Natcell Liver Information

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)