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The other direction is the immune system which I have studied for decades but more seriously since I started to use RBAC [rice bran arabinoxylan compound]. Today we hear a different story, and nobody is currently just looking for the magic bullet to cure cancer. A few years ago, I began to develop more interest in the immune system fighting against cancer. Subsequently what surprised me, after oncologists denied and even criticized the power of immune cells to fight cancer, was a recent Sloan Kettering large public announcement that everyone is born with a defense system against cancer, meaning YOU! We already knew about this for a long time. The advertising said: Now oncology has introduced the latest breakthrough in cancer therapy. Can you believe this?! In any event, I have concentrated my research on the NK cell activity related to cancer and how to activate apoptosis using RBAC, but we never stop learning and reading updated documents.
When I started writing this book I was obliged if I may add, to engage in even more study about NK cells and update results about RBAC. Now RBAC is perhaps the most documented compound functioning as a biological response modifier that according to me should be included in all cancer protocols. In Japan, RBAC is considered a functional food and even used in more than 100 hospitals conjointly with chemotherapy and recommended by over 5000 doctors around the world. So by both studying and working with my patients, this has shown me how RBAC contributes to reduce tumor size, decrease tumor markers, how it works in synergy with various anticancer agents and natural compounds like curcumin, for instance, to prevent or eliminate metastasis. RBAC contributes to increased lifespan with quality of life, but even better you can read about it in my book and see some examples with clinical cases illustrated with scans before and after the treatment. I can say that writing this book was beneficial for me since I was motivated to have done more studies.
One instance was more study about the anticancer properties of curcumin and a new excellent study on the synergistic apoptotic effects of both RBAC and curcumin in human MM cell lines in vitro. I wanted to see this for myself and made several experiments with metastatic breast cancer and a huge stomach tumor using only RBAC and liposomal curcumin. If together you target angiogenesis, for instance, using the C-statin compound from bindweed herb, with strong angiogenic properties you can expect some good results; but as I said, individual experience is the key to success since at the same time you are facing the patient and the success depends on how you handle it, as well as its attributes.
JT – Why were you inspired to write a new book focusing on immuno-oncology using rice bran arabinoxylan?
SJ – OK, first let me tell you that boosting the immune system with a cancer patient is not new to me for over 40 years. In 1986 I published in France, a book on cancer where I mentioned that the channel of immunotherapy may be the only way to treat cancer. It took an additional 35 years before oncology came to this conclusion. Immunotherapy has now become the fourth pillar of oncology, but again using toxic agents—not to mention the cost is very expensive and once again it turned into a big business. For me the story of the RBAC began in 1992 when I was visited by one of my Japanese contacts who told me about a new compound developed in Japan, a rice bran arabinoxylan called Biobran, being very powerful to stimulate the immune system, especially the NK cells. I then began to experiment with my patients culminating in the excellent results we have today. In June 2017, I was participating in the 5th International Biobran (RBAC) workshop in Krakow, Poland, with the participation of various oncologists that themselves used RBAC. You can see my report in the Townsend Letter of October 2017.
Back then, for the first time, I met the general manager of Daiwa Lab (Japan), Mr. Nori Shirai, who after seeing my one-hour presentation, including several clinical cases with the protocol, came to me looking real enthusiastic, saying I should write a book including many clinical cases such as the ones that I had presented. I know what it means to write a book when after you start, during the next two or three years, you’ll be busy writing, searching, changing and not even have time for your own life. So, I asked for time to consider and see how I would develop the contents of the book.
While it was a challenge for me to write this book, I wanted to offer a new orientation to treat cancer, through activation of the immune cells, especially NK cells by using RBAC, which has shown efficacy over the past years. Not only is RBAC a strong immuno-modulator, but it has anti-inflammatory properties, decreases free radical activity, and is important for me that it modulates the Bcl2/Bax ratio, meaning an increase in apoptosis, but this has only been shown recently in a new study. During the past three years, I saw so many published articles speaking of a revolution in oncology by stimulating the immune system, I realized I had been given a reason to write this book.
I showed my own clinical experience in other approaches and diet and included a selection of 25 well-documented clinical cases. Daiwa’s president was pleased with the project, where Daiwa was in charge to publish the book. Having it distributed in over 50 countries, including the US, offered more reason for me to write the book. However, I didn’t expect so much time and energy would be spent to get the book finished in perfect US language. I devoted three years to this book, but in the end, I was rewarded.
JT– In your new book, you explain the role of p53 gene expression as the guardian of our immunity. This p53 gene is better known as the tumor suppressor gene. Can you tell us more?
SJ – Yes, most of us are acquainted with the p53 tumor suppressor gene as the guardian of our genome, being implicated in about half of all cancers. We know even less about some other important functions of the p53 gene, for instance, being the guardian of our immune integrity, which is one of the last discoveries of science concerning the p53 gene. Of course, this is all new and may be difficult to understand, but we just realized that the p53 gene is the maestro in a complex network of genes implicated in the case of cancer with immunosuppression, angiogenesis, inflammation, tumor invasion, and survival. If functioning normally, p53 gene can activate several immune mechanisms.
Another example, p53 is a transcription factor that can modulate checkpoints PD-1 and PD-L1 expression that blocks the immune system, specifically T-cells, and become a target in immunotherapy using the checkpoint drugs, Keytruda and Optivo. However, so far the results were still low, about 35%, along with side effects. There are at least two other mechanisms by which the p53 gene can activate immune cells to destroy cancer cells, such as by activation of an anti-tumor response via direct transcriptional regulation of the NK cell. The p53 gene can also modulate the tumor microenvironment that cancer cells use to grow and expand. Today the microenvironment is considered just as important as the tumor itself and needs a specific approach as well. This p53 gene can alter the host immune response, which is an additional way to increase the immune function to fight cancer.
But one other practically unknown function of p53 is the relation between the vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene that mediates the effects of vitamin D. We know that vitamin D modulates the activity of numerous immune cells. The expression of the VDR gene and then absorption of the vitamin D is induced by the normal p53 function but not by mutant p53.
Now we can understand why the p53 gene is so important when treating cancer and activating the immune system. The idea is to reactivate normal p53 function, using several selected natural compounds used to reverse immunosuppression and enhance anti-tumor activity. Of course, this is only a brief explanation, but you find all the details in my book.
This is why as I explained in the beginning, I wanted to devote a special chapter in my book about the p53 gene and its various functions, especially those linked with the immune system. Now we may better understand my response to attacking cancer cells both from direct activation of the immune cells and NK cells, while at the same time activating or reactivating p53 normal function, which contributes to an overall increased immune response. Why not call this a breakthrough in cancer treatment?
JT – Why do you believe oncologists do not focus more attention on the p53 gene in clinical practice?
SJ – We could also ask why they pay no attention to using other alternative methods when they face treatment failure? Today you find over 70,000 scientific publications about the p53 tumor suppressor gene, p53, and cancer. Every year there are conferences and a world congress organized on mutant p53, where reactivating mutant p53 is considered as an anticancer therapy, so what is the problem with oncologists? More recently researchers in Ireland have found a promising treatment for patients with TNBC, the most aggressive known breast cancer. They published the result of their study in the International Journal of Cancer under, “Mutant p53 a Novel target for the treatment of a patient with TNBC,”describing how a drug that targets the mutated p53 protein can largely inhibit the TNC cell proliferation and migration. So now we can say that the p53 gene may be one of the main keys in the treatment of cancer! According to my clinical experience, I can say yes.
Unfortunately, cancer theory is based on a deep-rooted dogma, and for far too long chemotherapy and radiation have remained the routine cornerstone of research by a laboratory in search of new miraculous drugs. I believe that today oncologists just work like robotic computers following what they all learned, conforming to what they are being told to do in the hospital. They are not yet ready to change their protocol, even if p53 mutation is an obstacle to chemotherapy.
Considering p53 mutation in clinical practice would support a new treatment paradigm with the use of natural compounds besides chemotherapy for which I believe oncologists are not yet prepared. Also, consider many alternative-medicine cancer doctors still do not understand the importance of the p53 tumor suppressor gene concerning cancer. I could give a further example when on one occasion where after sending my abstract to speak at an International Congress of Alternative Breast Cancer in the US, I received a negative reply: Not sufficient interest in a topic for this Congress! I could not believe such an attitude from alternative doctors knowing that p53 gene expression is one of the main keys when treating cancer, especially breast cancer. But on both sides require an open mind.
Let me quote you from Professor Ben Peiffer, oncologist at the Aesculap Clinic in Switzerland who also works with RBAC in his cancer protocol who has often stated, “You need to have an open mind.” He was a professor of oncology in New York, but one day his sister was diagnosed with cancer and came to New York for treatment by her brother, but unfortunately she died. That woke him up but as he said, it is very difficult to get out of the system that you have been taught. He decided to return to Switzerland and opened a clinic where he could treat cancer patients differently. His cancer protocol included stimulation of the immune system using RBAC and activation of apoptosis.
Unfortunately, in the Western world, most oncologists are still closed to any new paradigm, even those with scientific support such as the p53 tumor suppressor gene that responds to the use of natural compounds, simply because they are not independent and must be under the umbrella of Big Pharma or chemotherapy/radiation, so this may answer your question.
JT – What lifestyle and dietary rules and habits do you follow personally?
SJ – This is an interesting question because I have many colleagues that just live without dietary rules since they just do a job like any other and over the years most have passed on from heart disease or cancer. First, you have to be convinced that you need certain rules regarding food and a balanced lifestyle or way of living. Don’t forget that naturopathy is also a philosophy of life.
Now let me tell you upon meeting Dr. Bernard Jensen back in 1962, he enthusiastically invited me to his Hidden Valley Health Ranch. I saw for myself the importance of nutrition and a balanced food diet not only as a recovery therapy but as a way to keep our body and mind healthy. So at that time, it changed my own life and my food style because for me it was a way to show more respect for my body and just stay on natural organic food and not junk food. All my life and also for my wife, we adhere to some important dietary rules, the first with food quality. We buy only organic vegetables and fruits, but we also have our own small organic garden. We only use natural organic non-industrial food, whole food, fresh fish caught during the night in the market the following morning. We also prepare every day our fresh organic vegetable juice that always include red beets, which to me is one of the most healthy of the main anticancer foods. In my book, Health and Disease Begin in the Colon, I have included 10 recipes for healthy soups, for a different purpose than we usually eat at home. We do follow mini-fasting in our diet with 16-18 hours between dinner and breakfast the next day, when we have only a cocktail of vegetable juice or some fruit with kefir or a salad in the afternoon. This is important, because at our age it keeps us healthier, you can be sure of this. We offer ourselves as an example of being healthy.
