Promising Leukemia Research:

[HeyLeroy]

I'm hoping this news doesn't cause anyone to abandon their medically-approved treatment, but this looks promising:

Extract from Essex County dandelion roots dug out of local lawns by a University of Windsor scientist and his team of students make cancer cells "commit suicide," according to early research so promising it earned one of four grants given Tuesday to local cancer researchers.

Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/health/Leukemia+cells+commit+suicide/3803906/story.html#ixzz156sjvTrF

They meticulously dug up dandelion roots -- thanks to Ontario's pesticide ban, they didn't have to worry about toxins -- from U of W lawns, a field in LaSalle, Pandey's yard and a yard belonging to one of the students, and applied the root extract they formulated to leukemia cells.

"There it did great, it did work," said Pandey, who explained the leukemia cells effectively commit suicide within 24 hours.

"It killed the cells very selectively; it only killed the cancer cells. The regular cells were not killed."

The results were recently published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacy.


Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/health/Leukemia+cells+commit+suicide/3803906/story.html#ixzz156swAOfH

 

[blutoski]

I'm hoping this news doesn't cause anyone to abandon their medically-approved treatment, but this looks promising:

I agree - add it to the list of "looks promising".

I think this is the paper:
[Selective induction of apoptosis through activation of caspase-8 in human leukemia cells (Jurkat) by dandelion root extract.]

The only quibble I have with the article is the claim of "nontoxic" - this is not demonstrated by the in vitro experiments they did. For all anybody knows, it could be quite lethal.


Also: I'd like to see the actual history of use. We've seen stuff like this in BC where something is declared a 'traditional' first nations cure, but was actually invented in some white guy's basement in the 1980s.