Ban on a cancer-curing vitamin?

Cancer is a disease that usually leaves people desperate. Even doctors are sometimes powerless and the chances of recovery are often poor.

It is precisely at this point that self-proclaimed doctors and “YouTube scientists” like to get involved and promise healing through the simplest means.

Cancer Patient Advocate Foundation claims that there is an ominous vitamin B17 that has been banned in the US by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) because it cures cancer (all types of cancer!). People who write books or give public lectures about B17 would also be legally prosecuted. However, there seems to be one man who stands up to everyone: a Dr. Coldwell, who “historically always writes in his books about up to 16 apricot kernels a day,” which contain vitamin B17 and can cure cancer.

For the impatient:

Yes, “B17” has actually been banned in the USA. But not because it supposedly cures cancer (which it doesn't), but because it contains amygdalin, which breaks down into hydrocyanic acid in the human body and is therefore highly toxic.

What is Vitamin B17?

There are a total of eight B vitamins (B1 – B3, B5 – B7, B9, B12). B vitamins with different numbers are usually unusual or outdated names for the organic compounds.

Vitamin B17 is now a special case: it is a name that can only be found in “alternative medicine”. It is also not a real vitamin. These are defined by the fact that they are essential for the human metabolism, meaning that deficiency symptoms occur without that vitamin. But now people like Dr. Coldwell claims: B17 is essential, but is banned because it cures cancer.

So who is right?
To do this, let’s first take a closer look at B17. This substance is also amygdalin and is found in some natural foods, including apricot kernels. To add some confusion, the substance is also sometimes laetrile . Both substances are very similar in chemical structure, but not entirely identical. Laetrile is semi-synthetically produced from amygdalin and has been promoted as a miracle cure for cancer since the 1950s.

How is B17 supposed to work?

Here we enter the wonderfully simple medical world of alternative medicine, where everything can be explained relatively simply.
If you eat apricot kernels, which contain amygdalin, the amygdalin is broken down in the stomach by enzymes into benzaldehyde, glucose and (attention!) hydrocyanic acid. Hydrocyanic acid is highly toxic to humans, and a single apricot kernel contains up to 0.5 mg of it. About 50 mg of hydrogen cyanide (depending on body weight) is considered fatal. Since hydrogen cyanide is also partially (attention, only partially!) broken down by the human metabolism, the lowest lethal threshold for an adult weighing 60 kg is around 40 cores per hour.

However, and this brings us to the first problem, hydrogen cyanide is not completely excreted from the body, so it accumulates. Regular consumption of apricot kernels can, in the long run, lead to hydrogen cyanide poisoning!

But further in the text: How are the cores supposed to help?
An enzyme called β-glucosidase helps break down hydrogen cyanide. According to Dr. Coldwell is now said to have increased levels of β-glucosidase and hydrogen cyanide, especially in cancer cells. By taking apricot kernels, more β-glucosidase enzymes are developed, which then specifically attack the cancer cells and their hydrogen cyanide and thereby destroy them.

It would be nice if it were that easy. Unfortunately, this is not the case, as β-glucosidase is found in all human cells, even if only in small amounts, not just in tumor cells.

Investigations

As mentioned, this claim has existed since the 1950s. Since it is so persistent, there have been scientific studies on it, after all there could be something to it that could help cancer research. To do this, scientists from Germany, England and Belgium sat down in 2011 and searched through eight databases, which stretched from February 2011 back to 1951, to look for studies in which cancer patients were treated with amygdalin or laetrile. In addition, those scientists also contacted experts in the field, looked for unpublished clinical studies and combed through reference lists.

The results of this research can be read in detail on the Cochrane Library . Since we don't want to burden you with miles of text in medical English, here's a summary:

– Over 200 references were found, 63 of which were suitable for closer inspection.

– All 63 studies were either low quality, highly flawed, unreliable, unverifiable, or showed no reduction in cancer with the use of amygdalin

– A possible benefit of amygdalin counteracts the likely prussic acid poisoning caused by this treatment method

– The results of those studies were reviewed by several experts

It should be noted that the Cochrane Library is not just one of many databases, but an evidence-based medical database that is constantly updated by medical experts and checked for errors.

Where does the claim come from?

As early as the 1920s, a Dr. Ernst Krebs (no joke, the man's real name was that) with apricot kernels to improve the taste of home-made whiskey. He stated that an extract from apricot kernels appeared to shrink tumors in rodents. In 1936, however, Dr. Krebs that the extracted material, which has now been given the name amygdalin, was too unpredictable and too dangerous for the human body.

Over 20 years later, his son, Ernst Krebs Jr., revisited that research and claimed that he synthesized amygdalin, which his father called dangerous, into a safe substance, which he called laetrile. As already mentioned above, laetrile differs only very slightly from the original substance amygdalin; the effect on the human body is the same.

And who is this Dr. Coldwell?

The “doctor” who writes “cancer patient advocate” in the third person on his own homepage is actually called Bernd Witchner and was born as Bernd Klein in Germany in 1958. According to his own statements, he had himself renamed “Leonard Coldwell” in the USA in 1998; in Germany this name is only recognized as a stage name. The acquisition of the doctorate could not be proven anywhere.

He is known, among other things, for his dissemination of Reich bourgeois views on Facebook, but also as a “miracle healer” and founder of a healing church in the USA (keyword: tax exemption), which has since been dissolved. His medical skills are limited to the fact that he claims to have cured his mother of cancer at a young age using his miraculous healing powers.

Conclusion

So has B17 now been banned in the USA? Yes, really. But not because it supposedly cures cancer, but because it contains amygdalin, which breaks down into hydrocyanic acid in the human body and is therefore highly toxic. Incidentally, the drug has not been banned in Germany, but is not widely used and is not available in pharmacies.

So the bottom line is that we have the wishful thinking of many cancer patients to get an easy cure, a doctor who experimented with whiskey and rats almost 100 years ago (how can you imagine that?), a son who smelled a deal, and a fake doctor with a pen name, who expanded the business to include books, a conspiracy theory and various websites.

Let's hope that one day there really will be an efficient method for curing cancer. Unfortunately, apricot kernels are not included.

“Whether you believe that or not. It is like that."