>> Adrienne Smith wrote:
>>
>> Cetuximab  -- one of the drugs Cordain mentions is another name for 
>> Erbitux.  Now maybe the drugs have been improved -- but below 
>> is a link to 
>> a 2002 Townsend Letter article which details the early disappointing 
>> failure of EGF blocking drugs in actual patients.  I think 
>> this EGF thing 
>> may be a big red herring that will translate into big bucks 
>> for big pharma -
>> - sounds great on paper and works in a petri dish -- but 
>> fails with respect 
>> to actual tumors in actual patients... Thoughts?  

I found more info re: the cited Townsend Letter article at Michael Eades'
blog. That article is apparently out of date, as the EGF blocking drugs have
been approved by the FDS for phase 2 clinical trials after demonstrating
effectiveness in slowing tumor growth, according to Eades and Cordain. I
capitalized the key comments below:


From: “Milk. It does a body good. Or Not.”
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=421

M. Eades> A reader sent me an article from several years ago from the
Townsend Letter on the failure of a couple of pharmaceutical companies to
get approval to market their EGF receptor-blocking drugs, the most famous of
which was ImClone, the maker of the drug Erbitux. If you recall, ImClone is
the company headed by Sam Wachsal, who, when he got advance notice of the
FDA denial, sold his stock before the word got out and the price cratered
and advised friends, one of whom was Martha Stewart, to do the same. Dr.
Wachsal is now doing time–Martha, as everyone knows, has already done hers.
This article makes the EGF receptor blocking drugs appear not particularly
effective, but SINCE THAT TIME, THE FDA HAS APPROVED MORE TRIALS.

Responses to “Milk. It does a body good. Or Not.”

1.	Daniel Chong says: 

December 19th, 2006 at 4:42 am 

Hello,

I have two questions. If you don’t have the info to answer, Dr. Eades, maybe
someone else does. I will also look for the answers.

1) Is there any other food, ie meat, that is also high in betacellulin? If
so, and if it’s evolutionarily acceptable, I’m not worried, as mother nature
probably has some way of offsetting its effects.

2) Is there another substance that comes in milk, ie vitamin D, etc, that
counteracts the effects of betacellulin in some way?

One problem I have with Cordain’s work is that he occasionally bases his
conclusions on a theory, while mother nature has proven otherwise.
Example: “Betacellulin can stimulate cancer growth. Betacellulin is high in
milk. Therefore, milk can stimulate cancer.”

While logically this sounds accurate, I again am wondering if mother nature
has come up with some other sort of mechanism that counteracts betacellulin,
so it’s not big deal in good quality raw milk products. A perfect example of
this would be vitamin A and osteoporosis. It is my understanding that there
has never been an association between cod liver oil or other foods naturally
high in vitamin A AND vitamin D, and osteoporosis.

Anyway, your thoughts, or someone else’s, as always would be appreciated.

Daniel 

M. Eades> I got someone else’s thoughts. I put them directly to Dr. Cordain
(anonymously, of course), and here is his answer:

L. Cordain> Betacellulin concentrations in saliva & in blood (~40 ng/liter)
are 2 orders of magnitude lower than in milk (~2000 ng/liter). Hence
betacellulin in meat and organs falls within the normal physiological range,
whereas milk is vastly outside this range. Mother nature has indeed taken
care of betacellulin. It is good for growing animals, as it promotes rapid
growth during the weaning period, however all mammals (except humans) stop
drinking milk after the weaning period. Hence, milk drinking is mother
natures way of ensuring rapid growth and transfering of mother’s immunity
and hormones to her newborn and infants, but the catch is that this phase of
life ends before adulthood. Continuing on with the hormones conferred by
mother during the weaning period to adulthood is definitely not in mother
nature’s plan. Finally, EGF-R BLOCKING DRUGS HAVE BEEN SHOWN TO SLOW OR STOP
TUMOR GROWTH — THIS IS NOT THEORY BUT FACT AS WE ARE NOW IN PHASE 2 CLINICAL
TRIALS OF THESE PHARMACEUTICALS IN HUMANS. Incresed flux through the EGF-R
pathway (either with betacellulin or EGF) promotes cancer in animal and
tissue models. Finally, almost all epithelial cell cancer patients
overexpress the EGF-R.