Supplement Clarity

Carnivora Immune Defense Supplement: Does It Work? Review of Research

Joe Cannon

Update 5/8/20. Carnivora is a health supplement derived from the carnivorous Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) that you may have seen advertised online or heard of during radio commercials (such as during Coast to Coast AM with George Noory). Carnivora is said to help the immune system function better, or in the words of one Youtube video I saw, “wakes up the immune system and makes it dominant.” Does Carnivora work?” is the question everybody asks me. I've been curious about this product since I first heard the Coast to Coast AM radio commercial, so in this Carnivora review, I will share what I found when I looked at the research. Let's see what we can discover.

Also see the HemoHim review.

 

Who Makes Carnivora?

The company is called Carnivora Research International its website is Carnivora.com. The Contact Us page of the Carnivora.com website actually lists the emails of a variety of people within the Carnivora organization ―even the owner/CEO of the company, Richard Ostrow.

That level of transparency is rare in the supplement world and I actually appreciated seeing this. There is no official address for the Carnivora company.  There is however a PO Box address:

This is the same address listed on the BBB file for Carnivora also.

To contact Carnivora call 866 836 8735.

I was curious where Carnivora was made. I' was unable to locate this answer.

Carnivora Immune Supplement

Carnivora Research International is a Better Business Bureau accredited company since 2009. It had a rating of  “A+” when this review was updated. The company has been in business since 1981. See the BBB file updates and more information.

Carnivora Research

On the Science of Carnivora page of the product website, there are links to many studies that serve as a testament to the benefits of Carnivora. Most of the links were clickable and linked directly to published peer-reviewed studies. I liked that. I looked at all of the studies listed on the Science of Carnivora page  and, after which, came to these conclusions:

   1. The word “Carnivora” does not appear in most of the studies listed

   2. Most of the studies listed are test-tube or mouse studies

This means most of the research is not on the supplement

Many of the studies make references to compounds ―such as something called Plumbagin ―but studies of individual/isolated ingredients (in test tubes or lab animals) are not the same thing as human studies on Carnivora itself.

After looking at the evidence presented on the product website, my question is:

American Cancer Society

American Cancer Society states that in 1985, a German oncologist named Helmut Keller who invented Carnivora in the  1970s  (and who holds the patent on it) did a study involving 210 people with various types of cancer. Dr. Keller noted that 56% of people treated with the Carnivora extract experienced either remission or stabilization of their tumors. That's really impressive, but the ACS said the study has not been replicated.

I was not able to locate this study.

Why didn't Dr. Keller replicate his findings?

To be fair, I'm disappointed that the American Cancer Society did not attempt to replicate this study. Even though I can't find it, they did say the study was published, so I assume they have read it. What's up with that that ACS?

If anyone can show me the published study of Dr. Keller and Carnivora, I'll be happy to update this review.

A study published in 2013 does review various compounds in Venus flytrap as they relate to cancer. This study covers several mouse and tube research investigations on Venus flytrap compounds. It does not mention human studies. The study does not mention Carnivora by name.




Other Carnivora Research

After writing my review, I was contacted by an information specialist at Carnivora, the conversation of which you can read in the comments below. This person informed me that there was additional research on Carnivora, performed in Europe, 25 years ago. I was told this research was prohibited in the US. I was also told that to read that information, I would have to provide an email address that was not based in either the US or Canada.

It was an odd request, however, I was intrigued by the possibility that additional research existed, so I complied and received the information a few days later. Below is a summary of the documents I received, along with my thoughts on that information.

 

1. President Regan and Carnivora.  I was sent what appears to be, a small page out of a book, that discusses President Regan's use of Carnivora to treat polyps. If this is a book excerpt, there is no citation as to what that book is. In the January 2011 issue of Dr. Rowen's Second Opinion Newsletter (see below for more info), Dr. Rowen says that President Regan “used Carnivora with success to keep malignant polyps from returning in 1985.”

But, according to the website DrZebra.com, President Regan had his polyps surgically removed in 1987.  If they were successfully treated by Carnivora in 1985, why did he have surgery to remove the polyps in 1987? Regardless of who is right on this issue, this book excerpt is not a published peer-reviewed study.

 

2. German Cancer Therapies: Natural and Conventional Medicines that Offer Hope and Healing. This is a book by Dr. Morton Walker, a freelance writer, and retired podiatrist and was published in 2003. I mentioned Dr. Walker in the section about Carnivora and HIV, so see that section also. Chapter 3, 4 and 5 of that book discusses Carnivora.  That said, book chapters sent to me did not contain any peer-reviewed studies to substantiate the claims made in these chapters. As such, we can't tell anything about them.

Remember, I had to provide a non-USA based email address to receive all of the information I'm discussing in this section. I don’t see why I had to do this because this book is available on Amazon.

 

3. Comments of Dr. Daniel Kinner, OMD, L.Ac. On His Personal Clinical Experience Using Carnivora, Venus Flytrap Extract. This appears to be a letter, dated March 8, 2000, from Dr. Kinner to Carnivora Research International. According to his website, DanKennerresearch.com, Dr. Kinner holds a Ph.D. in Naturopathic Medical Science and is an Oriental Medical Doctor (OMD). He is also a licensed acupuncturist (L.Ac).

In the letter, Dr. Kinner speaks of the experiences of his patients who used Carnivora. All the experiences were positive.  But, since this is just a letter, it is not a published peer-reviewed study and amounts to just a testimonial in my view.

 

4. The Townsend Letter for Doctors. This appears to be an alternative medicine newsletter (published in the US) and the issue that was sent to me is dated May 1992. I am not sure who wrote this article. There is a reference circled, in the document which I imagine as proof of what is stated in the newsletter. The reference circled is titled:

Kreher B, “Structure elucidation of plumbagin-analagues from Dionaca Muscipula and their immunomodulating activities  in vitro and in vivo. International Symposium: Molecular Recognition, Sopron, Hungry, August 24-27, 1988.”

From the title, it appears this citation represents a study that was presented at a science convention.  While presenting information is good in that it helps disseminate information to the scientific community, it does not mean that the information has gone through the peer-review process.

Regardless, this is not a human study. I was not sent any peer-reviewed studies of this information either, so it appears that this investigation was never peer-reviewed. Why was this information, never published in a medical journal?

 

5. Dr. Robert Rowen's Second Opinion Newsletter, dated August 2004. This is just a newsletter where a doctor discusses what he knows and has observed about Carnivora. It also mentions Dr. Kenner (see point #3). Unfortunately, there are no peer-reviewed references in the attached newsletter either.

 

6. Dr. Robert Rowen's Second Opinion Newsletter, dated July 2009. In this issue of the newsletter, Carnivora is also discussed but it doesn’t say anything new. It just appears to be a rehash of Ronald Reagan and other people who said they were helped by Carnivora.

 

7. Dr. Robert Rowen's Second Opinion Newsletter. This newsletter is dated January 2011. Again, this is just a newsletter.

 

8. Molecular Recognition: Carnivora a New Discovery. This document is dated 1988. In the email I received, I was told that this is a clinical study. But, there is no author and no citation about where this is published. I don’t know if “Molecular Recognition” is the title of a journal or a chapter in a book or a private, internal document. This does not look like any published peer-reviewed study I've ever seen.

 

9. Comparison of lymphocytes subpopulation in various cancer therapies. This document is said to be a European clinical study, however it is not peer-reviewed and does not appear to be published in any medical journal. While it has a couple of graphs, the document appears for the part, to be a letter dated February 13, 1995, written by someone (who, I don’t know) to Dr. Helmut Keller.

There were other documents sent to me also that were said to be “European studies” however they don’t appear to be published in any medical journal.

Unfortunately,  none of the documents sent to me are to the level that I would accept as “proof”, which is published, peer-reviewed research.

 

Carnivora and Dr. C. Joe Schneller

One YouTube video about Carnivora features Dr. C. Joe Schneller who said he is doing a study of how 3 capsules a day of Carnivora “wakes up the immune system and makes it dominant.”

The video was uploaded on June 16, 2011, but it appears to not yet be completed or published, as it is not listed on the Carnivora website or listed in the National Library of Medicine. Likewise, when I did a Google search for:

“Dr. Schneller Carnivora study,”

No study was revealed. I will update this review with his study and its results if it gets published.

Let's next look at some of the major reasons people might be interested in Carnivora and attempt to find clinical studies for those uses.  That way, those interested in specific issues can get an idea of whether Carnivora might be right for them.

 

Carnivora and The Immune System

Carnivora is primarily marketed as something that can improve/modulate the immune system.  Ironically, when I searched the National Library of Medicine for “Carnivora” no relevant studies showed up. So, I searched the National Library of Medicine for these specific words to see if there were any research:

 

No studies showed up for any of these search terms.

This may mean Venus flytrap/ Dionaea Muscipula might not have been specifically studied for its effects on how it improves the immune system.

So why is it being marketed to boost immunity?

One of the compounds in the Venus flytrap is called Plumbagin. Some websites even claim that Plumbagin is the active ingredient in Carnivora.

Plumbagin does have some research. For example, Plumbagin has been studied for its possible anti-cancer effects.  When I searched the National Library of Medicine for:

“Plumbagin immune” (click the link to see the studies) I saw a lot of studies, but most of them were conducted in test tubes or used lab mice.

What I didn't see was a study showing that Plumbagin (oral or injected) prevented the flu or improved arthritis symptoms  ―or improved any other immune system-related condition ―in humans.




Carnivora and AIDS

Since Carnivora is touted to improve the immune system, a logical question would be Does it help HIV/AIDS?  On one website that discusses this topic, a 1994 magazine article titled,  The Carnivora Cure for Cancer, AIDS and Other Pathologies” published in Immune Perspectives, is mentioned. In this article, it's said that Carnivora caused the ” total elimination of the HIV virus.”

I tried to locate this article but I could not find it.

Additionally, I was not able to find a peer-reviewed journal called “Immune Perspectives” either. In fact, I could not find ANY magazine called “Immune Perspectives.”

The author of this article was Dr. Morton Walker, whose website is DrMortonWalker.com.  I believe this is the doctor associated with the Immune Perspectives article. However, when I searched his site for the article it does not appear there either.

I then searched the National Library of Medicine for these words:

This search revealed no studies either.

I did locate a 2002 study titled Inhibitory effects of quinones on RNase H activity associated with HIV-1 reverse transcriptase that noted that Plumbagin (one of the compounds in Venus flytrap, as well as other plants) inhibited an enzyme that is needed for HIV to replicate.  While this is interesting, the study was over a decade ago and was basically just a test-tube study.

Because of the lack of published research on this topic, I am unfortunately forced to conclude for the moment that there is no good proof that Carnivora or Venus flytrap extracts improve immune function in those with HIV/AIDS.

Some say black seeds can cure HIV. Here is a video I created about that research

Carnivora and Cancer

Can this supplement help people with cancer? I searched the National Library of Medicine for “Carnivora Cancer” but didn’t see any studies that specifically investigated Carnivora―itself― for how it might help cancer.

This is ironic because many websites relate the story of how former President Ronald Reagan used Carnivora to prevent cancer.  Mr. Reagan still had part of his colon removed because of colon cancer. So, if he did use Carnivora, how significant of an effect did it have on his cancer?

Regardless, some of the compounds (such as Plumbagin) in Venus flytrap have been studied for how they might affect cell growth.  But, in these studies, Plumbagin is used as an isolated compound (which is different than Carnivora which contains a variety of compounds). Also, most research on Plumbagin appears to be in the form of test-tube/Petri dish studies or lab animal studies.

I'm not aware of any studies in humans showing that Plumbagin cures cancer or slows cancer growth.

Also, how much Plumbagin is in Carnivora? I don’t know, but either way, it's irrelevant at this point because of the lack of published studies on humans.

 

For a more in-depth discussion, see this 2013 review titled  Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula Solander ex Ellis) Contains Powerful Compounds that Prevent and Cure Cancer. When I read this study, I noticed that it never mentions the name Carnivora or the name of Dr. Helmut Keller, the creator of Carnivora.

Carnivora and Arthritis

I did a Google search for “Carnivora and arthritis” and noticed that some websites mention that Carnivora has been used in Germany as a treatment for arthritis. But, when I looked at the various websites that discuss this issue, none that I saw included any studies to substantiate that Carnivora helps arthritis.  They show no proof.

Likewise, I could not find any evidence when I searched the National Library of Medicine either. Maybe it helps or maybe it doesn’t but until studies are published, I believe the idea of Carnivora helping arthritis is open to speculation.

What About GI Issues?

Proof that the supplement improves digestion or helps people with intestinal problems could not be located.

Carnivora and Lupus

I searched the National Library of Medicine for these words:

No studies showed up. Unfortunately, it appears that there is no good proof, as yet, to determine if Carnivora helps lupus.

Carnivora and Fibromyalgia

Some websites discuss Carnivora as a possible treatment for fibromyalgia pain, but those sites provide no good proof of this. Likewise, when clinical databases were searched, no proof could be located.

Carnivora and Lyme Disease

Various websites discuss that the supplement might help Lyme disease but when proof of this cant' be located. Until that research is conducted, it's impossible to say if it helps or doesn’t.

 Carnivora and Alzheimer's

Is there any proof this supplement helps dementia? Evidence cannot be located. I can't find any good proof that the Carnivora improves memory or helps people with dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.

Carnivora and Cats

Some clinical evidence suggests Carnivora can help cats with Feline Herpes Virus 1 (FHV-1), a viral infection that can cause respiratory problems in cats. Researchers in 2016 published titled Effects of Administration of Carnivora on Clinical Signs in Cats After Repeat Challenge with Feline Herpesvirus 1 (click to read pdf).

This investigation appeared to show cats treated with Carnivora had fewer upper respiratory symptoms than cats treated with a placebo. Here is a summary of the study and the results:

Study Summary

Study Results

Interestingly, the researchers also noted that “no clinically significant differences when comparing serum biochemical values from the Carnivora treated cats before and after treatment.” If I understand this correctly, it seems even though Carnivora appeared to reduce FHV-1 symptoms, it did not kill the virus.

The study does not specifically mention any effect on the immune system cells. That is unfortunate, given the immune-modulating reputation of Carnivora.

The authors state the study was supported by the makers of Carnivora, but that the company did not take any part in the study. That is good. I'm glad they are sponsoring research.




Does It Detox Your Body?

Some websites advocate Carnivora as part of a detox or “cleanse” to rid the body of harmful parasites and waste.  These websites, however, give no good proof the supplement does this.

If Carnivora did boost the immune system, then I could understand how an enhanced immune system might be better at killing off bacteria/viruses. But, we will need clinical studies on this topic to know for sure.

Carnivora Side Effects

In healthy people, I believe Carnivora is safe. The Carnivora.com website states “There are no known contraindications using Carnivora with any prescription drugs (or other dietary supplements).”  This doesn't mean there aren't any side effects. It just means the company isn't aware of any.

While it probably is safe, here is a list of things to consider when taking this supplement. This list is not complete.

  1. Speak to your doctor if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. The company also mentions this and specifically says the supplement “is contraindicated for mid to late-term pregnancy.”
  2. Stop taking at least 2 weeks before having surgery. This is sage advice for all supplements too.
  3. Start with less than recommended for the first week to see how you respond.
  4. If you take blood thinner drugs, speak to your doctor/pharmacist. The product website also mentions this although they seem to not like blood thinners at all, calling them “toxic.” I'm not sure I'd go that far.  The website also states blood may become too thin if taking combining blood thinner meds with high doses (20+ per administration) of Pure Extract drops.

Doctors in 2014, reported the case of a 30-year-old man with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a type of cancer)  who developed kidney failure after using the supplement for about a year. This seems to be the first case of this ever reported.

The supplement website used to discuss the possibility of a Herxheimer reaction occurring if people use too much too soon.  The herxheimer reaction refers to a temporary increase in adverse symptoms. This is said to be the result of the Venus flytrap extract killing the infection. The condition was originally attributed to the treatment of syphilis with antibiotics, but it might occur with other conditions as well.

Amazon Reviews

Looking at Amazon reviews, the supplement had a rating of 4.4 out of 5-star rating with 112 people posting reviews.  Over 60% gave it a 5-star rating.  Reviews were made up of a combination of verified and non-verified purchases.

How Much Does It Cost?

When I checked the product's website, each bottle was $39.95 + $6 for shipping. That is for a bottle of 100 capsules. Other prices include:

A free bottle is added as a bonus for those who purchase 5 or more bottles.

Each bottle of liquid Carnivora is $44.95.

Where To Buy Carnivora

Carnivora

This supplement is not sold in stores like Walmart, CVS, Walmart, Costco, Walgreen's, or CVS. It can be purchased directly from Carnivora.com and it may also be available at other locations like Amazon.

Carnivora vs. The Competition

It should come as no surprise that when something gets popular, others will pop up with their own Venus flytrap supplements. There are others out there. But there is no research comparing the benefits of Carnivora to other Venus flytrap supplements.

To the company's credit, they have sponsored some research on their supplement. That gives them an advantage over other similar venus fly trap supplements.

It's unknown how the supplement compares to other immune boosters such as Dr. Zelenko's Z-Stack vitamin formula or the ever-popular elderberry.

Carnivora Pro & Con

ProCon
Very good better business bureau ratingLimited clinical research
BBB accredited businessLots of internet hype
company CEO engages with customers

Research I'd Like To See

1. Randomly give the supplement -or placebo – to 10 people before and after measuring concentrations of various white blood cells. Let's see if anything changes.

2. Give the supplement or a placebo to 10 people with fibromyalgia and measure their pain levels before and after treatment.

3. Randomly give the supplement or placebo to 10 people with arthritis and measure their pain levels before and after treatment.

Each of these questions could be answered in a few months. It wouldn't cost much to do either. Hopefully, I just gave graduate students an idea for a dissertation topic (hint, hint).

Does Carnivora Work?

To be honest, I don't know if Carnivora works or not because I don’t see human research either way. The research I found supporting one of its main ingredients (plumbagin) appears to be limited to lab animals or test-tube studies. While I remain skeptical, it's probably safe for most people, and I'm intrigued enough to hope future studies are conducted to understand this supplement better.

Here's Carnivora on Amazon

What do you think?

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