Talk Cancer

Question:

Does anybody know anything about a Dr Johanna Budwig who apparently devised a diet for cancer sufferers?

Response:

Does anybody know anything about a Dr Johanna Budwig who apparently devised a diet for cancer sufferers?

Johanna Budwig was a noted German Chemist who treated patients with oral ingestion of flax seed oil, which contains 50% alpha-linolenic acid.  Within the past ten years, dozens of published studies have confirmed that high concentrations of ALA and related polyunstaturates kill a variety of tumor types with no toxicity to normal cell lines.  Yet the clinical status of this approach is as yet unclear.  Budwig was a chemist, not a research physician, and back when she was doing her treatments, there weren’t CAT scans to measure response during the months following initial treatment.   Her own writings contain little structured data on clinical results, and various reports of her methods all contain different descriptions of the doses she used and her results. One book even reports Budwig’s program and then advises patients to add lots of vitamin E, which is absurd, given that vitamin E has been shown to sharply block the antineoplastic efficacy of lipids both in vitro and in vivo.  It does appear that Budwig achieved some cures with low-dose oral ingestion of flax seed oil, but I don’t think it was a high percentage.   — David Scheim /*                   — David E. Scheim, Ph.D. —                  */ /*                                                                   */ /* CompuServe: 73750,3305                  FAX: 301 402-3799         */ /*                                                                   */ /* DISCLAIMER: These comments are offered to share knowledge based   */ /*   upon my personal views.  They do not represent the positions    */ /*   of my employer.                                                 */

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