QUESTION: Publications like “Chinese herb paired with iron kills 98 percent of breast cancer cells in 16-hours” and others cause us to ask questions regarding iron and artemisia compounds (ART) used in cancer. The most common form of the question is: “A cancer patient of mine forwarded this article to me about artemisia, iron and cancer, in regard to giving iron to patients with cancer I thought that we do not give cancer patients “extra” iron because cancer has enhanced growth with more iron.” So, should we give iron with Artemisia compounds? I have been hearing this question since our first breast cancer patient went to Germany and brought back what would become our ART_IVC protocol at AMSA-BIORC. I believe it mostly comes from extrapolations of Henry Lai and his work at UW (and whom I know and speak to occasionally). It is often reported as such: To test artemesinin’s effect on breast cancer cells, bioengineers Henry Lai and Narendra Singh of the University of Washington, Seattle, enriched segregated normal breast cells and radiation-resistant cancerous ones with holotransferrin, a compound normally found in the body that carries iron to the cells. Then the team dosed the cells with artemesinin. As the pair reports in the 16 November issue of Life Sciences, almost all the cancer cells exposed to holotransferrin and artemesinin died within 16 hours. The compounds killed only a few of the normal cells. Lai believes that because a breast cancer cell contains five to 15 more receptors than normal, it absorbs iron more readily and hence is more susceptible to artemesinin’s attack.
ANSWER: This data and others [below] are clear that ART uses iron (and other transition metals – similar to but not in the same way as HDIVC) to create its deadly ROS burst. It is why we believe that the ADR-IVC combination is synergistic. That said, however, those reactions do require ion transfer fuel and things like Fe, Cu etc. are used. Then, as Henry mentions, many cancer cells love Fe and preferentially uptake it. So, of course, if I do an in vitro test of ART kill rate I HAVE TO add Fe to make it happen.In a living creature you have the requisite Fe, Cu etc. around (yes even in severe anemia) to make all the ROS required. So, similar to why we don’t often give extra Fe in cancer we don’t often give extra Cu in active cancer as they can feed as much oncogenic activity as they would help with this therapy. There are experimental models of giving the patient Cu as a chelate concurrently with HDIVC for example, trying to maximize the effect but those are very difficult therapies to control. So my experience and my answer are if your patient is still alive they have enough Fe, Cu and other transition metals in their body to promote a positive treatment reaction with either ART or IVC.
[Yan Yang, Xiaomin Zhang, Xiofen Wang, et. Enhanced delivery of artemisinin and its analogues to cancer cells by their adducts with human serum transferrin. International Journal of Pharmaceutics. 2014, March 2014, 467 (1-2):113-122 doi:10.1016/j.ijpharm.2014.03.044]
