Discover Mistletoe’s Role In Revolutionizing Cancer Care

Introduction to Mistletoe in Cancer Care 0:00

Surprisingly, no one has talked about Mistletoe in this amazing Summit, so I'm going to. This is one of my favorite tools I've been using in practice since 2003, and have even coauthored a book about this very topic. We're going to dive in very briefly to Mistletoe as a powerful ally in cancer care. But before diving into this specific topic, Mistletoe extracting cancer has a very, very cool history. Mistletoe has been a long standing treatment in folklore and in traditional medicines, and it's often been associated with the Christmas season and kissing under the Mistletoe branches.

History and Traditional Use 0:52

However, it's, it's it's sort of its significance extends far beyond any of these holiday traditions or these druidic folklore. Mistletoe, scientifically known as this scum album extract, has been used for centuries in various cultures for its medicinal properties, and you'll be surprised to know that it's been used for well over 100 years, in a particular extraction form, for the very treatment of cancer. So a few things to show you about mistletoe. Just as a brief overview, this therapy was popularized by the rather controversial Rudolf Steiner in the 1920s.

He, along with Dr. Ita Wegman, a well known oncologist, started using this in the cancer care. it's it's used as an extract. It's leaves are harvested in the summer. It's berries are harvested in the winter. It's put through a pulverizing process. And then there's various different methodologies in which various companies might have a little bit of a different manufacturing approach, but ultimately they rehydrate it or ferment it and then turn it into, a well, curated extract, a well measured extract to be used as an injection.

Preparation and Forms of Mistletoe Extract 2:03

This is not an oral agent. It's not a whole plant, compound. It's a particular extract of particular alkaloids. Biscoe toxins, lectins, glycoproteins, all types of different things here that you'll learn, it has terrific impact in the cancer world. There are thousands of species of Mistletoe all over the world. But the most common used in the cancer space are apple, elm, oak, pine, poplar and spruce. it's approved for therapeutic indications for the treatment of cancer throughout Europe. It's not yet approved in the United States or UK.

but it is making some headway thanks to a clinical trial that just moved through phase one and is moving into phase two at Johns Hopkins, in which I was helping in the, I helped to get that trial off the ground. I helped, consult and inform on that trial. So very proud that that trial, is still ongoing. it's been approved for lots of therapeutic indications in cancers, such as specifically malignant and nonmalignant tumor processes, even pre-cancerous conditions, and for prevention of recurrence of the following, you know, of tumors in the future.

It's listed in the United States as a homeopathic remedy, and it's offered in integrative care. And just like so many other things we use in medicine, upwards of 70% of all of our pharmacopeia are off label use.

Species, Availability, and Regulatory Status 3:28

So we use it as an off label drug or an off label remedy. It's an aqueous solution extracted from this semi parasitic plant that has various active constituents. I've already mentioned, and there are various, commercial varieties on hand. You might have heard of the company Iscador, Helixor, Escarole, Abnoba, or Viscofan, In the United States, we can only get our hands on Becka Sand, but the rest of the world can get their hands basically on all the other extractions. And these lectins with good toxins, polysaccharides, flavonoids, all of these things have are really established to have tumor cytotoxicity as well as, immuno modulation.

All right. And so clinical benefit just to give you the high brow because the book goes into the deep dive in all of this, I just wanted you to be aware of this, to get curious and dig deeper. It reverses hypoxia. The injections for Mistletoe reverses hypoxia and enhances perfusion in the organs and tissues. It alters our glycolytic metabolism. So this is a metabolic therapy. It decreases levels of lactase dehydrogenase. It stimulates hormone regulation. So it mitigates and modulates our hormones.

It reduces adverse events and reduces the discontinuation or the spreading out of conventional therapy.

Clinical Benefits and Mechanisms 4:46

So it helps you stay on task and track with your standard of care therapies. It has some analgesic, some pain fighting, support. It improves your cognitive function. It, combines beautifully with a lot of other therapies and consistently has been shown to improve survival rates. It potentiate hyperthermia fever response therapy. Is it up regulates new mitochondria through the Sirt pathway as we talked about in other discussions. And it overcomes multiple drug resistance. So it helps people who've stopped responding to a particular therapy to start responding to it again.

And it radio sensitized cancer cells. I cannot even describe what the biggest impact is, is on its overall quality of life. It really changes how the well-being of the patient is perceived. And also when we think about standard of care, these are the typical side effects we see with every single patient undergoing standard care therapy, be it radiation targeted therapies, hormone blocking therapies, immune therapies or chemotherapy, they tend to have some sort of immunosuppression. They tend to have some sort of blood count, issues.

So low white blood cells, low platelets, low red blood cells, they tend to have a lot of, liver and kidney issues. They didn't have nausea, vomiting, vomiting, fatigue and just poor quality of life. This is exactly what Mistletoe helps overcome. It is not contraindicated with any of our standard of care therapies. If you're on an immune therapy, you'll want to talk to a seasoned provider who's been trained in how to use it safely and effectively with immune therapies. But otherwise, this treatment plays very, very, very well with others

Quality of Life and Compatibility with Standard Therapies 6:32

and can overcome a lot of the side effects of standard of care and enhance the effects of many alternative and integrative therapies as well. So the take home message where I wanted you to just get a little curious. This, by the way, is the most studied integrative therapy in the entire world. There's been over 2500 studies, 250 of which we would consider really good randomized clinical trials. there's a clinical trial, that has just been published in the United States from Johns Hopkins on IB application of this and solid tumors that were no longer responsive to the standard of care, that had very favorable results and is moving into phase two.

we mentioned that various species, apple, pine and fir being probably the top three you'll learn about and some of its main mechanism of action, immune modulation, cytotoxicity, anti angiogenesis, DNA protection to the healthy cells and DNA degeneration to the cancer cells, and overall quality of life and as I mentioned before, this therapy plays so well with others and it absolutely restores an internal rhythm and vitality to the patient, which all of us could use a little bit of support there.

So that being said, the book, written along with brilliant colleagues of mine, from Hematological College

Research, Book, and Further Resources 7:42

US to anthroposophical medical doctors to dogs to nature paths and to MDS who've been one of our MDS use this therapy for over 45 years. We have a really beautiful, book for you to dig deeper about the history, the research, the utility of this powerful therapy. Hope you get curious. This book any proceeds, by the way, go to further research and Mistletoe. It is not a for profit book, so if you are interested in helping also push the future of integrative oncology research forward purchasing this book gets us one step closer.

And if you want to learn more, follow me in all of these various socials on metabolic Terrain Intitute of Health (MTIH.org) Metabolic Matters podcast, and drnasha.com. Thanks everybody and be well.