancer's like mom's treated, but how many of women who do not treat them the traditional way?" Translation, who knows how long you can last if you just eat well and accept the cancer as a condition. Besides, she never really was that bothered except for the ascites. The shingles on the other hand really is horrible. Very few drugs touch the pain and any opiates would not be good because she needs to stay regular. Honestly, the woman's threshold for pain is pretty high apparently, and she is able to handle this. Mostly because she has to take care of dad of course. Amazing. I talked to my vet and we made up some aromatic oils from a spread sheet of the different essential oils. I'll let you know if it works. You would be surprised how many creams you use that work on this simple principle, and a good apricot or almond carrier massage oil is soothing. Some antiviral, some pain oils mixed in etc. Now onto my dad:
He is using the wheelchair I got him finally. Sure he can stand up, but he can't trust his legs anymore. Guess he was just waiting until it was warm to use the thing. As always, he is plagued by pain in his legs. And nothing touches that, that is over the counter. So I told the vet of what he is going through and since I was sending something to my mom I asked. Instantly like a knee jerk response, he said, "if that is bone cancer, which is normal for advanced prostrate you won't find anything." Paraphrased again. But what the heck. He stays open all night and I wanted to learn anyway (as I always do from 65 year old PhD's just like grad school) so we went for it. Opened up the spread sheet of all oils and everything they do, and mixed like 20 oils. Then 20 drops of the mix per ounce of Apricot carrier oil and I sent it off to dad labeled "for intractable pain". I just couldn't see giving her something without him and yes I tried it on myself. The massaging of the oil probably has a lot to do with effect. Again, the doctors sent him home last summer asking him how long he expected to live if you read above. Call me crazy, but in for the penny in for the pound. They are taking the noni because of this vet's advice back in 2003 now, why not go further into holistic? Trust me, for example, hot peppers in capsaicin overwhelm sensory nerves and you buy it in the store as a cream and you don't think twice. You're using holistic medicine anyway, you probably just wait for some pharmacy to bottle the stuff. Overall they are happy. I'll write again.
Update April 13th 2005
Dad says nothing can help his pain. (Of course heavy prescription stuff could, but he likes being conscious etc, and he can live with over the counter stuff. So maybe the oil is not that great but it was worth a try. Mom says where she put her oil it seems to help, and honestly Dad likes rubbing the stuff into his legs anyway.) On the bright side, Dad has been rolling around in his chair and is in a much better mood. My theory is the shock of being bed ridden has finally worn off and Spring makes him realize this is as good as it gets. (My wife thinks something in the oil is affecting his moods, but since we added 20 different essential oils to the mix which is totally not a normal thing to do, there is no way of proving this coincidence. Could just be the warm weather.) When I mentioned my theory to Dad he stated that he used to do so much work building houses and cement and it really was depressing not being able to walk, so I told him to look on the bright side. He can feel his legs and even stand and move them around. Plus this only happened at 80 years of age. He had a lot to be thankful for in that respect. This may sound callous, but I have his genes and I totally hope to make it to 80 myself in any condition.
On another note, in a week or so my mom will be drained again, and my dad will get his shot, on the same day. Mom thinks she could have made it 6 months but the shingles annoys her and she feels this will help the relief. I know if you read around cancer chat pages the ascites may come back faster next time, but remember the doctors stated it would only take a week and it has been 4 months! So her condition is unique and I really hope her cancer stays localized, because draining 3 times a year without any other obvious effect would be wonderful. Again, sure the full operation is the right move medically, but her doctors, all of them, stated after the operation it is a question of when. None of them believes they will stop her cancer and all they can do is look at her and call her "grave", a word I hate to hear. Maybe it is true, but if you can keep the cancer basically in check, (and there is no data saying this is possible mind you with her stage of ovarian cancer), you give her options. I only hope that if we are still doing this in a year or so the doctors at least consider mentioning it to other patients, instead of just saying words like "grave" at their bedside. What they told me was (paraphrased), "We should operate and since she has no reserves we probably can't do chemo. Then it will grow back and that will be it." Or "We can operate and do chemo and see what happens, but understand it is grave." At 77 years old how is that a decent option to give someone? It has been 4 months and she still is strong and more importantly still has her immune system in tact. I may have said this before but I asked my sister who works as a pharmacist in a cancer ward how long before she believes this was a good option to take and she stated "3 years". While I don't know where that number comes from, here is to 3 years from November 2003 I guess when this started. Right now I am optimistic.
Update April 25th 2005
Dad and mom are on their way home now by car. I just called my sister. My mom had 10 liters removed this time. So that beats the 9 liters from before. The doctor wants her to come every 2 months now to be drained. She will do what she wants of course. They tested dad and say he has spots on his spine and shoulder. They want to do radiation on him in the spine but he said no. They both were kidding around in the car on speaker phone with my sister driving and it was kind of fun to talk to them. What will happen who knows, but there is your update folks.
Update May 1st 2005
Well I had a few days to think this over and I decided to go back to the drawing board to increase the chances a bit, after someone wrote to me about a few different approaches. A person mentioned Inositol IP6 as a potential holistic medicine I should consider. I right away called my Veterinary friend and he told me of his uses for it plus another approach with Maitake mushroom extract. Here are a few links that convinced me to go try the two for my parents.
Inositol IP6 for Prostate Cancer (I say where you can buy this in the July 25th update below.)
http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/10/1/244
http://carcin.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/3/555
I am having them take a multivitamin as well because the Inositol has some issues I recall from my reading of how it binds up calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc and may affect their absorption by the body but they are not at a high dosage and the antioxidant properties especially for Dad are worth it. Here is the American Cancer Society's take on Inositol which is short and to the point.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_3_1x_IP6.asp
Maitake in general. (I say where you can buy this in the July 25th update below as well.)
A decent review article that is a bit more readable for the layman is offered below. Still a reputable journal, Alternative Medicine Review, well reference and honestly, a great many of the papers are from Japan and this one reviews many of their findings plus has a free and open link.
http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/6/1/48.pdf
I sent my mother these papers of course as I do all the rest and she will not be stopping the Noni or my father for that matter. Plus I sent her the Maitake D-Fraction liquid extract and the Inositol IP6 in powder form. Dad is having problems with pills I guess.
Update July 25th 2005
I know it has been a few months but there really has been little to say until now. The time passed by quickly with me sending them tapes of the western channel so that they could watch Gunsmoke and the like on a regular basis. But today came the day for them to go to the doctor, and my mom's day to be drained. Here are the results:
Dad: He got his shot, and my sister took him in as always. Really not much change in his condition and certainly nothing that is out of the ordinary for his condition.
Mom: This was a surprise. Mom had only about 2 liters drained off of the ascites instead of the normal 9 - 10 liters. So she was happy and really if this continues she should go at a less regular frequency. Of course there is no way of knowing if this is a trend yet, and again, I'll let you know. Now that she has the room to eat it would be nice if she gained back the weight in her face etc, but again we shall see. For the record she has only been taking the Maitake extract and the Noni. Neither one of them really went for the IP6, and that is their choice of course. His is a link if you do want to try it: (Inositol IP6).
So, if you are looking for the Maitake link of where I got the stuff it's a place called Vitacost. To be exact, "Maitake Products Grifron Maitake D-Fraction Standardized (Alcohol Free) -- 60 ml". Sort of a sweet taste of drops you put in your mouth. I bought the wife a bottle and she takes it. Much more fun then the Noni to drink.
Again, what is the plan here? None really. Just trying to keep the cancers at bay and in the process not trying to destroy their immune system. But really, this seems very positive now for the Maitake/Noni approach for mom, so count today as good news and another quarter of a year goes by without major incident, knock on wood.
Update September 23rd 2005, Father's Death / Mother's Condition
A lot was happening recently, and my father has died. He was doing pretty well this summer, but a few weeks ago he started to lose all strength and all appetite. So if you want to take anything out of this you can say that Noni, which he drank, did not stop Prostrate cancer from killing this 81 year old man.
Oddly enough my mother has not needed to be drained and thus the ascites seems to have stopped. When I was in NJ, as my father got sicker and eventually died, it was remarkable how she actually has gained some muscle mass back in her face as well. We'll see how this progresses but for now she looks wonderful and has no plans to see any doctors unless the ascites begins again.
Update November 30th 2005, Mother's Condition
She was drained a few days ago. This time after 4 months she had 4 liters of ascites to drain off. She is fine again and doing well, plus I am sort of impressed that the ascites is being slowly produced. If she stays like this, being drained 3 times a year with no other major side effect I think we could not ask for anything more.
Update March 22nd 2006, Mother's Condition
It has been 4 months and Mom went in to be drained. According to my sister she looks absolutely wonderful, which is good news. The odd part is they were not able to drain her and could get nothing but a few drops of ascites. She is not large at all and has again regained some actual non ascites weight it seems but as they were not able to get ascites they suggested she come back in a month for an ultrasound to see if they could find any. As she is not large there may be no need and it was suggested that she does not have to come back every 4 months from now on, just when she feels she needs to be drained. Obviously this is great news and she is excited about getting out into the garden for the spring. If there is any other update I will post.
Update April 29th 2006, Mother's Condition
She went back to do the ultrasound and they found 6 liters of ascites which they drained off of her. This is pretty much 6 months worth as she was not drained the last time. She is fine now etc. but the important part is she is still producing ascites slowly and that has never stopped as I openly wondered in the last post. This rate is very low and hopefully she can continue to be drained every 4 months or so.
Update May 21st 2006, Mother's Death
My mother just passed away. She was very happy and healthy from all accounts today, looked great at 9 pm and gone by 9:15 pm it seems. I talked to her earlier and she was concerned about the Derby horse that broke his ankle etc. Seemed fine. Something massive must have happened and I always thought with the cachexia for so many years, thus loss of skeletal muscle in her face visibly, I wondered how her heart muscle was holding up. She was even planting tomato's the day before. No one saw this coming.
So bye mom and dad. :-(
I won't be adding to this page anymore, but I will keep it up in case someone finds something useful in it. Dr. Sinski
William and Regina Sinski
Take care:
Dr. Sinski