Is Isoflavone Better Than Chemotherapy?

Cancer? Have some Parsley and Dill

We have long seen and heard of supplements and herbs and ‘natural’ remedies that can cure any disease you have, including cancer. It irks me when I see headlines such as “Parsley and Dill could besafer than chemo”. Nevertheless, if you remember my previous blog on a magazine I had discovered called 'What Doctors Don't Tell You' - this is the headline they decided to run with. The article focuses on a study published in the Journal of Natural Products, Yes, that is apparently a real journal. Which has an impact factor of 3.7 (in 2014), ridiculously low – meaning it would be easy to get something published in there and what is published in there, really isn’t of much value to the world of actual science, shockingly.

Isoflavone

The article places focus on Isoflavone; a naturally occurring phenol, often referred to as phytoestrogens due to their biological activity effecting the estrogen receptors. Soy beans are a great source of isoflavones, for example. I should point out here that Isoflavone is a very broad term, very broad. What is quite remarkable about these is that they are relatively untested for safety and efficacy. Obviously as they are naturally occurring, organic shills will jump on this avenue claiming ridiculously stupid, untested benefits. It was only last year, after all, that one of the isoflavinoids was identified to cause biliary atresia when infants were exposed to it. 

The main focal point is placed on the isoflavone glaziovainin A. So, lets take a look at this thought provoking, innovative study entitled: Efficient Synthesis of Glaziovianin A isoflavone Series from Dill and Parsley Extracts and Their in Vitro/In Vivo Antimimotic Activity. Well, there isn’t much to say, other than that they are really looking more at the pathways of biological metabolism. There is no conclusive proof of anything, not even the pathways they appear to have produced. Yet, the author, Alex Kiselev, of the paper states:

 

"Both improvement of existing therapies and search for innovative approaches are essential components of a quest to treat cancer. Our combined team developed a simple method of producing glaziovianin A and its structural analogs, which inhibit the growth of human tumor cells, using feasible building blocks from nature. Furthermore, evaluation of these novel agents in vivo using our validated sea urchin embryo assays yielded several promising candidates selectively affecting tubulin dynamics"

I don’t know who has ‘validated’ this assay that they are speaking of, but they most certainly did not ‘cure cancer’. My main issue here is not the bad science, that’s pretty much a standard in this day and age - and sadly, it will be around forever. My issue is the marketing of the articles and the claims made by the author, the findings do not, in any way, fit the conclusion that ‘eating dill and parsley is better for you than chemotherapy’. Yes, chemotherapy is intense and has some nasty side effects, but the cost of refusing treatment and eating isoflavones would be a lot direr. The study does not compare the efficacy of isoflavones as a cure for cancer in a human model, nor does it compare to chemotherapy success rates. So, if you have cancer and favour more natural remedies over chemo, don’t. If this was a study of high quality and value, why are we only seeing it published in an extremely low impact factor journal? Why not the New England Journal of Medicine or Nature? Does a double blind controlled experiment mean nothing to these people? There is not much data on the adverse effects of isoflavones, they are most commonly poured into the supplement industry and shoved down the throats of consumers as ‘natural remedies’. In evidence lies truth – and there is just no evidence here. 

I did however, find some light in all of this. I found a website mimicking 'what doctors don't tell you' magazine covers, such as:

Conclusion

To claim that you have conducted a study that has produced a cure for one of the most horrific diseases is one thing. To claim you can pit it against the one thing we know can destroy cancer cells is another. To claim that it works better, that is just absurd. How these ‘scientists’ and the media get away with producing and marketing such articles is unfathomable. The naturalistic fallacy of 'natural means healthy' really has to be stopped and is so misunderstood amongst the general population - that is what these people play on. I implore you not to listen to them and read actual evidence and science based medicine, not the pseudoscientific bullshit that these despicable quacks have produced.