Basis of Evidence-Based Complementary

The administration of plant extracts with a high content of proteolytic enzymes (systemic enzyme therapy) had its origin in the traditional medicine of Central and South America.5,6 It is currently being studied for a variety of indications, for example, in oncology, infectious diseases, trauma, and inflammation.7-9 Its therapeutic use is partly based on scientific studies in agreement with evidence-based medicine; however, it is mostly empirical.5,10 The scientific rationale of systemic enzyme therapy was initially published in 1911, The Enzyme Treatment of Cancer and its Scientific Basis, by John Beard,11 an English embryologist working in Scotland. However, this work was gradually forgotten until the 1950s when Max Wolf and Helene Benitez developed the concept of sys-temic enzyme therapy for oncology.5,10 Their observation that an optimized combination of plant and animal pro-teinases exerted anticancer activities by restoring the reduced cytotoxic activity of patients ’ sera formed the basis of this therapy. In addition, it was discovered that cancer diseases were more common in elderly patients concurrent with a reduction of pancreatic enzymes as well as hydrolytic activity in the serum. This led to attempts t