Dr. Weeks’ Comment: I was astonished and awed to read the brilliant research of Dr. John Beard, a meticulous Scottich embryologist who was curing cancer in 1910 by using pancreatic enzymes. (The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer and its Scientific Basis published 1911) You would have learned of his work also but for the excitement Marie Curie generated with radiation that same year which was deemed, incorrectly as we all now know, to be safe treatment for cancer. (She died of cancer from her own radiation treatments). Then a dentist, Dr. William Kelly cured himself of pancreatic cancer using enzymes and treated many cancer patients himself until Dr. Nick Gonzales, M.D. courageously carried the wisdom into the 21st century. Here, below, I have posted an excerpt of his explanation of this important therapy. Please see his website for more information.
Enzyme Therapy and Cancer
By Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D.
SOURCE http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/history_of_treatment.htm
The embryologist Dr. John Beard proposed in 1906 that pancreatic proteolytic digestive enzymes represent the body’s main defense against cancer, and that enzyme therapy would be useful as a treatment for all types of cancer. (1) Particularly during the first two decades of the twentieth century, Dr. Beard’s thesis attracted some attention in academic circles, and several case reports in the medical literature documented tumor regression and even remission in terminal cancer patients treated with proteolytic enzymes. (2-6) In 1911, Dr. Beard published a monograph entitled The Enzyme Therapy of Cancer and Its Scientific Basis, which summarized his therapy and the supporting evidence. (7) In my book The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer (co-authored with Dr. Isaacs), I review Dr. Beard’s work from the perspective of contemporary molecular biology.
After Dr. Beard’s death in 1923, the enzyme therapy was largely forgotten. Periodically, alternative therapists have rediscovered Dr. Beard’s work, and used pancreatic proteolytic enzymes as a treatment for cancer. (8)
Dr. Beard believed the enzymes had to be injected, to prevent destruction by hydrochloric acid in the stomach. However, recent evidence demonstrates that orally ingested pancreatic proteolytic enzymes are acid stable (9), pass intact into the small intestine, and are absorbed through the intestinal mucosa into the blood stream as part of an enteropancreatic recycling process. (10,11)
I began researching the use of oral pancreatic proteolytic enzyme therapy as a treatment for cancer after completion of my second year at Cornell University Medical College in 1981. At that time, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. William Donald Kelley, the Texas dentist who for twenty years had been treating cancer patients with a complicated nutritional therapy based on Beard’s enzyme treatment. Although Kelley had been attacked in the press because of the unorthodox nature of his work, the Dr. Kelley I met was an unassuming man whose primary wish was to have his controversial work fairly evaluated by the academic medical world. I thought his request reasonable.
My research advisor at Cornell, Dr. Robert A. Good, at the time President of Sloan-Kettering, agreed to support a case review of Kelley’s patients, which I continued despite the rigors of third year medical school. During my fourth year at Cornell, I was given a considerable block of time under Dr. Good’s direction to investigate Kelley’s work and results in a more structured manner. Eventually, what began as a student project developed into a two-year formal research effort which I pursued during my formal immunology training.
During my study, I reviewed nearly 10,000 of Dr. Kelley’s patient records. I interviewed and evaluated intensively over 500 patients with appropriately diagnosed advanced cancer, and summarized my findings in an extended monograph completed in 1986 as partial fulfillment for my fellowship training. This monograph, entitled One Man Alone: An Investigation of Nutrition, Cancer, and William Donald Kelley, is now available through New Spring Press or on Amazon.
……In addition to these clinical trials, we have collaborated with basic science researchers to test our enzyme approach in animal models of pancreatic cancer. In May, 2004, the results of these studies were published in the peer-reviewed journal Pancreas. In these experiments, a very aggressive form of pancreatic cancer was induced in mice, then half the animals were given our pancreas product, half were given no therapy. Those treated with our pancreas product showed a significant improvement in survival and behavior compared to animals not receiving the enzymes. In a second experiment, tumor growth was substantially reduced, and survival prolonged again, in animals receiving the pancreas product. (13) (Abstract of article on enzyme therapy in mice) We want to emphasize that the results were particularly significant for a first attempt, since the investigators were using only the pancreas product part of our program, and did not use a variety of doses to determine the most optimal for a mouse. As the principal investigator of the study wrote in the conclusion of the article: “In summary, PPE (porcine pancreatic enzyme) is the first experimentally and clinically proven agent for the effective treatment of PC (pancreatic cancer). The significant advantages of PPE over any other currently available therapeutic modalities include its effects on physical condition, nutrition and lack of toxicity.”.….
……The therapy itself is quite complex, but basically involves three components: diet, aggressive supplementation with nutrients and pancreas product (containing naturally occurring enzymes), and detoxification. The protocols are individualized and each patient receives a diet designed for his or her specific needs. The diets are quite variable, ranging from a pure vegetarian program to a diet requiring fatty red meat 2-3 times a day.
The supplement regimens are also individualized, and intense: each cancer patient consumes between 130 and 175 capsules daily. Non-cancer patients will require considerably fewer supplements per day. The supplement regimens include a range of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, anti-oxidants and animal glandular products, prescribed according to the particular patient’s needs and cancer type. These nutrients do not, we believe, have a direct anti-cancer effect, but instead serve to improve overall metabolic function. In addition to these supplements, every cancer patient takes large quantities of pancreas product in capsule form, which we believe provide the main anti-cancer action………The third component of the protocol involves what we call “detoxification” routines. On this therapy, we find that as patients repair and rebuild, large amounts of metabolic wastes and stored toxins are released. As a result, patients routinely develop a variety of symptoms, most commonly described as “flu-like,” such as low grade fevers, muscle aches and pains, even rashes that we hypothesize result from low grade tumor lysis. “Detoxification” refers to procedures such as the coffee enema, which are believed by alternative practitioners to enhance liver function and in turn, the processing and excretion of metabolic wastes. The coffee enemas are done twice daily, and patients most commonly report symptomatic relief.
Coffee enemas have been discussed in the orthodox medical literature for the better part of this century. Many nursing texts routinely recommended coffee enemas (15), and the Merck Manual advocated coffee enemas as a stimulant in all editions from the first in 1898 through 1977. During the 1920s and 30s, coffee enemas were prescribed for a variety of conditions. (16-20) In terms of their physiological effect, studies have shown that the rectal instillation of fluids will stimulate gallbladder contraction and emptying. (21)
Of the hundreds of Kelley patients I interviewed during my research study, virtually every one reported significant symptomatic relief from the enemas. In my own practice patients repeatedly report the same improved well-being and relief of symptoms after a coffee enema. The enemas, in my experience, appear to be safe: I have yet to document a single serious side effect either in the thousands of Kelley patients I evaluated, or in my own practice. However, I do not encourage anyone to attempt coffee enemas except under the care of a knowledgeable physician.
The references listed below, with the exception of references 7 and 8 (which are books), are available through the Nutritional Research and Educational Foundation.
1. Beard J: “The action of trypsin upon the living cells of Jensen’s mouse tumor.” Br Med J 4, 140-141, 1906.
2. Campbell JT: “Trypsin treatment of a case of malignant disease.” JAMA 48, 225-226, 1907.
3. Cutfield A: “Trypsin treatment in malignant disease.” Br Med J 5, 525, 1907.
4. Goeth RA: “Pancreatic treatment of cancer, with report of a cure.” JAMA 48, 1030, 1907.
5. Little WL: “A case of malignant tumor, with treatment.” JAMA 50, 1724, 1908.
6. Wiggin FH: “Case of multiple fibrosarcoma of the tongue, with remarks on the use of trypsin and amylopsin in the treatment of malignant disease.” JAMA 47, 2003-2008, 1906.
7. Beard J: The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer. London: Chatto and Windus, 1911.
8. Shively FL: Multiple Proteolytic Enzyme Therapy of Cancer. Dayton: Johnson-Watson, 1969.
9. Moskvichyov BV, Komarov EV, Ivanova GP: “Study of trypsin thermodenaturation process.” Enzyme Microb Tech 8, 498-502, 1986.
10. Gotze H, Rothman SS: “Enteropancreatic circulation of digestive enzymes as a conservative mechanism.” Nature 257(5527), 607-609, 1975.
11. Liebow C, Rothman SS: “Enteropancreatic circulation of digestive enzymes.” Science 189(4201), 472-474, 1975.
12. Gonzalez NJ, Isaacs LL: “Evaluation of pancreatic proteolytic enzyme treatment of adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, with nutrition and detoxification support. ” Nutr Cancer 33(2), 117-124, 1999.
13. Saruc M, Standop S, Standop J, Nozawa F, Itami A, Pandey KK, Batra SK, Gonzalez NJ, Guesry P, Pour PM: “Pancreatic enzyme extract improves survival in murine pancreatic cancer.” Pancreas 28(4), 401-412, 2004.
14. Gonzalez NJ, Isaacs LL: “The Gonzalez therapy and cancer: a collection of case reports.” Altern Ther Health Med 13(1), 46-55, 2007.
15. McClain ME: Scientific Principles in Nursing. St. Louis: CV Mosby Company, 1950, p.168.
16. Bastedo WA: “Colon irrigations.” NEJM 199(18), 865-866, 1928.
17. Bastedo WA: “Colon irrigations.” JAMA 98(9), 734-36, 1932.
18. Friedenwald J, Morrison, S: “Value, indications, limitations and technic of colonic irrigation.” Med Clin of N Am, p.1611-1629, 1935.
19. Marshall JK, Thompson CE: “Colon irrigation in the treatment of mental disease.” NEJM 207(10), 454-457, 1932.
20. Snyder RG: “The value of colonic irrigations in counteracting auto-intoxication of intestinal origin.” Med Clin N Am, p.781-88, 1939.
21. Garbat AL, Jacobi HG: “Secretion of bile in response to rectal installations.” Arch Int Med 44, 455-462, 1929.