If you are in touch with any anti-cancer therapy which is followed world wide you would have surely come across the word ‘laetrile’ several times. The world ‘laetrile’ stands for levorotatory and mandelonitrile, and is used to describe a pure form of the cancer-fighting chemical called amygdalin. Amygdalin is a compound of pklant origin and can be found in the kernels of many fruits and nuts. Lima beans, clover, sorghum and apricot are some of the seeds and grains which is rich in amygdalin.

Incidentally, amygdalin contains sugar as well as produces cyanide, which is the actual ingredient which combats cancer in laetrile. Though both the terms laetrile and amygdalin are sometimes mentioned in combination giving the impression that they are one and the same product, it is not so. The chemical composition of laetrile produced in the US is different from that produced in Mexico. Laetrile has still not been approved by the US-FDA for the treatment of cancer. The laetrile which is patented in the US is a partly synthetic form of amygdalin, the laetrile that is made in Mexico is produced from crushed apricot kernels.

 
The isolation of amygdalin started in Russia, as far back as 1845, where it was identified for the first time that it had anti-cancer properties.  It was not used as an anti-cancer therapy in the US till the 1920s. Its acute toxicity made the compound unusable but in 1950s, a non toxic and partly synthetic form of amygdalin was made in America and patented as laetrile. Laetrile soon gained popularity as an effective anti-cancer drug and started to get used in conjunction with special diet, vitamin supplements and pancreatic enzyme therapy which aided in digestion as well as boosted the metabolism. By 1978, laetrile was used on more than 70,000 cancer patients in the US.

 The active ingredient in laetrile which is primarily responsible for combating cancer is cyanide. Further research however has shown other by-products of amygdalin also possessing cancer cell prohibiting properties. Administration of laetrile can be both through oral (pill) or the intravenous route. Usually the intravenous route is the startup therapy option while the oral administration is used for continuation therapy. The side effects of laetrile depend to a large extent on the route of administration, where the oral route invites more side effects than the intra-venous route.

 The adverse effects of laetrile are similar to cyanide poisoning and include nausea and vomiting, headache, dizziness, bluish discoloration of the skin, liver damage, critically low blood pressure, droopy upper eyelid, and difficulty in walking due to damaged nerves, fever, mental confusion, coma, and death. Some foods are know to trigger an increase the side effects and are highly contra-indicated. These include: raw almonds or crushed fruit pits; eating certain types of fruits and vegetables, including celery, peaches, bean sprouts, and carrots; or taking high doses of vitamin C, as these foods increase the risks of cyanide poisoning.