Taking Supplements
Taking Supplements Dear All,
Has anyone else read Suzannah Olivier’s book “The Breast Cancer Prevention and Recovery Diet”? Have now read it a couple of times from cover to cover and am inclined to take on board all the recommendations for supplementation whlst on chemotherapy. Have double checked it against the Bristol Cancer Centre recommendations and they seem to line up. However, when I mentioned to onc that I wanted to take some supplements all he said was “well don’t go mad”. Is taking 8-10 different supplements a day madness or sensible in the light of proven research on the benefits of each one? Anyone else got experience of this? Main supplements suggested are: Vit A, C and E with Selenium, Astragalus, Milk Thistle, EPA, Aloe vera and L-glutamine.
Interested to hear the views/experiences of others.
Wynthorpe
Hi Wynthorpe Hi Wynthorpe,
I think that you should check all the supplements with your oncologist. Don’t believe everything you read. Look for scientific evidence.
Be aware that complementary medicines are not as rigorously tested as mainstream medicines. A friend who works for the chief medical officer tells me that there isn’t enough research into what happens if you get too many vitamins. If you take twice the amount you don’t necessarily get twice the benefits.
My list of beneficial complementary medicines would include champagne, smoked salmon, diamonds, African safaris and preferably a kind benefactor to buy my a Ferrari. I quite like the idea of being able to get these on prescription.
Good luck.
Regards,
Sue
My oncologist warned me not to take antioxidants during radiotherapy, saying that this would directly counteract the desired effect , i.e.the destructive effect of free radicals produced by the RT treatment was part of the objective of the exercise. He told me the effect occurred within milliseconds and that I could start to take supplements the day following the end of treatment. So sometimes there may be a reason NOT to take some kinds of supplement - and just as well I happened to mention my intention to him in advance.
On the other hand I regularly take Q10, Selenium with A, C, and E, astragalus when I feel low, and fish oil. When I started my chemo earlier this year I told my oncologist who said to go on as I seem so well in myself. She didn’t appear worried by supplementation. However, if I want to try something new (ie Turmeric) I will check with her first.
Many supplements have been well tested. What a good start! If you would like to find out more, look at canceractive.com and buy the two books, ‘Conventional Cancer Cures - What’s the Alternative?’ and ‘Everything You Need To Know To Help You Beat Cancer’. (Or get them from your library.) There are comprehensive reviews of what substance will be useful in particular circimstances eg rads and chemo. The author is a biochemist, whose daughter got a brain tumour. She died, but after four years, not her projected six months. Moreover, she had reverted to her old way of living which may have caused her to become ill in the first place.
Natural forms of vitamins are preferred where possible, as evidence is beginning to accumulate that artificial forms can be detrimental to health.
I would suggest a good mineral supplement, as vitamins are little use without them. Note that the RDA both in the UK and USA is rather less than is needed for optimum health. The RDA is the amount required to stop you getting ill - a whole different viewpoint. The RDA for vitamin D is a miserable 400 iu, but the body makes 10,000 iu on a nice sunny day. This vitamin is often deficient in cancer patients, and lack of sunlight is associated with increased risk for the disease.
Another biochemist/cancer researcher I have spoken with told me that too much vitamin E may promote cancer, so if you feel you need it, take small amounts and not more than 200 iu per day.
Reduce salt and increase potassium, along with magnesium. Selenium is also very important. (Remember the research showing that selenium and lycopene are good for prostate cancer?) Iodine is also essential for improving thyroid activity and therefore metabolism. Check with your doctor if you have any thyroid problems though.
Co Enzyme Q10 is thought by some to be effective, and breast cancer patients are often deficient in this too. A trila in Germany showed that survival was increased by 40% in patients taking Co Q10.
There is significant and growing evidence that essential fatty acids (EFAs) and others such as oleic acid and GLA from evening primrose oil not only downrate the HER2 gene, but enhance the effect of many chemotherapy drugs, and may be effective in many cancers. (Research by Dr J Menendes of Northwestern University, published this year - I have put the references on another post about Herceptin and heart problems.) Flax oil can also be taken to good effect for the EFAs.
If you are interested in other ways of helping yourself, then you might look at getting rid of yeasts and taking a pro-biotic for a while. While the body is trying to cope with yeasts and other infections, it cannot devote all its immune resources to fighting off cancer.
Additionally, Iscador prompts the immune system into cancer fighting mode, and low dose maltrexone (LDN) increases T-cell numbers by up to 300%. It has also been proven by Dr Donald Sharpe of Hull University, that reflexology, visualisation, acupuncture, Reiki, meditation, and similar activities, also increase the numbers of cancer fighting T-cells in the body.
Iscador can be obtained from an NHS Homeop[athic hospital (there is one in London and 4 others scattered about the UK) and LDN must be prescribed by a doctor. Your GP will be able to do this, but you may need to sign a disclaimer, as it is not licensed for use with cancer, and must be written up off label, or off license. (This is how Herceptin can be prescribed for early stage breast cancer. A doctor can prescribe any drug for whatever purpose he wants.)
The Bristol Centre is excellent - have you been in contact with them? They recommend giving up dairy and meat. Dairy contains IGF-1, which is identical to the human form, and is a known tumour promoter. I cannot emphasis that enough. It is especially active in promoting the activity of bone metastases. Give up milk and soft cheeses at the very least.
The Breast Cancer Prevention and Recovery Diet You are not alone: the book sits on my bedside table. It is well-written and an excellent guide, and I keep re-reading it ! It also contains some helpful user-friendly recipes.
Today I discused with my acupuncture doctor about taking glucosamine to help my aching joints and he pointed out I should take it in a complex including chondroitin.
I have just posted again on my “Herceptin Cardiotoxicity” thread how I am starting to rattle with supplements!
Prof. Jane Plant This looks like the right place to ask if anyone has read her book and if so, what you think about her ideas on diet.
Jane Plant There have been many debates about Jane Plant on this forum in the past. I have a lot of time for her theories about diary. I tried giving it up about 14 months ago, after reading her book, and found it surprisingly easy so have carried on. I have a theory that the population consumes far more dairy produce of a different nature than used to be the case 20 -30 years ago.
People eat more processed foods now. If you look at the labels, it’s very difficult to find any that don’t have whey or skimmed milk in - I’ve even seen milk as an ingredient in sausages for goodness sake. Milk is overproduced in Europe and the USA and makes a nice cheap ingredient to put in processed food. If you avoid processed food, you avoid hidden milk.
Then we come to what’s in milk. If you live in the USA and consume US produced dairy products, you will be exposed to Bovine Somatotropin which causes cows to produce abnormally large quantities of milk and causes mastitis and health problems. This is provided courtesy of Monsanto under the brand name Posilac. One can only speculate as to what effect this stuff has on the breasts of women that consume the milk containing it.
Fortunately, in Europe, BST is banned, but, as Jane Plant says, cows have been bred to produce more and more milk, which suggests that cows now have higher levels of IGF-I than previous generations of cows. Add to this the antibiotics, drugs and GM animal feed and we probably have a nice cocktail of man made chemicals in non organic dairy produce. I can never understand why cattle aren’t vaccinated against TB. I’ve heard the argument used that consumers wouldn’t want to consume milk or meat from vaccinated animals which seems bizarre given all the other unnatural stuff I’ve already referred to that’s probably in dairy.
People who disagree with Jane Plant tend to do so because they feel that it is wrong of her to suggest that people may die if they don’t follow her advice and some people may become very distressed if they try to follow her diet and don’t find it easy or if they follow her advice and get cancer or a recurrence.
I think if people agree with Jane Plant’s views and find it easy to follow her advice, fine. I keep an open mind as to whether it really can prevent cancer. It certainly can’t do any harm. However, if people would be made miserable by trying to follow her advice, I think they should just try to have a healthy balanced diet and have organic food and diary produce if possible.
I noticed something on the internet the other day which was about some research which suggested that post-menopausal women who eat low fat dairy products have a lower risk of breast cancer than those who don’t consume low fat dairy. It was just a press piec e so I’ve no idea as to whether the quality of research was any good. It also said that it was unclear whether the reduced risk might be due to the calcium and/or vitamin D in milk.
I believe the Breakthrough Generations Study may be looking at dairy (at least it’s in their questionnaire for those who join the study) so maybe one day we’ll get an answer about dairy. Until then, there’ll always be debate.
Dairy I’m a vegan and I was a vegan for several years before I was diagnosed with bc.
I’m vegan for animal welfare and health reasons. Humans are the only mammals that drink milk beyond weaning, and certainly the only mammals that drink the milk of a different species. A cow’s milk is meant to turn a 200lb calf into a 2000lb animal in a short time and it does a very good job. It’s meant for an animal that has a digestive system with four stomachs, and that’s why it causes so many health problems.
Is it the cause of bc? Well not in my case. Jane Plant claims that a tumour (for which she was having chemo) began to shrink very soon after she gave up dairy and then disappeared completely. I should never have developed a tumour at all by this logic.
I think dietary and environmental factors must play a part in causing bc - otherwise why the increase in cases? - but I think the major factor is bad luck.
In Jane Plant’s defence, nowhere in Your Life in Your Hands does she claim that people will die if they don’t follow her diet.
She comes close to suggesting this On page 122 of the Virgin Publishing 2003 edition of Jane Plant’s Your Life in your Hands she wriites: I have given the diet to 63 women all of whom remain cancer free…The five women who refused to use it or ‘cheated’ have all sadly had recurrences and died.
Despite Jane Plant’s claims to be scientific (she is a geologist) there is no sound evidence that her ideas are correct. I consider her views pernicious and dangerous. She writes in a very perusasive style, and when people are vulnerable as when recently diagnosed with cancer, it is only too easy to be taken in by claims to be scientific.
I am someone who is highly sceptical of most alternative treatments or unsubstantiated causes of cancer unless there is good scientific evidence to support them. (In which case they are no longer alternative views or treatments) I don’t intend to frequent this forum often as I know many people get a lot of help from discussing alternative and complementary treatments etc, but I will join in when a debate has already been stated.
I know two women who followed the Plant diet rigidly who both died very quickly. I am not suggesting that the diet killed them: it didn’t: cancer did. But I know they both felt very defeated and guilty that maybe that had not tried it hard enough. I feel angry and sad about this kind of thing.
Jane
diet and supplements Personally I don’t like any of the highly proscriptive diets. The human being is by structure an omnivore, though in various cultures the system has adapted to highly restricted diets (ie in the Arctic). A moderate and balanced diet is the best. “A little of what you fancy does you good” seems like a good piece of advice, LITTLE being the operative word.
But at the same time there is evidence that cancer affects the body’s ability to absorb and make use of food, and I have often wondered why testing for deficiencies isn’t used more often as part of the healing plan. If life is extended by reasoned use of supplements, then I’m all for them.
Louise I agree that dietary and environmental factors play a part in causing breast cancer, but an increase in yearly cases in England diagnosed by 80% between 1971 and 2003 (source Office of National Statistics) is more than just bad luck. “Official” reasons put forward for the increase are changes in reproduction (people having no or fewer children, not breastfeeding), people living longer and the introduction of the national screening programme, none of which adequately explains such a huge increase in incidence, in my opinion.
I agree Jane Plant hasn’t actually said people will die if they don’t follow her diet, but that’s how some people interpret it, due to the prescriptive tone of her writing.
Correction Sorry about the garbled wording I meant that breast cancer incidence rates have increased by 80% in England between 1971 and 2003 and that’s more than bad luck.
Cause of cancer Professor Samuel Epstein puts the increase in incidence of cancer down to pollution, and the number of new organic chemicals the body has to deal with on a daily basis. Most of these chemicals have not been researched for their effect on the body before being put into general use. For example - a piece of research published only this week by Liverpool University showed that a combination of four common food additives - aspartame, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and the artificial colourings brilliant blue and quinoline yellow, had a toxic effect on nerves. The mixtures of the additives had a much more potent effect on nerve cells than each additive on its own. These are but four. What of the others, especially the pseudo-estrogens?
Aspartame has been linked to brain cancers in rats and by extension to humans, yet the chemical is not withdrawn. Too profitable no doubt!
Of course it is all but impossible to prove that a particular chemical caused a particular cancer except under stringent research conditions. However, research has proven the link between IGF-I, as found in milk and its products, and the fact that it encourages tumour growth and metastases. Some tumours express their own IGF-I, thus providing further impetus to growth. It is therefore prudent to avoid milk and its derivatives.
The basis therefore, of some alternative approaches to cancer is based on sound science. If polluting chemicals are causing cancer, then it makes good sense to remove them from the body as far as possible, by taking nourishment which is not contaminated by them, in addition to whatever further measures considered necessary.
(Professor) Jane Plant also makes good sense, even if she is ‘only’ a professor of geology and not medicine. Would we take any notice of her if she was not authoritative in her manner? And why does her eminence in geology preclude her from being able to understand basic science in a discipline other than her own?
My personal faith in doctors and medical professionals is wearing pretty thin right now. Another of my friends has died from the side-effects of chemotherapy rather than her cancer. Too often the obvious is ignored because minds are closed and too tightly focussed to see the larger picture.
For info:
Dr Samuel Epstein, MD, D.Path., D.T.M&H, Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois Medical Center Chicago is an internationally recognised authority on the causes and prevention of cancer, and on carcinogenic exposures in air water, the work place and consumer products-food, household products and cosmetics and toiletries.
Dr Epstein has published 260 peer reviewed scientific articles and has authored 4 books.
Must admit though, he is not a doctor, as such.
IGF-1 What is it please?
IGF-1 Insulin-like growth factor : mediates many of the growth-promoting effects of growth hormones , therefore implicated in abnormal growths as well
JPoet Herceptin Toxicity Thread Hello JPoet,
How do I find your Herceptin Toxicity Thread?
Thank-you
Joan
Hi Joan I’m sure Jpoet doesn’t mind me telling you. Copy this into your address box. breastcancercare.org.uk/content.php?page_id=1911&forum_cmd=3&forum_id=8&topic=450.
Seasonal Greetings.
Roberta
Samuel Epstein Hi Darklady, he is a medically trained doctor. He’s British and received his doctorate in medicine at Guy’s.
He has some pretty radical views for example - opposes pre-menopausal mammography, opposed the trials on Tamoxifen as a possible prevention for breast cancer.
He made this statement in 1996:
“A decade-old multi-million dollar deal between National Breast Cancer Awareness Month sponsors and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) has produced reckless misinformation on breast cancer,” stated Dr. Samuel Epstein, a leading international authority on cancer-causing effects of environmental pollutants.
Zeneca Pharmaceutical, a U.S. subsidiary and recent spin-off of ICI, has been the sole funder of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month since 1984. ICI is one of the largest manufacturers of petrochemical and chlorinated organic products, such as acetochlor and vinyl chloride, and the sole manufacturer of Tamoxifen, the world’s top-selling cancer drug used for breast cancer. Financial sponsorship by Zeneca/ICI gives them editorial control over every leaflet, poster, publication, and commercial produced by NBCAM. NBCAM is promoted by the cancer establishment, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) with their corporate sponsors.
Imperial Chemical Industries has supported the cancer establishment’s blame-the-victim attitude toward the causes of breast and other cancers. This theory attributes escalating cancer rates to heredity and faulty lifestyle, rather than avoidable exposures to industrial carcinogens contaminating air, water, food, consumer products, and the workplace.
" The ICI/NBCAM public relations campaign has prevented women from knowing of avoidable causes of breast cancer," concluded Dr. Epstein."
Right on Doc. Good to see a medical doctor wanting to discuss topics that governments, pharmaceutical industries, media and charities would rather ignore and good to see a clear eyed opinion on breast cancer awareness month, the spread of misinformation (hmm… Good Housekeeping breast cancer survival statistics come to mind) and the implication that women have caused their own breast cancer.
Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s not. I think he’s largely right because we are exposed to so many chemicals that have never been tested for effects on human health so it would be remarkable if they were all harmless. We need more doctors like him to discuss the unpalatable, then we might actually get to the truth about what causes breast cancer. Meanwhile, I think it makes sense to avoid processed foods, try and eat organic and minimise exposure to synthetic chemicals in cleaning & decorating products and cosmetics. If enough people start demanding organic food and products and cosmetics containing safer chemicals, producers would soon fall into line as there would be a significantly reduced market for food and products that could not be proved to be safe.