Does anyone know that the Vitamin B17 found in the seeds of stone fruits and other fruits helps stop cancer?

Question

I have a DVD at home which is a Proffessor/Scientist and he states that the Vitamin B17 found in the seeds of stone fruits and seeds of other fruits is rich in an agent (B17) which helps to reduce the risk of cancer and can prolong age (it won't stop you dying, but it actually can help in your life expectency and life quality). There is a tribe overseas that constantly eats these seeds and the average life expectancy of this tribe is 95 years of age. The quality of life of the members of this tribe is also greatened from the fact they take this B17 daily. It is interesting to know if your someone who is a healthy eater and concerned about your health in the future.

If anyone is interested in the actual DVD itself, it is called the MAKING OF THE WORLD, BY DOCTOR KENT HOVEN.

Answer 1

Anyone with a DVD burner can whip out a DVD making any kind of claim they desire.

The American Cancer Society says laetrile (B17) is a quack treatment with no proven benefit.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3x_Laetrile.asp

If laetrile worked then Coretta Scott King, who had all the money and means in the world to pay for alternative cancer treatments, would still be alive after her trip to Mexico for laetrile therapy.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/laetrile.html

Answer 2

Any healthy foods will help. Many tribes live longer and there are different reasons for each. Try Vitamin C therapy. A few years ago a cancer specialist came out with a paper that said the best cancer/infection fighter found to date was Interferon. At the time it was $15,000 a gram. The paper also said that Interferon was a by-product of the natural breakdown of Vitamin C in your body. Shortly after that the FDA tried to make Vitamin C by prescription only. Guess why? The FDA has the RDA for Vitamin C set at 64 mg a day, just enough to ward off scurvy. Linus Pauling, who got a Nobel Prize for his work with Vitamin C and a second Nobel Prize for Organic Chemistry, said that 1000 mg a day should be the minimum and 2000 mg a day if you are sick or smoke. He played tennis almost daily until the day he died at 96. Personally, I got sick twice a year for 2 weeks at a time, for more than 20 years, with something to this day the doctors have no idea what it was, but for a week in the middle of those 2 weeks I was flat on my back. I started Vitamin C therapy once I gave up on the doctors. I took enough to be asymptomatic for those 2 weeks. Too much and I got diarrhea and too little and I got sick. Within a narrow range, and it followed a bell curve over those 2 weeks, I was not sick. At the height I was taking 40,000 mg a day and 300,000 over the 2 weeks. After 2 years of that I have not been sick since – more than 15 years. Vitamin C acts as a natural diuretic so you need to drink a lot of water and watch your body in total, but my kidneys did not dissolve as the doctors predicted, or get massive kidney stones as other predicted. I did not dissolve my bones as some predicted or completely calcify my joints as others predicted. I had no side effects at all. It might be something to consider.

Answer 3

My wife has been fighting non small cell lung cancer since '04. Since we seem to be losing ground with conventional treatments, we have just started looking into alternative treatments. I ran across the thing about B17 helping prevent and treat cancer and it being found in Apricot and other stone fruit seeds and also apple seeds. Have you had any actual experience with it treating cancer?

Answer 4

Yes - it is the Hunza tribe and they eat everything with the apricot kernel. They grind it to make bread, and they also eat the apricots. They've never had an incidence of cancer in 900 years and age is just a number for them.

I'm not sure of the exact history of Laetrille (which is the use of vitamin b17 from apricot kernels for health and cancer cures) but it was used in the 70's but they stopped doing research on it for some reason, even though it was known to have done some amazing things.

I'm tired of all the money collected for cancer being put into ways to make chemo and radiation more safe. The fact is that all they end up doing is poisoning and burning our bodies, along with the cancer cells and we need to direct some of those monies toward research using alternative medicines like this one!

Answer 5

I would be very careful before accepting claims of this kind. Whilst there may be some potential benefit of B17 in preventing cancer (I am not sure of this, but it is possible), to then go and claim that it can treat cancer is a big step. I am not aware of the evidence for B17.
I am inclined to be sceptical until proven otherwise as there are many claims of cancer cures out there, and lots of dead cancer victims and disappointed families who have tried them.
Also bear in mind there are some harmful chemicals in some plant seeds - I believe some plant seeds contain cyanide, although I am not sure in what amount.

Answer 6

You are speaking of laetril.

Wheatgrass is another powerfull anti-cancer food that contains among other anti-cancer agents,laetril

If we look at oxygen as a bullet to kill cancer cells, then we should look at wheatgrass as a shotgun blast at treating cancer. The number of ways it deals with cancer is incredible. First of all it contains chlorophyll, which has almost the same molecular structure as hemoglobin. Chlorophyll increases hemoglobin production, meaning more oxygen gets to the cancer. Selenium and laetrile are also in wheatgrass, both are anticancer. Chlorophyll and selenium also help build the immunity system. Furthermore, wheatgrass is one of the most alkaline foods known to mankind. And the list goes on.

Wheatgrass
Wheatgrass contains at least 13 vitamins (several are antioxidants), including B12, many minerals and trace elements, including selenium, and all 20 amino acids. It also contains the hormone abscisic acid (also called: dormin, see below), the antioxidant enzyme SOD (Superoxide Dismutase, see below) and over 30 other enzymes, the antioxidant enzyme cytochrome oxidase (see below), laetrile (see its own page), and a whole lot of other nutrients.

"superoxide dismutase (SOD) - which converts two superoxide anions into a molecule of hydrogen peroxide and one of oxygen"
In other words, SOD converts one of the most dangerious free radicals: Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), into a hydrogen peroxide molecule (which has an extra oxygen molecule to kill cancer cells) and an oxygen molecule.

Answer 7

hmm...
I'm interested...
so the name of this tribe is?