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Shark Cartilage Essay

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As new studies and determination for finding a treatment to cancer arise from all over the globe, the use of shark cartilage as an alternative medicine has been a reoccurring and hopeful treatment. For over a decade now, scientists and medical doctors have been using shark cartilage as a medicine to fight various types of cancer, most commonly brain tumors. As opposed to bones, sharks are composed of cartilage, a substance thought unable to contain cancer cells. Many patients choose to use this method of treatment, for it is natural and harms the body’s physical ability throughout treatment much less. As research continues, the use of shark cartilage is a rising alternative medicine being experimented on patients to find an ultimate cure for …show more content…

Sharks do not develop cancer, for they are composed of cartilage that contains anti-cancer agents. Other common names for shark cartilage medicine are Carticin, Cartilade™, BeneFin™, and Neovastat. Shark cartilage medications are generally in powdered, capsule, or homogenized liquid form and are used as a substitute to standard treatments or in combination with. Shark cartilage, a flexible connecting tissue found in many animals, is obtained from shark skeletons. The skeletons of sharks are solely made of cartilage rather than bones mixed with small amounts of cartilage. Many supporters of shark cartilage as a medication state the cartilage holds proteins capable of stopping angiogenesis, which is the process of the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow. There are some scientists who firmly believe that the protein molecules found in shark cartilage are capable of being absorbed by the digestive tract if they are taken in a liquid substance. A certain study showed that Neovastat, a shark cartilage medicine in liquid form, slowed the growth of blood vessels in a group of healthy men when taken by mouth (Shark Cartilage,

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