Hoodia Gordonii is a weight loss supplement that promises to eliminate your desire to eat. This claim was backed up by a 60 minuets reporter who did a story active Hoodia and ready-made the statement that after trying the diet pill his appetite was gone. With millions of overweight people jumping from one diet fad to the next the thought of taking a pill to curb cravings might reasonable like a dream come true, but is there some truth to this Hoodia hype? While pure Hoodia has been proven to stop you from wanting to eat there are literally hundreds of products claiming to contain this current magic bullet in the battle against obesity. This might not mean untold until you realize just how insufficient Hoodia is. Consider that Hoodia Gordonii is only mature in certain parts of the desert, and after the recent media exposure there is no way for the supply to just the demand.

Simon Mitchell Many volunteers world-wide commit themselves to increasing funds for cancer research and cancer charities. Many hundreds of thousands much work in the industry as carers, or researching, prescribing, diagnosing and manufacturing drugs. Huge companies spend fortunes on cancer research. aft so long and so many billions spent what exactly has cancer research revealed? There have been regular breakthroughs in our perceptive of cancer, but little progress in its treatment. new research into cancer began in the 1940’s and 50’s when scientists segregated substances that killed cancer cells increasing in a petri dish, or leukaemia cells in laboratory mice. Early successes in chemotherapy ready the pace and received much media exposure, even though they only practical to 5% of cancer treatments at most. Serving humanity by solving its major diseases has a celebrity status, there is a lot of kudos and an air of indecent involved in much things. Cancer research is high profile activity and all now and past a scientific treatment is discovered that gains wide recognition, such as the HPV-16 trial, but it only applies itself to the treatment of a small percentage of cancers. Mass-media hype is part of the problem of how we see cancer. Early discoveries set up an expectation that there was a cure-all treatment, a ‘magic bullet’ that would make its discoverer famous by curing cancer across the world. The idea stems in part from aspirin, the original bullet that magically finds its way to the pain and diminishes it. In the 1950’s and 60’s huge and high-priced research projects were set up to test every celebrated substance to see if it settled cancer cells. You might remember the discovery of the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharansus Roseus), which unconcealed alkaloids (vinblastine and vincristine) that are still used in chemotherapy today. Taxol, a treatment for ovarian and breast cancer originally came from the peaceful Yew tree. A treatment for testicular cancer and small-cell lung cancer titled ‘Etoposide’ was plagiarised from the May apple. In ‘Plants Used Against Cancer’ by Jonathan Hartwell over 3,000 plants are identified from medical and folklore sources for treating cancer, about fractional of which have been shown to have some effect on cancer cells in a test tube. When these plants are ready-made into synthetic drugs, single chemicals are isolated and the rest of the plant is usually thrown away. The medicinally active molecules are extracted from the plant and modified until they are chemically unique. Then the dissected is patented, acknowledged a brand name and tested. In the archetypical phase it will generally be proved on animals, the second phase will decide dosage levels and in phase 3 it is tested on people. By the time it is authorized by the national Drugs Authority (in U.S.A.) or the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulation Agency (M.H.R.A.) in Britain, the development costs for a spic-and-span drug can reach five hundred cardinal dollars, which eventually has to be recouped from the consumer. In addition to ‘treatment directed’ research such as finding chemicals that effect cancer cells, basic research continues apace, into differences between normal and cancerous cells. In the last 30 years this research has revealed untold about our nature, but still no cure. Below are some current strands of scientific research into cancer. antibody-guided therapy: this is the original ‘magic bullet’. Cancer researchers use monoclonal antibodies to carry poisons directly to the cancer cells without harming others. chronobiology: much of what happens in our bodies is governed by cycles, from the female monthly cycle to the cycles of brainwaves. Human health depends on interacting cycles geared to acts of perception, breathing, reproduction and renewal. Chronobiology analyses these cycles in relation to different times, such as day and night. Hormones, including stress and growth hormones, have their own cycles. For example they may be at their highest activity in the morning and quieter at night. Cancer cells seem to no longer obey the same cycle rates as normal cells. Anti-telomerase: one part of a cell, called the telomerase, governs the life cycle of a cell and how many times it may multiply. whatsoever cancer cells escape this control and can increase the number of times they divide, proper ‘immortal’. Researchers hope to gain control over cancer cells by stopping the action of telomerase. Anti-angiogenesis: secondary tumours (metastasis) can persuade the cells around them to grow new blood vessels to feed the tumours, supplying oxygen and nutrients for the growing cancer. This process is called angiogenesis and research here is finding ways to stop the signals to normal cells that start the process. Anti-adhesion molecules: Cancer cells form into clumps, unlike those in a petri dish which form into a flatter arrangement. When there are clumps of cells they seem to possess a quality that resists treatment. This strand of research looks at ways that can stop the cells clumping together, by dissolving the clumps for more effective treatment. Anti-oncogene products: special portions of D.N.A., called oncogenes, that have an influential role in promoting cancer growth. Drugs that interfere with the production of oncogenes may be useful for the future treatment of cancer. Gene therapy: research into the use of tumour suppressant genes is highlighted in the British National Cancer Plan as an important element. Essentially, bits of DNA are inserted to replace missing or damaged genes, possibly preventing the development of cancer in someone who might be ‘high risk’. Vaccines: very quietly the search for a general cure for cancer is being put aside in preference to finding a vaccine. The whole idea of a cure or treatment that is ‘the unvarying for everybody’ breaks down in the case of the specific, chaotic conditions that cause cancer in an separate person. After billions spent on research for the sacred grail of a cancer cure, the search is now on to find a vaccine. At a new cancer immunology conference in the US top immunologists from 21 nations cared-for lectures on the latest immunology topics such as:

• cancer immunosurveillance
• immunoediting
• cancer antigen discovery
• monitoring and analysing the immunological response to human cancer
• cancer vaccine development

The Cancer Vaccine Collaborative (CVC) was launched to much excitement. It is a unusual research program that should improve how cancer vaccines are developed, based on a collaboration of six New York medical centres and one in Minnesota. The aim of their research is to find down how to effectively immunise against cancer using a vaccine, using ‘action research’. Vaccines made from donor blood are proving to work for some cancers. Experiments with boney marrow transplants show there are active 40,000 different tissue types making it hard to find a match. Usually a perfect match can only be found within the patient’s direct family. Incorrect matches can create a host of secondary dis-eases. Scientist are finding ways to train Killer T cells taken either from the host or a donor, to more effectively attack cancer cells. They have noticed that donor Killer T cells that are already ‘primed’ for a particular cancer (e.g. the donor body cells ‘remember’ the disease) can be highly effective. It may take many years to prove validity, reliability, safety and efficacy for this treatment. Harvesting the earthy immunity of our own, or donor cells with the aid of heritable engineering may healed become a full-size player against new immune attacking dis-eases. Increased screening: this type of research looks at genetically identifying individuals who might be at high risk of certain types of cancer and is partly a preparation for possible vaccines. Genetic counselling is set to become a 21st century contributor to health care based on prevention of disease as much as cure. Combinations: research from West Germany (Grossart-Maticek) argues that there is no single cause for cancer, similar to the pattern in most chronic illness. It shows there are environmental, mental and spiritual dimensions to disease. The implication is that treatment should be on the unvarying levels, and that no single treatment is likely to be effective because there is no single cause. This observation links with the position of many Holistic practitioners who often have a wider view of health than orthodox medical practitioners. Dr. Robert Buckman is an seasoned cancer researcher, and author of the informative book: ‘What You Really Need to Know active Cancer’. He summarises what he sees as the attending position of technological cancer research: "We now have a very large number of ways of looking at cancer cells in the laboratory. We have thousands of diametric types of cancer cells growing in dishes, many of which can be grown and past cured in laboratory bred mice. We also have thousands of different ways of looking at and testing those cells. We can look at the cells’ growth, their abilities to produce different substances, their sensitivity to whatsoever chemotherapy drugs and their resistance to others, the way they respond to growth factors, their genetic material including oncogenes and substances controlled by oncogenes, their ability to effect other cells (of the exempt system, for example), their ability to damage membranes and invade, their structure under the electron microscope and whether or not the cell surface has any of hundreds of different marker molecules on it. These are retributory a few examples of what can be done nowadays: the complete list of ways in which cancer cells can be proved would probably be longer than this entire book. But here is the snag: although this accumulation of experience is extraordinary and commendable, cancer in human beings is far much complicated then some laboratory system can ever be (at least in the light of topical knowledge)". About The Author