Apricot Pits to Treat and Prevent Cancer

by Heidi Stevenson

To use a modern expression, the medical industry has done a superb job of "dissing" the idea of treating cancer with laetrile, saying that it's quack medicine. Now, though, it turns out that it's being studied by mainstream medicine as a potential cancer cure. Of course, the plant that is best known for containing laetrile and which alternative healthcare practitioners usually utilize is not the one being studied. Instead, the focus is on the cassava plant and developing a treatment that can be sold by pharmaceuticals. Obviously, its own research demonstrates that the quackery has been on the part of mainstream medicine, not alternatives.

Click here to see a video of G. Edward Griffin talking about the politics of cancer and laetrile: The Science and Politics of Cancer.

A Brief History of Laetrile

Ernst Krebs, perhaps the best-known proponent of laetrile therapy, is often mistakenly credited with discovering it. It was actually discovered by a pair of French chemists in 1830. Ernst Krebs, Sr. It was, though, Ernst Kregs, Sr. who first promoted laetrile as a cancer cure. His son, Ernst Krebs, Jr., took up the cause, working closely with the Andrew McNaughton Foundation in the 1950s. He is the Ernst Krebs who is usually referenced.

Though not illegal, the first seizure of laetrile in the United States occurred in 1960 at the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic. The FDA has called it a drug, thus taking control of its use. Since it has not been proven as a cancer cure—an impossible standard, since the FDA now prohibits its testing—no doctor can prescribe it.

Dr. Ralph W. Moss published The Cancer Industry in 1996 after working at Sloan-Kettering and seeing how they deliberately misled the public about research results on the promising treatment, laetrile. He reported that the researcher who headed the project, Kanematsu Sugiura, was pressured to change his conclusions, but refused to do so.

Dr. Sugiura tested amygdalin between 1972 and 1977 at Sloan-Kettering. He found that it stopped metatatsis in mice, provided pain relief, and slowed the growth of small tumours. Drs. Elizabeth Stockert and Lloyd Schloen, two other biochemists at Sloan-Kettering, had similar results. Schloen claimed a 100% cure rate in mice when he added proteolytic enzymes to amygdalin. This technique is followed by most alternative cancer specialists who utilize laetrile.

Amygdalin? Laetrile? Vitamin B-17?

Laetrile is concentrated amygdalin, which is contained in the seeds of most fruits that we eat, including apricot, peach, cherry, and plum pits, almonds, apple seeds, and raspberries. In smaller amounts it's also found in red clover, watercress, some grains, and a wide range of other fruits and vegetables. It would likely be a shorter list to identify fruits and vegetables that don't have laetrile. When referred to in its natural form, laetrile is printed in lower case; in synthetic form, the first letter is capitalized. In very small amounts, it's also found in peanuts, corn, chickpeas, lima beans, cassavas. It's interesting that a relatively poor source of amygdalin is being used in pharmaceutical cancer research—no doubt to avoid the taint that mainstream medicine has placed on apricot pits.

Amygdalin is a natural compound called cyanoglucoside. Taking the term apart, you can see that it's a compound composed of cyanide—cyano-— and sugar—-glucos. The -ide portion of the term tells us that this is a group of compounds, not just one. Obviously, claims that there's poison in things like apple seeds and apricot pits is true. It's equally obvious, though, that either the form is not toxic or minimally toxic, or it's toxic only under certain circumstances. Certainly, it's ill-advised to save and eat lots of apple seeds at once. However, there is no harm in eating them along with the apple. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to eat enough apples or apricots to cause harm. It is, in fact, a very good idea to eat the seeds of these fruits, since it provides a cancer-preventative.

It's also known as vitamin B-17, which would indicate that it's a necessary substance for human health. Some contend that cancer is a deficiency disease, caused by lack of vitamin B-17, just as lack of vitamin C results in scurvy. It's certainly true that lack of vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, is linked to cancer, so it can be classed as a deficiency disease. It has not, though, been shown that nutritional deficiency is the single cause of cancer. Of course, cancer has not been determined to be a single disease, either. It's unclear what amygdalin does for the body. Whether it should be considered a vitamin is not important here. What matters is its efficacy in treating and preventing cancer.

Before leaving the subject of terms definitions, one more needs to be added. Nitriloside is a term sometimes used, instead of amygdalin. Its definition varies somewhat, but is generally used interchangeably with amygdalin.

Aren't apricot pits poisonous?

The FDA claimed that apricot pits and laetrile have free hydrogen cyanide in them and are, therefore, extremely poisonous. Before making that claim, the FDA said that they had tested laetrile to see if it contained hydrogen cyanide or formed it in the presence of cancer cells, but that they had found no evidence that it was true.

Obviously, the FDA makes up its stories as it goes along.

Let's ask another question before addressing the issue of whether apricot pits and laetrile are poisonous. When was the last time you saw a health warning against blueberries? What you hear and read about blueberries is that they're close to being the perfect food, that their skins are full of cyanin (short for anthocyanin). Does that word sound a bit familiar? Similar to cyanide, perhaps? Cyanin—the substance that makes blueberries dark blue, bing cherries deep red, and blackberries black—is considered extremely nutritious because it's an excellent antioxidant. The cyanin of blueberries and other fruits is bound with glycosides, just as apricot pit cyanin is. Therefore, if it's dangerous in one, then it must be dangerous in every plant in which it's found.

Studies have shown that anthocyanins can help slow or stop the growth of premalignant cells, speed up the death rate of cancerous cells, reduce inflammation that leads to cancer, inhibit the growth of blood vessels that nurture cancer, and minimize DNA damage from cancer.

It's fairly obvious that the only reason claims are made about dangers inherent in the cyanide of apricot pits has more to do with a cancer industry that's focused on protecting its turf by preventing the use of readily available and nearly free substances that might prevent the sale of their toxic drugs.

One point should be made. Cyanide most assuredly is poisonous, extremely so. However, it requires a huge amount of food with cyanide in it, and likely also dietary deficiencies, to produce poisoning. It has been known to occur in Africa, where cassava is eaten as a staple, and at times has been nearly the only food available. Thus, both elements—excessive intake of the cyanide-laden plant and inadequate nutrition—were present before poisoning was noted. There may have been other cases, including among people overdoing it in trying to stop cancer, though there is little that can be termed conclusive to document it.

Theory of Action

Normal cells contain an enzyme called rhodanese, which combines with free cyanide, thus binding it so that it's harmless. This frees the glucose that had been combined with the cyanide, making it available for conversion to energy. Cancer cells, though, contain very small amounts of rhodanese. However, they do have large quantities of beta-glucosidase, which is in short supply in normal cells. Beta-glucosidase separates the glucose bound with cyanide and leaves the volatile hydrogen cyanide form. This effectively frees the cyanide to act as a poison inside the cancerous cell.

Thus, the cancerous cell, in grabbing its nutrition, frees a poisonous substance inside its own skin. So, the hyperreactive hydroden cyanide is free to do its nasty work only inside cells that are destructive. There's a little poetic justice in that!

Use and Application of Laetrile

How to use laetrile or where there are clinics that can provide it are outside the bounds of this article. It is not a simple issue. There are different approaches, including separation of the active ingredient, eating the stones of apricots, and combinations. For best results, application should not be made without also taking several other nutrients, which can help assimilation. The topic is extensive.

However, to help you on your journey, informative links are included below. These can guide you in determining how to proceed, should you decide to try laetrile treatment.

• anticancerinfo.co.uk
• World Without Cancer
• CureZone.com
• Alternative Cancer Treatments
• CanCure.org, large directory of alternative clinics in the U.S.
• Cancer Tutor
• The Moss Reports

Researchers in mainstream medicine are looking into cyanide as a cancer treatment, though such a treatment has existed for decades under severe and dishonest attack. Though there are no absolute cures for cancer, laetrile doesn't require waiting. It's here now, and has proven to be of value for many people.

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