Stephen et al;
I was wondering if any of you have heard about Black Seed Oil / Thymoquinone as a supplement to use against GBM? My issue with all of these studies is what type of dosage to safely give but also enough to make an impact.
Someone mentioned it in the comments to my blog:
http://loganlo.com/2016/04/ive-missed-you-so-much.html
Here's the NCBI cite for the study: "Thymoquinone inhibits autophagy and induces cathepsin-mediated, caspase-independent cell death in glioblastoma cells."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24039814
Thoughts?
The problem with in vitro studies like this is that they can show how much of a chemical is required to kill cancer cells in the lab, but they aren't required to say whether this concentration of the chemical in question is achievable in the blood or organs of humans without undue toxicity. One can try to do research on this independently, but in the case of something like thymoquinone there is virtually no human pharmacokinetic data to answer that question.
ReplyDeleteAs far as safety, there was a human clinical trial showing doses of thymoquinone up to 1000 mg daily (or higher) are safe in advanced cancer patients, and no maximum tolerated dose was identified in this study. However "no anti cancer effects were observed" in this population.
http://emedicalj.com/20501.fulltext
Also, pure thymoquinone doesn't seem to be available on the market for human consumption, you would have to take black seed oil instead. The thymoquinone content of black seed oil is about 1.2%, which means you'd have to take 83 grams of the oil daily to get the 1 gram of thymoquinone used in the trial. Taking that amount you would go through an 8 ounce bottle of the stuff in 2.7 days.
http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Herbs-Black-Seed-Cold-Pressed/dp/B0009EYIQ4
But there is no evidence that even doing that would have any effect (although taking that amount of oil every day would provide about half your fat calories on a proper ketogenic diet).
All compelling points, as always.
DeleteIt's a shame, anything that's even vaguely natural yet potent is something that I'd really like researched more fully.