Never Say Die; say "Intravenous Alpha Lipoic Acid and Low Dose Naltrexone"

Medical cancer tends to write off the cancer pantient with liver metastases. This guy should have died in 2002, but went back to work instead and was still working in 2006 when the paper was written. A B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, was also succesfully treated.

Treatment With the Intravenous -Lipoic Acid/Low-Dose Naltrexone Protocol

Burton M. Berkson

Integrative Medical Center of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, Las Cruces

Daniel M. Rubin

Scottsdale, Arizona, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Arthur J. Berkson

Department of Family Practice, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois Masonic Medical Center, and the Department of Family Practice, Advocate Health Center, Chicago, Illinois

The authors describe the long-term survival of a patient with pancreatic cancer without any toxic adverse effects. The treatment regimen includes the intravenous -lipoic acid and low-dose naltrexone (ALA-N) protocol and a healthy lifestyle program. The patient was told by a reputable university oncology center in October 2002 that there was little hope for his survival. Today, January 2006, however, he is back at work, free from symptoms, and without appreciable progression of his malignancy. The integrative protocol described in this article may have the possibility of extending the life of a patient who would be customarily considered to be terminal. The authors believe that life scientists will one day develop a cure for metastatic pancreatic cancer, perhaps via gene therapy or another biological platform. But until such protocols come to market, the ALA-N protocol should be studied and considered, given its lack of toxicity at levels reported. Several other patients are on this treatment protocol and appear to be doing well at this time.

Key Words: pancreatic cancer • naltrexone • lipoic acid • survival

Burton Berkson designed the equally succesful Triple Antioxidant therapy for Hep C, using alpha lipoic acid, selenium, and silymarin.

Here is a summary of his work from Wikipedia:

The first human clinical studies using alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) in the United States were carried out by Fredrick C. Bartter, Burton M. Berkson, and associates from the National Institutes of Health in the 1970's.^[7][8][9] They administered intravenous ALA to 79 people with acute and severe liver damage at various medical centers across the United States and 75 recovered full liver function. Dr.'s Bartter and Berkson were appointed by the FDA as principal investigators for this therapeutic agent as an investigational drug and Dr. Berkson went on to use it successfully for the treatment of chronic liver disease (viral hepatitis, autoimmune hepatitis, etc).^[10]

In addition, because of ALA's ability to modify gene expression by stabilizing NF kappa B transcription factor, Berkson started using ALA for the treatment of various cancers for which no effective treatments exist. In a 2006 publication, he and co-authors described the long term survival of a patient with metastatic pancreatic cancer using ALA and various oral antioxidants.^[11] A 2007 publication of a case study described the complete reversal of the signs and symptoms of a B-cell lymphoma in a patient using less than one month of IV ALA and 6 months of low dose naltrexone. ^[12]

1. ^ Berkson, BM. "Thioctic Acid in the Treatment of Poisoning with Alpha amanitin." Amanita Toxins and Poisonings, 1980. Amanita Toxins and Poisonings, 203 (Heidelberg: International Amanita Symposium, Nov. 1-3, 1978). eds Faulstich, H., Kommerell, B., and Th. Wieland, Verlag Gerhard Witzstrock, Baden-Baden, Koln, New York 1980.
2. ^ Berkson, B. 1979. Thioctic acid in treatment of hepatotoxic mushroom poisoning (letter). New England Journal of Medicine. 300:371.
3. ^ Bartter FC, Berkson BM, Gallelli J and Hiranaka P. "Treatment of Four Delayed-Mushroom-Poisoning Patients with Thioctic Acid." in Amanita Toxins and Poisonings, eds Faulstich, H., Kommerell, B., and T.Wieland, Verlag Gerhard Witzstrock, Baden-Baden, New York 1980.
4. ^ Berkson BM. "A Conservative Triple Antioxidant Approach to the Treatment of Hepatitis C. Combination of Alpha-Lipoic Acid (Thioctic Acid), Silymarin and Selenium. Three Case Histories." Medizinische Klinik 94(3), 1999: 84-89.
5. ^ Berkson, BM, Rubin D, and Berkson AJ "Long term survival of a 46 year old man with pancreatic cancer and liver metastases and treated with intravenous alpha lipoic acid and low dose naltrexone" Integrative Cancer Therapies 5;1 March 2006,83-89
6. ^ Burton M. Berkson, Daniel M. Rubin and Arthur J. Berkson [Reversal of Signs and Symptoms of a B-cell lymphoma in a patient using only low-dose naltrexone Integrative Cancer Therapies 6(3); September 2007, 293-296 DOI: 10.1177/1534735407306358