by the wellness company

Greed in medicine isn’t new but since the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more Americans are waking up to the sad reality that much of the medical establishment is more interested in the bottom line than the health outcomes of patients.

It should come as no surprise then, that big pharma and the medical establishment have absolutely no interest in pursuing low-cost treatments, especially when it comes to diseases such as cancer that are a cash cow for big pharma.

Fortunately, we have a growing number of medical professionals who are committed to restoring faith in our healthcare system and making affordable and effective treatments available to all Americans.

Dr. William Makis, one of the most well-known critics of the failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been an enthusiastic advocate for the use of Ivermectin and mebendazole in treating a wide array of cancers.

Dr. Makis listed 20 studies that show the potential for Ivermectin in fighting cancer:

Here are recent studies on IVERMECTIN use in certain types of cancer:

• BLADDER CANCER – (2024 Fan et al) – Ivermectin Inhibits Bladder Cancer Cell Growth and Induces Oxidative Stress and DNA Damage
• LUNG CANCER – (2024 Man-Yuan Li et al) – Ivermectin induces nonprotective autophagy by downregulating PAK1 and apoptosis in lung adenocarcinoma cells
• GLIOMA – (2024 Xing Hu et al) – Ivermectin as a potential therapeutic strategy for glioma
• MULTIPLE MYELOMA – (2024 Yang Song et al) – Gene signatures to therapeutics: Assessing the potential of ivermectin against t(4;14) multiple myeloma
• OVARIAN CANCER – (2023 Jawad et al) – Ivermectin augments the anti-cancer activity of pitavastatin in ovarian cancer cells
• PROSTATE CANCER – (2022 Lu et al) – Integrated analysis reveals FOXA1 and Ku70/Ku80 as targets of ivermectin in prostate cancer
• COLON CANCER – (2022, Alghamdi et al) – Efficacy of ivermectin against colon cancer induced by dimethylhydrazine in male wistar rats
• PANCREATIC CANCER – (2022 Lee et al) – Ivermectin and gemcitabine combination treatment induces apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells viamitochondrial dysfunction
• MELANOMA – (2022 Zhang et al) – Drug repurposing of ivermectin abrogates neutrophil extracellular traps and prevents melanoma metastasis
• CERVICAL CANCER – (2022, Qabbus et al) – Ivermectin-induced cell death of cervical cancer cells in vitro a consequence of precipitate formation in culture media
• HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA – (2022 Lu et al) – Ivermectin synergizes sorafenib in hepatocellular carcinoma via targeting multiple oncogenic pathways
• OSTEOSARCOMA – (2022 Hu et al) – Repurposing Ivermectin to augment chemotherapy’s efficacy in osteosarcoma
• GASTRIC CANCER – (2021 Rabben et al) – Computational drug repositioning and experimental validation of ivermectin in treatment of gastric cancer
• LEUKEMIA – (2020, de Castro et al) – Continuous high-dose ivermectin appears to be safe in patients with acute myelogenous leukemia and could inform clinical repurposing for COVID-19 infection
• ESOPHAGEAL SCC – (2020, Chen et al) – Ivermectin suppresses tumour growth and metastasis through degradation of PAK1 in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma
• CHOLANGIOCARCINOMA – (2019 Intyuod et al) – Anti-parasitic drug ivermectin exhibits potent anticancer activity against gemcitabine-resistant cholangiocarcinoma in vitro
• BREAST CANCER STEM CELLS – (2018 Dominguez-Gomez et al) – Ivermectin as an inhibitor of cancer stem-like cells
• CML (CHRONIC MYELOID LEUKEMIA) – (2018 Wang et al) – Antibiotic ivermectin selectively induces apoptosis in chronic myeloid leukemia through inducing mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress
• RENAL CELL CARCINOMA – (2017 Zhu et al) – Antibiotic ivermectin preferentially targets renal cancer through inducing mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative damage
• GLIOBLASTOMA – (2016 Liu et al) – Anthelmintic drug ivermectin inhibits angiogenesis, growth and survival of glioblastoma through inducing mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress

Dr. Makis makes it clear that he believes Ivermectin could be a valuable tool in the battle against cancer and explains why the medical establishment is in no hurry to explore Ivermectin’s potential:

IVERMECTIN has proven anti-cancer activity against some 20 cancer types, although these are pre-clinical studies. We will never see clinical studies because Ivermectin is off patent and cheap.

Merck, which used to have a patent on Ivermectin, has partnered with Moderna on mRNA Cancer Vaccines, estimated to cost 400,000 GBP per treatment.

Ivermectin studies on mice include: Breast cancer, Colon cancer, glioblastoma, glioma and leukemia.

I have not seen IVERMECTIN studies on Lymphoma, Testicular Cancer, Sarcomas.

IVERMECTIN acts on Cancer mainly by inhibiting signaling pathways involved in cancer proliferation (Akt, Wnt, mTOR) and by inhibiting CANCER STEM CELLS.

Dr. Makis is the only trusted medical professional talking about the potential of Ivermectin. According to the McCullough Foundation a new study confirms the early returns on Ivermectin are positive:

The study titled “A Review of Ivermectin Use in Cancer Patients: Is it Time to Repurpose the Ivermectin in Cancer Treatment?” was just published in the journal Acta Poloniae Pharmaceutica – Drug Research…

Based on the most comprehensive systematic review of ivermectin use in cancer patients to date, ivermectin appears to be safe—even in individuals undergoing active chemotherapy. Its broad range of anticancer mechanisms demonstrated in preclinical models, combined with anecdotal reports of cancer-related improvements, support its candidacy for repurposing as an oncologic therapy. Well-designed, large-scale clinical trials should be launched as soon as possible to properly assess ivermectin’s potential against cancer.

Indeed, ivermectin in concert with mebendazole has shown even more promise in treating a wide variety of cancers.

Mebendazole, an anti-parasitic like ivermectin, has been prescribed for 100 years to help eradicate parasites – which over 60 million Americans have inside their body today, according to the CDC.

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Medication You Can Trust from a Trusted Source in the USA

The medical experts at The Wellness Company – like Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Kelly Victory – were leaders in the efforts to provide the public with accurate medical information during COVID. These experts have repeatedly shown that they prioritized the health and welfare of their patients over the bottom line of the big pharmaceutical companies.

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My daughter was diagnosed with uterine cancer and lung nodules that turned out to be cancerous. She started taking ivermectin/mebendazole 2 weeks ago. She had a PET scan last month and her lungs were littered with dime and pea sized nodules from the top to the bottom of her lungs. She had a biopsy on the 14th of April and the Physcian had to SEARCH for a nodule big enough to get a sample from, and the ONE that he found was at the bottom of her left lung that he said was only a few centimeters wide…. Thank All of you Doctors on this site for giving us HOPE and HEALING!!! – Helen

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.

The ruling, which came with little fanfare, appeared to validate one of the longest-running so-called conspiracy theories in America’s alt-right subculture—that the government’s use of fluoridation, especially in specific communities, might be part of a deliberate attempt to lower intelligence in order to create a more compliant and subservient population for the New World Order.

It follows a series of recent vindications for skeptics after propagandist media have been proven wrong in falsely declaring things like COVID vaccine hesitancy, the Russia-collusion hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop coverup and the Joe Biden mental acuity coverup/coup to be baseless “conspiracy theories” right up until the point that they were proven true.

If former President Donald Trump were to be reelected and allow Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to declassify files related to his family, several other such theories surrounding significant 20th-century milestones might also be exposed, including the decision to force out then-President Richard Nixon for threatening to reveal who killed his one-time campaign rival, former President John F. Kennedy.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.

It’s the first time a federal judge has made a determination about the neurodevelopmental risks to children of the recommended U.S. water fluoride level, said Ashley Malin, a University of Florida researcher who has studied the effect of higher fluoride levels in pregnant women.

She called it “the most historic ruling in the U.S. fluoridation debate that we’ve ever seen.”

The judge’s ruling is another striking dissent to a practice that has been hailed as one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last month, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.

The EPA—a defendant in the lawsuit—argued that it wasn’t clear what impact fluoride exposure might have at lower levels. But the agency is required to make sure there is a margin between the hazard level and exposure level. And “if there is an insufficient margin, then the chemical poses a risk,” Chen wrote in his 80-page ruling Tuesday.

“Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA” under federal law, he wrote.

An EPA spokesperson, Jeff Landis, said the agency was reviewing the decision but offered no further comment.

In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and they continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later.

Fluoride can come from a number of sources, but drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population currently gets fluoridated drinking water, according to CDC data.

Since 2015, federal health officials have recommended a fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter of water. For five decades before that, the recommended upper range was 1.2. The World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5.

Separately, the EPA has a longstanding requirement that water systems cannot have more than 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water. That standard is designed to prevent skeletal fluorosis, a potentially crippling disorder which causes weaker bones, stiffness and pain.

But in the last two decades, studies have suggested a different problem: a link between fluoride and brain development. Researchers wondered about the impact on developing fetuses and very young children who might ingest water with baby formula. Studies in animals showed fluoride could impact neurochemistry cell function in brain regions responsible for learning, memory, executive function and behavior.

The court case, argued in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, started in 2017. The lead plaintiff was Food & Water Watch, a not-for-profit environmental advocacy organization. Chen paused the proceedings in 2020 to await the results of the National Toxicology Program report, but he heard lawyers’ arguments about the case earlier this year.

“In our view, the only effective way to eliminate the risk from adding fluoride chemicals to water is to stop adding them,” said Michael Connett, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, in an email Wednesday.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

via Sputnik

While the average life expectancy has increased significantly over the past 100 years, humanity should not settle for just living a bit longer, says Olga Tkachyova, chief consultant geriatrician of the Russian Ministry of Health and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Life expectancy in Russia has been on the rise since 2003 and has already reached 73.4 years today, she noted.

“But we should not focus on simply increasing life expectancy. We must strive to increase the length of active, healthy life devoid of age-related illnesses,” she said. “Today in Russia the length of this period of life approaches 62 years and our goal is to increase it to at least 67 years.”

“People should live for a hundred years and not suffer from age-related illnesses by the time of their death,” Tkachyova stated.

The improvement of the overall quality of life – better food, better living and working conditions, better and more available healthcare – in the recent past gave a tremendous boost to life expectancy, and the time is nigh for humanity to start “managing the processes of aging,” Tkachyova suggested.

“We are also witnessing another tendency: while life expectancy is increasing nonstop, the maximum life span – which currently stands at 122 years – does not,” she added. “Perhaps in order to achieve a breakthrough in this field and increase the maximum life span we need to develop the technologies of gene-engineering therapy and regenerative medicine.”

What is Known About Aging?

While there are about 300 “theories of aging”, all of them can be divided into two large groups, Tkachyova explained.

The first group postulates that aging is a “preprogrammed process” – it is inevitable, the only question is how fast this process progresses and how people can influence it.

According to the second group of theories, aging is essentially the result of “errors” – which occur in human body cells all the time, during protein synthesis, DNA replication, etc. – gradually accumulating.

“On one hand, the aging process is preprogrammed in the human organism, but we can influence it,” Tkachyova mused. “On the other hand, if those ‘errors’ in the human body accumulate then the aging process accelerates.”

So far, twelve “mechanisms of aging” have been discovered and confirmed, with two more such possible mechanisms being investigated, she noted.

Research into the process of aging involves studying people from various age groups and tracking how aging progresses in each case, including people who age early and those who live very long.

“There are many theories, and the mechanisms of aging are being actively researched. Problem is, such mechanisms have been studied during experiments on cell cultures, but there are not many studies related to translating knowledge from laboratories to clinical medicine,” said Tkachyova.

She also noted that the speed of aging is determined not only by a person’s health in their later years but also by how they live since birth. One theory even suggests that the speed of one’s aging may be determined during the fetal stage.

How Can Ageing Be Affected?

Methods through which the aging process can be influenced are various and many of them have nothing to do with medication, Tkachyova explained.

“There is physical activity – so far nothing better has been invented for prolonging a healthy life,” she said. “There is a protein called myostanin that blocks the replication of muscle cells. If we block it, a person’s muscles won’t atrophy, and he or she won’t grow frail and will be able to stay young and active for longer. One would think that we have a target to influence. But today we cannot block this protein with any kind of medication. But we can affect it via physical exercise. If a person is physically active then age-related atrophy of muscle tissues progresses slower.”

What one eats and how much one eats also affects aging, Tkachyova noted, pointing out that long-living people never overeat, and that there are special diets and types of food that help slow down aging.

“Often we eat things that not only give us energy but also pollute the body,” she remarked, adding that one’s body sometimes simply cannot handle the sheer amount of food that needs to be processed and excreted.

“Thirdly, there is cognitive activity. It is well known that the higher one’s education is, the longer he or she lives. This is why there are so many long-living persons among scientists,” Tkachyova claimed.

She also suggested that perhaps the aging of the brain may be the key issue in the aging process as a whole, seeing how the brain regulates the activity of all other organs and systems that comprise the human body.

Olga Tkachyova
© Photo : Scientific Russia / Elena Librik

There are various medications for treating cardiovascular diseases, which have additional geroprotective effects.

“So far, however, there are no medications labeled ‘recommended for slowing the aging process’,” Tkachyova warned. “Such research is being conducted and, in some cases, has even progressed to clinical trials. But no medicine for slowing the aging process has been made yet.”

Finally, it seems that remaining optimistic and finding joy in your life may also help you live longer, with Tkachyova citing examples of long-living people who apparently lived that long in no small part due to doing things that gave them positive emotions, like dancing.

“Positive emotions have a colossal effect on longevity,” Tkachova said, arguing that people often overlook the importance of “positive emotions.”

What Compounds Age-Related Research

The main problem with researching means of slowing and perhaps even reversing the aging process is the fact that in order to confirm that some medication does slow down aging, it requires either monitoring the test subject/s their whole life or using “biological age calculators” that aren’t fully developed yet, Tkachyova said.

She noted that genetic engineering and regenerative medicine may help deal with aging – for example, via transplantation of lab-grown human organs that could be used to replace the damaged or worn-out, aged tissues.

Tkachyova also postulated that in this day and age, it is important for people to understand what exactly is happening to their bodies, for doctors to explain to their patients why exactly this or that regimen or medication was prescribed.

“When it comes to aging, a person must consciously affect their own longevity and understand exactly what they are doing,” she said.

That said, children who are being born today, with the current level of scientific advancement and healthcare, have a 50-percent chance to live up to 100 years, Tkachyova remarked.

“By the time they turn 60, they will have 40 more years – nearly half of their life,” she says, arguing that we should strive to make it so that they could, even at that advanced age, “be useful to society and to their families, and to enjoy their long lives.”

Authored by JoJo Novaes and Ben Lam via The Epoch Times

Eating junk food is as pervasive in our current culture as eating naturally was in our not-so-long-ago past—and it shows. A systematic review published in The BMJ this year, involving 9.8 million participants, indicated an association between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and an increased risk of 32 diseases, including heart disease, cancer, Type 2 diabetes, anxiety, and premature death.

(Oksana Mizina/Shutterstock)

Dr. Zheng Yuanyu, former attending physician of the Infectious Disease Department at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan, discussed the addictive nature of ultra-processed foods and strategies for managing their consumption rationally on the “Health 1+1” program.

What Are Ultra-Processed Foods?

Some examples of ultra-processed foods include ready-to-eat meals, packaged baked goods, snacks, sugary cereals, and carbonated drinks, according to a BMJ Group press release. These items undergo multiple industrial processing steps and typically contain colorings, emulsifiers, flavorings, and other additives. Additionally, they are often high in added sugars, fats, and salts, while being low in fiber and vitamins.

Dr. Zheng noted that the definition of “processed foods” is broad, and not all processed foods are classified as “ultra-processed” or unhealthy. For example, he said, foods that are heated and sealed in a factory are considered minimally processed. However, some simple processed products can still be unhealthy. The most common ultra-processed foods, such as various snacks, beverages, and factory-produced cookies and bread, undergo more complex manufacturing processes and contain multiple chemical additives, resulting in a less healthy nutritional profile.

7 Health Risks of Ultra-Processed Foods

The BMJ review included 45 distinct studies involving over 9.8 million participants. The results multitude of adverse health outcomes revealed by the review can be broadly classified into the following seven categories:

1. Mortality: All-cause mortality, cancer-related mortality, cardiovascular disease-related mortality, and heart disease-related mortality.
2. Cancer: Overall cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, central nervous system tumors, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, pancreatic cancer, and prostate cancer.
3. Mental health: Poor sleep, anxiety, common mental disorders, and depression.
4. Cardiovascular health: Cardiovascular disease, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, and low HDL cholesterol levels.
5. Respiratory health: Asthma and wheezing.
6. Gastrointestinal health: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
7. Metabolic health: Abdominal obesity, high blood sugar, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, overweight, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.

The researchers assessed the credibility and quality of evidence from various studies and found that excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods was particularly associated with a higher risk of cardiometabolic issues, common mental disorders, and mortality outcomes.

Specifically, the researchers noted that “compelling evidence” indicated a higher intake of ultra-processed foods was linked to a 50 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease-related mortality, as well as a 48 to 53 percent increased risk of anxiety and common mental disorders. Furthermore, it was associated with a 12 percent increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, highly suggestive evidence showed that a higher intake of ultra-processed foods was associated with a 21 percent increased risk of all-cause mortality, a 22 percent increased risk of depression, and a 40 to 66 percent increased risk of heart disease-related mortality, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and sleep problems.

Dr. Zheng highlighted that while ultra-processed foods are linked to numerous diseases, this does not necessarily indicate a direct causal relationship. However, he specifically emphasized that the evidence connecting ultra-processed foods to diabetes is the most compelling, with relatively high-quality research supporting this association. Diabetes can deteriorate vascular and immune functions throughout the body, increasing the risk of various other diseases in patients already predisposed to diabetes.

Dr. Zheng cited a study published in JAMA Network Open in 2023, which explored the association between ultra-processed foods and the risk of mental illness. The study suggested that ultra-processed foods may increase the likelihood of developing depression. The researchers tracked more than 30,000 health care professionals for 15 years and found that individuals in the highest quintile of ultra-processed food intake had a 49 percent higher risk of depression compared to those in the lowest quintile. The study revealed that eating more ultra-processed foods, especially those containing artificial sweeteners, significantly increased the risk of depression.

The Addictive Nature of Ultra-Processed Foods

A 2023 study published in The BMJ estimated that approximately 14 percent of adults and 12 percent of children may experience issues related to ultra-processed food addiction.

Dr. Zheng stated that issues related to ultra-processed food addiction, much like smartphone and alcohol addiction, can significantly impact mental health. He explained that the complex ingredients in ultra-processed foods, such as refined carbohydrates and fats, can stimulate the brain to release large amounts of dopamine, reaching levels similar to those triggered by substances like nicotine and alcohol, thereby contributing to addiction.

Furthermore, Dr. Zheng pointed out that ultra-processed foods are high in refined carbohydrates and often contain added fats and chemical additives. Due to various processing methods, these foods can produce certain effects that disrupt the body’s appetite regulation mechanisms, leading to increased calorie consumption without realizing it. The long-term accumulation of excess calories can, in turn, result in subsequent health issues.

Health Tips for Moderating Ultra-Processed Food Intake

In today’s environment, the temptation of ultra-processed foods is unavoidable. Dr. Zheng emphasized the importance of recognizing the addictive nature and health hazards of these foods. They should be enjoyed in moderation, avoiding excessive consumption. If signs of addiction appear, early intervention is crucial.

Among ultra-processed foods, it is recommended to choose relatively healthier options. For instance, for breakfast, opt for cereals that are lower in sugar, sodium, and salt, and higher in fiber, while avoiding refined carbohydrates. Additionally, mixing sugary cereals with unsweetened ones can help reduce the overall sugar content.

Dr. Zheng used a popular chocolate cake product as an example, highlighting that its ingredient list contains a significant amount of chemical additives, such as complex thickeners, emulsifiers, and agents for improving baking fat quality. Each 3.53 ounces (100 grams) of the cake contains 0.93 ounces (26.3 grams) of sugar, which accounts for over a quarter of its composition, indicating a very high sugar content, along with 0.62 ounces (17.7 grams) of fat. Dr. Zheng cautions that such a cake should not be consumed as a daily snack and should be avoided unless there is a special occasion.

Chinese scientists were the first in the world to cure a patient with type II diabetes, reports the South China Morning Post.

A 59-year-old man who had lived with diabetes for the past 25 years and required several insulin injections a day received an innovative cell transplant.

The Chinese modified the man’s pancreatic stem cells and performed a transplant, after which the body began to independently produce insulin.

After this, the patient has not taken insulin or other medications for 33 months.

Let us remind you that recently Chinese scientists also managed to freeze and unfreeze brain tissue, which brings closer the possibility of preserving the eternal life of the human brain.

Authored by Alexandra Roach via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Recently, I gave a presentation about edible plants at my local library. Kitchen herbs, in fact, that double as medicinals, which people can easily grow in their gardens or on window sills. While preparing my presentation, I was reminded that this topic is immense in its breadth and depth. One number especially stood out and even stopped me in my tracks.

(Nataliia Sirobaba/Shutterstock)

There are 50,000 – 80,000 plants used medicinally worldwide, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. What a number! I feel a bit inadequate with my limited knowledge of several hundred of them.

The millennia-old knowledge of herbal medicine is practiced in all regions of the world and backed up by much international research—the Near East, Russia, East Africa, North East India, and even Transylvania. The list clearly goes on.

New Review Reapproves Plants’ Anti-Cancer Qualities

In recent years, scientists have re-discovered their urge to learn more about our floral companions. This rekindling of passed-down wisdom is possibly driven by the need to find remedies for diseases that otherwise modern medicine seems unable to prevail over.

A 2024 review, published in the journal Pharmaceuticals, appears to follow this direction. The new release highlights 15 medicinal plants with potential anti-tumorigenic qualities, meaning these plants have active compounds that fight abnormal cell growth.

Interesting to me was the selection of plants featured in the review. Some of them, we are familiar with—much having been written about them—for instance, dandelion, nettles, or Curcuma longa, better known as turmeric.

Others, like the Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), the tropical soursop, and even a houseplant with the name of Kalanchoe blossfeldiana, we find less familiar.

However, all these plants have one common characteristic —they work “against the Majority of Common Types of Cancer,” reads the review’s headline.

Efficient Treatment for Immediate Development

The International Agency for Research on Cancer describes the worldwide cancer situation as dire. Their 2022 report states that globally most people died from lung cancer (18.7 percent), followed by colorectal cancer (9.3 percent), and liver cancer (7.8 percent). A total of 3,480,213 individuals.

Therefore, researchers of the current review call for an immediate development of “more targeted and efficient treatment plans.” In their eyes, “Plants and products derived from them have promising potential as a source of less toxic anticancer drugs.”

Blending Traditional Wisdom and Novel Nanotechnologies

To accomplish this goal, herbs are employed to keep the immune system strong, kill off carcinogens, and improve antioxidant levels in our bodies. Scientists see new nanomedicines and bioengineering techniques for immune cell therapies as innovative approaches to treating the disease.

As a community herbalist, I view things with the eyes of longevity. What traditional wisdom about these herbs has been passed on for centuries? How can the two worlds of novel research and ancient knowledge be combined for the benefit of the patient?

Anti-Cancer Plants: Research and Application

There are several herbs the recently released review mentions, which might grow abundantly in our gardens—often, we might even see them as annoying weeds that need to be fended off. Such is frequently the case for dandelions.

In the back of my head, I hear my herbal teacher repeat over and over, “Often, the herbs show up where we need them.” This holds true for one of the most robust herbaceous perennials that is native to Europe but grows all over the world in gardens and lawns, along roads and fields, and even waste areas.

Common Dandelion

(Shutterstock)

Taraxacum officinale, commonly known as dandelion, is not only a medicinal herb but an edible vegetable. Especially young leaves are tender and round out the taste in any salad, gifting it a slightly bitter flavor—which is a sign of assisting digestion.

The Taraxacum genus includes over three hundred species. These have been discovered and utilized in traditional and folk medicines for centuries. German botanist Leonhart Fuchs, for example, featured the healthy properties of the plant in the 16th century in his herbal compendium, “De Historia Stirpium.”

Dandelion was also known as a drug in Arabian medicine. There, physicians recorded its utilization as early as the 10th century. Indian and Chinese medicine treated liver and digestive diseases with the common dandelion, states an article about the plant published in the National Library of Medicine.

Dandelion is a true all-rounder. Featuring among others, vitamins A, C, B, and D, the minerals potassium and calcium, and traces of iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc.

A 2023 review carefully examined the dandelion and remarked upon its bioactive compounds. “Sesquiterpenoids, phenolic compounds, essential oils, saccharides, flavonoids, sphingolipids, triterpenoids, sterols, [and] coumarins” are sources for “therapeutic potential, including anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant, anti-cancer, and anti-rheumatic activities.”

Korean research showed that the amount of phenols and flavonoids in the plant drives its anticancer and antioxidant activities. This varies in different taraxacum species but exists in the common dandelion.

Researchers investigated a dandelion extract combination in a 2023 study. The results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, highlight the importance of inhibiting the “rapid proliferation of cancer cells and its invasion into healthy tissues” specific to breast cancer. This is exactly what dandelion extract does—it inhibits their spread and “induce death in them.”

Photodynamic Therapy is another method to target cancerous tissue. In it, a photosensitizing agent is stimulated by light, for instance by a laser. In a 2023 article in Nanomedicine, this process was tested with dandelion for “synergistic chemotherapy and photo-dynamic cancer therapy.” This transportation method succeeded in the delivery of the active compound to the cancer cells and disrupted their homeostasis, thus portraying anti-cancer and anti-tumor effects.

Stinging Nettle

(Alfonso de Tomas/Shutterstock)

Runner-up in the title of highly medicinal weeds is Urtica dioica. In many temperate places, nettles grow like a pest and are unwanted wildflowers by many.

Contrary to popular reason, I recently transplanted some nettles into my garden and even spread nettle seeds in my best effort to establish them there. Nettles are delicious plant nutrition and are a great addition to soups and salad dressings, as the hairy stingers lose their power when processed.

Full of provitamin beta-carotene, vitamins A, B, and C, minerals iron, magnesium, potassium, and calcium, this protein-rich perennial herb is loaded with health benefits. But the loaded weed can do more.

A 2020 research article features the potentially anticancer properties of nettles. When evaluated, the extract of Urtica dioica showed promising effects on the proliferation rate of “hepatocarcinoma and colon-cancer cell lines at specific doses.”

In a 2022 study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, plant medicine proved its anticancer qualities against three different types of cancer cell lines. Testing of urtica dioica’s cytotoxicity was performed in vitro (via mycoplasma testing) and in vivo (in a living organism, in this case, rats). Findings were positive and showed that nettles may work against breast cancer through their anti-tumoral properties.

According to another study, directed to research the herb’s potential healing qualities in regards to human colon and gastric cancer, nettles also induced apoptosis and “inhibited proliferation of gastric and colorectal cancer cells,” while not having any toxic side effects on normal cells.

Greater Burdock

(Shutterstock)

Continuing to feature weedy wildflowers that grow in many disturbed areas around the United States, and are surely to be found in an empty parking lot, pasture, or along fields and roads in your area, is burdock.

Like Dandelion, burdock is a member of the Asteraceae family (the Aster family) and grows seemingly everywhere. Similarly, the medicinal parts of burdock include roots and leaves, with the addition of seeds.

Arcticum lappa is likewise high in minerals and vitamins, including the B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin. However, it also features lignans in roots and seeds, amino acids in the roots, phenols, sterols, and fatty acids in the seeds, and a “plethora of biological activities and pharmacological functions.”

One of burdock’s compounds, lappaol F (a natural lignan), is an anticancer agent that “inhibits tumour cell growth by inducing cell cycle arrest,” states a 2021 study while noting that the underlying processes of burdock’s anticancer qualities remain unclear.

Nevertheless, the plant is effective and researchers suggest that a potential anticancer drug could be developed from the medicinal herb.

A review published in Inflammopharmacology, emphasizes the century-old traditional medicinal uses of burdock in Europe, North America, and Asia. It highlights the plant’s anti-inflammatory qualities and detoxifying effects, as well as anti-tumor properties, especially its “potent inhibitory effects on the growth of tumors such as pancreatic carcinoma.”

Burdock has even proven effective against “multi-drug resistant cancer cells.” A study investigated six lignans present in the burdock seed and combined them as non-toxic chemotherapeutic agents. Results showed that they “possess promising MDR [multidrug resistant] reversal activities.” The study also tested and verified this effect in combination with a chemotherapy drug named doxorubicin.

Remaining 12 Anti-Cancer Plants

The remaining 12 plants examined in the recent review are soursop (Annona muricata), black calla (Arum palaestinum), hemp (Cannabis sativa), Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), turmeric (Curcuma longa), licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), moringa (Moringa oleifera), hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis), milk thistle (Silybum marianum ), oleander (Nerium oleander), kalanchoe (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana ), and ashwagandha (Withania somnifera L).

Turmeric, licorice, hibiscus, hemp, ashwagandha, and milk thistle are well known—beyond the ears of an herbalist. Soursop might fall into this category for some, especially those living in tropical regions.

Then, some might make us pause, as we see the plants more as blooming decoratives in the garden or house plants, like oleander, the black calla, Madagascar periwinkle, or kalanchoe. Being native to the Indian subcontinent, and being used mostly in Southern Asia, moringa may be the most foreign of them all.

Yet, in total, they are acclaimed plant medicines.

Ongoing Phytopharmaceutical Research

A 2022 review, for instance, hails the healing qualities of soursop. Its “pharmacological effects of anti-cancer, anti-microbial, antioxidant, anti-ulcer, anti-diabetic, anti-hypertensive, and wound healing” are impressive.

Another review features a study in which patients were given 300 milligrams of soursop extract (leaf water) in capsules after breakfast. This restrained colorectal cancer cell growth.

A phytotherapeutic that likewise targets colorectal cancer is ashwagandha. A 2023 study found that the herb and its bioactive compounds “kill cancer cells via at least five separate routes.”

It has even been named “a wonder drug” in the alternative field and has shown remarkable bioactive compounds that function as “anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, apoptotic, immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, anti-diabetic, hepatoprotective, hypoglycaemic, hypolipidemic, cardio-protective and spermatogenic agents,” as outlined in a comprehensive review.

Numerous studies and reviews, however, stress the unfortunate fact that further research is needed due to “the lack of established quantities and concentration measurements,” or simply the lack of wide-ranging medical research about our floral surroundings.

Contraindications and Side-Effects

In general, phytopharmaceuticals are powerful medicine.

Although many of the plants do not have any side effects and often naturally target cancer cells without affecting healthy cells, a mechanism not quite understood by science yet (as mentioned above). At the same time, ingesting the wrong plant or the wrong dosage can harm or even kill.

As for dandelions, nettles, and burdock—there are some guiding principles:

• Nettles should not be eaten raw. The fresh leaves will sting.
• Dandelions can make your stomach upset if too many leaves are ingested or after prolonged use, as it can increase the hydrochloric acid production (HCl) in the stomach and lead to loose stool.
• Dandelion root should be taken with caution if the individual suffers from excess HCl, gastritis, ulcers, or heartburn.
• During the first trimester of pregnancy, burdock should only be prescribed in mild doses. Also, take with caution if suffering from hypoglycemia.

Tips:

When gathering herbs or plants in the wild or public spaces, please collect your specimens wisely. This means, pick plant matter only away from dirty or polluted areas and wash before eating or processing. Also, never take the whole plant (you want it to continue to live and come back the next year).

Note:

For all individualized herbal recommendations and dosages, please consult with your local herbalist. If you are on any medications consult with a physician before taking herbal supplements. The author is writing for informational purposes only and is not acting in the capacity of a doctor or licensed dietitian-nutritionist.

y Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

It has been a year and a half now since the first Large Language Model (LLM) AI app was introduced to the public in November of 2022, with the release of Microsoft’s ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI.

Google, Elon Musk, and many others have also now developed or are in the process of developing their own versions of these AI programs, but after 18 months now, the #1 problem for these LLM AI programs remains the fact that they still lie and make stuff up when asked questions too difficult for them to answer.

It is called “hallucination” in the tech world, and while there was great hope when Microsoft introduced the first version of this class of AI back in 2022 that it would soon render accurate results, that accuracy remains illusive, as they continue to “hallucinate.”

Here is a report that was just published today, May 6, 2024:

Large Language Model (LLM) adoption is reaching another level in 2024. As Valuates reports, the LLM market was valued at 10.5 Billion USD in 2022 and is anticipated to hit 40.8 Billion USD by 2029, with a staggering Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21.4%.
Imagine a machine so native to language that it can write poems, translate languages, and answer your questions in captivating detail. LLMs are doing just that, rapidly transforming fields like communication, education, and creative expression. Yet, amidst their brilliance lies a hidden vulnerability, the whisper of hallucination.
These AI models can sometimes invent facts, fabricate stories, or simply get things wrong.
These hallucinations might seem harmless at first glance – a sprinkle of fiction in a poem, a mistranslated phrase. But the consequences can be real, with misleading information, biased outputs, and even eroded trust in technology.
So, it becomes crucial to ask, how can we detect and mitigate these hallucinations, ensuring LLMs speak truth to power, not fantastical fabrications? (Full article.)

Many are beginning to understand this limitation in LLM AI, and are realizing that there are no real solutions to this problem, because it is an inherent limitation of artificial computer-based “intelligence.”

A synonym of the word “artificial” is “fake”, or “not real.” Instead of referring to this kind of computer language as AI, we would probably be more accurate in just calling it FI, Fake Intelligence.

Kyle Wiggers, writing for Tech Crunch, reported on the failures of some of these recent attempts to cure the hallucinations of LLM AI a few days ago.

Why RAG won’t solve generative AI’s hallucination problem
Hallucinations — the lies generative AI models tell, basically — are a big problem for businesses looking to integrate the technology into their operations.
Because models have no real intelligence and are simply predicting words, images, speech, music and other data according to a private schema, they sometimes get it wrong. Very wrong. In a recent piece in The Wall Street Journal, a source recounts an instance where Microsoft’s generative AI invented meeting attendees and implied that conference calls were about subjects that weren’t actually discussed on the call.
As I wrote a while ago, hallucinations may be an unsolvable problem with today’s transformer-based model architectures. (Full article.)

Devin Coldewey, also writing for Tech Crunch, published an excellent piece last month that describes this huge problem of hallucinating inherent in AI LLMs:

The Great Pretender
AI doesn’t know the answer, and it hasn’t learned how to care.
There is a good reason not to trust what today’s AI constructs tell you, and it has nothing to do with the fundamental nature of intelligence or humanity, with Wittgensteinian concepts of language representation, or even disinfo in the dataset.
All that matters is that these systems do not distinguish between something that is correct and something that looks correct.
Once you understand that the AI considers these things more or less interchangeable, everything makes a lot more sense.
Now, I don’t mean to short circuit any of the fascinating and wide-ranging discussions about this happening continually across every form of media and conversation. We have everyone from philosophers and linguists to engineers and hackers to bartenders and firefighters questioning and debating what “intelligence” and “language” truly are, and whether something like ChatGPT possesses them.
This is amazing! And I’ve learned a lot already as some of the smartest people in this space enjoy their moment in the sun, while from the mouths of comparative babes come fresh new perspectives.
But at the same time, it’s a lot to sort through over a beer or coffee when someone asks “what about all this GPT stuff, kind of scary how smart AI is getting, right?” Where do you start — with Aristotle, the mechanical Turk, the perceptron or “Attention is all you need”?
There are only three things to understand, which lead to a natural conclusion:

1. These models are created by having them observe the relationships between words and sentences and so on in an enormous dataset of text, then build their own internal statistical map of how all these millions and millions of words and concepts are associated and correlated. No one has said, this is a noun, this is a verb, this is a recipe, this is a rhetorical device; but these are things that show up naturally in patterns of usage.
2. These models are not specifically taught how to answer questions, in contrast to the familiar software companies like Google and Apple have been calling AI for the last decade. Those are basically Mad Libs with the blanks leading to APIs: Every question is either accounted for or produces a generic response. With large language models the question is just a series of words like any other.
3. These models have a fundamental expressive quality of “confidence” in their responses. In a simple example of a cat recognition AI, it would go from 0, meaning completely sure that’s not a cat, to 100, meaning absolutely sure that’s a cat. You can tell it to say “yes, it’s a cat” if it’s at a confidence of 85, or 90, whatever produces your preferred response metric.

So given what we know about how the model works, here’s the crucial question: What is it confident about? It doesn’t know what a cat or a question is, only statistical relationships found between data nodes in a training set. A minor tweak would have the cat detector equally confident the picture showed a cow, or the sky, or a still life painting. The model can’t be confident in its own “knowledge” because it has no way of actually evaluating the content of the data it has been trained on.
The AI is expressing how sure it is that its answer appears correct to the user.
This is true of the cat detector, and it is true of GPT-4 — the difference is a matter of the length and complexity of the output. The AI cannot distinguish between a right and wrong answer — it only can make a prediction of how likely a series of words is to be accepted as correct. That is why it must be considered the world’s most comprehensively informed bullshitter rather than an authority on any subject. It doesn’t even know it’s bullshitting you — it has been trained to produce a response that statistically resembles a correct answer, and it will say anything to improve that resemblance.
The AI doesn’t know the answer to any question, because it doesn’t understand the question. It doesn’t know what questions are.
It doesn’t “know” anything! The answer follows the question because, extrapolating from its statistical analysis, that series of words is the most likely to follow the previous series of words. Whether those words refer to real places, people, locations, etc. is not material — only that they are like real ones.
It’s the same reason AI can produce a Monet-like painting that isn’t a Monet — all that matters is it has all the characteristics that cause people to identify a piece of artwork as his. (Full article.)

“AI” was the new buzz word for 2023 where everything and anything related to computer code was being called “AI” as investors were literally throwing $trillions into this “new” technology.

But when you actually examine it, it really is not that new at all.

Most people are familiar with Apple’s female voice “Siri” or Amazon.com’s female voice “Alexa” that responds to spoken language and returns a response. This is “AI” and has been around for over a decade.

What’s “new” with “generative AI” like the new LLM applications, is the power and energy to calculate responses has greatly been expanded to make it appear as if the computer is talking back with you as it rapidly produces text.

But these LLM’s don’t actually create anything new. They take existing data that has been fed to them, and can now rapidly calculate that data at speeds so fast that it makes the older technology that powers programs like Siri and Alexa seem to be babies who have yet learned how to talk like adults.

But it is still limited to the amount, and the accuracy, of the data it is trained on. It might be able to “create” new language structures by manipulating the data, but it cannot create the data itself.

Another way to look at it, would be to observe that what it is doing in the real world is making humans better liars, by not accurately representing the core data.

This enhanced ability to lie really struck me recently when watching a commercial for the new Google Phones:

Here Google is clearly teaching people how to deceive people and lie about the actual data that a Google phone captures by using “AI”, as in photographs.

Lying and deceiving people sells, while the truth most often does not, and when the public watches a commercial like this for Google’s latest phone, the reaction, I am sure, among most, is that this is really great stuff, as our society has now conditioned us to believe that lying and deceiving people is OK in most situations.

Authored by Sally Fallon Morell via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the summer of 1983, an outbreak of listeriosis occurred in Massachusetts. Forty-nine people became sick and 14 of those—29 percent—died. Listeria is the bad actor among pathogens. Most pathogens make people sick but don’t kill them—listeria, on the other hand, often kills, especially the very young, the elderly, and the immune-compromised.

(Andrey Burstein/Shutterstock)

Listeria most commonly occurs in deli meats, seafood, raw vegetables, soft cheeses, and poultry. But the 1983 outbreak was different. It came from pasteurized milk. Health officials isolated listeria from the raw milk that came into the pasteurizing plant. “At the plant where the milk was processed, inspections revealed no evidence of improper pasteurization.” The officials were perplexed but noted that “L monocytogenes is quite resistant to heat. … The ability of L monocytogenes to exist as an intracellular parasite may have increased likelihood that some organisms survived pasteurization …”

They came to an interesting conclusion, “These results … raise questions about the ability of pasteurization to eradicate a large inoculum of L. monocytogenes from contaminated raw milk.”

A year later, a huge outbreak of Salmonella typhimurium occurred in Illinois, with a second wave in 1985. The pathogen was found resistant to most common forms of antibiotics. “Two surveys to determine the number of persons who were actually affected yielded estimates of 168,791 and 197,581 persons, making this the largest outbreak of salmonellosis ever identified in the United States.” At least five people died. The outbreak affected people in six states—Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and Indiana. Health officials concluded that the milk was contaminated after pasteurization by salmonella, which persisted in the plant despite efforts to eradicate it.

The Arrival of Factory Farming

Something else was going on during those years—dairy farms were getting bigger. Consolidation began in the 1930swith pigs and in the 1950s with chickens. In the 1970s, agriculture secretary Earl Butz told farmers to “get big or get out,” and by the mid-1980s, this trend was in full force. “Get big or get out,” also meant, “Get inside.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture was advising dairy farmers to “become more efficient” by keeping their cows in barns and feeding them grain.

Large amounts of grain are not a natural diet for cows, nor is it natural for cows to live in close quarters with no way of distancing themselves from their fresh manure. To keep the cows alive in such conditions of filth, antibiotics became necessary. It was a recipe for antibiotic resistance and stronger, mutated pathogens.

With the outbreaks of the mid-1980s, the dairy industry realized that under these new conditions, pasteurization was not working. Unfortunately, their solution to the problem was not to go cleaner, but to go hotter. Enter UHT—ultra-high temperature processing.

Old-fashioned, “low-temperature” pasteurization takes milk to 150 F—hot enough to destroy most of the enzymes in milk, many of which protect against pathogens, while others attach to vitamins and minerals in order to make them easy to absorb. High-temperature pasteurization (also called flash pasteurization) takes milk to 161 F, hot enough to kill all the enzymes and denature some of the proteins.

Ultrapasteurization takes milk to 284 F—hotter, much hotter, than the boiling point—by rushing this most fragile, delicate food past superheated stainless steel plates. The process kills bacterial endospores—tough, dormant structures produced by many pathogens, which allows them to “hibernate” and come back to life when conditions are sufficiently favorable (such as the small intestine). The process also kills everything else, including nutrients, enzymes, and proteins.

UHT milk comes packaged in aseptic, sterile containers—it needs no refrigeration and has a shelf life of six to nine months—a boon to retailers. The process was developed in Europe—I remember seeing stacks of these aseptic containers in supermarkets in France when I lived there in the early 1980s and wondering why anyone would buy milk that didn’t spoil.

In the early 1990s, the Italian company Parmalat introduced its UHT milk to the United States. American consumers resisted purchasing unrefrigerated milk, so the industry packaged it in traditional containers and sold it from the refrigerator aisle.

According to Parmalat’s website, “UHT milk is the same as fresh milk but simply uses a different pasteurization process. It contains a lot of nutrients that are good for your body, just like fresh milk.” It adds, “With our special pasteurization process, our milk doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge until opened. This means you can store as many bottles as you want and never run out of milk.”

A 2019 study from China titled “Processing milk causes the formation of protein oxidation products which impair spatial learning and memory in rats,” indicates that UHT milk is not like fresh milk at all. The researchers subjected milk to four processing techniques: boiling, microwave heating, spray drying, and freeze-drying. (Boiling takes milk to 212 F—ultra-pasteurization is much hotter.)

All four techniques (even freeze-drying) caused “various degrees of redox state imbalance and oxidative damage in plasma, liver, and brain tissues.” Feeding damaged milk proteins to rats resulted in learning and memory impairment—why would any parent want to give UHT milk to their kids?

The researchers concluded that “… humans should control milk protein oxidation and improve the processing methods applied to food.”

Other researchers have noted that “The major protein modifications that occur during UHT treatment are denaturation and aggregation of the protein, and chemical modifications of its amino acids.” Damaged milk proteins are likely to cause allergies. Today, milk allergy is the number one allergy and according to statistics provided by the Asthma and Allergy Network, we can estimate that modern milk causes approximately twenty deaths from anaphylactic shock per year!

Most milk sold today in supermarkets is UHT milk—even organic milk is UHT. But it is not used in fermented products—check the labels for sour cream or cheese. These products are made from pasteurized—not UHT milk—most likely because UHT milk is so dead that it will not ferment. That’s another way of saying that UHT milk is indigestible, as fermentation is a form of digestion.

A recent listeria outbreak causing two deaths and more than twenty hospitalizations initiated a Feb. 5 recall of pasteurized cheese, yogurt, and sour cream—an indication that pasteurization doesn’t ensure safety in fermented dairy foods.

UHT milk has served as a temporary fix for the dairy industry, but it will ultimately be its undoing. Milk consumption in the United States has declined by half since 1970, and the dairy industry has been unable to reverse the trend. It blames competition from sodas and plant-based “milk,” but won’t admit that UHT processing makes milk unpalatable, allergenic, and indigestible.

How to Find Good Old-Fashioned, Unprocessed Milk

The public is wising up to the problems of consuming ultra-processed food, and UHT milk is by any definition an ultra-processed food. This may be why sales of raw milk are booming. The website realmilk.com receives more than 320,000 visits per month, mostly to the Raw Milk Finder page. The site lists 3000 sources of raw milk in the United States and there are many more dairies that choose not to be listed—yet raw milk farmers are reporting that they can’t produce enough to meet the demand. Raw Farm in California provides raw milk products from a herd of 1,200 cows, and they sell it all.

My prediction: Within 20 years UHT milk will be a thing of the past, recognized as a misuse of technology, a rust belt solution that ruins the goodness of Nature’s perfect food. We have many elegant technologies today—stainless steel, on-site testing, a national cold chain, and moveable electric fencing that makes grazing feasible—which allow us to get clean raw milk safely to every person in America. “Get bigger, go hotter” is not the future. The future is small and medium grass-based farms selling raw milk directly to grateful customers.

Authored by Amy Denney via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A naturally derived antibiotic that helps preserve food by killing any threatening pathogens has kept our food safe for decades.

(Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock)

The World Health Organization and even watchdog groups have classified this additive, called nisin, as safe. Nisin is a lantibiotic—a peptide-derived antimicrobial agent synthesized from its natural form—first discovered in 1928 and commonly used in products such as cheese, beer, processed meats, and dipping sauces.

Nisin is made when bovine milk or whey is fermented by strains of Lactococcus lactis that are concentrated and processed into small particles. In addition to being used as a food preservative, nisin can be found in beauty products, pharmaceuticals, and pet products.

However new research raises concern about whether nisin could be harmful to the human gut microbiome—the community of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms that work symbiotically to help with body functions like digestion and immune response.

Potency of Lantibiotics

A study published in ACS Chemical Biology examined human gut bacteria genomes to identify those that resemble nisin. Researchers then produced six lantibiotics, including four new ones, and tested them on microbes. While the researchers found that these new candidates kill pathogenic bacteria, they also discovered they have varying effects on commensal (favorable) microbes, too.

“Even though it might be very effective in preventing food contamination, it might also have a greater impact on our human gut microbes,” lead author Zhenrun “Jerry” Zhang, a postdoctoral scholar and director of the Duchossois Family Institute at the University of Chicago, said in a news release.

“This study is one of the first to show that gut commensals are susceptible to lantibiotics, and are sometimes more sensitive than pathogens. With the levels of lantibiotics currently present in food, it’s very probable that they might impact our gut health as well,” he said.

Each person has a unique microbiome and the balance of commensal microbes is what helps the body protect itself from pathogens, create important metabolites, and more. Food additives that kill commensals could be destroying the very community that is protecting our bodies from the pathogens in food, and leaving us worse off than if we’d simply eaten contaminated food, the news release pointed out.

The fact that an antimicrobial additive would kill beneficial microbes isn’t too surprising, Catherine Rall, a certified nutritionist who works with the women’s wellness company Happy V, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“This makes a certain amount of sense. Preservatives are designed to keep microbes from growing on our foods, and many of them aren’t too discriminating about which microbes they affect,” she said. ”I suspect that we’re going to find more and more preservatives with these kinds of effects as we learn more about our microbiomes.”

Slippery Slope of Bioengineering

A more sinister concern arises from the slippery slope of bioengineered food that’s becoming more commonplace, Robert Verkerk, founder and executive and science director of the nonprofit Alliance for Natural Health, told The Epoch Times.

These foods may have antimicrobial properties designed into them.

Bioengineered food is modified in a lab to alter genetic material in ways that cannot be found in nature or done by conventional breeding, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In some cases, disclosure of bioengineered ingredients on food labels is discretionary.

While this new study doesn’t mention bioengineered forms of nisin, Mr. Verkerk said that it’s the kind of research that lays the groundwork for the development of patented products. The Alliance for Natural Health is an international organization that promotes and protects natural, sustainable, and bio-compatible approaches to health optimization.

When a company identifies a microbe that may have a biological use, they can use technology to engineer it—sometimes drastically changing its properties—patent it, and potentially slip it into the food supply chain under the [U.S.] Food and Drug Administration’s “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS) umbrella, he explained.

Genetic engineering was popularized in the 2000s with the mass production of genetically modified organisms, now common in the food industry. The government has generally disregarded “little tweaks” of genome editing as long as an organism’s similar trait is being passed on, Mr. Verkerk said.

This business model that encourages patents, biotechnology, and exclusivity often results in products that bypass thorough safety testing. And while the original intent of nisin (also known as food additive E 234) was noble—it protects us from the rare but toxic Clostridium botulinum in food—new variants may easily be slipped into food without us knowing that it’s an engineered product.

“The minute a human starts to tweak the genome or these microbes, you basically start to play God and do things that could take years to find out,” Mr. Verkerk said. ”You shouldn’t be able to get these through the front door saying these are GRAS.”

Examining Labels

Nisin does have to be listed on food ingredient labels, with the exception being processed cheese that naturally contains the nisin-producing bacteria, Mr. Verkerk said.

The additive can also be found in food packaging materials, though it doesn’t have to be declared on labeling if there’s no risk of it leaching into food.

However, Mr. Verkerk said it would be hard to determine if nisin has been bioengineered because companies can claim the product’s manufacturing is proprietary.

Bioengineered forms of nisin have been around for decades—created to “enhance the efficacy and stability of nisin under different physiologic conditions, and to enhance its pharmacokinetic properties for a variety of biological applications,” according to a 2016 article in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

Several variants of genetically modified nisin have been identified, the article said, adding that research on the different products’ applications can be anticipated. Nisin has also been studied for use in human disease and veterinary medicine with promising results.

“The continued unearthing of new natural variants from within human and animal gastrointestinal tracts has sparked interest in the potential application of nisin to influence the microbiome, given the growing recognition of the role the gastrointestinal microbiota plays in health and disease,” according to a 2023 article in FEMS Microbiology Reviews.

While it makes sense to use a natural variation of nisin—such as those derived from the human gut microbiome—as a food additive, Mr. Verkerk pointed out that even naturally occurring biological products aren’t guaranteed to be universally effective or safe.

Because each person’s microbiome with its trillions of microbes is unique in composition, Mr. Verkerk said there’s no way to predict the response without more research.

However, he added, it’s hard to be critical of the study, which is simply foundational research. He warns that such research is likely to lead to patented products that could be put into the market with possible harm.

“It [the study] seems to be very carefully done,” Mr. Verkerk said of the study. “It’s not close to an end product, but it’s part of a journey that would take us to an end product.”

Protecting Personal Health

In some ways, lantibiotics have escaped criticism because of their use in fermented foods—something that’s come to be associated with improved health. In nisin’s case, the bacteria is found in cow’s milk.

“It’s an easy sell in a lot of ways because everyone knows fermentation is good,” Mr. Verkerk said.

However, that doesn’t mean that the microbes being used are advantageous for human health. In some cases, they could be microbes that have not traditionally been part of the food supply—creating new preservatives foreign to human digestion that could ultimately lead to an increase in gastrointestinal issues, Mr. Verkerk said.

“The ramifications in terms of chronic disease and autoimmune disease are absolutely huge,” he said. “We’re just going to become more and more allergic and intolerant to the food we are eating.”

Mr. Verkerk recommends the following tips to help consumers protect themselves:

• Eat food you know and recognize.
• Avoid eating “bar-coded” food as much as possible.
• Try not to destroy your food in the way you cook and prepare it.
• Keep your diet as diverse and colorful as you can.

“That’s getting harder and harder for people to do,” he said.