Viral hepatitis is a fairly common systemic disease that is marked by hepatic cell destruction, necrosis, and autolysis, all of which lead to anorexia, jaundice, and hepatomegaly. More than 70,000 cases of the illness are reported annually in the United States. Today, five types of viral hepatitis are recognized.

Defining Live Cell Liver Peptide Growth Factors

From the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., three investigating pathologists, Drs. N. Fausto, A.D. Laird, and E.M. Webber, advise: "During liver regeneration, quiescent hepatocytes (liver cells) undergo one or two rounds of replication and then return to a non-proliferative state. Growth factors regulate this process by providing both stimulatory and inhibitory signals for cell proliferation." (20)

The idea of intrinsic hepatic growth control factors produced by animal and human liver cells has been stated in published reports, which date back to approximately forty-six years ago. (21-25) Much of this early research was conducted on rats and dogs, but currently clinical investigations among both healthy human volunteers and really sick people have taken place. (26)

Comprised of the tiniest of protein molecules, which biochemists and physiologists call peptides, these growth factors are of an exceedingly low molecular weight (30,000 Da), which yield two or more amino acids on hydrolysis. The Dalton with a symbol of D or Da, also called an atomic mass unit, is equivalent to 1.657 X 10 (24) gm. Peptide growth factors form by loss of water from the NH2 and COOH molecular groups of adjacent amino acids and are additionally referred to in biochemistry as di-, tri- tetra- etc. peptides, depending on the number of amino acids in the molecule. Thus, peptides make up the constituent parts of proteins. Examples of those several dozen peptides from the human liver and other organs which often give birth to growth factors are: hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), and dozens more. (27-30)

According to which of the various scientific disciplines is being queried, different names exist for peptide growth factors. Historically, for instance, cell biologists have called members of their identified growth factor-type set of molecules "growth factors;" immunologists have named their growth factor-types "interleukins," "lymphokines," or "cytokines;" while hematologists have used the growth factor-type descriptive term "colony stimulating factors" (CSF). However, the present generally delineating nomenclature of "growth factors" has been and is now widely used throughout the world's scientific literature.

The term "growth factor" is now used consistently among almost every scientific and medical discipline, because in almost every case it reflects the context of the original discovery or isolation of any peptide. Since essentially all of these many molecules are multifunctional, it's not easy to conceive unique new names for them that would be entirely satisfactory; almost all of them are "panregulins," that is they react as universal regulators of the particular organ from which they derive. As you'll learn below, for the animal and human body, peptide growth factors are actually physiological symbols for the transfer of signals - a kind of language of biological regulation. (31-32)

Peptides often promote cell growth, but they also can inhibit it; moreover, they regulate many critical cellular functions, such as in the control of cell differentiation and other processes, which have little to do with growth itself. All peptide growth factors act in sets. To understand their actions, one must always consider the biological context in which they act.

Peptide growth factors provide an essential means for a cell to communicate with its immediate environment. They ensure that there is a proper local homeostatic balance between the numerous cells that comprise a tissue or organ. Since a cell must adjust its behavior to changes in its environment, the cell needs mechanisms to provide this adaptation. Therefore, the tissue cells, either singularly or collectively, use sets of peptide growth factors as signaling molecules to communicate with each other and to alter their own behavior to respond appropriately to their biological context.

The most important peptide growth factors of the liver's hepatocytes have been identified as a collection of hormones called "somatomedins." These liver hormones are peptides that produce major effects on the growth of bone and muscle. They also influence the metabolism of ingested minerals, including calcium, phosphate, carbohydrates, and lipids (fat). Somatomedin growth factors are indirectly stimulated to divide by the pituitary hormone somatotropin (also referred to as "growth hormone" by endocrinologists).

The peptide growth factors act by binding to functional receptors that transduct their signals and the peptides themselves may be viewed as bifunctional molecules.

The following are two main responses or actions that peptide growth factors accomplish:
(a) They possess an afferent function in that there is the conveying of information to cellular receptors, providing them with information from outside the organism's cell, tissue, or organ.
(b) They have an efferent function in that there is the inception of a latent biochemical activity of the receptor.

The Peptide Growth Factors within Liver Cells

A certain piece of geographic knowledge in nature's lore (presented in the paragraph immediately below) perhaps best illustrates how peptide growth factors must be considered cell-to-cell signals, rather than as the equivalents of metallic parts of a machine. They offer up physiological symbols of communication within the organ systems of nearly all animal organisms. Peptides possess the unique action of serving as a significant means to convey information from one cell to another or from one organ to another, including the brain and central nervous system; their action in this regard is contextual.

Natural lore shows us the way peptide growth factors act to convey information inside their animal host. I ask you to visualize the reversal of host animal peptide growth factors communication in the following context:

It's a fact that in two closely located islands off the coast of South Africa, a rock lobster and a large snail have reversed their predator-prey relationships. On island "Gamma," the lobster preys on the snail: finds it, attacks it, and eats its soft parts with gusto. Fifty nautical miles to the east on island "Omega," a reversal of the roles between prey and predator takes place. The same species of snail that had been eaten, now preys on the same species of lobster by approaching it, extending a probing foot, burying that foot into the lobster's body, and sucking out its gizzards. (32)

What produces the reversal in predator prey relationships? It's the host animals' peptide growth factors. Within each of the animal organisms, their growth factors alter attitude so as to become contextual; they signal differing elements of an intercellular language. To be contextual means that the whole situation, background, or environment becomes relevant to this particular animalistic prey-predator event, as determined by molecular makeup of the participants' peptide growth factors.

Interleukin-6 (IL-6), one of the known peptide growth factors, regulates the protein synthesis in a human being's liver cells (hepatocytes). Also transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), another set of peptide growth factors produced by normal human fibroblasts, additionally regulates the synthesis and secretion of human immunoglobulins by B-lymphocytes. (33-36) Since immune cells also synthesize both TGF-beta and IL-6, these molecules provide a means of communication between the immune system and its immediate neighbors. The liver is part of almost every detoxification process; therefore, the hepatocytes are often significantly involved with the metabolism of neighboring cells.

Inasmuch as the liver's natural function makes it a part of all aspects of physiological repair in the presence of body pathology, the peptide growth factors of the liver cells must be critical determinants of every aspect of tissue trauma or illness response. As such, liver cell peptide growth factors have important and necessary therapeutic applications. The peptide growth factors, whose functions and applications are described below by Stewart Lanson, M.D., of Scottsdale, Arizona and Howard Benedict, D.C., of New York City, bring major impacts to the practice of clinical medicine and nutritional science. These peptide growth factors are involved in the repair of both soft and hard body tissues, immunosuppression, enhancement of immune cellular function, improvement of bone marrow function in numerous disease states, treatment of many proliferative diseases including the remission of cancer, the marked lowering of serum cholesterol, (37) and for the elimination of all hepatitis viral diseases, but most especially for hepatitis B and C. (38)

Stuart Lanson, M.D., Treats Hepatitis C with Liver Peptides

Scottsdale, Arizona clinical ecologist Stuart Lanson, M.D. is an allergist holding board certification in environmental medicine. He is the medical director of the Scottsdale Ear, Nose, Throat, Allergy, and Environmental Health Center. Regarding treatment with liver peptides, he says:

Among the hundreds of clinical journal research reports that can be acquired from an Internet search of Medline, the following are only a few about the great physiological and metabolic advantages made available by liver growth factors. Research on liver growth factors has been conducted both on animals and cultures in laboratories, as well as on sick patients receiving treatment in clinics and medical offices.

From the Department of Internal Medicine at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, researchers report that a combined preparation of liver growth factors and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) has been widely used for patients with chronic liver disease. In particular, those Japanese suffering with hepatitis C viral infections (HCV) benefited from intravenous injections of this preparation. It seems to be a potent agent for the enhancement of the anti?viral efficacy of interferon (IFN) in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CH?C). (39)

Extracts from the weaning pig liver, although not bovine, also have acted synergistically with hepatocyte growth factors to stimulate improved function of the liver cells. The researchers did report that in the absence of added porcine growth factors, the extracts had no activity.

From the Third Department of Internal Medicine, National Defense Medical College in Saitama, Japan we learn about the peptide growth factor known as Transforming Growth Factors?alpha (TGF?alpha). These particular growth factors cause biological activity when they come in contact with an extract of human exocrine pancreatic cancer associated with humoral hypercalcemia of malignancy. (40)

Two mitogenic pepticles in bovine liver extracts show mitogenesis and other metabolic activity when they come in contact (in the laboratory) with basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF). (41)

Originally described as a hepatocyte peptide specific mitogen, hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a potent stimulator of DNA synthesis in a wide variety of cell types. It has the unique ability to transmit information that determines the spatial organization of epithelial cells in tissues as well as induce cell migration and invasion of extracellular matrix in a variety of epithelial cells. HGF is involved in physiological processes such as embryogenesis and development and in pathophysiological processes such as regeneration and carcinogenesis. (42)

Investigations conducted at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, U.S.A. indicate that HGF is an important mediator of interactions for carrying on human mitogenesis, motogenesis, and morphogenesis. (43)

As a mesenchymal derived morphogen, HGF supports epithelial branching duct formation in the developing lung. It prevents the onset or progress of hepatic fibrosis/cirrhosis and accompanying severe liver failure. HGF may be used successfully as treatment for vascular disease, gastric ulcers, diabetes mellitus, and neuronal disease. (44)

From the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, we learn that HGF, epidermal growth factor (EGF), TGF?alpha, IL?6, tumor necrosis factor?alpha (TNF?alpha), insulin, and norepinephrine each play important roles in the sequential changes of gene expression, growth factor production, and morphologic structure. (45)

The Potential Healing Benefits of Live NatCell Liver Peptides

Located under the diaphragm and occupying most of the right hypochondrium and part of the epigastrium of the abdomen, the liver provides vital functions for the body by means of its growth factors.

In preparing for our interview about his use of frozen, liquid, bovine liver peptide growth factors, Dr. Howard Benedict, a nutrition?oriented chiropractor practicing in New York City, discussed with me the potential healing benefits of these frozen liver peptides. In summary, Dr. Benedict offers the following information about the liver's numerous growth factors:

Dr. Benedict says:

How to Use the Frozen, Liquid Bovine Peptide Growth Factors

Howard Benedict, D.C., conforms to the manufacturer's suggested instructions for patient and health professional's use of the frozen, liquid extract. The manufacturer's product package insert tells us that the liquid extract is marketed as a food supplement only for oral use and should always be kept frozen. The insert also states:

Due to the recent problem with the madcow disease, the FDA has inspected and cleared our Natcell products for sale. FDA Clearance No. 110-3122937-2 NO MADCOW HERE!

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