Post by Bozur on Jan 29, 2010 1:27:16 GMT -5
An Amazing Cancer Remedy Discovery in Turkey
In the early 1960s a Turkish doctor was searching for a cure for his pet dog’s cancer when he re-discovered an age-old cancer remedy being used by a remote group of Turkish villagers. This discovery led to the patented medicine "Anvirzel" and the home remedy version called "oleander soup" that has saved thousands of lives around the world the past 40 plus years.
Author of Cancer’s
Natural Enemy
Part 1 of The
Oleander Series
My search for a possible
cancer cure began in late 2004 when I found out that my cousin, lifelong friend
and running buddy, Jeff Johnson, had been diagnosed as having stage-three
melanoma. The cancer had appeared out of nowhere and so it was quite a shock to my cousin and everyone close to him. As luck would have it, I had spent a lot
of time the previous four years or so working on my dream of someday posting a website aimed at helping aging baby boomers and others live longer, healthier and happier lives.
Naturally, a lot of my research involved searching for waysto ward off and treat diseases and ills such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney and liver disease, and so forth. When I found out about my cousin, I already had a head start on knowing where and how to look, and so I began to redouble my efforts and focus my research more on cancer. As a result of my research, I found a lot of very good information about fighting cancer and other diseases, boosting our immune systems and improving health in general - much of which you may find in my simple "How to Live a Long and Healthy Life" book. However, it was not my research that led me to finding out about the magical, miraculous oleander plant – it was a card game!
Yes, the way I first heard
about the healing powers of oleander happened one evening when I was sitting
down at a friendly card game and mentioned my cousin’s cancer. An acquaintance
of mine whom I had known for a few years and who had worked for the American
Medical Association at one time, looked across the table at me and, as serious
as could be, said "I know a cure." He then proceeded to tell me an amazing story
of what he knew about oleander. Later, I found others who told me essentially
the same basic story, although each person seemed to have a slightly different
version. I fully expect that the story is headed toward becoming a modern day
legend someday. Although the versions I heard have differed somewhat, the basic
story line I believe to be essentially correct is as follows:
In the early 1960's a Turkish
doctor by the name of Huseyin Ziya Ozel was searching for a cure for his pet
dog’s cancer when he noticed that a large number of Turkish villagers referred
to him came from high altitudes and he thought that perhaps there was more to
the story than just the higher incidence of skin cancer associated with higher
altitudes:
In many versions
of the story, Doctor Ozel was reported to have observed Turkish villagers
drinking an oleander remedy, which pretty much correlates with the description
of Oleander Leaf on the American Cancer Society website, where it states that
Doctor Ozel started his study of oleander because of folk traditions that
suggested that an extract from oleander was active against leukemia. It should
be noted that Doctor Ozel’s daughter Sumru disputes this version and states that
Doctor Ozell "studied folkloric remedies and discovered that poultices made of
crushed oleander leaves and flour were applied topically to wounds and produced
amazingly fast healing of the wounds." The author suspects that this version
may have been put forward to put distance between what Ozel observed and what he
later patented in order to protect the patent from challenges.
According to
Ozel’s daughter, Doctor Ozel made an observation that the majority of cancer
patients referring to him were coming from an altitude above 600 meters. He
thought that there should be a correlation between the rate of cancer occurrence
and some environmental influence.
Whatever the
actual truth, Doctor Ozel obviously did observe Turkish villagers using oleander
and did review that use as well as a number of environmental factors, and he
proceeded to continue his research on oleander based on what he found.
Further research
showed that Nerium Oleander was most abundant in lower altitudes and practically
did not exist at high altitude.
Satisfied that he may have
determined the cause of the villager’s good health, Doctor Ozel
became intrigued with the plant and began to
prepare and work with various extracts of Oleander himself in 1966 while he was
the head of the surgical department at Mugla State Hospital of Turkey.
Doctor Ozel first conducted
animal studies to determine that the substance was non-toxic and, once he
determined the toxicology and effects of Nerium
Oleander Extract (or NOE), he conducted further experiments and developed
his treatment in various forms until he eventually
started tests on terminal human cases.
After initial
success in treating human cancer patients with NOE, Doctor Ozel began to
discussing his findings with other professionals in his field. He sought
analysis of the extract from various Turkish laboratories to understand the
empirical results. They were unable to characterize the extracted compounds. In
hope of gaining assistance from the government or research organizations, he
prepared a paper to present his first human cases at the Fourth Balkanic Medical
Days Symposium held in
Ankara
on
20 September
1973.
The cases
presented were all considered terminal cases when the patients came to Doctor
Ozel. By law, he could not treat patients with an experimental drug, such as
NOE, unless they had exhausted all other conventional treatment methods with no
response or were diagnosed as advanced stage, terminal cases. At the symposium
he was able to call the attention of the scientific community to NOE and how the
extract had shown to be efficacious on cancer cases of different varieties. He
was sure that his presentation would trigger serious and abundant research on
NOE, and that it finally could be put into service for mankind.
The response
from the scientific community was less than overwhelming. The skepticism
centered mainly on the fact that the presentation contradicted what little
literature there was on oleander species. Clearly the results presented could
not be explained as an extension of prior art but Turkish scientists strongly
denied the facts that Doctor Ozel had presented without any further research. To
conclude, the medical community was reluctant to accept the results. Doctor Ozel
was undaunted by the criticism and lack of support for the ideas presented. He
continued his research and patients continued to seek treatment.
In 1974, he
published additional case reports in the Turkish Medical Journal "Dirim". Doctor
Ozel resigned from his position as Chief Doctor at
Mugla
State
Hospital
that same year in order to be able to work on NOE and initiate research on the
subject,
Doctor Ozel
contacted various universities in
Istanbul.
Years passed and he realized that no serious scientific research could be
performed in any of the local universities. In the meantime, his old patients
referred new ones to him, and more cancer patients presented to him as word of
the results of the treatment spread.
In 1985 he
started to look for research facilities abroad. During 1986-1987 some tests
performed in
Europe
proved the effect of NOE on the immune system as well as cancer tumors. The
studies showed that it was at least six times as potent as the most active
commercially available immune-stimulants (Schizophylan, Krestin and Lentinan,
which were patented by the Japanese in the 1980s).
In 1988, a
research team was formed at Munich University Pharmacology Institute to isolate
the active components contained in the N.O. extract. Several polysaccharides
were identified that might be responsible for some part of the immune activity.
On 17-22 July 1990, the initial results were presented as a poster at the
symposium of Biology and Chemistry of Active Natural Substances (BACANS) which
was held in
Bonn,
Germany.
The presentation was published in Planta Medica 1990-56:66. However, no single
component of the extract was found to be the sole source of its benefits.
Instead, the activity is induced by a complex mixture of components contained in
the extract, acting synergistically to modulate the immune system.
Since the early 1970’s, Doctor Ozel has been treating patients with advanced and
inoperable cancer as well as a wide variety of other of illnesses. His results
have been truly remarkable. In fact, so fantastic were the stories of his
success that Doctor Ozel had to endure long periods of controversy from the
Turkish medical establishment and there were those who tried to charge the good
doctor with being a charlatan. Happily, the truth of his successes won out and
such charges were dropped from consideration when his results were proven.
Scores of patients rose up to defend the good doctor, testifying about how they
had been cured when all other treatment options had failed.
The patented name of Doctor
Ozel's oleander extract is Anvirzel™, whose trademark was once owned by Ozelle
Pharmaceuticals, which was formed by Doctor Ozel’s son and other investors.
Today, trademark rights are in dispute. Unfortunately, since Doctor Ozel had
claimed that oleander was a cure for cancer, as opposed to a natural supplement,
and since his extract was patented and given a trademark, the FDA now considers
oleander as an unproven medicine which, because of the toxicity of the raw
plant, must have it's safety and effectiveness proven before the FDA will allow
it's use even as a herbal supplement, and so it is very difficult to obtain
herbal supplements which contain oleander in the United States.
Today, the lengthy and costly
three-phase FDA trial process for approval of Anvirzel™ or any other oleander
extract, is far from over, although many people and millions of investor dollars
are counting on it ultimately being approved. In 2000, Ozelle Pharmaceuticals
had successful phase I FDA trials conducted on Anvirzel™, but subsequently ran
into investor problems and had to reorganize. Although Ozelle continues to
publish plans that it will soon begin phase II trials with Anvirzel™, such plans
have not yet reached fruition and funding appears to continue to be a major
problem for Ozelle.
In the interim, a competing
company, Phoenix Biotech, also obtained a patent for Anvirzel™ in
Honduras
and has applied for a
U.S.
patent as well, and a clinic has been established in
Honduras
by the name of Salud Integral. For the past eight years, the clinic has
successfully treated a number of patients, many of whom travel from the
United States
for initial diagnosis and treatment, as well as three-month supplies of
Anvirzel™ for various cancers, hepatitis-C, psoriasis and other immune
disorders.
Within just the past three
years, a third competing company appeared by the name of Shimoda Atlantic
Oncology Biosciences, and claimed to have developed its own oleander extract
named Xenavex™ which it claimed was much stronger due to an ethanol extraction
method. As it turned out, I and others exposed the company as a fraud that was
created to cheat investors and the drug was actually a heart medication imported
from
Russia.
Furthermore, although the imported Russian medicine does have slightly higher
concentrations of oleandrin, the ethanol extraction method results in the loss
of other compounds that researchers believe work together in a synergistic way
to make oleander extract so powerful (over 500 trace compounds have been
identified in an aqueous, or water, oleander extract, including vital long-chain
polysaccharides that are lost in ethanol extraction methods because they
precipitate out during the extraction process).
Sadly, I must report that it
may be many years, if ever, before an oleander based medicine wins FDA
approval. The simple fact is that it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to
get a new drug successfully through all the FDA trials, and this pretty much
bars competition to all but the very large pharmaceutical companies. Many feel
that if the issue ever went to court, the patent itself would be hard to defend,
since it is based on a common plant and a centuries-old folk remedy. Others
feel that, because of the billions of dollars in profits at stake for the
trillion-dollar world pharmaceutical industry and their myriad cancer
treatments, no oleander medicine will ever be approved in the
United States.
The best hope as of the time
of this writing appears to be the development of an oleander based tablet by
Phoenix Biotech which is reported to be have a much stronger concentration of
oleandrin and the other cardiac glycosides while losing none of the other
essential synergistic compounds. Only time will tell if a major
pharmaceutical company with the
requisite funds will pick up this new oleander product from
Phoenix,
shepherd it through FDA trials, and finally bring it to market.
Live Long, Live Healthy, Live Happy!
Next: "The Father of
Oleander Soup"
By Tony Isaacs
Published: 7/24/2007
www.buzzle.com/articles/amazing-cancer-remedy-discovery-in-turkey.html