
The Beljansky Legacy: Advancing Natural Integrative Cancer Research
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Click HereThe Beljansky Legacy: Advancing Natural Integrative Cancer Research

President, Nutritional Research Foundation

Founder and President, The Beljanski Foundation
- Discover how specific plant extracts like Pao Pereira and Rauwolfia vomitoria are being studied for their ability to selectively affect cancer cells while sparing healthy cells.
- Learn why cancer stem cells may play a major role in recurrence and metastasis, and how emerging research is exploring natural compounds that may help address them.
- Uncover the story behind Mirko Beljanski’s controversial cancer research legacy, from environmental toxins and DNA destabilization to modern integrative cancer studies
Full Transcript
Introduction to the summit and Sylvie Beljanski 0:00
Well welcome back everybody to the Plant Based Solutions Pant Based Cancer Solutions Summit. And the bottom line is that we are in control of our health destiny. And there's so much we can do to try to change the trajectory of our lives, to protect ourselves. And even if we have a cancer diagnosis, we're not hopeless as so much we could do to prolong lifespan to prevent recurrence. And that's why today it's important. We're interviewing Sylvie Beljanski because she has a lot of experience in this field.
It started out, you know, decades and decades ago with her father's science. But let me tell you a little about Sylvie, and I'm going to do an interview with her today. She's the you know, she used to be she was a lawyer and a health researcher and advocate, and she became dedicated to continuing the family legacy because her father was such a leader in this field of natural medicine and natural cancer treatments. And so she's continued to do to continue the health and environmental research on many of these natural substances.
And she founded and presides over the Beljanski Foundation, which is a nonprofit focusing on natural approaches to cancer. And she also serves as CEO of the Mason Skin International dietary supplement Company. And she's also produces the Beljanski Integrative Cancer Conference, which is coming to San Diego just in a few weeks right now into my hometown. And it's a premier annual event integrating world renowned doctors and researchers and to advance integrative and natural approaches to cancer care, because it just isn't all about taking chemotherapy.
So thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. All right. So let's start by transitioning as to how I know your father's career and life was so dedicated to seeking out the natural world to find some type of herbal or substances that might be useful for people who have a diagnosis of cancer.
Her father's research on environmental toxins and DNA 2:06
So go into that from for just a minute. And what makes and how he like, after studying so many compounds, how he then limited most of his his research to just these two compounds after studying so many of them? Why these two stood out so uniquely. And I know we can talk about those, you know, and how to pronounce those fancy names of those two compounds, right? Sure. So my my father was a PhD in molecular biology, was working in the 60s and 70s, 80s at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, was one of the first scientists to look at environmental toxins and say that they probably have an effect at the cellular level, the affect our health in some way.
Back as at the time it was, it was a time of crazy economic development, industrial development, and nobody was really thinking that pollution could affect our health and were polluting like there was no tomorrow. And everybody at the time was thinking that cancer could only be genetic disease. My father was an the first one to said this pollution, this growing pollution has an effect on our DNA. And that's why we see more and more cancer. If it was genetic, there would be a pretty stable number of cancer.
And he made the observation that whether you look at plant cancer, animal cancer, human cancer, there is always a fundamental difference between a cancer cell and a healthy cell. In a healthy cell, you have this beautiful double helix that was discovered at the time of Watson and Crick, also in the 60s. And when you look at the cancer cells, there is always, always some kind of destabilization of the DNA, meaning the two strands of the DNA are not well kept together. They have some big open loops.
And my father made the correlation that the more open the loops of the DNA, the increased the rate of synthesis of the DNA, they start to duplicate, duplicate, duplicate much faster, which is a hallmark of cancer cells. So he had the idea to test a number of compounds to see if they would destabilize the DNA and increase the rate of synthesis of cancer. DNA and EU used this test that he called Orca test to to screen for a significant number of compounds. Then he had the idea to use also this test to see if there could be some compounds that would selectively inhibit the the synthesis of cancer cells with no effect on healthy cells, and the fact that there would be no effect on healthy cells was very important to him because he was saying, we are playing with fire.
We don't know what we are inducing with all those molecules. So it really was for him. This selectivity of action was very, very important. And he found further firebombing, which was used at the time quite widely to lower blood pressure, but also had a bad reputation because some people were saying that it was inducing breast cancer. So he studied as that compound extract, and he found that the revolver has two main alkaloids. One is called reserve pin, which lowers blood
Discovery of selective plant compounds for cancer 6:12
pressure that is also toxic and can induce cancer. And he has a hand services other compound called All-Star nine, which is purely anti-cancer. No effect on LC cells. You can see on the microscope. You can see that the the plot, the the alkaloid, which happens to be naturally fluorescent, stays outside. The healthy cells never penetrate healthy cells. On the other hand, you can see that they are able to penetrate cancerous cells and invade them and induce apoptosis of cancerous sets. It felt that absolutely fascinating.
But purifying fire from its content of pain is a lot of work. It's very messy, very expensive. You lose a lot of material. So it looked in books for molecules that would be close to ullstein, in that you could find in nature with a simple extraction, and that led him to find the flavor from Pereira, which is a plant coming from an Amazon, the Amazon rainforest, and happens to be just like of the Alston nine of Robert Ferro. Material totally selective in its action makes the difference between cancer DNA and LCD.
Stays outside of healthy cells, only penetrate cancerous cells. So it's a way it has. You know, those two plant tracks are kind of universal of cancer cells. They recognize the difference between healthy cells. Cancerous cells that target cancerous cells is something you can absolutely see under the microscope. And he said okay, if it works on all control cells, I'm going to test a different kind of cancer cell lines and is one of his last was testing power. Pereira and 16 different kinds of cancer cell lines, and showing that the plot extracts was indeed inhibiting all those characters cell lines, but adds little or no effect on the healthy cell line.
So you mentioned the word apoptosis in Ref wishes the total death of the cell and in relation to. So of course of cancerous cells. Yes. Right. So there's and then the pale Pereira inhibits replication. So do they. So does it concern. I'm a little bit confused about whether it goes into the cell and kills the cell. Or it's just slows or inhibits the replication of that cell. So it turns out that that a part of the researchers we have been able to to to conduct through the foundation with, in partnerships with different academic institutions, that those products tracks have multiple mechanisms of action, and they kind of adapt to the situation and that do intercalated both of them, intercalated between the two strands of the DNA.
They do induce apoptosis, but they are also able to inhibit cancer cells. They have able to have an inflammatory benefit that has been demonstrated also, for example, regulates five alpha reductase, regulates NF capability. I mean, it's many different ways to actually to act for good and always for good, right. What's a different mechanisms? Are those mechanisms involved in the you could say immune surveillance at all. Also preventing cancer where they only appropriate for people who already have a cancer diagnosis.
I it seems to have I mean the prevention part is linked to the anti inflammatory benefit I would say. But beyond that no it's not it's not an immune boost product. No no I would not say that okay. So and then that and then subsequent to to you being in the United States we develop these products now that that are available so people can utilize them. But they weren't really available in Europe when your father was alive.
How the compounds work and cancer stem cell research 10:48
Right? They weren't really available. They were widely available. My father left 133 peer reviewed papers. He gave a lot of conferences. He got the interest of a lot of French doctors who started to use widely East compounds and got a lot of success to the point where at the in the early 90s, the French president, Francois Mitterrand, was when he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, turned to my father against the advice, of course, the official doctor of the French White House, and said he wanted to use those plant extracts and he was able to finish his second term with terms for seven years at that time.
What happened is that that gave to my father's work a lot of publicity at the time where I was, and medicine was not well received. So after Mitterrand finally passed away, there was a political backlash. There was a Swat team who came to destroy my father's laboratory. They really ready for things that destroyed the laboratories, indicted my father and the poor man died a pretty quick quickly after that. And there was nothing left in France. I mean, my father was, with the desperation of my father, the dispersion of the laboratory, all this knowledge was about to disappear.
And that my father's funeral, so, so many people came to me and said, you know, without your father I would not be here. I would not have been able to see my grandchildren grow. I would not have been able to to take my my work, my daughter down the aisle, all those things. I felt that those discoveries were not just, you know, laboratory things. There were thousands of people. There were thousands of people in France who were utilizing and benefiting from your father's work. Exactly. And then suddenly the products were no longer available to them as a term to me and say, are you going to do something?
I was like, I don't know anything about that, but I'll do my best. I got a lot of support, a lot of support from from people coming out of nowhere to make sure that this knowledge would not disappear. And it was a lot of pressure. But that was 30 years ago. And yes, we have been able to to bound together to salvage as much knowledge as possible to continue to make the products available, and three years later to start a Beljanski foundation and restart the research. Right, because this is obviously you had to get a lot of funding and, you know, through the nonprofit to be able to do more research to make it generally acceptable worldwide.
So now that you've so you've been relatively successful because there's been a lot of research been done now on these compounds in the last decade. Right. Last two decades. Yeah, absolutely. In addition to the one and 33 reviewed paper left by my father, I really wanted to confirm this research, because one of the things that really pained me at the time of my my father was indicted, that they were saying that, you know, this is totally the letter that has never been confirmed. This is. Woo hoo!
No laboratory has ever worked with those products. That means that of no value. And one of the things that I really was important to me is to get academic institution, a new peer reviewed papers confirming the work, and that has been the gift that kept giving over the years, because we have been able not only to confirm my father's work and discoveries, but to go well beyond that with explanations about the mechanism of action. And now, recently we are working on cancer stem cells, which are those cells which are resistant to chemotherapy, which are sought to be linked to cancer relapse and metastasis.
And nobody at the time of my father was speaking mentioning cancer stem cells, but this is now the new frontier of oncology. Chemotherapy is not on those cells because they are slow dividing. And it turns out that those little plant extracts are able to recognize cancer stem cells and to destroy them. And we have done the research in vitro and in vision now on a variant cancer stem cells, pancreatic cancer stem cells. And we are just trapping up a beautiful study on breast cancer stem cells. The results are just striking.
The mice do not develop metastasis. Right. So just to reiterate what you're saying is that people sometimes undergo chemo. It kills some visible cancer cells, but it leaves other cells. And mostly these slow, more slowly growing cancer stem cells that are resistant to chemo. And then years later, these cells then become more aggressive and the cancer recurs and the person dies at a secondary occurrence of that cancer. And so one of the use of these compounds is that when a person has a diagnosis of cancer, that even if they're treated successfully with chemo, the use of these compounds could help repress the development and kill the residual cells that survived the chemo, and the stem cells that can now start replicating and cause a secondary recurrence.
So that's one of the new uses of these compounds, which were discovering in the new research that you that you've been able to fund and perform at these academic institutions. Yeah, we have been working with Columbia University, Kansas University Medical Center, and Concert Centers of America here in the States and, and really have been in love with also the those partnerships with those academic institution. I find that so interesting.
Prostate cancer, prevention, and integrative care 17:00
Since so blessed, I have the opportunity to to continue this research. Now, is there any specific unique benefit for that? Because breast cancer and prostate cancer have a lot of similarities in the sense that they're hormonally fueled cancers. They're so related to the metabolic state of the person, the dietary sensitive cancers. It seems to tell me if it's right that the that these two compounds have particular benefits to these common cancers, breast and prostate, which are the most common cancers now in America.
Yeah. So we have especially on prostate, we have done a lot of research at the level of cancer cells from benign prostatic hyperplasia, which is inflammation of the prostate, to full blown prostate cancer, to advance prostate cancer, which does not respond to hormonal treatment. And we have already demonstrated the benefits of those plant extracts at every stage of the disease. So we are really, really excited with this new projects that we are currently trying to find about prostate cancer stem cells, based on what we have done with the other cancer stem cells, we are very, very hopeful to to to see great results.
And it is important to know that when it comes to breasts or like prostate cancer, 20% of all those cancer will eventually metastasize. So that means also that 100 people concerned with cancer are afraid to be the one whose cancer is going to metastasize. So if we can help all those patients from day one of the diagnosis and prevent those cancer stem cells to grow will make a difference for 100% of the people concerned with those cancer. Right. And you know, with me, I'm using an aggressive nutritional approach and other protocol.
And then I add the these I add these herbs onto the approach. So it's like we're hitting it from different angles. And I do have a lot of experience in utilizing this and seeing people who even who had prostate cancer with a trajectory went the other direction. And these PSA starts coming down in, the cancer's gone away. I have many I have a lot of patients experience with. I've seen this happen. I can't ascertain which factor. And of all the different things could have diet that, you know, all the changes which but we know that the whole protocol has a lot of beneficial features that can enable even early stage or low Gleason score, prostate cancer to even do worse itself.
Absolutely. And we are so much more than a disease, so much more than the tumor. So it makes so much sense to to address the entire body and start with nutrition and the good detoxification, because what made a sick in the first place is what we eat, how we feed our body with a bad food and bad thoughts, bad bad emotions, bad relationship. That's what creates some kind of problem at some point. And where we, the body starts to become sick as a as it looks at the sickness as a solution, actually to escape the reality in which we live.
So when you build all sorts of this new company, the Mason brand, now that you're actually working together with the research on now to make these products available. So then so how is that working even for those that company, even for these, for this mission of helping people with cancer and also just being a wellness brand, helping people's health in general. How does that mesh together? So we did not I mean, most people companies in the directory supplement real. They start with marketing. They start with the idea of a product.
In our case, I mean, we started with inherited research and we started to make the product available because you need product to to continue the research. You cannot do research on thin air. You need to have products. And then there in France, there were all those people who are clamoring that they wanted to continue to be on the products. So the first thing when I started the company was to feed the French people, the French clients who and cover their knees.
Mason brand, global availability, and wellness applications 21:30
And after three years, I started to have been able to put a little bit of money aside and I was able to start the foundation. And from the first in vitro study, hoping that to create some kind of interest and, and some kind of movement, actually. Oh, so your products are available here in this country and also in Europe only, or in France or other countries as well? Yeah. We ship all over the world. You ship all over the world. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know, we started, but they made.
But you're still you're manufacturing here and you shift from the United States to Europe. Absolutely. And for the past 30 years, there have been made in in the here. Okay, great. So beyond cancer, what other how does it overlap to other areas for the areas of wellness that, you know, with what what it turns out that power specifically has artificial benefits and anti-inflammatory benefits that have been, well, well demonstrated and undocumented. There is also another product which is quite interesting, which made up of little RNA fragments, which are specific of the DNA of the bone marrow and helps the bone marrow create a new generation of white blood cells and platelets.
That's really those white blood cells are at the core of our immune system, and they are very often destroyed also by chemotherapy. So we are able to to maintain a decent number of white cells and platelets during the chemotherapy. And that brings a tremendous support to, to the patient and avoid a lot of, a lot of secondary diseases and complication. What we we have seen also is that we have had recently a clinical trial on patients who had were suffering from long Covid, and we were we gave them some of those iron fragments, and it turned out that they were able to recover of many of the symptoms associated with long Covid.
That's interesting. So this is another new area of research that you're now pursuing more with these RNA fragments. And they are stable. People can take them orally and they're stable and not digested. Or it's a beauty of my father's discovery. The products that he perfected is that you can all of them take them orally. Nothing needs to be injected. So that's much easier to to compliance is much better. And there is never any toxicity associated with the RNA fragments. We had another clinical trial several years ago at Council Treatment Centers of America, with patients who had been subjected to a lot of chemotherapy that were all at the verge of thrombocytopenia, which is a loss of platelets.
And we and hold them when they were all expected to fall into thrombocytopenia thanks to the RNA fragments, none of them developed. And you could see that their bone marrow at the end of the experiment was in better shape and able to produce more platelets on its own than it was at the beginning of the the clinical trial. Just positive results, never any side effects, never any complication. It was an escalation dose meaning the patients started with 20mg, 40mg, 60mg, 80mg. Never any side effect was observed, which was something really, really important for my father.
No, do not harm. That was really is so so products that can help people with these issues. And they're not they don't have the toxicity that drugs do and they're much so good. But of course you even though they're safe much safer and and inside many cases more effective, but you still are limited by the FDA or by the governing bodies not to make claims because you don't have the billions of dollars behind a drug company to do the massive trials that it would take to get the. So sometimes how do you the limitation, you know, how do you avoid exaggerated claims
RNA fragments, blood support, and chemo synergy 26:00
and still have people know about the products and utilize them without coming into conflict with the FDA and stuff? It's a big limitation. And of course, I cannot say what the final product is doing, but on behalf of the foundation, I try to present the research and what the ingredients are doing, because the research is all about the ingredients and that I am allowed to do. And that's what we do at the Beljanski Foundation is to increase the knowledge about those ingredients. And I know that the that of other companies who are now using those ingredients to create new products.
But if you look at those other products very often, because they are not driven by research, they are driven by profit. You analyze their products. You see there are very, very little active in their products. What you see at the Beljanski Foundation is that we always, and as a products that used for the research, comes from Mason, Beljanski and Mason, Beljanski is always putting the same amount of active in the product used for research and the product which is sold to the people. This is really, really paramount of the integrity of what we are doing for.
And for example, when you see a study where we are giving to mice 20mg of extract per 20 20mg of extract per day, the equivalent of what one person would take, you know, and we just make sure that it is comparable. When we do a study with mice, we make sure that the mice are fed orally, just like somebody who would take capsules. You don't want to keep things comparable. It's not a perfect word, but that's the way it is with the FDA is limitations. But this is as close as we can get to provide real, scientifically rooted information to the public.
Great. Well, thanks a lot for this. But before we close, just have one more question. And people who have cancer. Are there any parts of the cancer therapy may be getting like if they're getting like hormone anti hormone or hormone suppression therapy, is there any period where where this product might be not indicated or contraindicated in conjunction with some other conventional therapy? Or what about the person who has breast cancer getting chemo. Do we hold it back during the phase of chemo?
And then when they're done with chemo, give them the product? Or if they just can take this this, they're they're not affected going to compete with liver enzymes. They're not going to cause any difficulty to continue to take these products. Q for this question, actually, my father demonstrated the synergy of action between those compounds and chemotherapy. They did that with the chemotherapies of his time. And we have done that also at concert treatment centers of at Kansas University Medical Center with gemcitabine carboplatin dossier Taxol to confirm again the synergy of action.
So those even when there is resistance to those drug drug treatments you can see that the of will continue to be effective. And what you have even more destruction of cancer cells when you take the two products together. Right. So you don't have to hold it. Hold it off. Absolutely not. It is.
Research access, FDA limits, and closing remarks 29:36
This has been a good documented. All the publications are available on the website of the foundation. So you can look at them and you will pursue them. And that will answer many of your questions. At Calm, they can see that that's the right website to spend. People who want to review the science beljanski.org or ask you for the foundation. So that's b e o j a n s k i b e l j a n ski B E L J A N S K I had x right. Okay good .ORG or yes. And people can also get informed about all the events of the Beljanski Foundation.
And join us to the conferences and learn more about cancer and integrative cancer. Well, thanks for joining us. And of course, thank you for all the hard work and dedication you've done over the decades to help people. It's just amazing. Thank you very much. Thank you doctor. Take care. Bye bye. Thank you.
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