In 1971 President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into being, "declaring war'' on the killer disease. Since then the national cancer program, created by the legislation, has spent over $25 billion on research to improve treatments and find a cure. The stated aim at the time was to conquer cancer by the end of the century.
Yet with less than three years left before the dead line cancer still causes one in every four deaths in the U.S. Today one in two men and one in three women will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime and over half of them will die within five years of being diagnosed as suffering from the disease. Clearly the war is far from won.
After twenty years of research as a pathologist the realization that progress towards a cure was stalled led Prof. Yun TTaik-koo, the head of the Laboratory of Experimental Pathology at the Korea Cancer Center Hospital, to turn his thoughts in another direction.
"In the early 1900's few patients had any hope of long term survival. In the 1930's less than one in five survived more than five years, in the 1940's it improved to one in four, in the 1960's it was one in three," he said.
"However, since the 1960's the observed survival rate has only improved to four in ten. Still less than 50 percent of those diagnosed as having cancer survive for more than five years." he continued.
Interested by reports of research on the anticarcinogenic effects naturally occurring substance, Beta-carotene, Yun thought about looking for other substances which might have cancer preventative effects.
The logic behind a switch to cancer prevention is clear. Most cancer treatments _ despite considerable advances _ have serious side effects, fall short of guaranteeing a full recovery and are extremely expensive.
Some specific treatments for certain types of cancer are now remarkably effective however, many others can still be classified by their critics as "cutting, burning, poisoning and hopiing.""What we needed to do was to find a substance with anticarcinogenic properties which is used in every day life.
We needed something which people might drink or eat in the course of daily living because most people are notoriously bad at following long term regimes or of significantly changing their lifestyles or diets over the long term," concluded Yun.
In East Asia the first port of call for this type of research was obvious, ginseng.
Over 1500 years ago in Liang dynasty China, Shennong described the life prolonging effects of the mythical root and since then it has been taken by people throughout the region as a health tonic.
Yun considered ginseng 's reputation and decided to investigate.
His first move was to set up laboratory experiments using mice which were given various carcinogens soon after birth. The mice were then given different types and concentrations of ginseng dissolved in their drinking water.
The results exceeded all expectations. Not only did mice given ginseng exhibit less incidence of tumors than those that were not but there were clearly recognizable trends. For example nearly 50 percent of mice given only carcinogens developed tumors. However only 25 percent of mice given six year old red ginseng extract in their water developed tumors.
The results also indicated that fewer tumors occurred as the age of the ginseng increased.
Spurrred on by results which seemed barely credible Yun continued his laboratory experiments to try to confirm his initial results. After developing a whole new test procedure for this type of study and doing various comparisons with other supposed anticarcinogens he became more and more convinced by his findings.
After almost ten years of work in the laboratory Yun realized, to attain wider credibility, he would have to broaden his research. As this type of experiment cannot be repeated on humans he had to change his approach and conduct what are called human case control studiies.
He
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ng term project involved questioning large numbers of residents concerning their health and lifestyle while hiding the purpose of the study. The survey data, containing questions on ginseng intake, is then compared to the rates of cancer incidence, mortality and other health statistics.
"This kind of retrospective study can only be conducted in countries like Korea where there are groups of people who have taken ginseng regularly throughout their lives. It is also extremely time consuming in that it involve essentially waiting for people to develop cancer," said Yun.
Results of the ongoing study have revealed the inhabitants of the arrea exhibit a significantly lower rate of cancer incidence than that for the population as a whole in Korea, Japan and the U.S.
With growing recognition of his work a home and abroad _ his work has been cited in several internationally renowned medical journals such as The Lancet and he has received awards from such prestigious bodies as the American Chemical Association _ Yun still believes he has to work to overcome the natural suspicions of western medicine and thought and gain greater respect.
"Work still needs to be done to identify ginsengs mechanisms of action and its active components in preventing cancer." he said.
Whille he is determined to continue his work and hopefully add evidence to support his findings he is heartened by a recent change in thinking among some cancer researchers.
Moving away from looking for specific cures for individual types of cancers, researchers have recently begun to more actively consider non-organ specific preventative solutions to the problem.
Cited in an article in The Scientific American, John Cairns, an emeritus professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, pointed out that the facts of economic life and the indifferent results achieved so far favor a preventative rather that a therapeutic emphasis in the long run.
- BY: Ian King Staff repoorter1997.10.03
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