FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Question (Q): Are there any specifics about how to choose the oleander plant and extract preparation?

Answer (A): In order to obtain an extract that has therapeutic potency, use only oleanders that have fruits. The plant should be growing by running water, and free from pollution. When the branch is cut, the juice should drip drop by drop. The plant should be collected between April and October in the northern hemisphere, when the winter is over.

 

Fruit bearing healthy plant's branches should be fresh. The branch should be cut 15-50 cm (6-20 in) from the edge toward the root of the plant. The body of the stem should be flexible and green in color. In other words, it should not have brown color, wooden body. If the branches that are cut have no fruit, at least two fruits should be collected for each 50cm (20 in) branch.

 

This plant material (i.e. leaves, stems, fruits, flowers) is washed thoroughly. Next it is crushed by hitting with a hammer. Then it is cut into 1.0-2.5 cm (0.4-1 in) pieces.

 

The process continues as described in the patent (in Example 1), on this page, and on this web site.

Q: In the “Description of The Preferred Embodiments” section of the patent there is no mention of oleanders having fruits; why do you emphasize it here?

A: When past data were examined, it was noted that the extracts that cured patients used were all obtained from oleanders that had fruits. We did not know about the importance of fruit bearing oleander plants back then.

Q: Oleander is known to be a very poisonous plant. How do you dare to use such a plant?

A: What makes oleander poisonous are the cardiac glycosides that it contains. Cardiac glycosides are soluble in alcohol, not in water. NOO and NOI are water extracts of oleander and have no cardiac glycosides.

Q: What is the success rate of N.O. treatment?

A: The success rate will be known after phase II trials. So far, there are results from some patients who followed Dr. Ozel's recommended therapy scheme fully. Some such case reports are posted on this site.

Q: Which varieties of cancer is N.O. treatment efficacious on?

A: Dr. Ozel's opinion is that the efficacy of N.O. treatment does not depend on the variety of cancer, but rather on the immune system of each individual.

Q: Is Anvirzel the same as NOI?

A: Anvirzel ( Anti viral Ozel) is a trademark that was registered by Ozelle Pharmaceutical, Inc. (OPI) for NOI. For sterilization, they use 0.2 micron filter that filters out the active immunomodulator molecules; hence Anvirzel is a harmless, impotent substance.

Q: Why didn't we hear about N.O. treatment before?

A: Dr. Ozel first started to work with N.O. in 1966. He tried to call the attention on its merits many times (the events are summarized on the other pages of this site ). Before AIDS appeared, immunology was covered in just a single paragraph in medical textbooks. When the first cases were reported in 1970s, scientific community preferred to ignore or reject Dr. Ozel and his cases, because they could not understand, explain the mechanism of action of this drug. Later when immunology developed as a science, new tests were found, nerium oleander extracts could be tested, and its mechanism of action through the immune system could be witnessed (e.g. 27, 28, 29 ). But there is much room for further research to understand the details of the mechanism of action.

Q: What are the side effects of N.O. treatment?

A: The side effects of N.O. treatment are explained on the Materials & Method page of this site.

Q: I prepared the extract according to the formula given in your patent. However, the color turned out to be yellow rather than brown. I don’t understand how brown color would be obtained from green leaves and green stalks. Should the color be definitely brown? If your answer is yes, what am I supposed to do?

A: Let us assume that you did everything correctly; you filtered the extract correctly, you placed it in airtight containers, you sterilized it and put it in the refrigerator (2 – 4^oC). Wait for one week. The color of the extract should turn brown. Do not use the extract if its color does not turn brown. If you use, it does not do any harm, but it does not do any good either.

Q: What kind of filter should I use? Are there any commercially available filters that you may recommend?

A: Pore size of the filter needs to be greater than 4 microns; otherwise active molecules are filtered out. Among others, here are two commercially available paper filters:
- VWR brand, qualitative or quantitative 454 filter papers. They had a diameter of 15 cm, they were sold in boxes of 50 or 100 filters.
- Eaton Dikeman, grade 613 (medium speed) filter papers. They also had a diameter of 15 cm, and were sold in boxes of 50 or 100 filters.

Q: In the formula described in Example 1 of your patent, you use 10 liters of distilled water for 2 kg of plant material. Thinking of a ratio of 1 to 5, I used 1 liter of distilled water for 200 grams of plant material. Is this correct? In such a case, do I need to change the boiling time described in the patent?

A: The ratio of 200 grams of plant material to 1 liter of distilled water is correct. What is important is to reach the appropriate density. Depending on the amount of extract and heating method, this may take from 1.5 hours to 5 hours.

Q: In the formula, there are waiting periods like 6 – 8 hours, 10 hours. Are these compulsory or allowed periods? I.e. do I have to sterilize after waiting six hours, or can I only wait for up to six hours?

A: The aim of the waiting period is to let the extract cool to room temperature. As a rule of thumb, if you can touch the extract container with your bare hands comfortably, i.e. if it is cold enough, then you may start filtering.

Q: I used about 150 grams of green healthy leaves and about 50 grams of fresh green stalks. What should be the leaves/stalks ratio?

A: That ratio was never measured. One chooses 20 – 60 cm parts of the growing ends of the branches of healthy nerium oleander plants; one uses the whole of the chosen part. (stalk of such parts are green like the leaves)

Q: Is the density measured hot?

A: Density is measured at room temperature.

Q: Is the plant material, which is collected, not washed?

A: The plant material is throughly washed with clean water until it is free of any dirt, dust, insects, etc...

Q: How is the extract sterilized?

A: Bottles with airtight lids are placed on a container that has a flat bottom. Water is added without covering the lids, the container is heated on a stove; when boiling starts, it is continued for one hour. The lids are not covered with water because some plastic lids may break during boiling. Some water is also boiled in a second container; this water is added once or twice to the container with bottles in order to compensate for the water that evaporates.

Q: I notice some precipitation on the bottom of the NOI/NOO bottle that is stored on the regular shelf of the refrigerator. Is such precipitation normal? May I dissolve this precipitate by shaking the bottle?

A: Such a precipitation is normal. You may dissolve it by gently/slowly turning the bottle upside down, and up again repeatedly until the precipitate disappears completely. Research performed in Germany revealed long polysaccharide molecules as one of active ingredients; one does not shake the extract in order not to break the long molecules...

Q: It has been nine days since we started NO treatment. My patient receives 0.7 mL of NOI daily, and his body temperature rises to 37.2 – 38.6 C. He feels pain at the tumor site, is this normal? Secondly, does the fever occurring after NOI injection mean that the patient will get well?

A: Each person's immune system is different; some people experience fever after NOI injections, some others don't. What is important is the comparison between the baseline check-up, and the follow up check-up in three months. If regression or stand still of the tumor is observed, the patient is recommended to continue NO treatment. Pain occurring at tumor site is normal; it is expected to decrease gradually, and cease totally within about one month.

Q: I have been receiving NO treatment, and have been experiencing rise in my body temperature after NOI injections. Today before the injection I had a fever of 37.5 C. Is this normal?

A: No, it is not normal. Before NOI injections the body temperature should be within normal limits, i.e. 36.0-36.9 C (under the arm). A fever of 37.5 C is a sign of a disorder not related to your cancer, or NO treatment. You should stop NO treatment, find the cause of this fever, and receive treatment for it; even a dental abscess may cause such a fever. However, for such an investigation, you should be careful not to mention about your cancer because if you do, they may relate the fever to cancer, and not even bother to look for the root cause...

Q: After receiving 0.5 mL of NOI, my body temperature rose to 39.2 C. Tomorrow I will decrease the dosage to 0.4cc. Until then is there a way to decrease my body temperature?

A: If you take an analgesic like Aspirin, Tylenol, etc. your body temperature should decrease to normal within one hour.

Q: It has been four weeks since I started NO treatment. I had a check-up today. It shows that my malignant tumor has advanced. What should I do?

A: The following note on the Mechanism of Action of Oleander Therapy may be helpful for your decision:

MECHANISM OF ACTION OF OLEANDER THERAPY

(The following information is based on the research performed on NO extracts, on scientific knowledge about immune system, and our observations)

Oleander extracts modulate the immune system. In other words when values of some parameters of the immune system are higher or lower, oleander extracts cause them to return within normal limits. (because of this immunomodulator property oleander therapy may be efficacious in the treatment of immune system disorders like AIDS, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, pemphigus vulgaris etc.)

Immune System

There are about 35-40 trillion cells in human body, and they are being replaced at the rate of millions per second. By the time you finish reading this sentence, about fifty million of your cells have already died and replaced by new ones. In other words, human body resembles a mass production cell factory.

In a factory built by humans, some defective goods also come from the production lines. At the quality control department, such faulty items are detected, and either refurbished or discarded. It happens similarly in the cell factory that is in human body. The quality control department of the human body is the immune system. During the mass production of cells, some defective cells also appear. Various immune system cells detect and destroy them.

Cancer cells are among the defective cells. One may virtually say that each human gets cancer everyday, but thanks to his/her healthy immune system, he/she does not even notice it...

However, the immune system is variable; many events, substances, feelings etc. affect it. For example some rays of the sun, nuclear radiation, cigarette smoke, deep sorrow, many chemicals etc. are known to influence badly the immune system. At a lab where research on immune system was performed, researchers used their own blood for the experiments. Yet they have not taken any blood on Mondays, because they noticed that the immune cells were relatively weaker on the first day of the week...

Various parameters' effect on the immune system changes; in other words, each parameter's weight of effect is different. For example, let us say, the impact of harmful sun light is 5 points, nuclear radiation 50-1000 points (depending on how seriously and how long one is exposed to it), cigarette smoke 15 points, second hand cigarette smoke 3 points, sorrow 20-100 points (depending on how deep it is and how long it lasts), etc...

Now think of a cup that has a capacity of 500 drops/points. For the sake of our argument, this cup symbolizes the health/weakness of the immune system. For example, if one goes to beach without protection against harmful sun light, 5 drops come into his/her cup. If he/she smokes 15 drops come into his/her cup, etc. On the other hand, if he/she uses immunomodulators (e.g. NOI, NOO, etc.), this helps preventing the rise of the level in the cup. What is important is that the cup should not overflow; if it does the immune system becomes incapable of detecting the malignant cells. This model explains why, for example, someone who is 30 years old, who does not smoke but gets lung cancer, and someone who is a smoker, 70 years old, and is cancer free...

Let us now say that the cup is full with exactly 500 drops; the next coming drop overflows the cup. In such a case immune system cells become unable to detect a malignant cell; the latter starts to multiply. It multiplies, multiplies, forms a mass. It continues growing until either it touches a nerve and disturbs the person, or becomes visible on or under the skin... Only then one is investigated, and diagnosed with cancer. If it is a primary tumor, one tries to surgically remove it. If there is metastasis, it is too late for surgery...

When a patient is given NOI, immune system cells, somehow, start to detect cancer cells, and mobilize to kill them. In light of the foregoing, a model on the mechanism of action of NO treatment is as follows:

Mechanism of Action of Oleander Therapy

As is known, cells multiply by division: one cells becomes two, two cells become four, etc. At each division they multiply by two. Let us assume that cancer cells are now 4 billion in number, and form a spherical mass of 5 cm in diameter. Now they can not multiply twice since the cells within the mass have no room for new cells. Let us further assume that while malignant cells daily increase in number by 100,000, the patient starts receiving NOI injections, his/her immune system is in relatively good shape, fighter cells of his/her immune system start  detecting and killing malignant cells. On the first day of the treatment [day A/baseline]15 fighter cells kill 30 cancer cells. On the second day 30 fighter cells kill 60 malignant cells and so on. Every day immune system increases the number of cancer killer cells, and kills more and more of them. In the mean time cancer has been advancing. Let us assume that on day B there are 4.5 billion malignant cells, the diameter of the tumor is 5.1 cm, and the propagation rate of cancer cells is 110,000 cells/day. Let us also assume that on day B the immune system cells can kill 110,000 cells/day; day B is when cancer is stopped from advancing. Afterwards tumor starts to shrink. Then there comes the day C when the number of cancer cells is 4 billion, which is similar to day A when the patient started receiving NOI injections. Tumor continues to decrease in size, and eventually it disappears.

The effect of NO treatment depends on the state (health/weakness) of the patient's immune system, on how advanced the disease is, and on how fast it propagates daily. Dr. Ozel's approach was as follows: The patient would have baseline check-up on day A. He/she would have another check-up in three month's time, and this would be compared with the baseline. If it showed regression or stand still of the tumor, the patient would continue NO treatment; otherwise he/she would be recommended to stop the treatment.

If the follow up check-up is performed before three months, it may be misleading. Cancer continues to advance between day A, and day B; let us say this period is 6 weeks. From day B till day C it shrinks, on day C it becomes as big as on day A; let us say from day B till day C it is 2 weeks. Even if the treatment is efficacious, a follow up check-up performed before day C (before 8 weeks for this example) would mislead to the wrong conclusion. Baseline check-up is very important; if comparison is made with older records obtained before day A, this would also be misleading...

In the previous paragraph, it was stated that the time period from day A/baseline, till day C when the tumor reaches the stand still size was about 8 weeks. This was just for the sake of argument. Depending on various factors mentioned above this period may be two weeks, or even longer than 10 weeks.

We would like to finish this note by emphasizing that NO treatment is not like having an Aspirin and expecting that the headache is gone in one hour...