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The Medical Benefits of Beta-1,3D-Glucan The Medical Benefits Beta-1,3D-Glucan Beta-glucan, a natural chemical extracted from yeast and plant cell walls, is an immune system booster with enormous potential in combatting cancer and AIDS, surgical infection and even the effects of radiation. [Editor's Note: This article refers to research studies involving animals. We wish to advise readers that we at NEXUS do not condone or support the validity, efficacy or morality of animal experimentation or vivisection.] estern medicine usually treats patients with antibiotics and patented drugs. Many such drugs have harmful side effects and can weaken our natural immune system. This paper explores the role of Beta-1,3D-Glucan in boosting the immune system as an alternative to conventional medication, and in acting as an adjuvant by enhancing the effectiveness of conventional medication. Our immune system is our only natural defence against invading disease pathogens, yet it sometimes fails to cope with disease. This is because our immune system is not some- thing that is always activated; rather, it modulates between an active state and an inactive state. When the immune system is fully activated, then virucidal and tumoricidal chemi- cals made by the body to fight diseases are at high levels. When the immune system is inactive, these same chemicals exist only at very low levels, allowing invading organisms to multiply. Pollution of our environment results in our immune system being increasingly harmed and deactivated; for example, every Western person's body now contains dioxin which can deactivate the immune system. The immune system always requires stimulation in order to switch from an inactive or normal state to the activated state. A typical stimulus might be the detection by the body of some part of a germ. However, sometimes a disease can progress significantly and the person might get quite sick before the immune system becomes aware of the presence of disease microbes. There are two types of immune responses: specific and non-specific. If one is vaccinat- ed against a particular disease, say smallpox, then the subsequent change in the immune system reflects a specific immune response targeted only against smallpox. Alternatively, one can have a non-specific immune response whereby the changes in the immune system are more generalised in nature and not aimed at any single specific disease threat. Such a non-specific immune response is capable of enhancing the body's natural protection against a wide variety of diseases rather than giving protection only against a particular single organism. In the 1940s, Louis Pillmer, PhD, and his associates discovered that a yeast cell wall extract was capable of producing this kind of non-specific immune response. In the 1960s, Nicholas DiLuzio, PhD, at Tulane University identified the active ingredient of the yeast cell wall extract as beta-1,3D-glucan. Then in the 1980s, Joyce Czop, PhD, and colleagues from Harvard Medical School went further and described exactly how beta-glucan was able to stimulate the immune sys- tem. They found that a key immune cell, called a macrophage, contained specific recep- tor sites which could be activated by the presence of beta-1,3D-glucan. They wrote that "studies indicate that beta-glucans with 1,3 and/or 1,6 linkages are active pharmacologic agents that rapidly confer protection to a normal host against a variety of biologic insults".' So it was that the non-specific immune stimulant beta-1,3D-glucan was discovered. Its protection is brought about through the triggering of biological switches— receptor sites—on the macrophage. These receptors are only activated when a particle has exactly the right shape to fit the receptor site—and beta-1,3D-glucan has that particular shape, just as a lock can only be opened by a particular key. After discovering this, Czop et al. wrote by Peter Olson, BA, DipEd © August, December 2000 PO Box 393 Byron Bay, NSW 2480, Australia Fax: +61 (0)2 6684 9143 E-mail: naturehealer@mail.com by Peter Olson, BA, DipEd © August, December 2000 PO Box 393 Byron Bay, NSW 2480, Australia Fax: +61 (0)2 6684 9143 E-mail: naturehealer@mail.com NEXUS - 33 FEBRUARY — MARCH 2001