Arthritis to cancer, the healing powers of Christmas gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh

WHEN the three wise men rocked up at the baby Jesus' crib, they brought three gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh.

But although they might sound like bizarre birthday gifts to a newborn to us, they each pack some pretty hefty health benefits.

Sure, we'd rather be receiving a gold necklace or frankincense bath bomb this Christmas, but they've got another uses too.

And the holy gifts aren't the only festive feature to boast some surprising health benefits.

We reveal how certain Christmas staples can help manage chronic conditions:

Gold is obviously super valuable and part of that value is actually down to the fact that gold has been used as a medicine for thousands of years.

During the Victorian era, it was thought to be good for calming the nerves and was used to treat all kinds of issues, from alcoholism to epilepsy.     

Even today, gold is used certain parts of the world to alleviate depression and migraines, while gold salts are known to have anti-inflammatory properties and are included in some arthritis drugs to take down swelling.

But more importantly, gold is used to treat some cancers as a way of making standard treatment more effective.

Scientists found that the shiny substance can help to attack prostate cancer when combined with green tea - a discovery they concluded: "may provide significant advances in oncology for use as an effective treatment for prostate and other solid tumours".

But generally, eating a stack of gold is quite pointless as it tends to pass straight through your system.

Frankincense
Frankincense, was supposed to have been brought to the baby Jesus to symbolise his priestly role.

It's a resin used in loads of musky perfumes and incense sticks and today, many wellness practitioners claim that it can help to reduce all kinds of chronic issues.

Scientists have found that frankincense has an active ingredient that can help relieve arthritis by inhibiting the inflammation that breaks down cartilage tissue and causes arthritis pain.

The study confirmed traditional medicinal practices which have used frankincense as a herbal remedy for arthritis in North African and the middle east where the substance grows.

The researchers, however, reviewed studies looking at the benefits of the spice and concluded that "The evidence for the effectiveness of B serrata extracts is encouraging but not compelling".

Myrhh
Like Frankincense, this comes from trees too and again, tends to be used in perfume and incense.

Back in the day, it was used to embalm dead bodies (so a cheery gift for a little kid...!).

But it has a tonne of medicinal benefits and has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years.

Today, it features in many mouthwashes and toothpastes as it's thought to be antibacterial.

It's also found to be potentially toxic to cancer cells and may reduce the development of prostate and colon cancer.

One study has also found it to be good at pain relief and wound healing thanks to its high concentration of antioxidants. It's worth saying, however, that that evidence is only based on animals so more evidence is needed on humans.

Mistletoe
Mistletoe has been found to be effective in treating endometriosis.

Last week, scientists claimed that mistletoe could be the key to finally treating excruciating endometriosis.

Scientists  have found that mistletoe extract can kill the cells which cause the condition.

They took tissue samples from 40 women with severe endometriosis and exposed them to mistletoe extract in lab tests.

And they found that after just 24 hours, the festive foliage stopped endometrial cells from multiplying so easily - reducing the rate at which abnormal tissues grew.

This isn't the first time that the chemicals found in mistletoe have been found to have potential medicinal benefits.

In the past, they've been found to have cancer-busting properties.

In fact, 47 NHS patients  have been receiving mistletoe therapy on top of standard cancer treatments.

A spokesperson for  health board said: “Mistletoe therapy can be integrated with conventional cancer treatment.

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This New 10-Minute Test Detects Cancer Early Using Gold Particles

We talk a lot about preventive medicine, especially when it comes to cancer, which includes dietary  and life-style changes like managing stress and reducing environmental toxins. But that's only part of the cancer-combating equation. Early detection is essential, as it increases the chances of successful treatment, and scientists have been developing ways to detect cancer earlier in non-invasive ways—but a new discovery by researchers may be the most important to date.

Now, thanks to these Australian researchers, we have a way to identify cancerous cells using just a 10-minute test and any tissue sample (including a blood sample), according to their new study.

How does it work? All of our healthy cells contain patterns of molecules called methyl groups, which spread across the genome. In cancer cells, these methyl groups appear in dense clusters at certain locations, and when affected cells were put in water, it caused, "DNA fragments to fold into unique three-dimensional nanostructures that could easily be separated by sticking to solid surfaces such as gold," says one of the study authors.

The altered cell structure of the cancer cell found in the sample was drawn to gold particles, changing the color of the cell when they came in contact and allowing scientists to separate the cancer cells from the healthy cells.

So, while the method uses circulating cancer DNA in the blood, similar to a liquid biopsy, this detection method is novel because it's simple, less expensive than other testing methods, and has the potential to pair with a smartphone.

While the test has yet to be done on humans, the study reports 90% accuracy  after testing 200 human cancer samples and healthy DNA. "This unique nano-scaled DNA signature appeared in every type of breast cancer we examined, and in other forms of cancer including prostate, colorectal and lymphoma," the Dr. said in a statement.

The next step is to run large-scale clinical trials to determine just how early cancer can be detected. The researchers are already assessing whether other bodily fluids could be tested to detect cancers. These are cutting-edge discoveries, and we are standing by for what happens next.

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Novel gold nanocomplex for cancer drug delivery

Anti-tumour drugs could target the diseased cell

Using gold nanoparticles coated with a simple organic molecule (porphyrin), researchers have designed an efficient drug nanocarrier. The nanocarrier was found to effectively deliver doxorubicin (anti-tumour drug) to the nucleus of the diseased cell and bring about programmed cell death.
Porphyrin was armoured on the gold nanosurface via continuous stirring method. “Porphyrin is a simple organic compound and it gives the necessary protection and stability to the nanosurface. Porphyrins are essential co-factors in many human proteins such as hemoglobin and so it can escape from the macrophages in our body,” explains the Senior Scientist  and one of the corresponding authors of the paper published recently.

The porphyrin molecule was found to be uniformly distributed on gold nanoparticles and the porphyrin–gold complex was stable.

The anti-tumour drug doxorubicin was then successfully loaded on the porphyrin–gold nanosurface. “Doxorubicin is selectively released when it reaches the low-pH environment seen in cancerous cells,” explains a research scholar at the institute and one of the first authors of the paper.

Activity of the complex

Its activity was then tested on brain and lung cancer cells and normal healthy cells. The porphyrin–gold complex without the drug showed no toxicity to healthy and cancerous cells. The nanoparticles coated with the drug showed very low toxicity to normal cells and caused programmed cell death both in brain and lung cancer cells.

Multidrug resistance is one of the major barriers in cancer cells, where the drug is quickly ejected out, reducing the effective drug concentrations within the cells and thus decreases its sensitivity. 

“We found that the drug-coated nanoparticles were retained well inside the cells thus showing higher activity,” says another research scholar at the institute and one of the first authors of this paper.

“There are several pathways by which the drug can damage the DNA. Currently we are studying the pathways, and trying to design a system that can release the drug more efficiently. We are also studying how the system works in real scenario of tumour model,” says one of the corresponding authors of the paper.

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Some Unbelievable Facts About Our Body

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It's hard to believe, but considering the fact that much of our body is made of water, it makes a little more sense...


The human nose contains small amounts of magnetite, a magnetic substance that is also found in dolphins, bats, and homing pigeons - all of which use the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate.


Your jaw muscles can produce as much as 200 psi at any given time. That's more strength than 40% of all primates, and enough to cause significant damage if need be.

  We may not be the fastest, but we can outrun any animals when given time. In fact, in some places in Africa, hunters simply chase their prey until it succumbs to exhaustion.


While many apes can throw with force, it's humans who can combine both force and accuracy. This is one of the many traits that helped our survival, making it easier to hunt and defend ourselves.


There's about 0.2 milligram of gold in the human body, but it's not the most expensive compound we have. There are chemicals, such as scandium, that are worth thousands of dollars per kilogram.


You know that fingerprints are individually unique, but did you know that every person's ears also carries a unique structure?


Did you know that when you are born, you have 300 bones in your body, but long after, the number drops to 206? Shortly after birth, many of these bones fuse together, becoming bigger, stronger bones.


The liver is the true jack-of-all-trades in the human body. It performs over 500 functions, including producing bile, cleaning the blood from toxins, and lots more.

  When splashing cold water on your face, your body enters a state called Mammalian diving reflex, which slows down your heart rate by 10-25% and optimizes your breathing.


Pound for pound, human bones can withstand more pressure than steel.


A single human hair can hold up to 100 grams of weight. A whole head of hair can hold as much as 2 grown elephants! (150,000 hairs = 15 tons)

Cardiac ‘patch’ to replace damaged heart tissue

A cardiac patch which incorporates biomaterial harvested from patients and gold nanoparticles could be transplanted into the body to replace damaged tissue after a heart attack, scientists say.

Tel Aviv University researchers have been developing sophisticated micro— and nanotechnological tools to develop functional substitutes for damaged heart tissues.

Dr Tal Dvir and his graduate student Michal Shevach of TAU’s Department of Biotechnology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, have now discovered that gold particles are able to increase the conductivity of biomaterials.

In a study published in the journal Nano Letters, Dvir’s team described their model for a superior hybrid cardiac patch, which incorporates biomaterial harvested from patients and gold nanoparticles.

Cardiac tissue is engineered by allowing cells, taken from the patient or other sources, to grow on a three-dimensional scaffold, similar to the collagen grid that naturally supports the cells in the heart.

Over time, the cells come together to form a tissue that generates its own electrical impulses and expands and contracts spontaneously.

The tissue can then be surgically implanted as a patch to replace damaged tissue and improve heart function in patients.

According to Dvir, recent efforts in the scientific world focus on the use of scaffolds from pig hearts to supply the collagen grid, called the extracellular matrix, with the goal of implanting them in human patients.

However, due to residual remnants of antigens such as sugar or other molecules, the human patients’ immune cells are likely to attack the animal matrix.

In order to address this immunogenic response, Dvir’s group suggested a new approach. Fatty tissue from a patient’s own stomach could be easily and quickly harvested, its cells efficiently removed, and the remaining matrix preserved. This scaffold does not provoke an immune response.

The second dilemma, to establish functional network signals, was complicated by the use of the human extracellular matrix.

“Engineered patches do not establish connections immediately. Biomaterial harvested for a matrix tends to be insulating and thus disruptive to network signals,” said Dvir.

Dvir explored the integration of gold nanoparticles into cardiac tissue to optimise electrical signalling between cells.

“To address our electrical signalling problem, we deposited gold nanoparticles on the surface of our patient-harvested matrix, ‘decorating’ the biomaterial with conductors,” said Dvir.

“The result was that the nonimmunogenic hybrid patch contracted nicely due to the nanoparticles, transferring electrical signals much faster and more efficiently than non-modified scaffolds,” Dvir added.

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Caffeine mixed with gold may fight cancer

Do you see any connection between gold and caffeine? If combined, these two can become a potential tool in fighting cancer, a study showed.

Researchers put the two together into certain configurations to see whether the new caffeine-based gold compounds could selectively stop cancer cells from growing without hurting other cells.

“Caffeine and certain caffeine-based compounds have recently been in the spotlight as possible anticancer treatments. Gold also can wipe out cancer cells, but, like caffeine, it can harm healthy cells,” said researcher Angela Casini from University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

The team made a series of seven new compounds, called caffeine-based gold (I) N-heterocyclic carbenes in the laboratory and studied them.

The scientists found that at certain concentrations, one of the compounds of the series selectively killed human ovarian cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

In addition, the compound targeted a type of DNA architecture, called ‘G-quadruplex’ that is associated with cancer.

Researchers, in a report in the ACS journal Inorganic Chemistry, said that combining a caffeine-based compound with a small amount of gold could someday be used as an anticancer agent.

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