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Cartilage is defined as vascular, without blood vessels, and contains six to seven proteins that have the ability to prevent blood vessel growth. There is no reason to think that shark cartilage contains anything, which is not found in other animal cartilage. But there is so much more cartilage in sharks, since they have an all- cartilaginous skeleton, that they have served as sources for this material. Yet the central strands of protein that make up the heart of shark cartilage are among the largest produced by any cell. The only disadvantage to using cartilage is the fact that it must be absorbed into the cancerous region as soon as possible to prevent the protein from being digested by proteolysis enzymes. This has not been proven to help in any way, but it is still a possibility. In 1992, Dr. Linda Comac and Dr. William Lane published a book called Sharks Don’t Get Cancer. In this book, it discussed many experiments that were tested to determine whether or not these sharks were natural cures that humans can use. Experiments were done on lab rats in 1988-1989 to see what effect shark cartilage can have on cancer treatment. In this experiment, forty lab rats received a specific dose of xenografts for twenty-eight days. Xenografts were a graft of tissue from another species, specifically of a human melonoma. Melonoma is induced melonoma metastasis. The lab rats were given daily doses shark cartilage orally through a water suspension at a rate of 1200mg of shark cartilage per 1kg of body weight. The results of this experiment were positive. Tumors decreased seventeen percent, declining in size from thirty-six mg on day one, to thirty mg on day 21. When looking at the control rats, it was estimated that the tumor growth in one week doubles or triples its size once the blood network is in place confirming that tumor mass releases a substance that activates angiogenesis. The experiment was a success and had a great plus to it since the cartilage was completely nontox and had no adverse side-effects on the lab rats (Lane & Comac, 72). In order for Lane and Comac to have a more stable ground, the test was administered a second time but with a different strategy. Instead of introducing the tumor mass right away like in the first experiment, they waited two whole days after introducing the tumor mass before administering the medication. This second experiment ran for twenty-eight days and concluded with better results that the previous results. The tumor mass in these lab rats decreased by forty percent compared to only seventeen percent in the first test. |
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