All posts by Suzanne

A Minimal Starting Point for Mushroom Efficacy in Cancer Research

August 14, 2016 Suzanne Leave a comment

I’ve put this page up to help people who are interested in a beginning point for looking into the available research on the efficacy of mushrooms in the treatment of cancer. I’ll probably edit it from time to time as I learn more.

A word of caution: Mushroom Extracts and products are not used as a substitute for standard cancer treatment–they are used as adjuvant treatment. I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Talk to your doctor about the research you find linked here.

My dog had peripheral nerve sheath cancer, a type that is known to re-occur, so I began this little research journey. I also take Turkey Tail Mushroom extract in order to (hopefully) prevent developing cancer as I age. The awesome up-side is that I almost never get sick anymore.

Note that some early studies were done using crushed up mushroom powder and showed little efficacy. Had the researchers researched a little better before starting their trial, they’d have learned that it is the mycelium (the actual plant structure, not the fruiting body known as the “mushroom”) that contains much of the anti-cancer product, and that the mushrooms themselves need to be soaked in alcohol for a month, followed by a several hour boiling water extraction (the 2 resulting tinctures combined) to have any immune effect. The mycelium extract from CM-101 or COV-1 strain is needed for maximum anti-cancer treatment. When you find a “health” website, be sure to Google the study that is cited, and provide that information to your doctor. They don’t have time to sort through “health” websites and default to journal abstracts as at least having been peer-reviewed. Good luck on your journey, whether beating cancer or preventing it.

Turkey Tail Mushrooms–also known as Yun Zhi and Coriolus Versicolor:

Paul Stamets TED talk—(shows off his mother who had stage 4 breast/sternum/liver/etc cancer three years prior)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXHDoROh2hA

Overview:

Washington.edu: scroll down to “efficacy”

http://depts.washington.edu/integonc/clinicians/act/mushroom_extracts.shtml

Mechanism (there are lots of mechanisms, but here are a few abstracts) Search www.pubmed.com for more:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18848763

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8318880

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12168863

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22185453

Clinical Trials:

Breast Cancer-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845472/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24856767

Lymphoma and Leukemia-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15183073

Prostate Cancer:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21603625

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11115542

HPV-can no longer find the actual study, however, the study design is copied here. I’m sure a doctor could find it:

Dr. Jose Silva Couto and Dr. Daniel Pereira da Silva of the Cervical Pathology Unit of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Coimbra, Portugal presented their findings at the 20th European Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in Lisbon Portugal.

http://mushroomstudies.co/2010/09/03/clinical-trial-results-show-proof-of-concept-for-use-of-coriolus-versicolor-as-immunonutrition-in-hpv-patients-with-cervical-lesions-lsil/

Dog study—even dogs benefit!

https://news.upenn.edu/news/compound-derived-mushroom-lengthens-survival-time-dogs-cancer-penn-vet-study-finds

Host Defense Product (contains the best strain):

http://www.hostdefense.com/

Cheaper retailer of Host Defense–volume discount:

http://www.cordycepsreishiextracts.com/

AHCC (more expensive but potentially better):

What is it? Active Hemicellulose Compound (Active Hexose Correlating Compound) AHCC was developed and registered in Japan, and most of the studies have been conducted there.

How it works (similar to how Turkey Tail extracts work):

http://www.encognitive.com/node/17913

http://ahccresearch.com/how-ahcc-made.html

Clinical Trials:

Lymphoma and Leukemia: not a great source, but lists the journal name for looking it up:

http://www.iherblibrary.com/the-patient-s-guide-to-ahcc/ahcc-and-cancer

The study’s authors, who published their findings in the International Journal of Immunotherapy, also examined the impact of AHCC on tumor cell growth in two different tumor cell lines: K562 (a leukemia cell line) and Raji (a Burkitt’s cell lymphoma). They found that AHCC suppressed the growth of both cell lines, with a higher concentration of AHCC (one mg/mL) providing the most effect when compared with a lower one. Overall, a one mg/mL concentration of AHCC resulted in a 21 percent reduction in the leukemia- like cell line and a 43 percent decline in the lymphoma cell line. Although the study populations in the above two studies were small, their findings suggest AHCC offers some potent anticancer activity and thus has a place in the treatment of patients who have cancer.

Success story for Leukemia:

http://m.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/news/local/paramount-pastor-uses-prayers-mushroom-extract-to-/ncdWf/

HPV Phase 1 Trial UT Health:

https://www.uth.edu/media/story.htm?id=3a86552a-5d2e-45a0-9659-f85ec6d38ce9

Phase 2 underway:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02405533

A bunch of abstracts for different cancers and oncoviruses:

http://www.humanclinicals.org/ahcc-1/

chickens, composting, gardening, Uncategorized

Too Much Compost! update

May 7, 2015 Suzanne Leave a comment

The fall leaf raking has been started and our little compost bin was way too small! The husband and son raked the front yard leaves out into the street for the city to pick up and I thought. Hey. No. We’re supposed to be retaining all of our compostable materials here onsite to build soil! So I drug a smallish ground cloth out to the street and raked all those leaves onto and pulled it around to the backyard. Into the chicken run! They did a number on those leaves, and the rain helped to beat them down as well. The picture with my son shows how high the leaves were and the next one shows the entire run covered in leaves.

UPDATE: The last picture is an update in early May. We are continuing the “chop and drop” method with garden waste, but you can clearly see what happened to the leaves! We have not removed anything! How much lower would the dirt level be if we hadn’t added it back to their soil?

frugal living, health insurance, healthcare sharing ministry

Sustainability and Health Insurance

July 3, 2014 Suzanne Leave a comment

Christian Healthcare Ministries Review

Sometimes you have to start thinking in a new way. To see things as they are and not as you’ve always thought they were. Like health insurance.

I got my first health insurance policy right out of graduate school, and it only cost me $42 a month. I don’t remember many of the details, but I do remember that it covered chiropractic care with a small co-pay when I hurt my back. Throughout the last 20 years, the policies have gotten worse while the payments have gotten higher. Our final policy was $469 a month with a $3500 deductible. Thank heavens we never met that deductible, right? But every visit cost us, and even though Blue Cross got me very good rates, an $80 doctor visit plus medications does make you think about whether you actually need to go in.

But the main thing about insurance is that it’s guaranteed, right? Well except for that time when I was pregnant with twins and my reliable insurance company went bankrupt. If my children had not been born a month early, nothing would have been covered!! I did get stuck with a $10,000 NICU bill, but I’m lucky that the judge paid most of those bills and I’m lucky the hospital negotiated with me. That’s why you sign that personal responsibility form when you are checking into the hospital…

Now, my new silver plan rate came in at $1100 a month with a $6000 deductible. We are self employed and that just doesn’t work for us—nor does a subsidy, since our income changes from year to year. I didn’t know what we’d do about this since I was unable to pay that much and now I was required to buy a policy.

I began googling “healthcare sharing ministry review” and just didn’t find much out there so I called them all for information. For various reasons described here, I ended up choosing Christian Healthcare Ministries. I still pay $450 a month, plus a quarterly fee for the Brother’s Keeper Plan. This quarter our unlimited coverage is $18 for the family, the amount needed to pay the catastrophic bills of the other members in need. My bills need only reach $500 before the other members help me pay the rest. And they have done so when one of my family member’s medical bills exceeded $500. That same family member would have been covered completely if they’d had another incident costing over $500 during the year.

So you see, I had to go through a mental change where I realized that the “not insurance” option was no less reliable than the “insurance” option. In my case it turned out to be better. A friend stated that it was a different mentality, where you don’t want to take advantage of the other people in the ministry; that you want to use the shared resources wisely. I know exactly how he feels! You don’t shoulder your medical expenses alone, but it’s not a product that you are buying. It’s truly a ministry, something that corporate insurance can never be.