As I mentioned in the Apples section, Vitamin B17, otherwise known as Amygdalin or Laetrile is a nitriloside, which naturally occurs in a range of foods, including some berries, some beans, grasses, leaves, nuts, flax, bitter almonds, beansprouts, millet and certain fruit seeds. In fact it is found in over 1200 edible plants. It is particularly prevalent in the seeds of Apples, apricots and peaches.
It was originally brought to the public eye by Dr Ernst T Krebs, but was quickly squashed by the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr Krebs argued (very convincingly), that cancer was a symptom of a deficiency of vitamin B17. Watch the video below and see if you agree!
Dr Krebs applied for a patent for the process of producing a metabolite form for clinical use that he called Laetrile. As part of his research, he had discovered that the Hunza people (who live in the Himalayan mountains of northern India), had levels of cancer so extraordinarily low that they were considered to be virtually cancer-free.
He discovered that they consume large quantities of millet and apricots (including the seeds), which gave them a dietary intake of vitamin B17 greater than 100 times more than the average American.
Each molecule of vitamin B17 contains one unit of hydrogen cyanide, one unit of benzaldehyde and two units of glucose tightly locked together. The cyanide molecule can only become dangerous if the entire B17 molecule is dismantled.
Fortunately, we lack the enzymes necessary to break the molecule down, which makes it harmless to healthy tissue. Cancer cells, however, contain the necessary enzyme called beta-glucosidase. That means that when vitamin B17 disperses throughout your body, it is only broken down into cyanide within cancer cells, thereby creating a targeted therapy.
However, mainstream medicine and the pharmaceutical industry do not concur with the research, which is unsurprising considering that if vitamin B17 were proven to be effective in the treatment of cancer, it would entirely undermine $200 billion per year in revenues.
Dr Ralph Moss, when interviewed on the Laura Lee Radio Show in 1994 explained…
“Twenty years ago I was hired at Memorial Sloane Kettering (MSK) Cancer Centre in New York as the science writer, later promoted to assistant director of public affairs. Shortly after I went to work there I went to visit an elderly Japanese scientist, Kanematsu Sugiura, who astonished me when he told me he was working on Laetrile (B17), at the time it was the most controversial thing in cancer …reputed to be a cure for cancer.
We in public affairs were giving out statements that Laetrile was worthless, it was quackery, and people should not abandon proven therapies. I was astonished that our most distinguished scientist would be bothering with something like this, and I said why are you doing this if it does not work?
He took down lab books and showed me that in fact Laetrile is dramatically effective in stopping the spread of cancer. The animals were genetically programmed to get breast cancer and about 80 – 90% of them normally get spread of the cancer from the breast to the lungs which is a common route in humans, also for how people die of breast cancer, and instead when they gave the animals Laetrile by injection only 10-20% of them got lung metastases. And these facts were verified by many people, including the pathology department.”
When asked “So this is verified, that Laetrile can have this positive effect?”, Moss replied,
“We were finding this and yet we in public affairs were told to issue statements to the exact opposite of what we were finding scientifically, and as the years went by I got more wrapped up in this thing and 3 years later I said all this in my own press conference, and was fired the next day, ‘for failing to carry out his most basic job responsibility’ – ie to lie to the public about what goes on in cancer research.”
“Dr Sugiura, never renounced the results of his own studies, despite the fact they put enormous pressure on him to do so.”
“When I was at MSK a lot of very weird things started to happen to me, there was this cognitive distance between what I was told, and was writing about treatment, especially chemotherapy, and what I was seeing with my own eyes.
One time I heard the head of the intensive care unit give a talk in which he bragged about how he had one of the lowest mortality rates in his unit. I went out to lunch with him, where he became a bit inebriated, and told me how he managed to get those statistics – by wheeling the dying patients out into the corridor where they died and didn’t sully our department’s record.”
Unfortunately, it is increasingly apparent that public health, corporate finances, politics and even basic human decency cannot all be put first without something suffering.
In my honest opinion, I believe vitamin B17 is worthy of further research – to the degree that I have added apricot kernels and apple seeds to my diet. But it is likely to be just one of many tools and not the entire solution.
“The anti-cancer effect of amygdalin was demonstrated in Mexico by government sponsored research under Dr. Mario Soto De Leon and its use is legal. Dr Soto was the first medical director of the Cydel Clinic in Tijuana (taken over by Dr Manner). It is very important that it be prepared and administered correctly in sufficient dosage or it will not be effective. The trial performed at the Mayo Clinic in the early 80’s involved the use of the racemic mixture rather than the levo-rotary form and thus was only 10% of the strength required. In spite of this, towards the end of the experiment, the patients began to show improvement, but it was discontinued and declared ineffectual.” – from the book Deadly Deception by Dr Willner.