Artesunate
Artesunate was initially a drug developed for treating malaria.
Check out our 3 Part Blog series on Artesunate:
It has been used just recently as a treatment for cancer and it has produced some impressive results. In some cases, a combination of artesunate and certain chemotherapies was used to help people dealing with advanced cancer.
When attempting to heal from cancer it is vital to utilize every treatment and therapy you have access to challenge cancer while strengthening your immune system. Artesunate adds to the growing number of natural healing modalities that can contribute significantly when dealing with cancer.
How does artesunate actually work as a cancer therapy? The process is defined very well. Iron tends to be absorbed in much higher levels in cancer cells and the thinking is this is what causes the acceleration of mutated cells.
Free radicals are formed when iron and oxygen meet and free radicals damage our DNA. This creates a problem with healthy cells; however, in cancer cells, it starts mutation and the resistance to therapies grows.
Artesunate activates mitochondrial apoptosis as it uses the iron inside the cancer cells against them and causes cells to die off.
Bastyr Research Center of Integrative Oncology has produced their initial data that indicates intravenous Vitamin C where in combination with intravenous artesunate has a positive impact on people with advanced cancers. Intravenous artesunate is frequently given just prior to high dose intravenous vitamin C and shows a strong indication that these two treatments work together synergistically.
Artesunate Improves Not Only Survival Rates But Also Quality Of Life
A group of women with Breast cancer that has reached Stage 4 received no intravenous Vitamin C and intravenous Artesunate for 12 months had a 74% rate of survival. This is in comparison with the group that received intravenous Vitamin C and intravenous Artesunate and had a 90% rate of survival after 12 months.
After 24 months the findings were varied even more as the group of women that hadn’t received treatment had a 68% survival rate in comparison to 90% in the intravenous therapy treatment group. A note of importance here, there were no adverse health effects associated with the intravenous treatment group.
These first findings suggest high dose intravenous Vitamin C and intravenous artesunate increases survival with people that have stage 4 breast cancer. More findings are showing that utilizing this therapy is showing positive results for a broad range of cancer types.
The findings have also shown that artesunate can improve the quality of life for people while also increasing survival rates. We use this treatment as part of an integrative comprehensive cancer care program at our center.
