Apricot kernels don't cure cancer, and they might poison you
Twice, Jason Vale was diagnosed with cancers that
should have killed him. But 30 years after the first tumor was found in
his chest when he was 18, Vale is still alive. The reason for his
survival is not chemo, radiation, cancer drugs, or surgery, Vale claims.
He says he owes his life to a controversial natural product that’s
been making headlines for years: apricot seeds.
Vale first learned about the seeds when he was 25 and was
diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, a common type of kidney cancer. He
refused any medical treatment and he says he only treated himself with
the kernels, eating up to 40 a day. "When I ate the seeds, my tumor
shrunk down and when I stopped eating the seeds the tumor grew," Vale
said in a voice message sent over text. "I used alternative medicine.
That’s why I can’t credit [traditional] medicine, because I didn’t take
it when it shrunk."
Some believe apricot kernels can fight or prevent cancer
Vale is not alone in believing that apricot kernels — the
soft, almond-like seeds found inside apricot pits — can fight or
prevent cancer. The internet is full of accounts written by people who
claim apricot kernels have saved their lives. The seeds contain
amygdalin, a compound also called laetrile
that some people believe has cancer-fighting properties. But amygdalin
is actually converted into cyanide in the body, a poison that can cause
nausea, headaches, insomnia, and nervousness. Cyanide can also lower
blood pressure to unsafe levels and even lead to death. Laetrile was
shown to have no anticancer activity in human clinical trials, according to the National Cancer Institute, and its use for treating cancer is illegal in the US.
Apricot seeds have been popular in the US since at least
the 1970s, when laetrile was popularized as a cancer treatment.
(Hollywood star Steve McQueen famously traveled
to Mexico in 1980 to cure his terminal cancer with laetrile, but died
within months of beginning the therapy.) The kernels have remained a
cult phenomenon ever since, even though they’re known to have caused
death in children who ate them. And they’re not the only "superfood"
touted for cancer treatment. A quick Google search shows thousands of
articles about the vitamin-rich fruits and veggies that are thought to
fight or prevent cancer — from kale to broccoli to blueberries to green
tea. Though these foods are healthy, the science behind their
cancer-fighting properties is murky, experts say. Sometimes there’s no
science at all. And often, these foods can even interfere with
chemotherapy, radiation, and cancer drugs, putting patients at risk.
"Many people believe that a natural product, herbs, and
fluids are safer than chemotherapy radiation treatment," says K. Simon
Yeung, a pharmacist and herbalist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center and the manager of the About Herbs database,
which informs patients on unproven anticancer treatments. "However, we
do know that natural doesn’t always mean safe and sometimes they have
more side effects than people believe."
"Natural doesn’t always mean safe."
Eating lots of fruits and vegetables can actually help
prevent cancer, experts say. But focusing on certain particular
"superfoods" is counterproductive, because it encourages people to eat a
few foods and ignore others. "Superfoods is a term that seeks to
describe food products with, apparently, superpowers," says Casey
Dunlop, a health information office at Cancer Research UK. "It’s
actually a marketing term. It’s not based on any scientific evidence."
Or sometimes the science isn’t clear cut. Certain vegetables — like broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower — have been found
to help lower the risk of prostate and breast cancer in certain
studies, but not in others. Translating small lab studies into actual
cancer treatments that work on a large scale is also hard. "Our bodies
are a lot more complex than a lab study," says Dunlop. "These findings
haven’t translated into big population studies."
In the case of apricot seeds, which contain amygdalin also found in
almonds and apple seeds, even a small dose is toxic because of the
cyanide. Their toxicity has been known for years.
More recently, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) — Europe’s
food safety watchdog — warned that the seeds are dangerous, especially
for children. In its report,
the EFSA notes a number of cases of children who were hospitalized for
cyanide poisoning caused by apricot kernels, including 260 such cases in
Turkey, where the seeds are a common food. A 28-month-old girl died because of high cyanide levels in her blood after eating 10 kernels.The researchers found that adults should limit themselves to three small kernels a day, and toddlers to one small kernel. But online, people recommend much higher doses. On his website, Vale talks about eating as many as 40 seeds per day. Veronique Desaulniers, who has a website about beating breast cancer only with natural treatments, says the general recommendation is one kernel per 10 pounds of body weight. And Sandi Rog, who has a blog titled "I Beat Cancer With Vitamin B17" — another name for amygdalin, says cancer patients should eat three to six seeds per hour. (Rog didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.)
When the kernels are chewed or ground, the amygdalin is degraded to cyanide. People who believe in the power of apricot kernels think that this cyanide is only toxic to cancer cells, but scientists say that’s not true. The cyanide is toxic to all cells because it interferes with their oxygen supply — and it is particularly bad for the brain and heart, which require constant oxygen to function.
But devotees of a nutrition-based approach to cancer
don’t believe this. How can scientists say that apricot kernels — a
natural product — are toxic, when chemotherapy is known for damaging
healthy body tissues alongside the cancer cells, they wonder. ToniAnn
Vizzi, the vice president of the P4 Foundation, a non-profit
organization that helps raise awareness about childhood cancer, says her
18-year-old son takes three apricot kernels a day in his protein shake.
Her son, Gino Vizzi, was diagnosed with chronic
myelogenous leukemia (CML) when he was 16. CML is incurable, so Vizzi
will have to do chemotherapy for the rest of his life, but in the
meantime he’s on an organic diet rich in vegetables, juices, vitamins,
filtered water, and probiotics. The diet includes the apricot seeds.
"Why not? It’s not gonna harm you," says his mom, ToniAnn. "It’s
something that I think God gave us to use and if you’re doing okay with
it and it works, why not?"
"The patients want to do everything they can."
The "why not" argument is one that experts see time and
again when dealing with cancer patients, who are particularly vulnerable
to falling prey to sham "cures." "It’s very difficult because with
cancer patients, the patients want to do everything they can," says
Adriana Salmon, a clinical dietitian at the University of Texas MD
Anderson Cancer Center. "And sometimes they feel like they don’t have
control over their treatment and they feel like, 'Oh, if I do this, I’m
going to help myself.'" Cancer centers usually offer nutrition advice to
patients, both because patients’ interest in alternative medicine is
growing and also because eating a healthy, plant-based diet can help
cancer patients deal with the side effects of chemotherapy and
radiation. But these nutritionists don’t suggest that nutrition alone
can cure cancer.
Vale, who refused treatment for his kidney cancer, began
selling apricot seeds on the internet as a cancer cure. Eventually in
2000 the US Food and Drug Administration got a court injunction to stop
him, and in 2003 Vale was convicted to five years in prison for criminal
contempt of the injunction. After his time at the Federal Correctional
Institution at Fort Dix in New Jersey, his kidney tumor grew larger
until, in 2013, Vale had his kidney removed.
Today, Vale doesn’t have cancer but he eats four to 15 seeds every day, most days, for prevention. His website, Apricots from God,
is a mishmash of his own cancer survival story, medical reports about
his tumors, newspaper clippings about laetrile, warning letters from the
FDA, and testimonials from people claiming to have cured themselves
with the kernels. On the upper right corner, a "Store" tab links you to a
related website where you can buy herbal products, enzymes, and organic
teas. Under a "Cancer Fighters" tab, you can find the apricot seeds. A
one-month "starter package"
that contains a pound of bitter apricot seeds, supplements like coral
calcium tea bags, and a DVD of the film "World Without Cancer" about
laetrile, goes for $199.
Even in the face of the evidence that apricot seeds are toxic, even after jail time, Vale remains a believer.
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