Glandular Therapy
The glands that are known to have endocrine function include the pineal, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, thymus, adrenal, pancreas, and gonads (testes and ovaries). Other organs of the body are also commonly referred to as “glandulars” when they are taken as supplements. These include extracts of the heart, spleen, prostate, uterus, brain, etc… When many hormone systems are operating at a depressed level, glandular preparations may be combined into one product containing material from many organs and glands.
Glandular therapy refers to the use of animal tissues to try to enhance the function of, or mimic the effect of, the corresponding human tissue. Therefore, if your pituitary gland function is in question, the use of pituitary extracts may be supportive.
There are two basic concepts upon which glandular therapy is based. The first is that “like heals like.” For example, feeding prostate tissue might, in theory, help the body’s prostate gland heal or function better. The second concept is that ingestion of certain glandular tissues will provide the body with hormones or other biologically active substances that are normally secreted by that gland. For almost as long as historic records have been kept, glandular therapy has been an important form of medicine.
While some glandular preparations may be effective orally because of active hormone or enzyme content, the effects of other commercially available glandular products are not known as they have not been studied adequately.
Most glandular products are derived from beef (bovine) sources, with the exception of pancreatic extracts, which are most often derived from pork (porcine). The four most widely known methods of processing are the azeotrophic method, salt precipitation, freeze-drying, and predigestion.
The azeotrophic method begins by quick-freezing the material at well below 0 degrees F, and then washing the material with a powerful solvent (ethylene dichloride) to remove the fatty tissue. The solvent is then distilled off and the material is dried and ground into a powder so that it can be placed in tablets or capsules. Although the azeotrophic method aids in the removal of fat-stored toxins (like pesticides) and toxic heavy metals, it also removes fat-soluble hormones, enzymes, essential fatty acids, and other potentially beneficial materials.
The salt precipitation method involves the maceration of fresh glandular material in a salt and water solution. Like the azeotrophic method, this process also allows the fat-soluble material to be separated out. The benefit of the salt precipitation method is that no toxic solvents are used to remove the fatty material. The down side is that the salt content can be very high, and that some of the potentially beneficial constituents may be removed.
The freeze-drying process involves quickly freezing the glandular material and then placing the material in a vacuum, which removes the water by direct vaporization from its frozen state. The benefits of freeze-drying are that it preserves more of the unaltered protein and enzymes as well as all of the fat-soluble components. Since the fat is not removed, potentially harmful contaminants that accumulate in fat tissue may remain in the product. It is therefore critical that the glands be derived from livestock that have grazed on open ranges that are not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. The animals should also be free of antibiotics, synthetic hormones, and infection. Some companies only use the glands from newborn animals.
The predigestion method employs the aid of plant and animal enzymes to partially digest or hydrolyze the glandular material. The partially digested material is then passed through a series of filtrations to separate out fat-soluble and large molecules. The purified material is then freeze-dried. This method of extraction is thought to be ideal for certain glandulars, such as liver and thymus, where the polypeptide (small proteins) and other water-soluble fractions are desired.
Live Cell Therapy
A form of cellular therapy has been used by almost every culture since the dawn of mankind. Ingesting tissue, either animal or human with the expectation of acquiring spiritual or physical benefits has been chronicled throughout recorded history.
It was Dr. Kuettner, who in 1912, set the stage for modern Live Cell Therapy. He recommended that glands either be surgically implanted into the patient or cut into small pieces, dissolved in saline solution and injected into the patient. The injection method was all but forgotten until one day Dr. Niehan (in the 1930’s) was confronted with a patient that was too ill to be considered for an operation.
Normally he would have surgically implanted the gland, but instead he cut the parathyroid gland of an ox into tiny pieces, dissolved it in a saline solution and injected it into the patient. To his surprise, the benefits of the injection lasted longer than any synthetic hormone, or implant of a surgical graft. Many decades later, the patient was still free from the original disabling symptoms. This (injection approach) was the beginning of Live Cell Therapy as we know it today.
Swiss physician Paul Niehans discovered the beneficial effects of live cell therapy quite by accident. In 1931, Niehans was summoned by a colleague who had accidentally removed a patient’s parathyroid glands during the course of thyroid surgery. So vital are these glands to life that there was little chance that the woman could survive the day without them. A successful transplant was the only chance the surgeon had of saving her. So Niehans, who had a reputation for therapeutically transplanting organs and glands, was called in.
On his way to the hospital, Niehans stopped off at the abattoir, where the animals he used in his revitalization experiments were slaughtered. He obtained fresh parathyroid glands from a steer and proceeded to the hospital, fully intending to perform a parathyroid transplant.
However, when Niehans arrived, one look at the patient-who was violently convulsing-told him that there was simply not enough time to perform the operation. The woman would not survive long enough.
But Niehans had an idea. He used a surgical knife to slice the steer’s parathyroid glands into finer and finer pieces, taking care not to mash the individual cells. He then mixed the pieces in a saline solution and loaded it into a large hypodermic needle. To the shock and dismay of his colleagues, Niehans injected the mixture into the fatally ill woman.
Immediately, her convulsions ceased. Her condition improved- and continued improving. To everyone’s surprise, including Niehan’s, she recovered. Niehans wrote, many years later, “I thought the effect would be short-lived, just like the effect of an injection of hormones, and that I should have to repeat the injection. But to my great surprise, the injection of fresh cells not only failed to provoke a reaction but the effect lasted, and longer than any synthetic hormone, any implant or any surgical graft.”
Longer indeed. The woman went on to live another 30 years, well into her 90’s.
Thus was born cell therapy. At his Clinique La Prairie in Montreaux, Switzerland, Dr. Niehans went on to administer live cell injections to thousands and thousands of patients, including many of the crowned heads, presidents, Pope Pius XII, and several Hollywood stars.
In the 1980’s, and with the advent of the bringing of the Niehans system to Mexico (primarily through one of his disciples, W.W. Kuhnau), cellular therapy was fitted into a broader concept by the Bradford Research Institute in conjunction with American Biologics-Mexico, S.A. Medical Center. This broader concept is “individualized, integrated metabolic programs” (IIMP) – a holistically oriented and eclectic multidisciplinary approach to chronic, systemic degenerative diseases.
But in whatever program live cell therapy is used, the treatments are still basically aimed at a combination of endocrinological stabilization, (“hormonal harmonizing,” as Dr. Kuhnau calls it), rejuvenation and regeneration. All such treatments consist of the subcutaneous injection of cellular suspensions from embryonic endocrine glands and other tissues, the injections given in rapid sequence in one sitting. The combinations of which kinds of cells to give constitutes not only the “science” but the “art” of live cell therapy the use of thymus, brain and adrenal live cells in muscular dystrophy, or of bone and alveolar cells for arteriosclerosis, for example. While as many as 40 kinds of glandular or tissue cellular suspensions are normally available for live cell therapy, it is rare to give more than six in one day for a single course of treatment.
The combining of live cell injections within a total program of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, anti-oxidative substances and dietary manipulation, as advances by the B.R.I.- AB-Mexico effort, began turning in startling results in the 1980’s which continue to the present time. The addition of a thorough pre-treatment program to potentiate live cells is a primary element in this new dimension, as pioneered by the B.R.I.
The cellular suspensions provide some results, which may be felt almost immediately and other, more typically, become apparent from three to five months later. And as results settle in, patients almost experience a wide variety of positive responses. Not only do specific pathologies reflect benefits, but such subjective signs as sudden improvement in energy levels, vision, appetite normalization, immunological panels and sexual performance are frequently reported.
Live cells must either be used immediately or preserved in some manner for future use. Freezing and freeze-drying became the two methods for cell preservation, but the specific manner in which cells are frozen and thawed determine whether they will be viable following storage in the frozen state. It is now understood that typical freeze-drying not only ruptures cells, but inactivates cell recognition receptors and liberates much more antigenic material than from whole cells, and that freezing without cryoprotectants and timed-freeze and thaw techniques alters cells, preventing them from targeting the important alpha fetoprotein (AFP) and other cellular materials.
Cell preservation problems have been solved. The B.R.I. is researching advances in the modern techniques of cell culture which promise to replace present-day methods of cell preservation.
Glandular / Live Cell Therapy can help with the following
Multiple Sclerosis / Risk
2008. A preliminary study on the use of stem cells obtained from a patient’s own adipose tissue in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) has shown promising results.
The three case studies, described in BioMed Central’s open access Journal of Translational Medicine support further clinical evaluation of what are known as stromal vascular fraction (SVF) cells in MS and other autoimmune conditions.
Thomas Ichim, from Medistem Inc., and Dr. Boris Minev, from the Division of Neurosurgery, University of California San Diego, worked with a team of researchers to demonstrate the possible effectiveness of SVF cells in MS treatment.
Minev said, “All three patients in our study showed dramatic improvement in their condition after the course of SVF therapy. While obviously no conclusions in terms of therapeutic efficacy can be drawn from these reports, this first clinical use of fat stem cells for treatment of MS supports further investigations into this very simple and easily-implementable treatment methodology.”
According to Minev, “None of the presently available MS treatments selectively inhibit the immune attack against the nervous system, nor do they stimulate regeneration of previously damaged tissue. We’ve shown that SVF cells may fill this therapeutic gap.”
Minev and his colleagues provided the SVF treatment to three patients with MS. The first had suffered frequent painful seizures for the previous three years; after treatment he reported that the seizures had stopped completely and that he had seen significant improvements in his cognition and a reduction of spasticity in his arms and legs.
The second patient reported improvements in his sense of balance and coordination, as well as an improved energy level and mood. The final patient had been diagnosed with MS in 1993. After SVF treatment in 2008, his gait, balance and coordination improved dramatically over a period of several weeks. According to Minev, “His condition continued to improve over the next few months and he is currently reporting a continuing improvement and ability to jog, run and even bicycle.”
Chronic Thyroiditis
There are glandular preparations which may help reduce thyroid antibodies over time. High doses of a product such as Thyrostim or Thytrophin PMG could help. These are a neonatal bovine glandular formulas designed to support optimal thyroid function. They may contain supplemental factors such as vitamin A, selected minerals, amino acids, iodine, SOD and catalase, which help support and maintain normal functioning of the thyroid gland.
Diabetes Type I
Researchers have found a way of inducing human beta cells, the insulin-producing cells destroyed by diabetes, thus offering hope of new treatments for the disease.
Nathalie Fiaschi-Taesch, Ph.D., and Todd Bigatel, both of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues found that human beta cells contain a significant amount of a protein called cdk-6. The researchers then went on to discover that increasing cdk-6 production using a viral vector carrying the cdk-6 gene caused the beta cells to replicate. Further studies showed that it was possible to enhance replication by increasing the production of another molecule called cyclin D1, which is involved in cell cycle control.
Next, the researchers transplanted some of the engineered human beta cells under the outer layer of a kidney in a diabetic mouse. Study results showed that beta cell replication continued and the mouse’s blood sugar levels returned to normal levels. Removing the cells from the mouse caused the mouse to immediately become diabetic again.
“This work provides proof-of-principle that the production of human beta cells can be stimulated, and that the newly generated cells function effectively both in the lab and in a living animal,” said senior author Professor Andrew Stewart. [University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. January 13th 2009]
2009. A study carried out in Brazil and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, on the use of adult stems cells to treat diabetes, has found that most of the patients in the study group were partially or wholly healed of the disease after receiving injections of stem cells from their own bone marrow.
The procedure, called autologous nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), was carried out on 15 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM). The report on the study stated that most of the patients no longer needed insulin injections after the treatment and were still “insulin free with normal levels of glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) during a mean 18.8-month follow-up.”
“After a mean follow-up of 29.8 months … the majority of patients achieved insulin independence with good glycemic control.”
Diabetes Type II
Researchers have found a way of inducing human beta cells, the insulin-producing cells destroyed by diabetes, thus offering hope of new treatments for the disease.
Nathalie Fiaschi-Taesch, Ph.D., and Todd Bigatel, both of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues found that human beta cells contain a significant amount of a protein called cdk-6. The researchers then went on to discover that increasing cdk-6 production using a viral vector carrying the cdk-6 gene caused the beta cells to replicate. Further studies showed that it was possible to enhance replication by increasing the production of another molecule called cyclin D1, which is involved in cell cycle control.
Next, the researchers transplanted some of the engineered human beta cells under the outer layer of a kidney in a diabetic mouse. Study results showed that beta cell replication continued and the mouse’s blood sugar levels returned to normal levels. Removing the cells from the mouse caused the mouse to immediately become diabetic again.
“This work provides proof-of-principle that the production of human beta cells can be stimulated, and that the newly generated cells function effectively both in the lab and in a living animal,” said senior author Professor Andrew Stewart. [University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences. January 13th 2009]
2009. A study carried out in Brazil and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, on the use of adult stems cells to treat diabetes, has found that most of the patients in the study group were partially or wholly healed of the disease after receiving injections of stem cells from their own bone marrow.
The procedure, called autologous nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), was carried out on 15 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM). The report on the study stated that most of the patients no longer needed insulin injections after the treatment and were still “insulin free with normal levels of glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) during a mean 18.8-month follow-up.”
“After a mean follow-up of 29.8 months … the majority of patients achieved insulin independence with good glycemic control.”
Hepatitis
A double-blind study conducted on 556 patients with chronic hepatitis concluded that liver extract is effective in the treatment of this disease through its ability to improve the function of damaged liver cells. [Fujissawa et al, 1984]
In one study involving 18 patients with hepatitis B, a complete cessation of viral replication was observed after six months of supplementation with thymus extract [Dworniak et al, 1991]. In another study involving 102 patients with chronic hepatitis and primary biliary cirrhosis, thymus extract was able to significantly improve immune competence. [Radchenko et al, 1992]
Mesenchyme extract is derived from cells found in mammal extra-embryonic membranes. Mesenchymal cells differ from other cells in that, they are capable of dividing and renewing themselves for long periods, they are unspecialized, and they can give rise to various specialized cell types. These embryonic cells are a great source of various cell signaling factors (CSF). Mesenchymal CSFs can stimulate and support the production of local growth factors in any tissue repair process. Because of these unique attributes, supplementation with mesenchyme extract would be expected to help support the liver to regenerate itself in people with hepatitis.
One product, called Zepatix, produced by Atrium Biotech, contains all three of the above extracts. It is somewhat expensive, as might be expected, and must be shipped frozen to retain freshness.
Female Infertility
Although hard evidence is still lacking, many natural doctors use glandular extracts to promote reproductive health. These are usually extracts from several different organs including ovaries, uterus and others. These combination products may contain selected homeopathic remedies as well.
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)
A protomorphogen extract from Standard Process called Symplex F is a mixture of specially processed glandular extracts from the four organs that make up the so-called pituitary axis – the pituitary, thyroid, adrenal glands and the ovaries. One to two tablets per day for a year can help normalize the function of these important organs.
Key
| May do some good |
| Likely to help |
| Highly recommended |
| Avoid absolutely |
Glossary
Pituitary
The pituitary gland is small and bean-shaped, located below the brain in the skull base very near the hypothalamus. Weighing less than one gram, the pituitary gland is often called the "master gland" since it controls the secretion of hormones by other endocrine glands.
Thyroid
Thyroid Gland: An organ with many veins. It is at the front of the neck. It is essential to normal body growth in infancy and childhood. It releases thyroid hormones - iodine-containing compounds that increase the rate of metabolism, affect body temperature, regulate protein, fat, and carbohydrate catabolism in all cells. They keep up growth hormone release, skeletal maturation, and heart rate, force, and output. They promote central nervous system growth, stimulate the making of many enzymes, and are necessary for muscle tone and vigor.
Prostate
The prostate gland in men that surrounds the neck of the bladder and the urethra and produces a secretion that liquefies coagulated semen.
Hormones
Chemical substances secreted by a variety of body organs that are carried by the bloodstream and usually influence cells some distance from the source of production. Hormones signal certain enzymes to perform their functions and, in this way, regulate such body functions as blood sugar levels, insulin levels, the menstrual cycle, and growth. These can be prescription, over-the-counter, synthetic or natural agents. Examples include adrenal hormones such as corticosteroids and aldosterone; glucagon, growth hormone, insulin, testosterone, estrogens, progestins, progesterone, DHEA, melatonin, and thyroid hormones such as thyroxine and calcitonin.
Enzymes
Specific protein catalysts produced by the cells that are crucial in chemical reactions and in building up or synthesizing most compounds in the body. Each enzyme performs a specific function without itself being consumed. For example, the digestive enzyme amylase acts on carbohydrates in foods to break them down.
Essential Fatty Acid
(EFA): A substance that the human body cannot manufacture and therefore must be supplied in the diet.
Protein
Compounds composed of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen present in the body and in foods that form complex combinations of amino acids. Protein is essential for life and is used for growth and repair. Foods that supply the body with protein include animal products, grains, legumes, and vegetables. Proteins from animal sources contain the essential amino acids. Proteins are changed to amino acids in the body.
Parathyroid Gland
One of many small structures, usually four, joined to the lobes of the thyroid gland. The parathyroid glands release a hormone that helps to keep the level of blood calcium normal.
Metabolism
The chemical processes of living cells in which energy is produced in order to replace and repair tissues and maintain a healthy body. Responsible for the production of energy, biosynthesis of important substances, and degradation of various compounds.
Chronic
Usually Chronic illness: Illness extending over a long period of time.
Alveolar
Pertaining to a small hollow space, as in the lung, e.g. pulmonary alveolus.
Arteriosclerosis
A common arterial disorder. Characterized by calcified yellowish plaques, lipids, and cellular debris in the inner layers of the walls of large and medium-sized arteries.
Mineral
Plays a vital role in regulating many body functions. They act as catalysts in nerve response, muscle contraction and the metabolism of nutrients in foods. They regulate electrolyte balance and hormonal production, and they strengthen skeletal structures.
Antigen
A substance, usually protein or protein-sugar complex in nature, which, being foreign to the bloodstream or tissues of an animal, stimulates the formation of specific blood serum antibodies and white blood cell activity. Re-exposure to similar antigen will reactivate the white blood cells and antibody programmed against this specific antigen.