Immunotherapy, Cancer, Macrophages, GcMAF, Nagalase, Baking soda

GcMAF UPDATE: With A Tried & True Cancer Cure That Activates Cancer-Killing Macrophages Having Been Removed from The Market, Are There Any Natural Alternatives?

By Bill Sardi

We live in an era of cancer immunotherapy. Oncologists once vehemently denied cancer could ever be overcome by the human immune system. A report in the British Medical Journal dated May 24, 1969 stated: “immunotherapy in patients with advanced disease is doomed to disappointment.”¹

Over 50 years ago, even in the face of Dr. Chester Southam injecting millions of cancer cells into elderly patients (without their consent) to prove the human immune system is capable of resisting cancer when intentionally induced, Dr. Southam was unfairly demonized on ethical grounds and cancer immunotherapy was roundly denounced.² Yet today immunotherapy is the most promising weapon in the fight against cancer.³

White blood cells called macrophages that literally seek out and engulf cancer cells are considered to be the major player in controlling tumor-generated inflammation.⁴ Uncontrolled inflammation leads to the development of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) that feed tumor growth.⁵ In turn, that leads to the release of malignant tumor cells into the blood circulation that facilitates the spread of cancer (metastasis), which is considered the mortal form of the disease.⁶

While there are pro-inflammatory macrophages, in a healthy state the liver naturally produces a macrophage activation factor (Gc protein Macrophage Activating Factor or GcMAF) to stimulate macrophages that digest cancer cells but limit inflammation. But an undesirable enzyme, nagalase, prevents internal GcMAF synthesis and degrades GcMAF that naturally protects from macrophage-orchestrated destruction, i.e. disengages a key factor in cancer immunity.⁷

GcMAF Cancer Cure Announced in 2008

Having broken the story about GcMAF (Gc protein macrophage activating factor) in 2008 with biochemist Timothy Hubbell, I have been a careful observer of events following the revelation that a blood protein (GcMAF) can inhibit an enzyme (nagalase) that disarms macrophages, a white blood cell that literally digests cancer cells. Our original report about GcMAF has faded into obscurity as concerned parties, recognizing an unusual number of deaths among physicians who dared to bring GcMAF into clinical use, began to bury our report for our own protection. You have to go to the Wayback Machine to find it.⁸

Any agent that inhibits nagalase would unleash macrophages to do their job of removing pathogens and malignancies from the blood circulation. Healthy adults are reported to produce GcMAF and have low levels of nagalase (between 0.32 and 0.95 nanomole/min/milligram). It cannot be said that exogenously instilled GcMAF is unproven when it works continuously to activate macrophages and keep cancer from spreading.

Successful GcMAF Private Enterprise Put Under by Regulators

Immuno Biotech (UK; Isle of Guernsey)/First Immune (Sweden)⁹ in Europe gleaned GcMAF from blood plasma and offered it for sale worldwide under the leadership of David Noakes, whose company has been derailed by a collaboration of health authorities in Europe; and at the present time Mr. Noakes is up for a court appearance on charges that could put him in jail.¹⁰ Members of the Immuno Biotech scientific staff are also charged with criminal conduct.¹¹

Regulators put Immuno Biotech out of business for being an unlicensed facility and not meeting Good Manufacturing Practices. In other words, their paperwork wasn’t conformant. The actual GcMAF therapy was never evaluated. There were no serious side effects reported from First Immune’s GcMAF injectable product to this writer’s knowledge.

Treating Cancer with Disproven Remedies and Dismissing Unproven Ones

We now face the inexplicable dilemma that ineffective and even toxic cancer treatments are approved for use while a natural blood plasma protein that protects from cancer in healthy individuals via macrophage activation is deemed to be unproven and therefore the public should be warned away from it. (But how can that be when it is working daily in billions of healthy people?).

I obtained injectable GcMAF to evaluate firsthand and provided it to an end-stage pancreatic cancer patient whose tumor markers rapidly normalized and scans revealed only remnants of remaining cancer.

Confronted with Cures, the News Media Buries the Story

Many testimonials of cures were reported, and Mr. Noakes actually invited BBC News to an event to speak to cured patients who had unsuccessfully undergone conventional cancer treatments and were basically left for dead. BBC chose to air a negative story about Immuno Biotech rather than broadcast interviews from patients who had successfully overcome cancer with GcMAF.¹²

In October of 2016, I wrote this comment by blog:

BBC News Slams Unlicensed Cancer Cure. But Is It All as It Seems?

GcMAF is produced internally in the human body.  It is vitamin D binding protein with a sugar molecule knocked off.  It activates the human immune system to kill off cancer cells and it gained attention in 2010.⁸

Today gcMAF (gc protein macrophage activating factor) is being slammed as an unlicensed and overpriced cancer cure by BBC News.¹³

Said to be “scientifically extremely dubious” by Cancer Research UK, the criticism is undeserved if for no other reason than it is the way the human body self-controls cancer.  It is backed by independent research.¹⁴

True, there are inconsistencies in the initial gcMAF research published by Nobuto Yamamoto.¹⁵

But a private European-based company, Immuno Biotech, has documented shrinkage of tumor volume with GcMAF. [Anticancer Research July 2014]  GcMAF has also been shown to reduce a key enzyme (nagalase) associated with aggressive growth of tumors. [Oncoimmunology Aug 1, 2013]

If gcMAF is some sort of fraud, why did the Department of Defense sponsor a study on its ability to inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells, which by the way was ^accomplished by independent activation of macrophages? [PLoS One Oct 18, 2010]

Immuno Biotech, the European-based company that is producing GcMAF commercially is hiding nothing.  First Immune has sponsored 31 research papers on the subject. Goleic, the olive oil-based GcMAF product is meticulously produced and undergoes nine tests, including two for sterility and three for activity and potency. Aside from a mild fever, there have been no reported side effects.  The cancer cell killing activity of GcMAF can be viewed online.¹⁹

GcMAF Unavailable Today

Today the only readily available source of GcMAF is an oral colostrum-based (first milk) dietary supplement sold online that is encapsulated and bottled in the USA from GcMAF powder obtained from Japan.²⁰ Its effectiveness is estimated to be marginable given less than flattering remarks by users.

Researchers Don’t Give Up

Researchers continue to delve into nagalase inhibition as a “key to curing cancer.” They surmise and predict that: “the use of gene silencing methods, reduced expression of nagalase and consequently reduced cancer cell invasion capability can be achieved.” To that end, a natural enzyme inhibitor could be utilized.

It is well established that polyphenols derived from turmeric spice (curcumin), grapes (resveratrol), pomegranate, apple peel (quercetin) and tea leaves (catechin) are natural enzyme inhibitors, though they remain untested for nagalase inhibition.

Botanical sources of polysaccharides are well documented to control inflammation and activate macrophages.²¹ Oligosaccharides derived from mushrooms²² and algae (spirulina, blue green algae) have received considerable attention in this regard.

Herbal extracts of oligosaccharides (sugar-like molecules in a chain) such as found in Panax ginseng²³ and boswellia from frankincense,²⁴ serve as other examples.

Fucoidan is a seaweed extract rich in polysaccharides that is widely offered as a cancer remedy and immune booster. At high concentrations fucoidan has been demonstrated to inhibit nagalase in a lab dish with tumor cells that have high nagalase activity.²⁵

Use of a Decoy Molecule: Chondroitin Sulfate

Researchers also report that a decoy molecule that interferes with nagalase could be used as a competitive/alternative inhibitor of GcMAF, thus reducing the degradation of GcMAF. This is apparently how Gc protein works in part by binding to chondroitin sulfate.²⁶ Chondroitin sulfate is internally produced within the matrix of cartilage in the human body and is a constituent of connective tissue.

There are macrophages that increase inflammation. However, internally made chondroitin sulfate sustains anti-inflammatory macrophages.²⁷ Supplemental chondroitin would presumably do the same.

The provision of chondroitin sulfate to laboratory mice is reported to reduce inflammation and subsequently reduce atherosclerotic arterial plaque and has application in cancer-induced inflammation.²⁸

The combination of supplemental chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine is reported to reduce a marker of inflammation (C-reactive protein) by 23% in healthy humans and therefore reduce the risk for cancer.²⁹

Chondroitin sulfate activates cancer-destructive macrophages in a lab dish.³⁰ The application of chondroitin sulfate in cancer control appears to have been ignored.

Altering Tumor pH to Effect a Cure: Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)

Yet another intriguing new avenue of investigation is alteration of pH (acid/alkaline balance). If the pH of the area surrounding tumors could be locally increased towards alkalinity the nagalase enzyme would cease to function and macrophages could do their job of digesting malignant cells.³¹

This topic has recently gained widespread public attention in the news media that alteration of pH by use of oral sodium bicarbonate (yes, baking soda) may serve to abolish the acidic environment surrounding tumor cells that provokes dormant cancer cells out of hiding and makes them vulnerable to treatment. Baking soda also increases activity of T-cells (thymus cells), another type of white blood cell.³²

Tumor cells voraciously derive energy from sugar rather than oxygen as normal healthy cells do. As sugar devourers, these malignant cells expel lactic acid, which creates an acidic barrier around tumors. When chemotherapy was combined with an infusion of sodium bicarbonate, tumor cell eradication increased from 63% to 100%! Researchers surmise that alteration of the tumor environment towards alkalinity might increase natural tumor cell die-off (apoptosis) by tumor pH alone.³³ It is well established that tumor cells hijack macrophages by expelling lactic acid.³⁴

The problem is the sodium bicarbonate was injected into the tumor areas in the animal experiments, which rules out home use. Will oncologists begin to utilize this simple pre-cure? And will it release macrophages to effect a cure on its own? If so, it would be known as the ten-cent cancer cure.

Given that oncologists have treatments but no cures for cancer, patients are left to try natural remedies in an unguided fashion. Fortunately, the remedies mentioned above are relatively safe (unlikely to result in hospitalization or the demise of the patient) and can be utilized as nutritional support rather than advertised as a cure. Whether complete cures will be reported with their use is unknown. But given the lack of alternatives, a desperate cancer patient may use these remedies with little if any risk or interference with conventional cancer treatment and the potential of a high upside.

©2018 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc. Used with permission by Townsend Letter.