The Media
from TIME magazine - October 28, 1996
Relief for Swollen Joints
A KILLER WAS ON THE LOOSE . . . It was her own immune system, which had gone berserk, attacking the joints in her body and crippling her so badly that she often had to use a wheelchair. Left unchecked, rheumatoid arthritis might have shortened her life 10 to 15 years.
... doctors believe a successful approach to rheumatoid arthritis could lead them to treatments for other immune disorders, including lupus and multiple sclerosis.
This week ... scientists will announce ... three experimental treatments for rheumatoid arthritis ... using genetically engineered proteins or custom-designed antibodies to combat the disease at its source, blocking the wayward steps leading to the body’s self-destruction ...
For the past 15 years doctors have tried to treat the underlying disorder with the pharmaceutical equivalent of a sledgehammer, using anticancer drugs [Methotrexate/Rheumatrex] and steroids [cortisones] to beat down the body’s hyperactive defense forces. The tactic is only moderately effective and has side effects that can be as bad as the disease itself, leaving patients drained of energy and prone to sores and other infections. What researchers now realize is that to treat the joint disease they don’t have to clobber the whole immune system, just certain portions of it.
... The problem starts when ... a few misguided T-cells incite other immune system cells called macrophages to attack the joints ... IDEC Pharmaceuticals [developed] a custom-made antibody that can temporarily knock the immune cells out of commission. [But] it cannot distinguish between normal and misbehaving T-cells ...
... Immunex ... has focused on ... genetically engineered proteins that sop up excess TNF [tumor necrosis factor], interrupting the cycle of destruction ... Amgen targets ... interleuken-1, in much the same way ...
Unfortunately, none of these treatments can cure the disease. When patients stop taking them, pain and stiffness return ...
[These experimental discoveries are still years away from becoming available to the public.]
MEMORANDUM
CMO™, CETYLMYRISTOLEATE and CETYLMYRISTATE:
A COMPARISON OF PROPERTIES
(COMMENTARY FROM DR. LEN SANDS)
CETYLMYRISTOLEATE: At room temperature cetylmyristoleate is a liquid wax. It can be digested only in the alkaline environment of the small intestine. Cetylmyristoleate is a large molecule. These molecules have a strong affinity for each other and tend to clump together in large impenetrable masses. This results in a very small surface area relative to its weight and volume. Only the surfaces are exposed to the digestive process. Since that is only a very small percentage of the whole, very little gets digested, giving unaltered cetylmyristoleate a very low level of bioavailability. This is true of virtually all waxes. Fecal analysis indicates that they pass through the digestive system virtually undigested.
CMO™: To get an efficient and effective orally administered product, it was essential to raise the digestibility and resultant bioavailability of cetylmyristoleate. Consequently, we had to develop proprietary pharmaceutical processing methods that employ cerasomal technology. The resulting product, now a waxy solid rather than a liquid, was appropriately named cerasomal-cis-9-cetylmyristoleate, and trademarked as CMO™. There is a very important difference between the liquid form and the solid form. As a solid, CMO™ now resembles a crystalline structure that shatters in the alkaline confines of the small intestine. These shattered particles form a netlike mesh with enormous surface areas, allowing immensely greater digestive efficiency. Furthermore, the reticulated cleavage faces range between 0.9 and 1.0 microns in diameter, which accesses biological uptake mechanisms not available to either larger or smaller particles. Research shows that the body is 40 to 200 times more receptive to particles of this size. This is what makes CMO™ much more bio-available and effective than other products. And it is our exclusive proprietary processing methods that make it so.
CETYLMYRISTATE: It’s pathetic that we even have to bother with this one. Myristate, as opposed to myristoleate, has virtually no effect on the health of joints. Thus, it has essentially no effect on maintaining joint health. The best that promoters of these products (often as cheap as £3.00-£4.00 a bottle wholesale) can come up with to describe their stuff is something like “a free floating myristate.” Nobody here can figure out what that means. And the producers won’t clarify. If you can figure it out, please clue us in.
A NOTE ON "VEGETABLE" SOURCES: The biochemist’s bible, Baily’s Industrial Oil and Fat Products, Fifth Edition, Volume 1, Edible Oil and Fat Products, clearly lists only four sources for myristoleic acid, the substance needed to produce any form of myristoleate, including cetylmyristoleate. Those sources are beef tallow, butterfat, chicken fat, and sheep tallow. Period! Its extensive listings clearly show that there are NO VEGETABLE SOURCES, not even coconut or soybean oil as some have tried to claim. Any claim that cetylmyristoleate can come from a vegetable source is fraudulent.
A CAUTION ABOUT SYNTHETIC PRODUCTS: Synthetically produced cetylmyristoleate contains a large amount, probably 50%, of trans type cetylmyristoleate. The trans type molecule is unnatural to the body and causes physical damage by disrupting cellular membranes. Even in some so-called “natural” products there remains a trace of toxic residue left from harsh processing. Because it is a completely natural product, CMO™ has absolutely no trans molecules, and there is no toxic residue because no toxic substances are used in any stage of its processing.
Extracted from:
Dr. William Campbell Douglass’
SECOND OPINION Vol VI, No 5 May 1996
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A New “Miracle Cure” for Arthritis
Every few years there is a new miracle cure for arthritis. There was DMSO; a miracle cure from the Bahamas; acupuncture; cod-liver oil; chelation therapy; and many more. Most of these treatments help, but none of them has proved to be a cure. The drug industry has also been turning out one miracle cure after another - [like] aspirin, Tylenol, ibuprofen, and all the little profens, etc. But all these companies have managed to do is produce more side effects than the more naturalist doctors.
But now we have a new star on the horizon that promises as much (or more) than the old sure-cures. Again, I’m skeptical -- been through this so many times that I believe in the power of negative thinking -- but it does indeed look promising. A 40-year employee of the [U.S. Government] National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports: “Four years ago, I had arthritis so bad I could hardly walk and it was in my hands, too.” He is 84 now and remarkably improved from treating himself with a compound I am still trying to learn to pronounce. It’s called Cerasomal-cis-9- Cetyl Myristoleate. The trade name is CMO, so that’s what we’ll call it.
He began testing CMO back in 1971 while still with the NIH and he continued to investigate it after he retired. The compound was isolated from Swiss albino mice and injected into laboratory rats. Then the [group of] rats injected with CMO, and some rats who were not given the CMO, were [all] injected with an arthritis-inducing chemical. The rats protected by the CMO did not develop arthritis, but the unprotected ones all developed arthritis.
CMO is also found in male beavers and sperm whale oil. There is now an oral preparation that seems to work as well as the injections. It is absorbed from the mid-intestine and then migrates to the joints where it attaches itself and alters the immune response to the pain and swelling . . .
When his rheumatologist told him he could no longer recommend cortisone for him but only pain pills, the re- searcher went home, mixed up a batch of CMO, and injected himself. His arthritis quickly cleared, as did his headaches and his bronchitis. He thus made himself the first human guinea pig to be tested with CMO and may, just may, make medical history. Yeah, here I go again; I’m really impressed with the reports I’m getting from colleagues. This may be the cure we have been looking for. Even his doctor was so impressed with the results of his self-treatment that he urged the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences to publish a report...
[One study by the San Diego Clinic] involved 48 subjects of both sexes ranging in age from 29 to 82. The drug was given orally with capsules being taken morning and night. Only two subjects failed to show marked improvement or complete relief of all symptoms. The two patients who did not respond were both found to have severe liver disease. It is thought that liver damage from prolonged cortisone treatment for arthritis may block the healing effect of CMO. Most patients had a 70 to 100 percent return of joint mobility and a 70 to 100 percent reduction in pain. The initial response time is two to seven days and maximum response time is from seven to 21 days.
“It’s from a natural source, like cod-liver oil . . . ”