Two nondrug methods that do help beat cancer....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 3-6-2014

Most educated people know that many things not used by mainstream doctors to cure cancer have been ineffective.

So, like all of us I’ve been quite skeptical of such claims.

Recently, I’ve run across two that have some evidence they work.

For some people and some cancers, they may work by themselves.  The second one has done so.

And, adding the two together may be even more effective.

But the better news is that they make conventional treatments more effective when added to them.

1.  Taking curcumin or turmeric with black pepper or eating turmeric and black pepper together DOES sharply lower high chronic inflammation.  It also has proven anti-Alzheimer’s effects. And, it has been shown to help prevent some cancers and prolong remission in others.

But recently in the email I get from Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD, and his staff, I got some added and VERY positive information, I’d not yet seen.

“….you may already know is that Turmeric is an effective anti-inflammatory. So it is especially good for diseases pertaining to inflammation including diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Scientific research has now determined Turmeric effective as an anti-cancer agent as well.

It has been indicated to inhibit the growth of skin cancer and slow the growth of breast cancer.

Another study showed that Turmeric was effective in not only getting rid of cancer cells, but also stopping the stem cells, which eventually, produce cancerous tumors.

Another study found that pre-treatment with Turmeric made chemotherapy and radiation therapy more effective at destroying cancer cells.”

Between killing more of the cancer cells initially and stopping the stem cells of the cancer from surviving and spreading it, these are two hugely positive effects.

2.  I’d heard that IV treatments with large doses of vitamin C had cured cancers but that this treatment was not FDA approved.

Since the FDA can only do things in a very expensive way and there is not enough money in something that cannot be patented and sold for enough money to justify it, it may not be.

But oncologists and researchers have seen evidence that IV treatments with large doses of vitamin C is both safe AND effective at killing cancers.

So some researchers decided to see if they could get a project done that might show that IV treatments with large doses of vitamin C is both safe AND makes conventional treatment more effective.

It worked!

This means that by combining these two approaches with conventional treatment the chances of really getting rid of the cancer improve.

And it may mean that the amount of conventional treatment or the number of times it must be repeated may be reduced enough to have the patient avoid damage or death from collateral damage from the conventional treatment.

Both these treatments kill cancer cells but do not harm your healthy cells.  So for that part of the treatment there is zero collateral damage.

For turmeric as a spice, it’s at most larger grocery stores.  Curcumin from turmeric both without black pepper and with it are available as supplements. 

(As a preventive I take the curcumin and add the black pepper myself each day.  That delivers the effect at a lower cost than the combined supplements with both curcumin and the active ingredient of black pepper.

And, I eat a curried dish with turmeric as a spice with black pepper two to four times a week)

Treatments with IV of large doses of vitamin C are available.  But since it is not FDA approved, you get zero insurance coverage and you may need to travel to get access to it.

But if you can afford it and are sure you have cancer, doing it as soon as you can looks to be valuable to do.

Here is the information on the new study.

Vitamin C may boost chemotherapy     Monday 10 February 2014 in Medical News Today

The new study found that giving some cancer patients high doses of vitamin C intravenously in addition to chemotherapy, did help kill cancer cells and also reduced some of its toxic side effects.

“Reporting their findings in Science Translational Medicine, researchers from the University of Kansas (KU) Medical Center describe how they tested the approach in cells, animals and humans.

They found giving infused vitamin C together with carboplatin and paclitaxel - two conventional chemotherapy drugs - stopped ovarian cancer in the lab and also reduced toxic side effects of chemotherapy in ovarian cancer patients.”

Since the 1970s, ascorbate - or vitamin C - has been used as an alternative therapy for cancer. It has an "outstanding safety profile," write the researchers, who also note there were anecdotal reports that it was effective if given intravenously.

However, although complementary and alternative therapy doctors continued to use it to combat cancer, conventional oncologists abandoned its use after clinical trials of orally administered vitamin C found it was ineffective against cancer.”

(It’s the   IV version  that works and these researchers describe why that is.)

“Now, more recent studies have resurrected the possibility that intravenous vitamin C may be worth looking at again as a possible anti-cancer therapy, so the KU researchers decided to investigate.

Given intravenously, vitamin C has anti-cancer effects

And indeed, what they found was that vitamin C can be effective against cancer when given intravenously, as senior author Qi Chen, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the KU Medical Center, explains:

"What we've discovered is that, because of its pharmacokinetic differences, intravenous vitamin C, as opposed to oral vitamin C, kills some cancer cells without harming normal tissues."

For their clinical trial, the researchers recruited 27 patients who had just been diagnosed with stage 3 or stage 4 ovarian cancer.

They all underwent conventional chemotherapy with paclitaxel or carboplatin, but some also received high doses of vitamin C intravenously. They were then followed for 5 years.

The researchers found that, compared with the patients who did not receive vitamin C in addition to conventional chemotherapy, the toxic effects of the therapy tended to be less in the patients given vitamin C.

In another experiment, the researchers found vitamin C killed cancer cells in mice with ovarian cancer, but only at concentrations that can be achieved if given intravenously. They noticed no toxic effects or changes due to chemotherapy in the animals' livers, kidneys and spleens.

When they looked at what was happening at the molecular level, they found vitamin C in the fluid surrounding tumor cells acts as a "pro-oxidant," spurring formation of hydrogen peroxide, which kills cancer cells.

On further investigation of this path, the researchers found a number of mechanisms through which, acting as a pro-oxidant, vitamin C induced cell death in ovarian cancer cells, including promoting damage to their DNA, without affecting healthy tissue.

Researchers call for large clinical trials

Co-researcher Dr. Jeanne Drisko, who specializes in integrative medicine at KU, says:

"We now have a better understanding of vitamin C's anti-cancer action, plus a clear safety profile, and biological and clinical plausibility with a firm foundation to proceed. Taken together, our data provide strong evidence to justify larger and robust clinical trials to definitively examine the benefit of adding vitamin C to conventional chemotherapy."

However, it may not be easy to find funding for large clinical trials of intravenous vitamin C. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, are unlikely to be interested because with vitamin C being a natural substance, they would not be able to patent it.”

Vitamin C may boost chemotherapy

http://mnt.to/l/4ktn

Tests suggest high doses of vitamin C, given intravenously with chemotherapy, 

may help kill cancer cells and reduce toxic effects in some cancer patients.