Treating Cancer with Honokiol

Scott:           Doctor, you briefly touched on Honokiol and cancer properties. Can you talk about how it's used as a cancer therapy?

Dr. Eliaz:  Yeah, of course, Scott. Honokiol is a very exciting compound when it comes to cancer therapy, and it is getting a lot of attention. In fact, I'm going to talk at the end of this week in a very big cancer conference about the properties of Honokiol from my own clinical experience and my research. Honokiol can work on cancer in multiple mechanisms. First of all, it has a cytotoxic effect; it has a direct cancer-killing effect on multiple cell lines. From melanoma, to sarcoma, to brain tumors, to pancreatic cancer, to prostate cancer, to breast cancer. It really has a verpowerful anticancer effect on a wide variety of cancers. Because it penetrate the blood-brain barrier, it can also effect brain tumors, which is a very important feature. But there are a number of other features that make Honokiol, I think, really unparallel. I think curcumin has similarity, but there are some benefits to Honokiol even beyond what we see in researchwith curcumin.

Honokiol is a selective pro-oxidant, which is similar to vitamin C. Vitamin C in low dosages is an anti-oxidant, and in high dosages, becomes a pro-oxidant. That's why the vitamin C IV's are such high dosages to have an anticancer effect. Why? Because normal cells have a very powerful anti-oxidant mechanism through their glutathione pathways, so if we have high oxidative stress we are able to use anti-oxidants and neutralize the free radicals. Cancer cells have a deficiency, or weakness, in the anti-oxidant capacity, and therefore, they cannot handle oxidative stress.

Honokiol selectively will be a pro-oxidant against cancer cells, but will be an antioxidant against normal tissue. That's especially important because of the relationship, that we are now just learning about, between the cancer cell and the environment of the cancer cell. While we want to increase oxidative stress inside the cancer cell, and Honokiol is a contributor -  and we can use other compounds; drugs like Metaformin, metabolic issues, DCA and others. We want to lower the oxidative stress outside of the cancer cells.

We want to avoid having an acidotic environment so there is less oxidative stress, there is good oxygen coming, because if we don't have...if we have hypoxia and high oxidative stress, the tissue will respond with releasing of growth factors, which will make the cancer grow faster. So this is an important mechanism of Honokiol. It's a pro-oxidant and naturally you can use it with high-dose vitamin C. You can also use it with heat therapy, because heat increases metabolism, increases oxidative stress, and you can put Honokiol.

We can see how Honokiol can be used with vitamin C IV and with other treatments, such as heat therapy, that increases oxidative stress and metabolism. It's another adjunct to multiple therapies in integrative oncology. We talked about the ability of Honokiol to have a direct cytotoxic effect, it's a pro-oxidant, and its ability to differentiate cancer cells, which means move cancer cells from being more aggressive to less aggressive, possibly moving cells from being cancer cells to being normal cells, and Honokiol was found to have this property, especially on leukemia cells.

Another very important aspect of Honokiol is that it works on a pathway called mTOR-1.  MTOR-1 is a pathway that allows cancer stem cells. The stem cells of cancer that start the cancer, and also the cells that survive treatments, that actually, the cells that mutate and allow the cancer to metastasize, and allow to have a reoccurrence of cancer. One of the issues, let's say that you give a certain chemotherapy. For example, let's say that you give a toxin, Taxol, as a chemotherapy. Studies have shown when you look at a tumor mass, a certain percentage of the tumor includes cancer stem cells. They are the ones that are resistant. After treatment with Taxol, when you actually have a reoccurrence, the new tumor has not only has a higher percentage of cancer stem cells, but even a higher absolute number, so now, Scott,  you get a resistant tumor. For example, it was shown that curcumin can help when you give...when you give Taxol with curcumin, you get less cancer stem cells, and then you get a longer remission. Honokiol has a similar property, but Honokiol specifically works through the mTOR-1. There's also a drug called Metaformin that works through mTOR1. So, now when you give cancer therapy, you give chemotherapy, you give radiation therapy, you can give Honokiol as a supplement that will attack the cancer stem cells, and therefore, will increase the chance for a cure or for a longer remission. And that's really exciting, but there's much more.

Honokiol was found to be synergistic with multiple chemotherapy drugs: Gemzar, as an example, and others. So, it's very safe to use Honokiol with other chemotherapy drugs and we know why. It increases oxidative stress, because of being a pro-oxidant, it works through MTOR-1, and it really creates a synergistic effect with multiple compounds. Honokiol, for example, was found to radiosensitize colon cancer cells, which means if you give Honokiol, the colon cancer cells will be more sensitive to radiation therapy. Again, the pro-oxidant, and the MTOR-1, so, we can see how Honokiol can be used with radiation therapy.

We specifically have studied Honokiol on multiple cell lines and found very significant responses, we haven't published yet, on prostate cancer, on breast cancer, on liver cancer. We're doing a big study now on Honokiol in bladder cancer on its own and with Cisplatinum, but what we found,  Honokiol has a very well-known, well-published antimetatastic effect, which is really critical, and we can see how it relates, right, we're talking about the cancer stem cells. If you can prevent the cancer stem cell from growing, you're going to prevent the metastasis. We know that modified citrus pectinate have done so much work on, has a well-established, clinically-proven antimetatastic effect. We have now, are finishing in vitro tudies showing that Honokiol and our MCP have a synergistic antimetatastic effect. This means that when you look at the antimetatastic effects of MCP on its own, the antimetatastic effects of Honokiol on its own, when you combine both of them together, you get a synergistic effect, a much stronger antimetatastic effect. That's really exciting, because you have two compounds that you know work on their own, so, of course, if you integrate them it's very exciting. This really shows why Honokiol has such a potential. It is very safe. The only side effect that some people have from Honokiol is that sometimes they have some stomach discomfort, mainly diarrhea, but it's dose-dependent. If you lower the dose, or you stop it, it will go away. I recommend to start Honokiol very gradually. You start with 250 milligrams  twice a day, and you add one capsule a day until you get to 1 gram three times a day. People have no problem with tolerating 3 grams a day. And for patients who tolerate 3 grams a day, I'm now going to higher dosages, 4 or 5 grams a day, because of the important anticancer effect.