Induce Apoptosis in Cancer Cells

F U C O I D A N

Induce Apoptosis in Cancer Cells,

Enhance Immunity, Suppress Angiogenesis &

Reduce Side Effects of Chemotherapy and Radiation

Dr.Daisuke Tachikawa

Preface

I am happy that this booklet can be published in English.

Actually I did not believe in any dietary supplements before; however

Fucoidan made me change my idea about dietary supplements.

I have been using Fucoidan as a cancer treatment in Japan. Since I have

used Fucoidan, my patients began to smile again. The purpose of cancer

treatment is not only to suppress or eliminate cancer, but also to maintain

a good quality of life for patients and families. I am always pleased to see

the smile back on their faces. Moreover, I am also very fortune to hear patients’s

joyful feedbacks when their tumor is suppressed and reduced and the side effects

of chemo and radiation therapy are decreased. It is very important to treat patients

effectively, to eliminate or moderate side effects.

Therefore I am very happy to introduce the wonderful supplement

Fucoidan not only to Japanese people but also to people in the United States.

Dr. Daisuke Tachikawa

March 2007

The information in this book is for educational purposes only and is not recommended as a means of diagnosing or treating an illness. All matters concerning physical and mental health should be supervised by a health practitioner knowledgeable in treating that particular condition. Neither the publisher nor the author directly or indirectly dispenses medical advice, nor do they prescribe any remedies or assume any responsibility for those who choose to treat themselves.

ISBN: 0-9771370-3-1

ISBN 13: 978-0-9771370-3-9

Printed in the United State of America

Introduction

OKINAWA – THE PREFECTURE BOASTING THE HIGHEST LONGEVITY IN JAPAN! Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, is known as the “island boasting the highest longevity in Japan”. It is also where the mortality rate by cancer is the lowest in the nation. One of the reasons is considered the unique dietary habits of the eties of sea vegetables such as kombu (laminaria japonica), mozuku (nemacystus decipiens) and mekabu (the pleated section of wakame, or undaria pinnatifida, near the root). Kombu is usually produced in the northern sea around Hokkaido, but there is a reason people in Okinawa have come to eat kombu as part of their traditional diet.

Japan began exporting kombu to Qing (the current China) during the middle of the Edo period (around the first half of the 18th century). Okinawa was a gateway port through which kombu was brought to Qing. This is why kombu became a popular food in Okinawa. While people on the island of Honshu (the largest island in Japan) often use kombu to make soup stock, Okinawans generally eat kombu directly. When consumed this way, all the natural nutrients can be accessed and absorbed.

Okinawa is the largest consumer of kombu in Japan. Moreover, it is said that the amount of mozuku consumed in Okinawa is 10 times as much as the amount consumed in any other prefecture. We often associate mozuku with the small dish accompanying sake. In Okinawa, however, mozuku is commonly used in miso soup or zosui (Japanese porridge of rice and vegetables). Everyone must have heard somewhere that sea vegetables are good for the body, since it is abundant in vitamins as well as iodine, calcium, manganese, iron, zinc, potassium and other minerals. Sea vegetables absorb the abundant minerals dissolved in seawater as they grow, so naturally it is a rich source of minerals. In a sense, sea vegetables are concentrate of all the goodness found in the sea.

Sea vegetables is classified by pigment composition into brown algae, red algae, green algae and blue algae. The brown algae group includes kombu, wakame, hijiki (hijiki fusiforme) and mozuku, while red algae includes tengusa (agar-agar) and amanori (porphyra). Green algae includes aonori (green laver) and aosa (sea lettuce), while blue algae includes kudamo (Lynbya confervoides) and higemo (Rivularia). Plants grow by means of photosynthesis, and sea vegetables in the ocean also conducts photosynthesis. Blue algae-which attaches itself to rocks and quay walls-and the green algae found in relatively shallow seas, grow where they can receive sufficient amounts of light. The red algae can conduct photosynthesis in the presence of relatively little light found in deeper waters, while brown algae often inhabits the intermediate depths.

People of the modern age have an unbalanced diet lacking in vitamins and minerals, and this imbalance tends to invite the onset of diseases. However, kombu, mozuku and other varieties of sea vegetable replenish the body with vitamins and minerals. This is why sea vegetables are believed to be good for the health. Howwever, simply understanding the natural goodnes of sea vegetables do not reveal the secret of longevity long enjoyed by the people of Okinawa. The key to that secret lies in fucoidan.

What is Fucoidan?

Fucoidan is a recent discovery that has seized the attention of the medical communitu. Not a few people know that agaricus (agaricus blazei murill) is a type of mushroom having a cancer-healing effect. Yet fucoidan also enhances the body’s immunity, much like agaricus. In addition, fucoidan provides an anticancer effect by way of inducing apoptosis. Fucoidan is found in marine algae (brown algae) such as mozuku (nemacystus decipiens), mekabu (the pleated section of wakame, or undaria pinnatifida, near the root), and kombu (laminariaa japonica). The “simy” constituent of sea vegetable is a rich source of fucoidan, which is a general term referring to a group of polysaccharides containing sulfated fucose.

Recent studies have found that “polysaccharides”, a class of dietary fiber contained in brown algae, have health benefits for human. Polysaccharides are constituted by monosaccharides such as glucose, xylose and galactose. They are considered “bioactive substances” that are drawing the attention of late. Many of you may have heard of the anticancer action of “ß-gluco” contained in agaricus and fomes yucatensis. This ß-glucan is also a polysaccharide.

Konbu, mozuku, and mekabu (the accordion-like part of wakame found near the root), all have one common feature, which is that they are all slippery and gluey. The main substance that causes sea vegetable slippery is “fucoidan”, which is another polysaccharide constituted by multiple bonds involving a sugar called “fucose”. The key difference between fucoidan and other polysaccharides is that fucoidan contains a lot of sulfate groups (SO42-). From the word “sulfate group”, you might think of sulfuric acid (H2SO4), which is a liquid of strong acidity that melts all metals other than gold and platinum and also burns our skin. However, the sulfate group is an entirely different substance from sulfuric acid. It is what makes sea vegetable slimy.

Three Main Powers of Sea vegetable “Fucoidan” Cause Cancer Cells to kill themselves

THIS SLIPPERY SUBSTANCE CAUSES CANCER CELLS TO WEAKEN AND SHRINK NATURALLY. Let’s learn about the “three powers” of fucoidan.

The secret of its incomparable “anti-cancer” power!

Fucoidan has been shown to offer a variety of pharmacological actions. These results encouraged researches to carry out numerous experiments and studies on fucoidan in hopes of finding new functions of fucoidan that are effective in treating cancer. The findings of these experiments and studies using lab animals, etc.., have shown that fucoidan is indeed effective in treating cancer.

Unlike traditional health supplements that claim to offer anticancer effects, the effectiveness of fucoidan is three-folds. The functions of fucoidan are:

[1] Induce apoptosis in cancer cells

[2] Enhance immunity

[3] Suppress angiogenesis

It is considered that these three functions cause cancer cells to naturally weaken and shrink and eventually die. So, let’s talk briefly about the “three anticancer powers” unique to fucoidan.

Power [1] Amazing Apoptosis Inducing Action

There are two ways in which cells die: one is “apoptosis”, and the other is “necrosis”. Necrosis refers to a form of cell death in which a cell is damaged and dies as a result. It is defined as pathological death of cells caused by external factors such as burn and bacterial infection. Necrosis causes the cell membrane to collapse. It also causes heat generation or inflammation in the surrounding tissues.

On the other hand, apoptosis refers to a phenomenon in which the cell nucleus shrinks and the cell itself becomes smaller and eventually lowed and processed by phagocytic cells. Therefore, apoptosis does not cause inflammation or other damage to the surrounding tissues. Each cell is genetically programmed in its DNA to undergo apoptosis. It is lite or other drug, NK cell, or killer T cell, this program will be activated and the cell will undergo apoptosis.

You may be surprised at learning that “all cells are programmed to die”. However, this mechanism of “self-destruction of cells” is a very important phenomenon in the workings of nature. The hands and feet of a human fetus have the shape of a single, small plate, like the feet of a waterbird with webbed toes. At this time, the cells that had formed the webs between the fingers/toes naturally disappear due to apoptosis. When a tadpole grows and becomes a frog, it loses its tail. After a caterpillar undergoes metamorphosis into a butterfly, it no longer has the muscle cells and nerve cells that had controlled the peristalsis in the caterpillar stage. These processes occur through apoptosis.

In addition to these visible changes, various invisible changes are occurring in our body every day due to apoptosis. In many cases, apoptosis is involved in the process of discharging from our body those old cells that are no longer necessary. Tissues that produce blood also undergo apoptosis. Our body produces a certain number of blood cells daily, but excessive erythroblasts, neutrophils and other white blood cells are removed from our body through the natural selection process by means of apoptosis.

Apoptosis inducing action causes cancer cells to die naturally!

Cells that have become cancerous are mutated forms of normal cells. If the mechanism of apoptosis is poperly at work, these cells ahould die naturally just like normal cells do. However, cancer cells do not die by themselves because their apoptosis system no longer functions properly. Normal cells have a certain life span and are said to remain alive almost indefinitely. The cells of “uterine cervix carcinoma” collected by a U.S laboratory in 1951 have been cultured at laboratories around the world and are still alive and growing. Today, these cells are used in various research. This strong vitality is what makes cancer treatment very difficult.

Cancer cells also “travel” to all places throught the body, even to far away locations, through lympho nodes and blood vessels connected to the original site of cancer. After arriving at new locations, cancer cells take roots and start creating new lesions. This is the principle of “metastasis” of cancer. If cancer metastasizes to many locations, or to locations where the cancerous lesions cannot be removed by surgery, treatment will become significantly more difficult.

Assume that all cancerous lesions have been removed by surgery. If even one cancer cell is left, that cell will replicate and metastasize again to eventually ruin our body. This is what we call “relapse” of cancer. Cancer is very different from other diseases in that it involves metastasis and relapse that can be repeated. If we can find a substance that eliminates these troublesome cancer cells by inducing their apoptosis, such substance will surely make a wonderful anticancer drug. Needless to say, however, this substance must not cause normal cells to undergo apoptosis.

One of the very reasons why fucoidan is drawing such a ken attention today is the possibility that it can lead “only” cancer cells to apoptosis. There are concerns of side effects from drugs and supplements claiming to induce apoptosis. No such worries are necessary with fucoidan, as it is a natural substance produced in sea. You will never have health problems from overeating mozuku. Our body can ingest fucoidan safely. At the 55th General Conference of the Japanese Cancer. Association in 1996, one report attracted the audience’s attention. In this report, the researchs found that fucoidan not only caused cancer cells to self-destruct, but it also had virtually no negative effects on normal cells. This report triggered numerous experiments and studies by other researchers, and encouraging results have bên published one after another. Traditional cancer treatment in western medicine consists of “three key therapies” designed to “kill cancer cells using external means”, such as “surgery to remove cancerous lesions”, “anticancer drugs to weaken and destroy cancer cells”, and “radiation to target cancer cells for destruction”.

These three therapies not only affect cancer cells, but they also damage normal cells to a certain degree. This is why these therapies are all associated with side effects, such as hair loss, nausea, emesis, loss of appetite and fatigue, as well as drop in QOL (Quality Of Life). On the other hand, the “apoptosis inducing action” of fucoidan causes only cancer cells to “kill themselves”. The medical community is paying ciated with traditional cancer treatments.

Apoptosis is described as “programmed cell death”. It is a part of the growth mechanism of normal cells, whereby unnecessary cells or harmful cells are eliminated. Normal tissues remain homeostatic by maintaining a balance of cell growth and cell death caused by apoptosis. We have already learned that apoptosis is what causes a tadpole to lose its tail when it becomes a frog.

With abnormal cells, however, “suppression of apoptosis” becomes a cause of tumorigenic transformation and metastatic infiltration. Studies are ongoing to understand the mechanism of how apoptosis wekens and shrinks cancer cells. This mechanism can be explained as follows based on the findings obtained to date:

[1] An apoptosis inducing factor activates a self-destruction switch on a cancer cell and therefore inhibits DNA synthesis in the cell.

[2] Perforin released by NK cells and T cells destroys the cell membrane of a cancer cell and causes the cancer cell to die. Also, granzyme released by T cells also lead cancer cells to apoptosis by destroying cancer genes.