New Research Shows an Ancient Flower Remedy Can Treat Cancer and Other Ills
Mankind has honored the healing power of roses for thousands of years, but their possible role in cancer treatment is a recent discovery.
That's because modern science is finally catching up with what history already knew: That this versatile flower boasts a wide range of curative properties, especially when it comes to its essential oil. An oil extracted from a plant is essential in the sense that it carries the distinctive scent or "essence" of that plant. So essential oils, in general, are strongly linked to the plant's aroma, and I don't need to tell you that the scent of a rose is perhaps the most famous single aroma on earth. But does that mean it can heal? Let's take a look. . . Continued below. . .
If you hang around with alternative health folks long enough, you'll learn that they prize the healing qualities of essential oils drawn from a great many different plants.
Healers have used them medicinally for centuries. But — no surprise — as conventional, so-called "evidence-based medicine" took over, the use of essential oils declined. That's all changing, thanks to new research on rose oil and other properties related to rose petals.
How essential oils are created
An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid. "Hydrophobic" just means what you already know from the old saying: Oil and water don't mix.
Rose oil is extracted from rose petals, and the petals used come from a variety of different roses. The two types of roses most often used for rose oil production are the damask rose and the cabbage rose. Most essential oils are created through the process of distillation, usually by steam. You'll find them in perfumes, soaps, cosmetics, and sometimes in flavoring for foods or scents for cleaning products and incense. If you're wondering about the distillation process, it involves a great deal of work. That's why rose oil doesn't come cheap. In most cases, the flowers are harvested by hand early in the morning, before sunrise. The petals are distilled later the same day. Several pounds of rose petals are required to distill just one ounce of essential oil. The distillation process itself usually involves large, copper stills filled with roses and water and heated between one and two hours. Anything that vaporizes is collected in a condensing apparatus and transferred to a flask. From there, different types of extracts are divided up from the total mixture. Essential oil is not the only product of this process. By-products called rose absolutes are acquired using a process called supercritical carbon dioxide extraction (this is the type of rose oil most commonly found in perfumes). There's also an element of rose oil called hydrosol, which is the part of the distillate known as rosewater. It's a cheaper by-product of the distillation process and is most commonly used in skin care and some food flavoring.
Latest intriguing research on roses
According to a recent study in the Journal of Food Science, air-dried rose petals contain the following: Phenols, anthocyanins, and gallic acid. Here's why those three components are critical to cancer prevention:
Thanks to this study, we know that different types of roses vary greatly in their antimutagenic activity – that is, in their ability to prevent mutations. It turns out that a rose’s ability to inhibit mutation depends largely on the color of its petals, which is related to the anthocyanins in the petals.
This is important because DNA mutations are a major cause of cancer, and other diseases as well. Plant-based chemicals with the ability to prevent mutations are profoundly beneficial in preventing and treating cancer. Research I’ve seen recently indicates that cancer tumors not only begin with mutations of healthy cells but mutate constantly, enabling them to adapt to almost any challenge a tumor meets. Rose oil may provide us with a weapon against cancer’s ability to change and work around anything you send against it. Another study, this one in Current Microbiology, found antioxidant and antibacterial properties in different rose extracts, and also examined total phenolic content. The extracts observed were essential oil, hydrosol, and absolute. Rose absolute extract and essential oil were the highest-ranking in terms of phenolic content. On top of that, these extracts showed impressive antibacterial effects against predator organisms like Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus, along with a few others. Here's yet another study to consider. In research published by Natural Product Communications, 40 healthy volunteers were separated into two groups. One group received a placebo, the other received transdermal doses of rose oil (meaning the rose oil was applied to the skin). The study showed rose oil effectively calmed disorders of the nervous system, aiding things like blood oxygen saturation, breathing rate, and systolic blood pressure. Subjects in the rose oil group reported they were calmer and more relaxed following treatment. Researchers hope this could lead to advances in natural treatments for depression and anxiety, among other things. The highest values of antioxidant activity, total phenols, and gallic acid content were found in the roses called San Francisco, Katharina Zeimet, and Mercedes, as well as the rose species Rosa damascena.
How to use rose oil as a cancer treatment
Never ingest essential oil on your own, without the direction of a trained practitioner. There are things you can drink like rosebud tea, which might help, but you won't be getting the high concentration of helpful chemicals found in essential oil.
An experienced practitioner will most likely combine rose oil with something called a "carrier oil", and teach you to apply the preparation directly to your skin or add it to your bath (common carriers are sweet almond, avocado, or jojoba oil). The essential oils penetrate the skin and enter the blood stream within minutes. As a side note, rose oil is known to be effective in healing skin conditions like eczema, premature aging (especially from sun damage), and rosacea. To treat these problems, the oil is rubbed directly on the skin. Rose oil can also be inhaled if you put a few drops on a cloth or use a vaporizer or diffuser. Aromatherapy affects the neurochemistry of the brain and can help to clear sinuses, detoxify, oxygenate, free congestion in the chest, relax, invigorate and produce changes in emotional, physical, and mental behavior. If you decide to pursue rose oil treatment, make sure you find a product that is pesticide-free and organic. That holds true for flowers, oils, and hydrosols. The research is still new, so there's no specific regimen I can recommend. But it holds a lot of promise, and I think it's worth keeping an eye on new developments on the rose oil front. Meanwhile, there's a natural remedy you can put to work right away, without professional guidance. And it tastes great, too! If you missed this article in our last issue, you can read it below.
Tap into the Healing
Power of Honey
Whether you add it to your tea or spread it on a piece of bread, you might be one of many folks who enjoy honey as a sweet treat for your taste buds.
But ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and others knew something else: This sticky bee product can be a valuable medicine, too! India's 4000-year-old Ayurveda tradition identifies honey as a valuable medicine for ALL body imbalances. Fast forward to the 21st century and you'll find quite a few champions of honey as a healer in our own times, too. Let's take a look at a recent discovery that might have special value for cancer patients... Continued below...
The discovery originates with New Zealand biochemist Peter Molan, who works at the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato. He focuses on the remarkable healing properties of a specific type of honey.
Dr. Molan believes the flowers of the native New Zealand manuka bush produce honey with antibacterial properties head and shoulders above other products. Let me explain what it is about manuka honey that makes it such a promising treatment—even for cancer patients with wounds to heal.
Manuka honey's got that 'special something…'
European honey bees produce this outstanding health elixir by extracting nectar from the manuka or tea tree. This flowering plant in the myrtle family is native to New Zealand and southeast Australia.
An enzyme that bees add to the nectar produces hydrogen peroxide in all honeys. Dr. Molan said that manuka honey—and its close relative which is made from the Australia jellybush—contains a little extra something… But after more than two decades of research, Molan still couldn't say just what that special something is. He decided to call it the unique manuka factor (UMF). Another researcher, Professor Thomas Henle form the Institute of Food Chemistry at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, determined that the extra 'kick' in manuka honey comes from methylglyoxal (MG). Small amounts of MG are in most types of honey. In manuka honey, MG comes from the conversion of dihydroxyacetone—which is found in higher concentration in the nectar of manuka flowers. So maybe it's that extra MG that makes manuka honey such a strong antibacterial. According to Dr. Molan, when he compares the bacteria fighting ability of the UMF in manuka honey to other carbolic or phenol antiseptics, the results are nothing short of amazing.
Manuka honey makes
the toughest bacteria run for cover!
Medical professionals are finding that even the toughest new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria don't stand a chance when they're treated with manuka honey.
Superbugs such as the dreaded Staphylococcus aureas and its evil cousin MRSA are no match for this amazing natural antibiotic. A group of Canadian researchers published findings in the journal Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery, which concluded that manuka honey has "bactericidal properties superior to those of most commonly used antimicrobials." Similarly, a 2002 review found that despite the small number of clinical studies on living patients (in vivo), the antibacterial properties of manuka and other honeys had been demonstrated in studies of lab cultures (in vitro). These reviewers concluded that there was a potential for its use in "the management of a large number of wound types." Dr. Molan is quoted in a BBC News interview as saying, "We know it has a very broad spectrum of action… we haven't found anything it doesn't work on among infectious organisms."
So what did the Egyptians know
that we're just finding out?
Ancient writings show that honey was commonly used as a type of healing ointment for open wounds and sores.
Its natural antibiotic properties helped keep the wounds from becoming infected—which could also lead to other health problems. For many years I've heard authorities in natural medicine recommend honey as a wound dressing to prevent infection. It appears that manuka may be quite a bit more powerful than the average honey. Manuka honey is being touted as a marvelous all-purpose medicine that can help:
Even the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agrees that honey could be a simple and effective treatment to help injured persons.
Believe it or not, the FDA approved manuka honey as a wound management treatment in 2007. And you better believe that watchful entrepreneurs got their wagons rolling not long after this decision… For example, the New Jersey company Derma Sciences Inc., a maker of advanced wound care products, started selling the first honey-based dressings in the U.S. Their product is called Medihoney. It's made from a highly absorbent seaweed-based material saturated with manuka honey. Dr. Molan also developed wound dressings that are marketed by the New Zealand companyComvita. These dressings could be especially helpful to cancer patients who experience wounds or ulcers as a result of radiation therapy. But if you're not in the market for wound dressings — don't despair! There are other manuka honey products available from reputable companies. For example, you'll find manuka honey oil, throat spray, lozenges and other products marketed by Manuka Health-New Zealand (http://www.manukahoneyus.com/ ). See what kind of protection and sweet relief you experience by discovering the power of this ancient health remedy! 
References from 1st article:
"Anthocyanins and their role in cancer prevention." By Li-Shu Wang1 and Gary D. Stoner, Cancer Lett. 2008 October 8; 269(2): 281-290.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ "Discover how to fortify yourself against cancer, inflammation, depression and more with this one aromatic flower." By Carolanne Wright, Natural News.com: 15 August 2013. http://www.naturalnews.com/ "Essential Oil." Wikipedia. Located 29 August 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ "Identification of Antimutagenic Properties of Anthocyanins and Other Polyphenols from Rose (Rosa centifolia) Petals and Tea." By Sanjeev Kumar, et al. Article published online 29 Apr 2013. http://onlinelibrary.wiley. "Plant phenolics in the prevention and treatment of cancer." By Wahle, KW, et al. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2010;698:36-51. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ "Rose Oil." Wikipedia. Located 29 August 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ "Rose Oil: What Should You Know About Rose Oil?" By Cathy Wong, About.com Guide, Updated August 13, 2013. http://altmedicine.about.com/ "Rose Petal Tea as an Antioxidant-rich Beverage: Cultivar Effects."By Yakov Vinokur, et al. Article published online 31 May 2006. http://onlinelibrary.wiley. "Studies on essential oils: part 10; antibacterial activity of volatile oils of some spices." Singh G., et al. Phytother Res. 2002 Nov;16(7):680-2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ "The Many Wonderful Benefits of Roses." Nature Supplies, posted on August 27, 2013 http://www.naturesupplies.co.
Resources from 2nd article:
Alandejani, T. et al. Effectiveness of honey on Staphylococcus aureusand Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms. Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. (2009) 141, 114-118. Available at
http://www. Dunford, C. et al. The use of honey in healing of multiply infected skin lesions following meningococcal septicaemia. Knox,, A. 2004. Harnessing honey's healing power. BBC News. Available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ Lusby, PE; Coombes, A, Wilkinson, JM (2002 Nov). "Honey: a potent agent for wound healing?" Journal of wound, ostomy, and continence nursing: official publication of The Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nurses Society / WOCN 29 (6): 295-300. doi:10.1067/mjw.2002.129073. PMID 12439453 Moczulski, J.P. 2007. Honey making a medical comeback. NBC News. Article available at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/ |
