› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Chitosan from UCSF Mt. Zion Melanoma Center – Anyone know about this?
- This topic has 16 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 1 month ago by
MRFUser2011.
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- March 5, 2011 at 12:50 am
Does anyone else know about chitosan being used to treat meelanoma successfully? I just heard about it today and was told UCSF Mt. Zion Melanoma Center is selling it and the friend of the woman that told me about has had melanoma remission using it. I am going to call UCSF Monday but in the meantime was hoping for some info. Thanks.
Blessings, Shari
Does anyone else know about chitosan being used to treat meelanoma successfully? I just heard about it today and was told UCSF Mt. Zion Melanoma Center is selling it and the friend of the woman that told me about has had melanoma remission using it. I am going to call UCSF Monday but in the meantime was hoping for some info. Thanks.
Blessings, Shari
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- March 5, 2011 at 1:21 am
Shari,
I'm attaching a link you need to follow: http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/QA/chitosan.html
It basically talks about chitosan and weight loss but there is one part in there where the company advertising it was told by the FDA to stop the claims about it helping to loose weight and reducing the chance of cancer. While it would be great if it was true, somehow I'm sure more of us would have heard about it and posted. If you find out any info from UCSF please let us know!
Linda
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- March 10, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Linda, I am still trying to track down information. What I did find out is that there is an integrative medicine center at UCSF. http://www.osher.ucsf.edu/ I have asked all of my doctors, repeatedly, about alternative medicine and no one has ever mentioned this. There is a practitioner named Beverly Burns that has been practicing acupuncture and Chinese medicine for 20 years and does treat cancer patients. I am hoping to get up to SF to see her in April. I did find a couple of journal articles that mentioned chitosan in relation to melanoma treatment, so there is a link there, but I am just not able to grab hold of it (yet!) The ads you mention for weight loss are not what I am looking for and yes, they look like scams. I am going to pursue this and when I get more info, will add it to this thread.
Blessings, Shari
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- March 10, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Shari,
My GP is an integrative MD., she does not have experience with melanoma but it's nice going to a Dr. for everyday things that understands. She has suggested a few supplements to me, given me lots of literature, but never mentioned Chitosan. I was there just 2 days ago!! Wish I had remembered to ask her.
Let me know when you find out something.
Linda
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- March 11, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Linda, here is an article I found that connects chitosan and melanoma. I am still trying to get information about what I heard. Will keep you posted.
Shari
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- March 11, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Difficult to say much from the abstract, but reading it carefully and looking at other articles, it seems that chitosan is a material that is coated with a therapeutic agent. It is not a therapeutic agent itself. In the following article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20565783), it helps increase the solubility of the actual therapeutic agent. So you would have to find something to go with it.
ellen
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- March 12, 2011 at 12:07 am
Hi Ellen, I was directing that article to Linda's comment that it is only promoted as a scam diet supplement. I have come to the same conclusion from what little I can find – that chitosan is a delivery agent that assists in getting other substances to the target cellular location.
I got the information about the Chinese herbs second hand from someone in a waiting room. She knows a woman she claims has melanoma and had tumors and went into complete remission after taking these herbs. She texted the woman who told her she gets chitosan from UCSF Mt. Zion Melanoma Center. I have called and spoken to several people there and at the UCSF Integrative Medicine Center and no one knows what I am talking about. The woman in the waiting room gave me her number and I have followed up, asking for more information which has not been forecoming at this point.
This is the first time I have experienced anything like this and I have to say, I have become ridiculously emotional and obsessed about finding out what this woman took and if she really is well. It feels like there is information out there I don't have and need. And I am finding myself behaving irrationally about it! I was hoping someone here would know about it but as Linda said, if there were an herbal cure for melanoma, others would know about it.
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- March 12, 2011 at 1:20 am
Hi Shari,
Not irrational at all! I would feel the same way if someone in a doctor's waiting room had told me that. It sure would be nice to know exactly what that woman meant.
ellen
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- March 12, 2011 at 2:11 am
Thanks Ellen, I appreciate that. I am not done trying to get an answer. I texted the woman from the waiting room yesterday and asked her to have the friend with melanoma contact me. She had originally given me the woman's name and her family's business name. So when I still got no response today, I called the business and left a message for her. I am hopeful that I will hear from her. And believe me, if I do find out what the herbs are, this is the first place I am going to share the information.
Blessings, Shari
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- March 12, 2011 at 2:11 am
Thanks Ellen, I appreciate that. I am not done trying to get an answer. I texted the woman from the waiting room yesterday and asked her to have the friend with melanoma contact me. She had originally given me the woman's name and her family's business name. So when I still got no response today, I called the business and left a message for her. I am hopeful that I will hear from her. And believe me, if I do find out what the herbs are, this is the first place I am going to share the information.
Blessings, Shari
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- March 12, 2011 at 1:20 am
Hi Shari,
Not irrational at all! I would feel the same way if someone in a doctor's waiting room had told me that. It sure would be nice to know exactly what that woman meant.
ellen
-
- March 12, 2011 at 12:07 am
Hi Ellen, I was directing that article to Linda's comment that it is only promoted as a scam diet supplement. I have come to the same conclusion from what little I can find – that chitosan is a delivery agent that assists in getting other substances to the target cellular location.
I got the information about the Chinese herbs second hand from someone in a waiting room. She knows a woman she claims has melanoma and had tumors and went into complete remission after taking these herbs. She texted the woman who told her she gets chitosan from UCSF Mt. Zion Melanoma Center. I have called and spoken to several people there and at the UCSF Integrative Medicine Center and no one knows what I am talking about. The woman in the waiting room gave me her number and I have followed up, asking for more information which has not been forecoming at this point.
This is the first time I have experienced anything like this and I have to say, I have become ridiculously emotional and obsessed about finding out what this woman took and if she really is well. It feels like there is information out there I don't have and need. And I am finding myself behaving irrationally about it! I was hoping someone here would know about it but as Linda said, if there were an herbal cure for melanoma, others would know about it.
-
- March 11, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Difficult to say much from the abstract, but reading it carefully and looking at other articles, it seems that chitosan is a material that is coated with a therapeutic agent. It is not a therapeutic agent itself. In the following article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20565783), it helps increase the solubility of the actual therapeutic agent. So you would have to find something to go with it.
ellen
-
- March 11, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Linda, here is an article I found that connects chitosan and melanoma. I am still trying to get information about what I heard. Will keep you posted.
Shari
-
- March 10, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Shari,
My GP is an integrative MD., she does not have experience with melanoma but it's nice going to a Dr. for everyday things that understands. She has suggested a few supplements to me, given me lots of literature, but never mentioned Chitosan. I was there just 2 days ago!! Wish I had remembered to ask her.
Let me know when you find out something.
Linda
-
- March 10, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Linda, I am still trying to track down information. What I did find out is that there is an integrative medicine center at UCSF. http://www.osher.ucsf.edu/ I have asked all of my doctors, repeatedly, about alternative medicine and no one has ever mentioned this. There is a practitioner named Beverly Burns that has been practicing acupuncture and Chinese medicine for 20 years and does treat cancer patients. I am hoping to get up to SF to see her in April. I did find a couple of journal articles that mentioned chitosan in relation to melanoma treatment, so there is a link there, but I am just not able to grab hold of it (yet!) The ads you mention for weight loss are not what I am looking for and yes, they look like scams. I am going to pursue this and when I get more info, will add it to this thread.
Blessings, Shari
-
- March 5, 2011 at 1:21 am
Shari,
I'm attaching a link you need to follow: http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/QA/chitosan.html
It basically talks about chitosan and weight loss but there is one part in there where the company advertising it was told by the FDA to stop the claims about it helping to loose weight and reducing the chance of cancer. While it would be great if it was true, somehow I'm sure more of us would have heard about it and posted. If you find out any info from UCSF please let us know!
Linda
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