Kanglaite Colorectal
kanglaite
Kanglaite (enhances immune function, kills cancer cells and helps with pain and weight loss)
Excerpts from Institute for Science in Society, UK press release, 4/03
Kanglaite has gone through a four-month clinical trial on 15 to 18 volunteers in a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, making it the first drug derived from a traditional Chinese herbal remedy to go into clinical trials in the United States.
The drug is patented in China, United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union.
No one knows exactly how Kanglaite works, but the drug has been taken by more than 270 000 patients in some 2000 hospitals in China, and has proven effective against malignant tumours such as carcinomas in the lung, liver, stomach and breast.
It appears to fight cancer on many fronts. Apart from inhibiting the growth of cancer cells and killing them directly, it also stimulates immune functions that get rid of cancer cells, and improves the quality of life for cancer patients by decreasing cancer pain and prevents the loss of body weight.
It has no harmful side effects on vital functions of the heart, liver, kidney and blood. It reduces toxic side effects of radio- and chemotherapy, and increases the effectiveness of these conventional treatments. When used in combination with surgical intervention, it helps kill tumour cells.
What is Kanglaite?
Kanglaite is the “neutral lipid” of the endosperm of Job’s tears, extracted with an organic solvent, such as acetone, and further refined and washed in several simple steps, then combined with glycerol and lecithin from soy or egg to make an emulsion in water that can be injected intravenously into patients.
The anti-tumour action of lipids extracted from the endosperm of Job’s tears was known much earlier: it was reported for the first time by Japanese scientists Tyunosin Ukita and Ako Tanumura in 1961, and again in the 1980s by Chinese scientist, Si Pei-hai. But the earlier extracts were not economical enough for the market, and the formulations were not pure enough for clinical use.
The “neutral lipid” turns out to be a rather unremarkable mixture of triglycerides (over 90%) with smaller amounts of diglycerides (about 1.5%), monoglycerides (about 6 %) and alkylacylacetin (about 1%). These lipids have a rather ordinary profile of saturated and unsaturated long-chain fatty acids (16 and 18 carbons).
Despite the wide spectrum of benefits claimed for the “neutral lipid”, based both on in vitro studies in cell cultures and in vivo studies in mice, and later in human subjects, it is unclear whether different components of the mixture are responsible for specific effects, or it is the mixture per se that has all those effects.
There is a strong underlying assumption, nevertheless, that the different effects are due to different components in the grain, and indeed, a number of pharmacologically and physiologically active substances have been isolated from different parts of the Coix plant that show specific anti-inflammatory, anti-tumour, anti-microbial, hypoglycaemic, and ovulatory effects.
A team of researchers at the National Taiwan University has recently identified 6 phenolic compounds in the hull (shell) of Job’s tears that have strong anti-oxidant activities. The researchers showed that different parts of the grain vary in their content of anti-oxidants, with the greatest amounts in the hull, followed by the testa (seed membrane) and the bran, and the smallest amounts in the polished grain. And the six phenolic compounds also had different degrees of anti-oxidant effects.
Antioxidants inhibit the oxidation of lipids in cell membranes, leading to impairment of cell function. Antioxidants neutralize reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxygen free radicals. Excess ROS is implicated in diseases such as inflammation, aging, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and liver toxicity. (See Organic agriculture helps fight cancer, ISIS report.)
Despite these clear successes, however, there are critics who claim, justifiably, that the present penchant for extracting and purifying herbal medicine is anathema to the very tradition of Chinese medicine.
Chinese herbal medicines frequently involve not just the single unprocessed herb, but especially mixtures of many herbs in different proportions, according to the needs of individual patients (see Globalising Chinese medicine, this series). The aim is to restore the patient to physiological balance that’s synonymous with the state of health.
The experience of conventional Western medicine has amply demonstrated that knowing the molecular mechanisms of a compound is no guarantee that it will have the desired benefit for the organism, for the simple reason that all parts of the organism are interconnected and intercommunicating.
Nevertheless, knowledge of molecular mechanisms can contribute to understanding the whole, once we stop seeing the organism as a collection of separate molecular nuts and bolts. Besides, identifying the different components in a mixture could contribute to quality assurance and standardization, discouraging forgeries and malpractice in medications that are going to be increasingly important for global healthcare.
In view of the numerous health benefits of this widely distributed staple food, why not incorporate the Coix grain into everyone’s diet? It serves to bring home the most distinctive aspect of traditional Chinese medicine: good nutrition is indistinguishable from health promotion, and food shades insensibly into medicine that’s widely available and affordable.
I believe that the tension between the analytical reductionist and the synthetic holistic approaches will be resolved in the spirit of the organic materialism and eclectic pragmatism characteristic of the Chinese culture through the ages (see Traditional Chinese medicine & contemporary western science, this series).
The more important tension is between corporations that want to extract maximum profit from patented medicines and the health needs of ordinary people as well as the danger of over-harvesting of wild plant species.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 28;7(1):1280. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01480-2.
Kanglaite Sensitizes Colorectal Cancer Cells to Taxol via NF-κΒ Inhibition and Connexin 43 Upregulation
Yijia Wang 1, Chunze Zhang 1, Shiwu Zhang 1, Zhenying Zhao 1, Jiawen Wang 1, Jiali Song 1, Yue Wang 1, Jun Liu 2, Shaobin Hou 3
PMID: 28455529 PMCID: PMC5430786
Erratum in
Wang Y, Zhang C, Zhang S, Zhao Z, Wang J, Song J, Wang Y, Liu J, Hou S.Sci Rep. 2018 Apr 12;8(1):6141. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-24089-5.PMID: 29643394
Abstract
Taxol, a first-line anti-tumor drug, has low effectiveness against colorectal cancer. Combination with other agents is an effective strategy to enhance Taxol cytotoxicity. Kanglaite injection is an extract from Coix lacryma-jobi seed and is usually combined with other agents to treat cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the treatment effect of Taxol combined with Kanglaite on colorectal cancer cell lines. Kanglaite pretreatment followed by Taxol treatment was found to show the best synergism among all combination strategies. This combination also resulted in the smallest tumor volume in a Balb/c mice model. Kanglaite inhibited the expression of nuclear factor (NF)-κΒ and upregulated that of connexin 43, both of which sensitized cancer cells to Taxol. Moreover, Kanglaite increased many cellular variations caused by Taxol, including tubulin polymerization, caspase-3 cleavage, and upregulated expression of survivin and cyclin B1. These results suggest that Kanglaite pretreatment may increase the effect of Taxol on colorectal cancer.
Correction to: Scientific Reports 10.1038/s41598-017-01480-2, published online 28 April 2017
This Article contains typographical errors. In the Results section under subheading ‘KLT inhibits NF-κΒ to sensitize colorectal cancer cell lines to Taxol’,
“In the cytosolic protein component (Fig. 3A), NF-κΒ was slightly down-regulated by Taxol and slightly upregulated by KLT.”
should read:
“In the cytoplasmic protein component (Fig. 3A), NF-κΒ was slightly down-regulated by Taxol and slightly upregulated by KLT.”
In the Methods section under subheading ‘“Parachute” dye-coupling assay’,
“Functional GJIC was examined by the “Parachute” dye-coupling assay, which was described by Wang et al.28”
should read:
“Functional GJIC was examined by the “Parachute” dye-coupling assay, which was described by Yu et al.30”
Kanglaite (also known as Coix lacryma-jobi)
UPDATE January 2010 (from Michael McCulloch, LAc,MPH, PhD from Pine Street Foundation sent this:
There is a trial open in 9 states:
(http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00733850?term=kanglaite&rank=1)
Ann’s NOTE: This trial ended in 2014/2015 with a statement that FDA would take a next step. ClinicalTrials.gov lists 8 studies, all in the USA have been ‘terminated’. Some are being done in China. (as of April 2020) Under the herb name we found 73 studies – mostly (unsurprisingly) in cell culture, called in vitro.
Excerpted from:
Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com
Newsletter #43 07/10/02
“FDA Approves Test of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Cancer
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a clinical trial of Kanglaite, a drug derived from an herb used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The source of the drug is a tropical Asian grass called coix** (pronounced “coy”) or Job’s tears (lacryma-jobi), which is related to corn (maize).
The stalks of the coix plant contain white beadlike grains that, in addition to being eaten, are sometimes used to make necklaces.”
** I was perusing your website and noticed a little “misnomer” or incorrect writing of plant names. The plant species involved in the “Kangleite” research is a grass species with botanical name of Coix lacryma-jobi.
This is the Latin binomial name used by botanists worldwide, and it is the only stable and universally recognizable name for this plant. The common or vernacular names are often confusing or misleading; use them, but also use the botanical Latin name at the same time.
The name of the genus here is Coix. The name of the species is Coix lacryma-jobi. When written this way, these names should be italicized or underlined. There are at least four other species in the genus Coix. I thought this might help a bit.**
Bill B.
http://www.kanglaite-usa.com/, or
contact them at:
Kanglaite USA
Phone: 801-364-8904
Fax: 801-531-6558
Email: [email protected]
Kanglaite (enhances immune function, kills cancer cells and helps with pain and weight loss)
Excerpts from Institute for Science in Society, UK press release, 4/03
Kanglaite has gone through a four-month clinical trial on 15 to 18 volunteers in a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, making it the first drug derived from a traditional Chinese herbal remedy to go into clinical trials in the United States.
The drug is patented in China, United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union.
No one knows exactly how Kanglaite works, but the drug has been taken by more than 270 000 patients in some 2000 hospitals in China, and has proven effective against malignant tumours such as carcinomas in the lung, liver, stomach and breast.
It appears to fight cancer on many fronts. Apart from inhibiting the growth of cancer cells and killing them directly, it also stimulates immune functions that get rid of cancer cells, and improves the quality of life for cancer patients by decreasing cancer pain and prevents the loss of body weight.
It has no harmful side effects on vital functions of the heart, liver, kidney and blood. It reduces toxic side effects of radio- and chemotherapy, and increases the effectiveness of these conventional treatments. When used in combination with surgical intervention, it helps kill tumour cells.
What is Kanglaite?
Kanglaite is the “neutral lipid” of the endosperm of Job’s tears, extracted with an organic solvent, such as acetone, and further refined and washed in several simple steps, then combined with glycerol and lecithin from soy or egg to make an emulsion in water that can be injected intravenously into patients.
The anti-tumour action of lipids extracted from the endosperm of Job’s tears was known much earlier: it was reported for the first time by Japanese scientists Tyunosin Ukita and Ako Tanumura in 1961, and again in the 1980s by Chinese scientist, Si Pei-hai. But the earlier extracts were not economical enough for the market, and the formulations were not pure enough for clinical use.
The “neutral lipid” turns out to be a rather unremarkable mixture of triglycerides (over 90%) with smaller amounts of diglycerides (about 1.5%), monoglycerides (about 6 %) and alkylacylacetin (about 1%). These lipids have a rather ordinary profile of saturated and unsaturated long-chain fatty acids (16 and 18 carbons).
Despite the wide spectrum of benefits claimed for the “neutral lipid”, based both on in vitro studies in cell cultures and in vivo studies in mice, and later in human subjects, it is unclear whether different components of the mixture are responsible for specific effects, or it is the mixture per se that has all those effects.
There is a strong underlying assumption, nevertheless, that the different effects are due to different components in the grain, and indeed, a number of pharmacologically and physiologically active substances have been isolated from different parts of the Coix plant that show specific anti-inflammatory, anti-tumour, anti-microbial, hypoglycaemic, and ovulatory effects.
A team of researchers at the National Taiwan University has recently identified 6 phenolic compounds in the hull (shell) of Job’s tears that have strong anti-oxidant activities. The researchers showed that different parts of the grain vary in their content of anti-oxidants, with the greatest amounts in the hull, followed by the testa (seed membrane) and the bran, and the smallest amounts in the polished grain. And the six phenolic compounds also had different degrees of anti-oxidant effects.
Antioxidants inhibit the oxidation of lipids in cell membranes, leading to impairment of cell function. Antioxidants neutralize reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxygen free radicals. Excess ROS is implicated in diseases such as inflammation, aging, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and liver toxicity. (See Organic agriculture helps fight cancer, ISIS report.)
Despite these clear successes, however, there are critics who claim, justifiably, that the present penchant for extracting and purifying herbal medicine is anathema to the very tradition of Chinese medicine.
Chinese herbal medicines frequently involve not just the single unprocessed herb, but especially mixtures of many herbs in different proportions, according to the needs of individual patients (see Globalising Chinese medicine, this series). The aim is to restore the patient to physiological balance that’s synonymous with the state of health.
The experience of conventional Western medicine has amply demonstrated that knowing the molecular mechanisms of a compound is no guarantee that it will have the desired benefit for the organism, for the simple reason that all parts of the organism are interconnected and intercommunicating.
Nevertheless, knowledge of molecular mechanisms can contribute to understanding the whole, once we stop seeing the organism as a collection of separate molecular nuts and bolts. Besides, identifying the different components in a mixture could contribute to quality assurance and standardization, discouraging forgeries and malpractice in medications that are going to be increasingly important for global healthcare.
In view of the numerous health benefits of this widely distributed staple food, why not incorporate the Coix grain into everyone’s diet? It serves to bring home the most distinctive aspect of traditional Chinese medicine: good nutrition is indistinguishable from health promotion, and food shades insensibly into medicine that’s widely available and affordable.
I believe that the tension between the analytical reductionist and the synthetic holistic approaches will be resolved in the spirit of the organic materialism and eclectic pragmatism characteristic of the Chinese culture through the ages (see Traditional Chinese medicine & contemporary western science, this series).
The more important tension is between corporations that want to extract maximum profit from patented medicines and the health needs of ordinary people as well as the danger of over-harvesting of wild plant species.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 28;7(1):1280. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01480-2.
Kanglaite Sensitizes Colorectal Cancer Cells to Taxol via NF-κΒ Inhibition and Connexin 43 Upregulation
Yijia Wang 1, Chunze Zhang 1, Shiwu Zhang 1, Zhenying Zhao 1, Jiawen Wang 1, Jiali Song 1, Yue Wang 1, Jun Liu 2, Shaobin Hou 3
PMID: 28455529 PMCID: PMC5430786
Erratum in
Wang Y, Zhang C, Zhang S, Zhao Z, Wang J, Song J, Wang Y, Liu J, Hou S.Sci Rep. 2018 Apr 12;8(1):6141. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-24089-5.PMID: 29643394
Abstract
Taxol, a first-line anti-tumor drug, has low effectiveness against colorectal cancer. Combination with other agents is an effective strategy to enhance Taxol cytotoxicity. Kanglaite injection is an extract from Coix lacryma-jobi seed and is usually combined with other agents to treat cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the treatment effect of Taxol combined with Kanglaite on colorectal cancer cell lines. Kanglaite pretreatment followed by Taxol treatment was found to show the best synergism among all combination strategies. This combination also resulted in the smallest tumor volume in a Balb/c mice model. Kanglaite inhibited the expression of nuclear factor (NF)-κΒ and upregulated that of connexin 43, both of which sensitized cancer cells to Taxol. Moreover, Kanglaite increased many cellular variations caused by Taxol, including tubulin polymerization, caspase-3 cleavage, and upregulated expression of survivin and cyclin B1. These results suggest that Kanglaite pretreatment may increase the effect of Taxol on colorectal cancer.
Correction to: Scientific Reports 10.1038/s41598-017-01480-2, published online 28 April 2017
This Article contains typographical errors. In the Results section under subheading ‘KLT inhibits NF-κΒ to sensitize colorectal cancer cell lines to Taxol’,
“In the cytosolic protein component (Fig. 3A), NF-κΒ was slightly down-regulated by Taxol and slightly upregulated by KLT.”
should read:
“In the cytoplasmic protein component (Fig. 3A), NF-κΒ was slightly down-regulated by Taxol and slightly upregulated by KLT.”
In the Methods section under subheading ‘“Parachute” dye-coupling assay’,
“Functional GJIC was examined by the “Parachute” dye-coupling assay, which was described by Wang et al.28”
should read:
“Functional GJIC was examined by the “Parachute” dye-coupling assay, which was described by Yu et al.30”
Kanglaite (also known as Coix lacryma-jobi)
UPDATE January 2010 (from Michael McCulloch, LAc,MPH, PhD from Pine Street Foundation sent this:
There is a trial open in 9 states:
(http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00733850?term=kanglaite&rank=1)
Ann’s NOTE: This trial ended in 2014/2015 with a statement that FDA would take a next step. ClinicalTrials.gov lists 8 studies, all in the USA have been ‘terminated’. Some are being done in China. (as of April 2020) Under the herb name we found 73 studies – mostly (unsurprisingly) in cell culture, called in vitro.
Excerpted from:
Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com
Newsletter #43 07/10/02
“FDA Approves Test of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Cancer
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a clinical trial of Kanglaite, a drug derived from an herb used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The source of the drug is a tropical Asian grass called coix** (pronounced “coy”) or Job’s tears (lacryma-jobi), which is related to corn (maize).
The stalks of the coix plant contain white beadlike grains that, in addition to being eaten, are sometimes used to make necklaces.”
** I was perusing your website and noticed a little “misnomer” or incorrect writing of plant names. The plant species involved in the “Kangleite” research is a grass species with botanical name of Coix lacryma-jobi.
This is the Latin binomial name used by botanists worldwide, and it is the only stable and universally recognizable name for this plant. The common or vernacular names are often confusing or misleading; use them, but also use the botanical Latin name at the same time.
The name of the genus here is Coix. The name of the species is Coix lacryma-jobi. When written this way, these names should be italicized or underlined. There are at least four other species in the genus Coix. I thought this might help a bit.**
Bill B.
http://www.kanglaite-usa.com/, or
contact them at:
Kanglaite USA
Phone: 801-364-8904
Fax: 801-531-6558
Email: [email protected]