All About Shark Cartilage Essay -- Animals Fish Papers

All About Shark Cartilage Sharks have existed on this earth for over 400 million years, and for the most part have been one of the only species in earth’s history that has not been changed dramatically as a result of evolution (http://www.nutritionwarehouse.com/Shark.Cartilage.html). Furthermore, in recent times since the onslaught of the industrial revolution, numerous pollutants and toxins have been introduced into the earth’s oceans, forests, and atmosphere resulting in cancerous development in nearly all forms of life. Incredibly, however, the amazing living machine known as the shark has survived literally unchanged and has rarely developed cancer despite the fact that almost all other creatures of land and sea get cancer regularly (http://www.realife.com/cancer.html - http://www.realife.com/cancer.html ). These prehistoric sea creatures have skeletons, unlike other animals, largely made up of cartilage, which is a tough yet malleable connective tissue. The fact that sharks do not regularly get cancer, that they have survived the test of time, and that they are composed mostly of cartilage has raised quite a bit of interest among scientists within the past twenty years (http://www.realife.com/cancer.html - http://www.realife.com/cancer.html ). Based upon this research (however, mostly unofficial) shark cartilage is now very popular on the web as a safe and effective treatment for osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and numerous other diseases (http://www.freeyellow.com/members/totalnatural/doforme.html - http://www.freeyellow.com/members/total). The above information was obtained off of the world wide web, however, in this website we will also discuss the "real" information that has been obtained from reliable med... ... claims made on the web are definitely not true because of their lack of scientific evidence. Shark cartilage may be used for cancer treatment effectively in the future, however, right now no scientific facts can support the claims of shark cartilage's ability to treat cancer. References Hunt, Traci. "Shark cartilage for cancer treatment." American Journal of Health System Pharmacology. Aug 15 1995; 52: 1756, 60. Iwaguchi, T. "A novel angiogenic inhibitor." Cancer Letters. Jun 15 1990; 51:181-6. Langer, Robert. "Shark cartilage contains inhibitors of tumor angiogenesis." Science. 1983; 221:1185-87. Markman, Maurie. "Shark cartilage." Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. June 1996; 63:179-180 Matthews, James. "Media feeds frenzy over shark cartilage as cancer treatment." Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Aug 4 1993; 85:1190-91.