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Could an apricot fight cancer?
18th November 2005
When you think of the word 'cyanide', what images do you conjure up?
Is it an Agatha Christie villain creeping through a mansion with a vial of poison, hoping to knock off a rich heiress?
Is it the notorious Nazi, Herman Goering, slipping that fatal pill into his mouth to escape hanging at Nuremberg?
Or do you think of the humble apricot?
If you've thought of cyanide only as history's most famous poison... then you might be in for a surprise.
I'd like to show you how the kind of cyanide you find inside an apricot can actually fight and KILL cancer.
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What the Ancient Egyptians discovered about kernels
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The ancient Egyptians were the first to discover how to extract a powerful poison from peach or apricot kernels.
There's a papyrus in Louvre which shows the earliest recording of preparing cyanide. The text warns:
'Pronounce not the name of I.A.O [God] under the penalty of the peach.'
Under penalty of THE PEACH... how strange... but probably very effective when Egyptians found out what cyanide could do.
However, modern science didn't discover the chemistry behind this until 1802.
In that year, a chemist called Bohn discovered that when he distilled the water from bitter almonds, hydrocyanic acid was released.
This was hydrogen cyanide. The stuff that threatened the lives of blasphemous Egyptians.
A few years later, a couple of scientists managed to isolate a white substance in hydrogen cyanide, known as Vitamin B17... or, more commonly, 'amygdalin'
Amygdalin is what's known as a 'cyanide radical'.
In simple terms, this means is that it has some of the properties of cyanide, but can also change the nature of cells.
As I mentioned earlier, the word 'cyanide' may bring up terrifying images... but scientists have proved that, in small doses, amygdalin is safe.
For instance, this is a substance that you can find in Vitamin B12, and consume when you eat delicious treats like blackberries, blueberries and strawberries.
And have you ever heard of anyone keeling over after a pound of strawberries?
I presume not.
(This is where I get an email telling me the gruesome tale of how Uncle Walter requested strawberries as his last meal before he faced the firing squad.)
The reason is that while hydrogen cyanide is the lethal stuff that killed Herman Goering... amygdalin is a totally different kind of substance.
Think of it this way...
Pure sodium is a horribly toxic substance for human beings... while, in reasonable amounts, sodium chloride (table salt) does no harm at all.
So why all the fuss then, about this safe cyanide radical known as vitamin B17?
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The stuff that kills cancer cells
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Cyanide radicals may not harm you in natural amounts... but it does some terrible things to cancerous cells.
Normal, healthy cells in our bodies contain an enzyme called Rhodanese. This enzyme neutralises the amygdalin (vitamin B17) and stops it from releasing hydrogen cyanide.
But for cancer cells, it's another matter.
They DON'T contain the enzyme Rhodanese. Without it, the amygdalin releases cyanide and begins destroying these malignant cells.
Wow. Here you have something that potentially kills the bad cancer cells and spares the good.
This stuff is like Clint Eastwood on a mission.
So why all the bad press?
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The big bad pharmaceuticals AGAIN
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Eighteen years ago, some of the world's top scientists claimed that vitamin B17 could stop people developing cancer - and even KILL existing cancer.
Great news, surely?
Well no. Because this was just an extract of apricot stones, it couldn't be patented by pharmaceutical companies to make tonnes of cash.
So the drug barons demanded that more studies be conducted. They stirred up fear, controversy and suspicion.
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration has banned the interstate shipment and sale of Vitamin B17.
They alleged that it's either an 'unlicensed new 'drug' or an 'unsafe or adulterated food or food additive'.
Of course, as you now know, it comes from apricot kernels. But that hasn't stopped information about vitamin B17 being brushed under the carpet.
I mean, even if the scientists are wrong, don't you have the right to know that you could protect yourself with this vitamin?
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How to find and take Vitamin B17
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You need a minimum of 100mg of vitamin B-17 (the equivalent of about seven apricots kernels) to help ensure a cancer-free life.
You can find the highest amounts of vitamin B17 in bitter almonds, apple, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, pear, plum and prune.
But it's also in beans, chickpeas, cashew nuts, blackberries, cranberries, elderberries, raspberries and strawberries.
To get your daily dose of B17 you should eat the above fruits whole, or you can eat a single peach or apricot kernel per 10lb of your body weight
But please heed this WARNING:
Don't eat more of the seeds by themselves than you would if you ate them in the whole fruit.
For instance, you can wolf down three apples a day... but not a whole pound of apple seeds, or you'll seriously endanger your health.
Get your seeds at your local health store or type 'buy apricot kernels' into a search engine like www.google.com (request only pages from the UK) and look at the ads running down the right of the page.
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How to fight colds with a mustard bath
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On Monday, scientists claimed they have the first proof that there really is a link between getting cold and catching one.
So my mother was right, it seems.
Staff at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff asked half of a group of 180 subjects to keep their bare feet in icy water for 20 minutes (where do they get these volunteers from?)
They found that 29% developed a cold within five days. This is compared to only 9% in the group who weren't exposed to a chill.
But one Good Lifer, J.S, sent me an email revealing how sticking your feet in a bucket of water could actually help fight colds.
She wrote:
'My Grandmother always used to prepare a 'Mustard Bath' for my Grandad to soak his feet in when he had been out all day in very wet weather... and the result was that he never caught a cold.'
Great stuff, J.S....
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Keep your emails coming, but please bear with me
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As always, I love getting your emails, so keep them coming. Unfortunately, I can't promise to answer directly or give you personal advice.
But I can make sure that I cover the topics that affect you.
For instance, today's letter on vitamin B-17 was the result of a quite a few reader enquiries.
So I hope I've explained it in enough detail for you to make an informed decision.
In the meantime, have a marvellous Friday.
I'm off to juice three whole apples to get my vitamin B-17 quota. It's got to be the tastiest medicine
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