Essiac Research Articles

Study of immune responses in mice to oral administration of Flor·Essence.

Flor·Essence (FE), a natural food grade herbal formula product manufactured by Flora Manufacturing & Distributing Ltd., has been used by patients with cancer in North America to stimulate immune cells in order to attenuate or reverse immune damage. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying the effects of FE on the immune system, spleen lymphocyte proliferation was analyzed by an MTT assay, and the phagocytic capacity of macrophages was measured via the neutral red phagocytosis method. The cytotoxicity of natural killer (NK) cells towards K562 cells was assessed via a CytoTox 96 assay. The production of the cytokines interleukin (IL)-12 and interferon (IFN)-γ in the peripheral blood was determined via ELISA and PCR analysis. The expression levels of caveolin-1 and NF-κB were measured via western blotting. In addition, cyclophosphamide was used to establish a mouse model of immunosuppression. It was found that the proliferation of splenocytes, the phagocytic capacity of macrophages and the cytotoxicity of NK cells against K562 cells were increased after oral administration of FE to mice. FE augmented the production of IL-12 and IFN-γ in the peripheral blood of mice. FE significantly increased the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen and caveolin-1, and decreased NF-κB expression. Finally, FE enhanced the viability of immune cells from cyclophosphamide-treated immunosuppressed mice. The results indicated that FE could activate immune responses and enhance natural immunity, suggesting that oral administration of FE can activate the body's immune response and resist damage caused by cyclophosphamide chemotherapy.

The Herbal Compound Flor-Essence Promotes Step-Down Learning of Mice with High-Energy Diet

Introduction: Flor-Essence (FE) is an herbal tea with eight ingredients. And it has many functions such as enhancing immunity and anti-tumor. This article aims to investigate the effect of Flor-Essence on high-energy diet mice.

Essiac for Cancer

Essiac for Cancer

Essiac for Cancer

Essiac for Cancer

Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of ESSIAC and Flor-essence

Essiac (ES) and Flor-Essence (FE) are two herbal teas widely taken by North American cancer patients during chemo- and radiation-therapy. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of these two herbal teas were assessed in this study. Cell-free Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity assay shows that at 1/5 dilution, ES and FE have hydroxyl radical scavenging activity equivalent to 10.65 microM and 5.74 microM of Trolox respectively. Treatment with ES at 1/10 and 1/20 dilutions significantly increased nitric oxide (NO) production by murine RAW 264.7 cells, but inhibited NO production in a concentration-dependent manner by lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated cells. In contrast, FE at 1/10 and 1/20 dilutions did not significantly induce NO production by RAW 264.7 cells, nor did it, at these dilutions, inhibit the NO production by LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. RT-PCR assay shows that both 1/20 and 1/100 dilutions of ES and FE induced mRNA expression of IL-1beta, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) pro-inflammatory molecules in RAW 264.7 cells compared to untreated controls. Addition of ES and FE at 1/20 and 1/100 dilutions to LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells did not alter IL-1beta, iNOS and COX-2 mRNA expression in these cells. ES and FE treatment did not affect TNFalpha mRNA expression in non-stimulated or LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. Our data show that ES but not FE stimulated NO release by non-stimulated and inhibited LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. There were only minor differences between ES and FE in their induction of mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory molecules. Further research is needed to investigate the differential activities of these two herbal teas in stimulating pro-inflammatory mediators release by RAW 264.7 cells.

In Vitro culture studies of FlorEssence® on human tumor cell lines

FlorEssence (FE) is an herbal tea widely used by patients to treat chronic conditions in North America, particularly cancer patients during chemo- and radiation therapy. Although individual components of FE have antioxidant, antiestrogenic, immunostimulant and antitumor properties, in vitro evidence of anticancer activity for the herbal tea itself is still lacking. We studied the antiproliferative effect of FE on MCF7 and MDA-MB-468 human breast cancer, and Jurkat and K562 leukemia cell lines. We found that FE significantly inhibited the proliferation of both breast and leukemia cells in vitro only at high concentrations, with 50% inhibition of MDA-MB-468 cells at about 1[sol ]20 dilution, Jurkat cells at about 1[sol ]10 dilution and MCF7 and K562 cells at less than 1[sol ]10 dilution. Flow cytometry analysis showed that treatment with a high concentration of FE induced G2[sol ]M arrest in MCF7 and Jurkat cells, with also an increased SubG0[sol ]G1 fraction in MCF7 cells. MDA-MB-468 cells showed a significantly increased Sub G0[sol ]G1 fraction after treatment with 1[sol ]10 dilution of FE while the cell cycle of K562 was unaffected. When MCF7 and MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cells were treated with a combination of FE with either paclitaxel or cisplatin, results showed that only the combination of 1[sol ]20 dilution of FE with 0.5 microM cisplatin resulted in a small but significantly higher MCF7 cell survival than 0.5 microM cisplatin treatment alone. FE at 1[sol ]20 and 1[sol ]50 dilutions did not affect the antiproliferative properties of these two commonly used chemotherapeutic agents. The results suggest that FE at high concentrations show differential inhibitory effect on different human cancer cell lines. Further studies are needed to assess the biological activities of FE.