you got to laugh about this "happy tree story"

pete43lost_at_sea
pete43lost_at_sea Member Posts: 3,900 Member
edited August 2012 in Colorectal Cancer #1
has the irony of this made you chuckle.

think of all the great tcm debates.

of all the great alternative debates.

now we have had a few here, i never researched this before, and a blinked many times.

hangon to your chair if you decide to read on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irinotecan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camptothecin

Camptothecin (CPT) is a cytotoxic quinoline alkaloid which inhibits the DNA enzyme topoisomerase I (topo I). It was discovered in 1966 by M. E. Wall and M. C. Wani in systematic screening of natural products for anticancer drugs. It was isolated from the bark and stem of Camptotheca acuminata (Camptotheca, Happy tree), a tree native to China used as a cancer treatment in Traditional Chinese Medicine[1]. CPT showed remarkable anticancer activity in preliminary clinical trials but also low solubility and (high) adverse drug reaction. Because of these disadvantages synthetic and medicinal chemists have developed numerous syntheses of Camptothecin[2][3][4] and various derivatives to increase the benefits of the chemical, with good results. Two CPT analogues have been approved and are used in cancer chemotherapy[5] today, topotecan and irinotecan.[6][7]

YES those who are on TCM could be getting some cheap chemo and those on chemo irinotecan could be getting some expensive TCM.

this is serisously funny. think the tcm brew i am sipping could have the camtothecin herb in it right now. i could be on chemo and did not even realise it.

can you see the irony !

no arguments allowed here, just laughs. this is a hoot!

survival without laughter, what a waste.

hugs,
Pete

ps so tcm is cheap chemo, do it yourself, made at home. godbless tcm. and thankyou john23 for being a champion of chemo is sheeps clothing, if you know what i mean.

pps so the big gun colorectal chemo agent is a plant, godbless nature, maybe this planet centered diet has some merit after all. i did have some organic chicken tonight, so i no longer am a hard core vegan.

Comments

  • MrsJP
    MrsJP Member Posts: 157
    #2
    LOL!
    Thanks for the smile....your energy..and above all sharing..

    You made my day

    jp
  • smokeyjoe
    smokeyjoe Member Posts: 1,425 Member
    #3
    MrsJP said:

    LOL!
    Thanks for the smile....your energy..and above all sharing..

    You made my day

    jp

    Yeah, when I first started
    Yeah, when I first started chemo. I had seen that one of the drugs I was getting irinotecan was from a "happy tree". There is another one, can't recall what it is right now from crocus bulbs.....
  • steved
    steved Member Posts: 834 Member
    #4
    Overlaps
    There is nothing surprising in this as I am alwasys confused by the dichotomous and black and white way people seem to consider the conventional/complementary Medicine argument. Most of us here do not see it two separately stems but overlapping systems that have a lot in common but also have significant differences eg the emphasis placed on scientific testing of safety and efficacy in conventional medicine is not commonly applied to complementary treatments. Hence the fact that for most people they don't simply choose to use one a pproach but a combination of both systems in a balance that suits them.

    The whole perception that things from plants are safer than things made in a lab and that there isn't overlap between the two simply feeds the conflicts that people seem to wallow in all too often. There is simply a big bag of tools to fight illness and we choose our weapons from that bag. There aren't two bags with separate and different tools. The whole 'big pharma' is bad, natural things are good attitude drives me mad!

    Now I'm ranting, so time to sign off before I create the kind of argument I'm trying to avoid!

    Steve
  • pete43lost_at_sea
    pete43lost_at_sea Member Posts: 3,900 Member
    #5
    steved said:

    Overlaps
    There is nothing surprising in this as I am alwasys confused by the dichotomous and black and white way people seem to consider the conventional/complementary Medicine argument. Most of us here do not see it two separately stems but overlapping systems that have a lot in common but also have significant differences eg the emphasis placed on scientific testing of safety and efficacy in conventional medicine is not commonly applied to complementary treatments. Hence the fact that for most people they don't simply choose to use one a pproach but a combination of both systems in a balance that suits them.

    The whole perception that things from plants are safer than things made in a lab and that there isn't overlap between the two simply feeds the conflicts that people seem to wallow in all too often. There is simply a big bag of tools to fight illness and we choose our weapons from that bag. There aren't two bags with separate and different tools. The whole 'big pharma' is bad, natural things are good attitude drives me mad!

    Now I'm ranting, so time to sign off before I create the kind of argument I'm trying to avoid!

    Steve

    rant away steve
    i do.

    even if we argue at times, its communication, which is the scheme of things is what we do well as humans.

    hugs,
    Pete

    ps be happy, hahaha! and yes conventional has many strong points like you say. the irony, well my onc never said irinotecan came from a plant, well the first three did not, my newest onc, who i have named ionc short for integrative onc, not idiot onc ( as his missionary position straigh laced peer onc's would describe him ) well i have our hour consult on tape, and this onc is simply a god to me. he wanted a copy of the metagenics alternative integrative cancer seminar notes.

    pss if i go to gaol, it will be for copyright infringements, strictly white collar crime.

    psss i hate agreeing with you, but i really do, bad big pharma is too simplistic as is good natural. why do alt docs sell vit c for $150 a dose when now i can buy it direct for $10. thats an unhealthy margin. that drives me mad in a different way. i see my less financially aware cancer patient friends getting screwwwed by money hungry alt doctors.

    i too am ranting and will start an argument, that i too want to avoid. but you make really really sound points. the big bag analogy works for me, i will use it in the future and quote a wise csn friend steve told me this one, when i get onto 60 minutes in my dreams.
  • steved
    steved Member Posts: 834 Member
    #6
    pete43lost_at_sea said:

    rant away steve
    i do.

    even if we argue at times, its communication, which is the scheme of things is what we do well as humans.

    hugs,
    Pete

    ps be happy, hahaha! and yes conventional has many strong points like you say. the irony, well my onc never said irinotecan came from a plant, well the first three did not, my newest onc, who i have named ionc short for integrative onc, not idiot onc ( as his missionary position straigh laced peer onc's would describe him ) well i have our hour consult on tape, and this onc is simply a god to me. he wanted a copy of the metagenics alternative integrative cancer seminar notes.

    pss if i go to gaol, it will be for copyright infringements, strictly white collar crime.

    psss i hate agreeing with you, but i really do, bad big pharma is too simplistic as is good natural. why do alt docs sell vit c for $150 a dose when now i can buy it direct for $10. thats an unhealthy margin. that drives me mad in a different way. i see my less financially aware cancer patient friends getting screwwwed by money hungry alt doctors.

    i too am ranting and will start an argument, that i too want to avoid. but you make really really sound points. the big bag analogy works for me, i will use it in the future and quote a wise csn friend steve told me this one, when i get onto 60 minutes in my dreams.

    What does it matter?
    I remain confused as to why it matters that irinotecan comes from a plant? Does that it make more acceptable than something made in a lab? Is it better because it is 'natural'? It is these aspects of people's thinking that still confuses me.

    Steve
  • smokeyjoe
    smokeyjoe Member Posts: 1,425 Member
    #7
    steved said:

    What does it matter?
    I remain confused as to why it matters that irinotecan comes from a plant? Does that it make more acceptable than something made in a lab? Is it better because it is 'natural'? It is these aspects of people's thinking that still confuses me.

    Steve

    I find it interesting that
    I find it interesting that they can take something that a plant uses for it's own protection from predators that is noxious and poisen to us and extract (or replicate) the right dose of "poisen" to kill cancer cells.
  • manwithnoname
    manwithnoname Member Posts: 402
    #8
    steved said:

    What does it matter?
    I remain confused as to why it matters that irinotecan comes from a plant? Does that it make more acceptable than something made in a lab? Is it better because it is 'natural'? It is these aspects of people's thinking that still confuses me.

    Steve

    Perception

    Sunny Delight 'orange juice' ingredients;

    Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Concentrated Juices (Orange, Tangerine, Apple, Lime, Grapefruit). Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beta-Carotene, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavors, Food Starch-Modified, Canola Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate To Protect Flavor, Yellow #5, Yellow #6


    Or;

    Fresh orange juice squeezed from freshly picked organic oranges, nothing else.

    I think MOST people would choose the latter.

    They may taste similar and both leave your body looking the same, but some people, right or wrong, react the same about medicine.
  • thxmiker
    thxmiker Member Posts: 1,278 Member
    #9
    manwithnoname said:

    Perception

    Sunny Delight 'orange juice' ingredients;

    Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Concentrated Juices (Orange, Tangerine, Apple, Lime, Grapefruit). Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beta-Carotene, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavors, Food Starch-Modified, Canola Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate To Protect Flavor, Yellow #5, Yellow #6


    Or;

    Fresh orange juice squeezed from freshly picked organic oranges, nothing else.

    I think MOST people would choose the latter.

    They may taste similar and both leave your body looking the same, but some people, right or wrong, react the same about medicine.

    Food= What you see is not necessarily what you get
    At a Big Box Retailer we read the labels on all of our food. Milk had Milk, oil and Natural Flavors. Really? Milk needs crud in it? Their Butter had Butter, Milk Solids and Soy Oil. When did Soy become in everything? (Natural Flavors is another word for soy if it is less then 2% of the item.)

    We have additives that are components of Rocket Fuel, used as a preservative, or an Oil Expeller. (Made to extract oil quicker.) I am sorry, I prefer my cooking oil made a little slower without the Toxic chemicals.

    It is time for all of us to demand that our Food is actually Food. No more "Pink Slime", etc....

    Best Always, mike
  • pete43lost_at_sea
    pete43lost_at_sea Member Posts: 3,900 Member
    #10
    thxmiker said:

    Food= What you see is not necessarily what you get
    At a Big Box Retailer we read the labels on all of our food. Milk had Milk, oil and Natural Flavors. Really? Milk needs crud in it? Their Butter had Butter, Milk Solids and Soy Oil. When did Soy become in everything? (Natural Flavors is another word for soy if it is less then 2% of the item.)

    We have additives that are components of Rocket Fuel, used as a preservative, or an Oil Expeller. (Made to extract oil quicker.) I am sorry, I prefer my cooking oil made a little slower without the Toxic chemicals.

    It is time for all of us to demand that our Food is actually Food. No more "Pink Slime", etc....

    Best Always, mike

    thanks mike, tony, smokey and steve
    we are such a diverse group, its wonderful.

    really great points, i know where you are all coming from.

    from a post on tcm and chemo effectively being one in the same from a source point of view we get to pink slime and delight sunny oranges, steve not getting my point.

    be really careful mike, if we start demanding our foof is food.

    where will we end up ?

    what demanding medicine is medicine!

    the fact we have to demand wholistic care, that conventional refuses to work cooperatively with other health professionals. its seems to me to be turf and money and legal issues.

    and who looses ? we do, the patients.

    so mike i like the DEMAND word, its our right, we can stop demanding when we are dead, until that point i will demand the best

    from doctors,
    from the local organic shop,
    from the local orange juice, ( actually i won't to much sugar for this paranoid fool )

    steve,

    you know why i felt a strong need to joke about this post. its because my onc, the one i put my hope and trust in, well she made me feel pretty foolish about tcm, she rubbished it like so many here have ( before your time here ) i feel enormous vindication for having disregarded my oncs advice, for having trusted my henry ( my chinese oncologist and herbal specialist - one of the best in australia, if not the world ) this was despite lots of positive findings on pubmed. the studies my henry cities, are out of china, out of the hospitals, not even pubmed, not even in english. thats why onc's are scared, it shows how vulnerable they are when an alternative treatment offers hope and they have none to offer. but they are compelled to rubbish what to me seems a wise choice.

    you know, it goes like this. sorry pete, chemo's not working, go home a count sheep till you stop. don't try any promising alternative therapies they might kill you before the mets do. have i got the story wrong. this is the standard line, i hear here and amongst friends. its what scares me.

    be very well my friends, the tide is turning step by step. Post by post.

    maybe one day real soon, we will all be growing some happy trees, now thats another interesting project, until that time i guess we can just be happy.

    we would screew big pharma out of a fortune if we did. for the record, i want whatever treatments ( especially those chemo type ) to succeed and be as well as possible. i do have gratitude for all the research and effort the scientists put in. one day i might need to be knocking on big pharma for a hand, so i don't ever mean to rubbish them. its just not my cup of tea at present.

    my tea comes out of an earn, and a bag of mysterious herbs from china.

    i guess morning tea at my place is now chemo time, and afternoon tea also.

    hugs,
    Pete

    ps does this mean i have been on low dose chemo for almost two years and never realised it?

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