Directions: In a large bowl, stir together the milk, cream, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and peppermint extract until the sugar has dissolved.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

After about 10 minutes into the freezing, add the chocolate chips. After the ice cream has thickened, about 30 minutes later, spoon into a container, and freeze for 2 hours.

 

April 2012 UPDATE

 

Last month I told you I had to have emergency surgery for a 2 cm hole in my colon. I've healed up in the last 45 days and hope to have a second surgery before the May newsletter to reattach my colon (I am wearing a temporary colostomy bag). My heartfelt thanks for your kind e-mails and prayers. Life is truly a gift that needs to be appreciated one day at a time.

Which leads me into www.zapcancer.org, a site that will be launched sometime in April, pending IRB - FDA approval. As many of you know, I lost my father to melanoma cancer on Feb. 13, 2011. He was 2 weeks away from beginning a new FDA-approved clinical trial for humans (the first ever) using a new white cell therapy that targets and kills cancer cells in solid tumor cancers (breast, lung, melanoma, stomach, etc.) The clinical protocol is based on a 1999 study conducted at Wake Forest University by Dr. Zheng Cui. Dr. Cui discovered a cancer resistant mouse. No matter how Dr. Cui attempted to infect this mouse with cancer, he couldn't do it, the mouse's immune system was just too strong. Forty percent of this mouse's descendants inherited the same significant cancer resistance. The white blood cells of these mice were able to seek out and destroy cancer cells not only in cell cultures, but also in living mice. Dr. Cui designed a test to measure this Cancer-Killing Activity, called CKA, and used those cells from cancer resistant mice to cure other mice with cancer. Further investigation showed that high levels of CKA granulocytes were also found in the white blood cells of some healthy people, specifically in the immune systems of young healthy humans around the age of eighteen to twenty-five.
 

The new protocol, being conducted at a stem cell institute in Boynton Beach, Florida essentially translates the basis of Dr. Cui's discovery into humans. Instead of using white cells from mice whose immune system prevented them from developing cancer, they are using the white cells taken from the immune systems of twenty year olds. If you take a twenty year old and you look at the incidence of cancer versus a seventy year old, a seventy year old has a one-hundred times greater risk of cancer. That's because the immune system of young healthy donors are so much stronger. In theory, this study treatment may have the ability to supercharge the immune system using carefully cross-matched cancer-killing granulocytes donated by healthy young donors.
 

In order to bring this protocol from trial to one day saving millions of lives, Phase I of the study will test a minimum of 29 cancer patients. . .at a cost of about $150,000 per patient. I am committed to helping the South Florida Bone Marrow & Stem Cell Transplant Institute raise $10 million to achieve this goal, which will cover Phase I and Phase II costs. Look for an announcement soon that the site is live...then we'll need your help in making the site's video go viral. A lot is at stake.

 
 -Steve Alten

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Ingredients: 2 cups 2% milk, 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon peppermint extract, 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips.   Directions: In a large bowl, stir together the milk, cream, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and peppermint extract until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. After about 10 minutes into the freezing, add the chocolate chips. After the ice cream has thickened, about 30 minutes later, spoon into a container, and freeze for 2 hours.

Steve Alten, Ed.D.