Interesting Way To Uncover A Medical Breakthrough

This is something I swiped from the Health Gazette. I think it's pretty interesting, see what you think.

Here is a story about a breakthrough in medical science. It is actually part of a sales page for a specialized investment adviser's service. I will place a link to the full copy below but please note that I am not affiliated with this service in any way and I am not endorsing it by sharing this with you. The copy is so well written and inherently interesting however, I thought you might find it worth your time. If you are an investor it may well be well worth your time to read the full pitch.

Gloria Richards never expected to go blind.

But like 20% of all men and women over 65, she had macular degeneration, which often leads to age-related blindness.

No more reading. No more golf. No more weekly bridge parties with the girls.

Life as Gloria knew it, would be over.

Then her doctor told her about a brand-new treatment -- a breakthrough technology so important to the medical community that it was recently featured over 1,625 times in scholarly scientific journals, like Scientific American, Science magazine, and in the academic reports of The National Academy of the Sciences.

Gloria’s doctor asked if she wanted to be one of the first to try this new treatment. Without hesitation, Gloria jumped at the chance.

The result?

Put simply, Gloria experienced a miracle.

She can see... with no drugs, no lasers, no surgery, and no side effects.

Dr. Philip A. Sharp, MIT professor and Nobel Prize-winner in medicine says of this technology, called RNA interference, "It’s the most important and exciting breakthrough of the decade, perhaps multiple decades."

In fact, RNA interference is so powerful that Technology Review magazine listed it as one of the "10 emerging technologies that will change your world." That’s because RNA interference doesn’t treat just macular degeneration -- it can be used to shut off nearly any disease in the human body -- just like shutting off a light switch.

Sounds unbelievable, right? I’d agree, but I’ve seen the proof for myself. This technology is as real as they come -- because it’s being put to practical use right now.

I’ll tell you all about how it works in just a moment.

You see, I’ve spent the past 3 years investigating this new technology first hand. I’ve met with over a half-dozen infectious disease experts, attended dozens of industry conferences, and visited top-level executives and CEOs. In short, this new technology is so powerful -- its applications are practically unlimited...

• "There’s no doubt about it!!! ...RNA interference is a cure for Huntington’s disease and other expanded repeat diseases!!!"

-- Hereditary Disease Foundation, Official Website

• "Many RNA interference companies are planning to tackle viral diseases, including hepatitis C, RSV, and HIV."

-- Financial Times, September 2005

• "...Researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a way to use RNA interference so that it permanently hampers breast cancer development."

-- Biotechnology Magazine, April 2005

It all began in a tiny greenhouse just outside San Francisco...

In 1986 a scientist named Richard Jorgenson was attempting to make the world’s most dazzling flower -- the deepest purple of petunias.

To do this, he added an extra purple-making gene to an already purple petunia.

Sounds logical, right?

But, unexpectedly, after adding the extra gene for purple, the flower turned bright white.

This tiny white petunia caused one of the biggest scientific mysteries in recent history. The world’s best and brightest scientists scurried to solve the puzzle...

Why does a purple flower turn white when an extra gene for purple is added?

This riddle went unsolved for more than a decade.

Then in 1998, 2 scientists, Dr. Craig Mello of The University Massachusetts and Dr. Andrew Fire of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, finally figured it out -- putting an end the decade long puzzle.

The riddle is solved!

When Richard Jorgenson added that extra purple gene to the petunia, he unknowingly activated an ancient defense mechanism that exists in every living cell.

Two scientists -- doctors Craig Mello and Andrew Fire -- discovered this process in 1998 -- solving the "great petunia riddle" -- and coined the term RNA interference.

How does RNA interference work?

When Jorgenson inserted that extra purple-producing gene into the tiny petunia, he activated a secret security device -- an enzyme, scientists call "the dicer." It’s called "the dicer" because it can literally "chop up" any disease, virus, bacteria, or fungus.

And that was the secret to discovering RNA interference. The dicer (or RNA interference) has to be activated to work -- or spurred into action. That’s why it took so long to discover this medical technology.

Back in Jorgenson’s white petunia, the dicer was activated when the unfamiliar invader (the extra purple gene) invaded the cell. Thinking it was a virus, "the dicer" kicked in -- and literally shut down all color producing genes to protect the flower from the foreign substance. Likewise, Jorgenson got a white flower -- one with no color.

In 2002, Thomas Tuschl, working out of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen, Germany, discovered that RNA interference works in human cells.

Remember how Richard Jorgenson destroyed ALL color producing genes in a flower by inserting an extra color-producing gene? Well, Tuschl discovered that this same process works to destroy real human diseases.

According to The London Times, "The diseases that stand to benefit from RNA interference include Alzheimer’s, breast cancer, leukemia, schizophrenia, and many, many more."

The prestigious journal, Science magazine, hailed this discovery the #1 scientific breakthrough of the year.

It boils down to this: "An ancient immune system hiding in our genes has the power to switch off genes at will. We could soon be harnessing this awesome force to stop cancer and viruses dead," reports New Science magazine.

Tuschl found that if doctors want to destroy a particular disease, all they have to do is insert an "evil twin" of that disease to activate the dicer -- just like Jorgenson did in the petunia.

Think of RNA interference as "a virus for the virus."

Now, let’s say you want to treat macular degeneration.

Doctors simply insert an "evil twin" of the disease that reads, "make more blood vessels" underneath the retina -- that’s what causes the vision impairment. The dicer will "come alive," see that something is not quite right, and destroy genes that are making extra blood vessels.

And that’s exactly how Gloria Richard’s blinding eyes were healed.

Source: Sales copy for an investment advisory service run by Dave Lashmet available here:

http://www.stansberryonline.com/dil/20060202-DIL-JOR.asp?pcode=EDILG201&alias= 20060204&alias=launch&o=334443&u=12459167&l=784093

It is very high-tech and interventionist treatment and Big Pharma will be all over it, I'm sure. However, it pays to maintain balance and an open mind so for now I think this is something well worth keeping an eye on. Some otherwise untreatable diseases may be dealt a blow by such therapies and if the unwanted side effects can be genuinely kept to a minimum then this may be very welcome indeed.

I do find it fascinating that an apparently natural intracellular defence system has been uncovered in this quite recent research. I wonder how many other natural systems there are that natural therapists have been activating with their treatments for thousands of years, not knowing exactly how their treatments worked, but knowing that they work. How many more are to be discovered and hopefully better appreciated and understood?

I must say too, that discovering a treatment that involves inserting an "evil twin" sounds very much like the homeopathic principle of "like cures like". Who knows, perhaps homeopathic medicines have been activating this previously unknown intracellular "immune system," or yet another one like it, at an energy level for years.