How I discovered bitter leaf-based cures for hepatitis, cancer, others

Ben Amodu is a trained pharmacist with a doctorate degree in the field, and he is a lawyer with strong knack for herbal medicines. 

The civil servant with the Ministry of Defence has been in the news in recent times because of his recent breakthrough discoveries on ‘cures’ for hepatitis B and C, cancer, tuberculosis and Type 2 diabetes. 

Amodu in this interview with The Guardian’s CHUKWUMA MUANYA narrated how he came about SAAAB and HAABS dietary supplement for hepatitis B and C, SAABFAT 7 for cancer, TABSAABS for tuberculosis, and DAABS-2 for type two diabetes, among other issues. Excerpts:

WHAT prompted your interest in herbal medicine?

THE need to solve societal problem and in particular as that time in the 80’s there was an outbreak of Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), when I studied as a pharmacist in Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Kaduna State we were told not to use anything that has more adverse effects than the useful effect.

  So when I graduated and HIV/AIDS broke out, there was this AZT, which is the first chemical that was used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. It has more side effect than its useful effects, and I was not disposed to using it. That forced me to do research and I discovered county capsules from China, which have strong immune boosting properties.

Thereafter I read a German scientific work, which says that out of salad that is cocktails of vegetables, one can naturally produce a drug that can cure HIV/AIDS. That enabled me start my research work and since then I have not looked back again.

You are now being celebrated for bitter leaf-based herbal supplement that ‘cures’ hepatitis, TB among other diseases, how did you come about the discovery? Tell us more about the products?

I have just told you now that what forced me into the research are those white people who are doing the research, I think is the same brain that we have, that they have. So when I entered the research, as I told you, concoctions infused from cocktails of fruits, vegetables, barks, roots, nuts etc.

It is from there that I have my lead drug. And don’t forget that I’m a pharmacist and I majored in Industrial Pharmacy, and that means I can own a manufacturing outfit and I’m glad today that I own one.

So I don’t think it is difficult to know. As for bitter leaf, from my research, there is a concept that bitters are better foods for life, is that singular phrase that bitters are good for life that made me centered my work on bitter leaf.

  I am happy that we have been able to use it to achieve remarkable breakthrough in areas of care for hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, diabetes and cancer.

  In addition, bitter leaf contains most of the major component of bioactive medical plant, for example tannins, saponins, flavonoids etc. So it should not be surprising that today in Nigeria we have gotten something out of bitter leaf and we have been peer reviewed by different learned international journalist.

  To treat dengue fever, which’s an extreme form of fever, and as we speak, President of Hundoros recently declared a state of emergency because of the effect of dengue fever central to it devastating effects. So the world should know that we have solution for most of these neglected tropical diseases and these should come to the control to seek for solution. 

Even Cuba, we have sent them an email since we have our recent breakthrough in the treatment of dengue fever. We will give them the sample, let them analyse it in their Lab, if they are okay by it, we can now go into mass production to save humanity.

  I have saabfsat 5,6,7, they’re all from African product for the treatment/management of most debilitating illnesses from our animal experiment (Phase1) and clinical trial carried out at the Nigerian Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), it has been proved that with one product, cancer can be nipped in the bud, as those products are both prophylactic and curative.

You also claim you have cure for HIV/AIDS, how true is this?

As it is, it will not be proper to project the message that we have cure for HIV/AIDS. We don’t want to send any info to the outside world for anybody to think that we want to jump the gun. What we have can be subjected to further study, and we are uniting with the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to do that.

  So at this point, I don’t want to lay claim that I have cure for that. But, what the whole world recognised today is functional cure, and we can beat our chest that we have that cure. Functional cure as described by New York Times.

What is functional cure? It is a state whereby an HIV/AIDS client has an increase immune system, decrease or no opportunistic infections and has loss no man-hour (can do his work without help from another). This is exactly that our herbal supplements do; our supplements are at par with the conventional Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART).

  To that extent, we can say we have a functional cure. So, by and large we are not saying we have a total cure until we have finished all the required processes stipulated by law. 

  Our drugs have a repairing effect on the liver and kidney because they are purely sourced from natural fruits and vegetables. As a matter of fact, there are some kidney dialysis patients that use our products that got their rate of dialysis reduced drastically in addition to normalising their haematological indices.

You are a member of a special committee set up by NAFDAC to probe herbal cure claim. What do you think about the committee and NAFDAC’ plans for natural medicine?

That is a welcome development and I doff my cap to the director general of NAFDAC because, as soon as he does that, he would be laying the basis of herbal medicine transformation for President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in the herbal sector through health because our drugs work in the non-communicable and communicable diseases which are the major diseases burden in the whole world.

If we are able to deal with the number one killer disease in the whole world, which today is made up of cardiovascular diseases, exemplified by heart diseases, angina, myocardial infarction, hypertension, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and we have solutions to these ones in Nigeria.

  By 2008, WHO reported that cardiovascular diseases as the number one killer disease in the world which accounts for about 69 per cent of the death worldwide. So if NAFDAC does and prove it to the world, it will be a remarkable achievement more so that the African Heads of State are on the way to setting up African Centre for Disease Control (CDC) for the management of the disease. 

       So if the NAFDAC boss does this, he will be adding another feather to his cap just as his name has been written in gold in the arena of stamping fake drugs from Nigeria, as evidence by his invitation by the United States Government.

Another big issue in traditional and herbal medicine is that of sustainability and availability of raw materials especially the plants. How are you ensuring this in your practice?

I own a farm entirely. So with that farm, is to increase capacity there, with effective partnership, we can increase our acreages.

In one of my interviews, I said most of these raw material products in the market have the same yield with what we get from the farm, so we can try from the open market, the major thing is to test for pesticide, and heavy metals once this is done, we can effectively utilise those foods that are wasting.

  These products are working and it should interest all that WHO has approved herbal medicine, even HIV, which we are donor limited, is now open to the herbal world. So why should there be any form of barrier anywhere again. We alone here cannot change the programme.

The programme is that herbal medicine has become standard nobody can change that. We alone here cannot change the programme. The programme is that herbal medicine has come to stay and nobody can change that.

So let us change our mindset about herbal drugs. Let us also join other nations of the world in making money from herbal drugs, in development and manufacture of herbal drugs and the trade in herbal drugs, which is about $175 million.