Introduction
Cancer is currently the second leading cause of death worldwide. Despite advances in cancer treatment and diagnostics achieved over past decades the cure of cancer by surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation is still a failure, especially with metastatic cancer being responsible for 90% of mortality (1).
Undesirable adverse effects and cancer cell resistance remains the main obstacle in obtaining a higher percentage of remission with better quality of life for patients. Therefore, it remains a challenge for Oncologists and researchers to develop new alternative approaches from natural sources without toxicity to enhance the efficacy of specialized chemotherapy/radiation.
In the fight against cancer through our own immune defenses, one particular immune cell has gained considerable interest over the past two decades from researchers. It is known as the Natural Killer Cell (NK cell) because it plays a crucial role against cancer.
A number of journal publications and published scientific papers demonstrate the association between the NK cells and cancer (2). Boosting the NK cells increases the killing of cancer cells and represents a significant advantage both in the prevention and treatment of cancer (3).
New natural compounds, and particularly mushrooms, are attracting researchers for their application in Integrative Oncology (4); however among the many available compounds investigated, one has commonly been the subject of extensive research and publication, due to its remarkable efficacy to boost NK cell activity in the killing of cancer cells in-vitro and in-vivo.
RBAC, known as Rice Bran Arabinoxylan Compound is a nutritional supplement produced by enzymatic hydrolysis of hemicellulose B derived from rice bran. RBAC possesses strong immunomodulatory effects especially with respect to enhancing natural killer cells and cytokine activity.
Over the past 25 years, RBAC has been widely investigated by researchers with impressive publication, and chiefly by M. Ghoneum PhD, from Drew University of Medicine in Los Angeles, CA (5), which according to him, is the most powerful compound we have to activate immune cells, particularly NK cells.
In our therapeutic approach to cancer, we have been using RBAC for the past 20 years alone, or in synergy with other selected compounds. Recently we have followed a number of cancer patients using different types of checkups which include molecular markers testing.
We built a number of clinical cases that we presented during various Congresses and cancer workshops together, along with other Oncologists using RBAC in their protocol as a chemotherapy adjuvant.
(*Rice Bran Arabinoxylan Compound)
By Professor Serge Jurasunas, MD (hc), ND