BIORESEARCH UPDATE NEWS LETTER #10 Can Maitake D-Fraction Reverse Malignant Cancer Cells to Normal Cells?

Immediate Release

      

              ~ A New Gene Study Suggests Strong Clinical Implications ~

 

January 20, 2014-  A research group of National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina (CONICET) headed by Dr. Gabriela Balogh has announced that they have successfully identified genes that would be responsible for the tumor supression in human breast cancer cells (MCF-7) by a mushroom extract called Maitake D-Fraction. The results include that D-Fraction may even revert the malignancy of cancer cells by the modification of related genes. Does it mean that cancer cells could be induced back to normal ones by just taking the mushroom extract?  It really sounds “too good to be true” and scientists may nail you down claiming “It’s impossible!” or “You are out of mind!”  Let’s see what Dr. Balogh is trying to say against these odds.

 

It is now the fact that D-Fraction can effectively stimulate the immune system, activating immune effector cells such as macrophages, cytotoxic T-cells, and natural killer cells that can attack and destroy cancer cells.  D-Fraction can also increase the production of lymphokines/cytokines, including interleukins-1 and -2 (IL-1/2), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) and so forth. Also, anticancer mechanism of D-Fraction through apoptosis in prostate cancer cells has been reported over a decade ago by a researcher group of New York Medical College.

In fact, this mushroom extract has been one of the most popular products of boosting up your immune system for the last twenty years and thousands of health professionals applying so-called Integrative Medicine or Alternative Medicine are employing D-Fraction in their practice in this country. It has even been a target of laboratory and clinical studies by the typical medical authorities in mainstream medicine, including National Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.  So, the result of the new study by Dr. Balogh may not be something “like a bolt out of the blue” for a number of health professionals in this country. But yet, it must be a surprise to them that as many as 4,068 anticancer genes are modulated by D-Fraction, including 2,420 genes being up-regulated and 1,648 being down-regulated, in MCF-7 cells in the recent study.

 

Among the others, the researcher group has suggested a possible remarkable health benefit that D-Fraction may revert the cancer to the normal phenotype or downgrade the cancer status. It would be great if cancer cells can be gone back to normal cells with some gene maneuver. It could be possible, but very unlikely to be done at present.

However, their study found that some of those genes involved in tumoral phenotypic expressions were also modulated by D-Fraction. Particularly, ST7, IGFBP5, SPARC, SOD2 and PTEN genes that are strongly related to tumor suppression were all up-regulated substantially. These results indicate that at least aggressive malignant phenotype of breast cancer cells could be somewhat induced to the less aggressive or lower-grade cancer status.  This is very encouraging as we are entering into a new era of Nutrigenomics. Further laboratory and clinical validations are yet required to establish and strengthen the new theory of genomics.

 

Other significant benefits suggested by the new study are that D-Fraction may inhibit cancer metastasis and that D-Fraction may reduce or alleviate a pain in cancer patients. It would be great if the fatal cancer metastasis can be somehow inhibited/ prevented and if the pain management in cancer patients, which is a big factor of quality of life (QOL), can be achieved by modulating the related genes.

 

It is almost 20 years since Maitake D-Fraction has been available in the market and it is now known as one of the most effective immune enhancers in the market. Over the years, hundreds of favorable feedbacks from D-Fraction users have been received by the manufacturer. Now the new findings are giving us a big hope as they suggest that D-Fraction is not just an immune-booster, but also a significant gene moderator in fighting cancer cells. It should be noted, however, that the clinical implications of D-Fraction mentioned here are yet the possibilities. But, they certainly deserve further investigations.

[To read the full study: please click here.]