10-09-2011, 08:41
Hi GorgeousBlonde,
That's because it's such a simple experiment, far away from the reality in our bodies. They just mix some breast cancer cells from the trash of the operation room with a solution of PM. This sentence is about the concentration of the solution:
"Pueraria mirifica caused proliferation at 1 μg/mL and an anti-proliferative effect on the growth of MCF-7 cells at 100 and 1000 μg/mL"
Suppose you have some 40 kg (88 lbs) of total liquid in your body. That's 40 liters. One microgram per milliliter (μg/mL) is one mg per liter. So in 40 liters, that's 40 mg. But the article says that dose makes the cancer cells grow.
Safe doses are 100 and 1000 times larger, so that's 4,000 and 40,000 mg. Those are stalling doses. Unfortunately, the article doesn't say what happens at 400 mg.
MCF-7 are breast cancer cells that grow on estrogen. So what the test does is measure estrogenic effect. That's the same thing we do when we measure growth. So if you already have breast cancer, stay away from phyto-estrogens altogether.
The same test on hops and soy gives the same result: NBE doses make breast cancer cells grow, stalling doses kill them. Yet studies on hops and soy show that in groups of people who take hops or soy in NBE doses, less people get breast cancer.
I haven't seen a similar study on PM yet. Maybe you can find one. This is one of the reasons why I am personally not ready to take PM yet. But if you have any confidence in the crystal ball of an old R&D rat: if the above and similar studies show the same results for PM as for hops and for soy again and again, why would more expensive follow-up studies show results that are dramatically different? Of course, the Thai department of agriculture and export may be reluctant to pay for those studies.
If you take away all the magic that has been created around PM on this forum, the hard scientific facts tell me that PM is just another phyto-estrogen. The difference with hops, soy and flax is in the side effects. And if PM did contain some unknown carcinogen (plants never do), how would that make the Thai cancer statistics look? I bet the Thai department of health would have been on it long ago.
I'll check if I can find a more complex study. But each time I look, what the Thai government has payed for so far is much less than what the Belgian government have done for hops, and the UK government on lignans from grains, and even the more budget constrained Peruvian government on maca.
I do hope other forum members have found something I overlooked. If not, we'll just have to wait for the front line of science to move forward.
That's because it's such a simple experiment, far away from the reality in our bodies. They just mix some breast cancer cells from the trash of the operation room with a solution of PM. This sentence is about the concentration of the solution:
"Pueraria mirifica caused proliferation at 1 μg/mL and an anti-proliferative effect on the growth of MCF-7 cells at 100 and 1000 μg/mL"
Suppose you have some 40 kg (88 lbs) of total liquid in your body. That's 40 liters. One microgram per milliliter (μg/mL) is one mg per liter. So in 40 liters, that's 40 mg. But the article says that dose makes the cancer cells grow.
Safe doses are 100 and 1000 times larger, so that's 4,000 and 40,000 mg. Those are stalling doses. Unfortunately, the article doesn't say what happens at 400 mg.
MCF-7 are breast cancer cells that grow on estrogen. So what the test does is measure estrogenic effect. That's the same thing we do when we measure growth. So if you already have breast cancer, stay away from phyto-estrogens altogether.
The same test on hops and soy gives the same result: NBE doses make breast cancer cells grow, stalling doses kill them. Yet studies on hops and soy show that in groups of people who take hops or soy in NBE doses, less people get breast cancer.
I haven't seen a similar study on PM yet. Maybe you can find one. This is one of the reasons why I am personally not ready to take PM yet. But if you have any confidence in the crystal ball of an old R&D rat: if the above and similar studies show the same results for PM as for hops and for soy again and again, why would more expensive follow-up studies show results that are dramatically different? Of course, the Thai department of agriculture and export may be reluctant to pay for those studies.
If you take away all the magic that has been created around PM on this forum, the hard scientific facts tell me that PM is just another phyto-estrogen. The difference with hops, soy and flax is in the side effects. And if PM did contain some unknown carcinogen (plants never do), how would that make the Thai cancer statistics look? I bet the Thai department of health would have been on it long ago.
I'll check if I can find a more complex study. But each time I look, what the Thai government has payed for so far is much less than what the Belgian government have done for hops, and the UK government on lignans from grains, and even the more budget constrained Peruvian government on maca.
I do hope other forum members have found something I overlooked. If not, we'll just have to wait for the front line of science to move forward.