And again, the Beljanski team found that both anticancer alkaloid extracts are selective; they attach only to cancerous DNA and do not affect normal and healthy DNA nor any other part of a viable cell. In test after test, the laboratory animals that were affected by cancer but recovered survived for prolonged periods and remained in excellent health. They suffered neither from weight loss nor other undesirable side effects. These extracts prevented the synthetic and toxic chemotherapy as well as the radiotherapy from producing their usual harmful effects. Beljanski showed during the decade of the 1980s—a dramatic and true medical breakthrough—that a cure for cancer
in vivo
is available.
All experiments conducted by Dr. Beljanski were replicated multiple times using both alkaloids and various methods of administration: oral, intravenous, intra-peritoneal (directly into the body cavity), and intralesionally (directly into the tumor). It was thanks to the French Army, that the integrative effect of the bolt molecules with both chemotherapy and radiation therapy could be exploited. Because of his contract with the army, Beljanski’s research team had the resources for experimentation, access to gamma radiation, and massive amounts of laboratory mice to use in experiments.
Here again, this is a study that needs to be repeated in American laboratories to confirm the results. But as a long-time proponent of alternative therapies, I was truly awed to learn that Beljanski would even consider doing a study combining his bolt molecules with conventional cancer treatments. I was even more excited—and humbled—by the excellent responses the integrative approach had against cancer.
RNA Fragments—Integrative Approach #2
That study made me revisit Beljanski’s early work on RNA and radiation to find if this trend of integration had started earlier, and if so when. (RNA is the other nucleic acid in the cell and it plays a critical role in helping DNA do its work as well as transporting material around the cell. RNA also has a number of independent functions which are no less important than DNA.) What I found was that Beljanski had been integrative from the beginning, for he discovered, during the course of his life-time at the laboratory bench, two other substances that enhanced the effects of the traditional treatments: one made from RNA fragments; the other coming not from the green but from the golden leaf of the ancient and remarkably resilient
Ginkgo biloba
tree. Beljanski discovered that these two substances helped the body recover from the nasty side effects of conventional treatment, so much so in some cases that the chemo or radiation could be continued for longer periods and even higher doses, thereby killing more cancer cells.
Early Research on RNA
Dr. Mirko Beljanski spent the bulk of his professional life devoted not to cancerous DNA but to uncovering the mysteries of RNA. I have related the story of Beljanski’s discoveries concerning cancerous DNA first because I feel they rank above RNA in importance in the real war against cancer. However, the DNA research, as you have seen by the dates I gave you, came later in Beljanski’s career. The thirty years he spent at the Pasteur Institute, from 1948 to 1978, were dedicated to some of the earliest discoveries in modern research on RNA and its relationship to DNA.
His interest in RNA was at direct odds with the Institute’s director Jacques Monod, Ph.D. Dr. Monod declared that everyone under his employ was to work on the “central dogma” of DNA and accept RNA simply as its “messenger boy.”
Beljanski ignored his boss and made some of the most important discoveries of his career with RNA, such as the role of RNA is as fundamental as DNA in terms of cell duplication and protein synthesis. Proteins, as I mentioned in chapter 1, are essential for one’s total physiology because protein is required basically for everything having to do with the physical body: the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s cells, tissues, and organs. Protein synthesis, then, is vital for life to continue. Beljanski is also arguably the first to have discovered the enzyme “reverse transcriptase”—so named because it reverses the usual transcription of DNA into RNA. In order for genetic information to be passed from DNA to the rest of the cell and hence to the body as a whole, it has to be transferred from DNA into RNA. Reverse transcription means that RNA is actually transferring genetic information into DNA—the reverse of the usual process. Reverse transcription has become important to all of humanity because of the HIV virus that works exactly on that principle. It is a very complex process, but the simple effect of it is that it enables a virus to be inserted into the host’s DNA and replicated by the host and that’s why HIV seems impossible to cure or even treat with any good effect.
Dr. Beljanski was definitely the first to detect reverse transcriptase in bacteria in 1974. Dr. James Grutsch, clinical-trial consultant to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, who was a fledgling scientist at the Pasteur Institute during Beljanski’s term there, elegantly explains,
“Dr. Beljanski was pioneering research into [RNA] and proving RNA indeed spoke back to DNA and gave it new information that changed its [DNA’s] blueprint.” Dr. Grutsch, nodding to the constant dissention between Beljanski and Monod, adds, “If [Beljanski] survived all those years under a director like Monod—who did not tolerate dummies— he must have been a darn good scientist. He had done all of the work to show us that we could actually save lives with RNA.”
Because Dr. Beljanski’s research into RNA is so extensive and quite scientifically complicated, I am not going to go into detail here. But if you’re interested in acquiring further information, please see
A Pioneer in Biomedicine
by C.G. Nordau and Monique Beljanski;
Extraordinary Healing
by L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D.; and the numbers of pertinent publications listed in Appendix B authored or coauthored by Mirko Beljanski in which you can learn more about Dr. Beljanski’s important discoveries in RNA.
For our purposes, what Beljanski discovered concerning RNA will make chemotherapy or radiotherapy patients rejoice, for they will no longer need to experience its extensive complications or other adverse side effects! That alone makes Beljanski’s discoveries good candidates to be included in the acceptable integrative treatments used in forwardthinking cancer hospitals around the world.
Primer RNA
RNA comes in many forms in every human cell, and it plays a central part in the cell’s ability to replicate itself. Some of the common forms of RNA that you might come across are
messenger RNA
(mRNA). This is what RNA is most known for. This is the type of RNA that tells the cell what genetic message is being transferred from the DNA.
Next there is
transfer RNA
(tRNA). It takes the genetic information and transfers it to the rest of the cell, so that the cell knows what kind of protein it needs to make. When I talked about protein composition in chapter 1, I talked about how amino acids are bonded together with peptides to form the polypeptide chains of protein. Transfer RNA brings the correct amino acids to the ribosome in a cell. A ribosome is the part
of a cell that manufactures protein, which brings us to another type of RNA, what microbiologists have identified as
ribosomal RNA
(rRNA). Ribosomal RNA is the molecular component of a ribosome. Some biochemists have called it the “cell’s essential protein factory”
because rRNA actually fabricates the polypeptides that bond the amino acids together. The importance of RNA to the functioning of our bodies at the cellular structure cannot be discounted. It’s everything! Without it we are nothing, literally no muscles, no tissues, no organs—all those things that hold our bodies together.
After Beljanski detected reverse transcriptase in bacteria in 1974, he asked himself in his daily journal: “Would promoting DNA in the bone marrow facilitate the appearance of blood cells?”
His answer led him to find a technique to produce something called small primer RNA’s. “Small” RNA are so called because they are noncoding, meaning they don’t translate into a protein molecule. “Primer” means that they prepare the site of the DNA strand that is be replicated. With his young and enthusiastic apprentice, Michel Plawecki, Ph.D., Dr. Beljanski was able to find an RNA primer that would be specific to enhancing DNA synthesis of mammalian bone marrow. He produced the primer from ribosomal RNA, but he had to figure out how to first isolate rRNA and then “cleave” it or cut it up with pancreatic enzymes. With this process, he had discovered yet another monumental way to help all those who suffered the severe side effects of conventional cancer treatments.
In order to ensure that their primer was as close to physiologically produced ones as possible, the two biological scientists prepared RNA fragments from rRNA using the RNA from safe-origin bacteria
E. coli
K12, a natural host in the human intestinal track and well-known to be harmless. The RNA fragments are made from an extract of
E. coli
K-12 bacteria that has been purified repeatedly so it is very safe for human consumption. They then split or “cleaved” the rRNA by the pancreatic enzyme I mentioned above, creating their RNA fragments.
These fragments they found behaved like selective promoters of bone marrow DNA. Bone marrow is where blood cells, both white and red, plus the platelets are manufactured.
Platelets are irregularly shaped, colorless bodies in the blood that help it form clots. When the platelet count is too low, excessive bleeding can occur. White blood cells, also called leukocytes, are the cells in the blood that help the body defend itself against both infectious disease and foreign materials. Red blood cells are a bit more resistant to chemo and radiation, but there are some chemotherapy drugs that attack those as well. A low count of red blood cells means that your body isn’t getting enough oxygen, for the red blood cells are responsible for transporting that very essential element from your lungs to the rest of your body. It is a work-intensive process to procure the RNA fragments, but Beljanski proved they could help bone marrow stem cells speed up the production of both red and white blood cells and platelets. Just as important, the bacterial RNA fragments did not act on the
in vivo
brain, lungs, or muscles, nor on leukemia cells. When injected into living animals, these fragments concentrated on the spleen and the bone marrow of the animal, which was a good sign.
Knowledge about this is tremendously important for patients undergoing chemotherapy. One of the unwanted side effects of taking cytotoxic chemicals to kill cancer is that it attacks the body’s healthy bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract, and the mouth. Mucous membranes
in the mouth, for instance, split, crack, and cause burning as a result of chemotherapy, but this can be alleviated or prevented altogether by the use of RNA primers.
RNA Primers Stimulate Blood Cells
In vivo
After Beljanski’s team affirmed RNA fragments promote blood-cell production in bone marrow
in vitro
, they proceeded to the next phase, testing the substance on rabbits. Healthy rabbits were given high doses of antimitotics (a type of chemotherapy in which drugs help stop the cell from dividing and thus act as anti-tumor agents). Without ingesting RNA fragments, the animals would have died within ten days from the cell-killing effects of the antimitotics because of the very high dosage given. The blood cells were measured every day. Each time the animals received RNA fragments following a drop in blood cells, their cell counts reflected an immediate increase in white blood cells and platelets.
Results from the administration of RNA fragments were usually obtained within forty-eight hours. At that time during the ten-year period starting from 1975, the RNA fragments were given by injection.
Now they are administered orally, and studies show they do provide excellent results both for restoration of white blood cells and platelets. These fragments bring about little effect on red blood cells whose maturation cycle is much longer.
Of particular interest in this discussion of integrative cancer therapies is the Beljanski team’s observation that the RNA fragments from the purified strain of
E. coli
fight the
imbalance
that chemotherapeutic drugs, especially the antimitotics, induce in various cell lines that ordinarily produce white blood cells. In the presence of chemotherapeutic drugs, white cells with many nuclei (called polynuclear leucocytes) which are largely responsible for defense against infection, disappeared faster than the lymphocytes, the smaller white blood cells associated with the lymphatic system, thus creating an unwanted imbalance. The RNA fragments restored the imbalance induced by the toxic treatments, thus allowing the chemotherapy or radiotherapy to work more effectively. And, like the two anticancer botanicals, it also proved to be selective, for it only stimulates the growth of healthy white blood cells and platelets.
Platelet Counts are Restored
Chemotherapy can also create a condition known as thrombocytopenia, where the blood platelet counts drop to dangerously low levels. The problem with your blood-cell count and/or your platelet count dipping too low is that the chemical or radiation treatments must stop because you could either bleed to death or be killed during the course of being treated by an otherwise curable disease. But stopping treatment leaves the body vulnerable to the cancer cells resuming their unceasing replication—a condition no cancer patient wants.
While hospitals now regularly use synthetic medicines to help boost the production of white blood cells, until Beljanski’s research was rediscovered, there was nothing natural to help the blood-cell dilemma and nothing at all to help increase platelet count except to stop treatment and give a blood transfusion.
Beljanski and his team found that the RNA fragments promoted the quick appearance of new platelets to replace the platelets destroyed by chemotherapy. More importantly, the repeated doses of these fragments did not lead to tolerance or toxicity among cancer-affected rabbits treated with the antimitotics that are so toxic to healthy cells. Increased dosage was without incidence since the fragments were found to be destroyed within four hours by means of various enzymes in the blood that dissolve the nucleic acids in water so that they can be flushed from the body. What’s more, they did not block the action of the antimitotics and could be applied with almost any cancer-fighting agent.