Hey everyone,

One of my mom's friends have suggested she look into a herbal tea called "Essiac". After some research it looks like some people claim it has cured their cancer (along with their treatment), however the NCI of the US has said that Essiac has no anti-cancer benefits ..

does anyone know anything about Essiac? or no someone who has used it?

Thanks

H

Her Son, this is another way to separate patients from their money.

Quack Watch says in part: "..the Federal Trade Commission's consent order required that the company send notices to past purchasers advising them that there is no reliable evidence that Essiac Tea is effective against cancer."

Read the rest of it here:

http://www.quackwatch.org/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=Essiac+tea

H,

"In 1922, a public health nurse named Rene Caisse from Ontario, Canada learned about Essiac from one of her patients who claimed to have recovered from breast cancer by taking an Indian herbal tea developed by an Ojibwa medicine man. She obtained the recipe and reportedly treated her aunt's stomach cancer with the tea. In 1924, Caisse opened a clinic and began to offer cancer patients the herbal mixture, which she named Essiac (her last name spelled backwards)."

The main ingredients are burdock root, slippery elm bark and sheep sorrel.

The Japanese eat a lot of burdock root and believe the long root promotes long life. It has never been scientifically proven but is more folk lore. Slippery elm bark has been used by eastern culture and native americans for centuries in a variety of forms. It is believed to sooth irritation and inflamation of mucous membranes and to reduce inflamation when made into a salve. Sheep Sorrel is high in oxalic acid, sodium, potassium, iron, manganese, phosphorous, beta carotene, and vitamin C.

If your beliefs allow ingesting of foods and herbs to promote health, the three above may have uses. However, as a medicine, better leave that to the pharmaceutical experts.

I prefer to eat foods that contain things that many herbal supplements intend to provide. For example, flax seed oil in smoothies, high omega-3 eggs, sushi, etc., for my omega-3, drinking green tea for 40 years, eating green leafy vegetables as often as possible and finding good recipes for a variety of vegetables.

It's sad when people take something they see or read and extrapolate that into a "cure" for anything. If cures were that easy, we wouldn't have such ailments everywhere we turn.

My two cents worth only.

Ed

heh. My sister recently sent me an email with a little grumbling about how awfully "Western Medicine" was. I am perfectly willing to believe that other cultures may have herbal remedies that can help prevent cancer and can certainly help with things like soothing mucous membranes (I've used slippery elm periodically for that in recovering from radiation). I drink green tea. I add flax seed oil to fresh squeezed juice and pour it through my PEG.

But as far as I'm concerned it's only because of Western Medicine that I'm still around today, none of these other things had the power to cure me. I don't have too many problems with Western medicine, except that it's not really fully accessible to too many people in the world.

Nelie

Me personally, I believe in Western, Eastern and some of the up there northern stuff, if you know what I mean. Have you heard of Throat Coat tea? I used it when my throat was full of the thick goo and hurting and it helped. I noticed it had slippery elm bark in it. It was purely coincidental but helped me giggle one day when someone sent me something about Essiac Tea. I was curious what was in the Throat Coat tea and grabbed the box. I don't know how it would work on others but it did soothe my throat. I was getting on the airplane each week just after treatment and I found that it was almost fretful to drink the stuff on an airplane. It seemed to cause the thick stuff at the back of the throat to give me the sensation of running out of air. I found over the (many) months that that same feeling comes and goes with post-nasal drip from allergies and nasty quality air.

Ed