Alternative treatment or naturopathy

Rocky · New User Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 3 Location: Chicago

I am concerned about my wife. She is 33.

After 2 biopsies (4 and 5 tissue samples were taken) she has been diagnosed with a breast cancer (most likely stage 1 or 2). This happened around the end of June 2005. She is refusing any conventional treatment and relying ONLY on ALTERNATIVE herbal treatments combined with strict fruit diet.

A lot of what the ?herb guys? say seem to have a good reasoning but I really would like to personally talk to at least 6 people who have undergone purely alternative treatment and successfully gotten rid of cancer to feel comfortable with what my wife is about to do.

Are you out there? Do you know anyone that claims treating breast cancer without surgery and radiation or chemotherapy?

THANK YOU

RachelEsther

That sounds rather dangerous, and foolish. And she doesn't even really know what she has.

I know that there are stories out there about cures by alternative methods, but they are more anecdotal than anything else, no scientific studies. There was something about apricot pits or something years ago that people went to Mexico for I think, but people died from that particular form of non-treatment. There are also many people touting many different sorts of diets and lifestyle changes and claiming that they cure cancer, but I am very skeptical of them. Usually they are promoting a product. One woman who claims to have had a remarkable recovery because of her new diet and has a book out, is apparently a fraud. There is a site of fraud busters, you can google it.

I would google any such cure that your wife is adhering to, and also put in "danger" or "fraud" or something like that, so you will get the negative views of it as well. Then you have to decide.

I think that alot of these alternative methods sound good to a layperson. What the heck do we know? And perhaps they are even good as a supplement to traditional treatment, to keep the body strong. But alone?

I would like to have had an open mind, and embrace alternative therapies, and all that, but frankly, my life is way too important to me to gamble on somebody's unproven ideas. I went with the treatment that many many studies have shown to be effective.

Stage 1 or 2 should give a good survival rate if the proper treatments are done. If not, well, perhaps she will have good luck. That kind of good luck is pretty rare though.

Please do your research. Perhaps she feels that she is being brave and bold and really forward thinking, and that because she is young and strong, nothing really bad can happen to her. Or perhaps she is terrified of surgery, chemo and radiation. Well, we all know that one - we were all terrified, we all got through it, and for me, it wasn't all that bad. I think that we were brave as well. Breast cancer treatment has come a long way, and it is effective, and the side effects can be handled.

At her age, cancer is generally rather aggressive if it is hormone receptor positive, because it feeds on all the estrogen she has in her body.

Sorry to be negative. I know that some people will differ with me. But I wouldn't pass up conventional treatment. And also, it's been 2 months since her biopsy - she should already have had surgery or be in chemo or something. Time is ticking away.
_________________
Rachel
Age 50 at diagnosis, Stage IIIA
IDC grade 1, DCIS grade 2
LB Mastectomy, Expander Recon 3/3/2004
Dose Dense Chemo completed 07/01/04
Radiation completed 09/02/04
Silicone Implant 11/22/04, removed 7/05 due to infection (dental cleaning), replaced 12/05. Reduction RB for symmetry 04/06
Tamoxifen 10/04-10/06, Arimidex 10/06 on

LindaTN · Regular Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 42

I am a great believer in herbs, diet, vitamins and my ND Dr who is great but a good ND will tell you to have surgery! After that chemo and radiation could be discussed and might not be necessary in early stage cancer. For myself I chose all three plus herbs etc. I am a vegan, no white sugar or flour and for sure no dairy. To trust in just herbs, no way. This is not the dark ages. Linda

yvonne1348 · Regular Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 10 Location: California

I agree with Rachel here. There may be any number of vitamins or herbs that are generally good for you - high in antioxidants and all that. But none of them are meant to be used as a replacement for standard medical treatment. With chemo, radiation, surgery or medications such as tamoxifen, your wife's likelihood of survival is extremely high. In fact, my doctor told me that breast cancer - while scary - is treatable.....that in the end, I would die of something else altogether. These standard medical treatments have all undergone extensive testing on many thousands of women by an army of learned medical physicians and scientists, and they have been proven to be effective when properly administered and tailored to each individual.

There are simply no PROVEN alternative treatments. If there were one that worked, we'd all know about it and we'd be doing it. These treatments have either not been tested at all, or they simply don't work.

Seriously, you need to talk some sense into your wife before a manageable problem becomes a collosal one.

Yvonne
_________________
Yvonne
age 50
non-menopausal at dx, oovarectomy 7/18/05
Right breast - DCIS, 0+/2 nodes, 5cm, int grade
Left breast - IDC & Paget's of Nipple, tumor size .7mm, 0+/11 nodes, stage 1
ER/PR pos, her2-
Total Mastectomy 5/17/05 and 6/21/05
NED

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

Rick,

The grape and watermelon, from what I have read are good. Especially the grape or grape seed extract. My understanding is that they should be red grapes or red grape juice. They contain resveratrol, which helps enhance the P53 gene activity. The P53 gene is what the body uses as a defense in the body to cause apoptotic death of cancer cells. The P53 gene first tries to repair mutated cells. If this is unsucessful, it causes to bad cell to die. If the P53 gene itself becomes mutated (which is often the case in some types of cancer), it allows the cancer cells to grow. The resveratrol in the grapes enhances the P53 gene's activity. This is an example of an alternative or nutritional agent actually working and knowing why it works.

Melatonin, selenium, and PSK also enhance the P53 gene. In the field of conventional medicine, some of the the most successful drugs in the most recent trials work by actually injecting P53 genes into the tumor using a virus as a vehicle. MD Anderson has a lady in one trial that has survived over 5 years with stage IV NSCLC on one of these drugs.

Cauliflower, broccoli, and onion are normally considered good in a cancer diet. Maybe the diet she is on has been found to work better without anything else. I don't know.

The watermelon contains lycopene which is supposed to help fight cancer.

The thing that I think you may find most interesting and encouraging is that the research that I have done on these foods and minerals has mostly been done on the PubMed/NIH site or at least confirmed there. This is the same place that doctors get reports on conventional medical trials etc.

There are many things that are known to improve the state of a cancer patient. In many cases the mechanism by which they work is scientifically known. Often what is not known is how they will work together. The possibilities are that they will:

1) work in an additive fashion
2) work in a synergistic fashion where the effect is greater that the sum
3) Interfere with one another

For example, it is known that grapes and PSK are both good, but what if you take both? I don't know who knows. It would take an expensive trial of every combination to find out. The companies selling Tarceva pills for $100 a piece can afford to find out things in big trials. People selling grape seed exract pills for less than a dollar a piece cannot afford to find out.

That's why I don't know if the cauliflower will help or hinder her present diet.

The same is true of conventional treatments and agents working with one another or alternative agents.

After my own experience, I can understand your Wife's refusal to take chemo or radiation therapy. The side effects can be horrible, even deadly, and they can make you sick. They can also cause problems to appear in years. The surgical option is less clear to me. It is easy to understand why somebody would not want to be cut on and disfigured. It is also possible that the surgery will be unsucessful or have complications. But at least in conventional medicine, surgical treatment of cancer has the best cure rate. It is usually reserved for stage I or II disease. If your wife's cancer progresses, the surgical option will be lost.

Please forgive me for rambling on, but after what happened to my wife using conventional medicine, I would like to do anything I can to spare others of this ordeal if I can. On the other hand, if someone has been helped by conventional medicine, I am happy for them. In our case, the conventional treatments were foisted on my wife when there was no hope of cure without telling us. If there is a chance of cure, then at least there is a risk/benefit ratio to weigh.

Best wishes,

Mike

francis · Regular Joined: 12 Jun 2005 Posts: 35

I think a common initial reaction to learning about cancer is to look into alternative treatments, especially alternatives to chemo. This is understandable. But the grim reality is that there appears to be very little documented evidence that these things work. In fact. many of the well-meaning authors of alternative treatment books have in the end died from cancer. They were not cured by their alternative treatments. Believe me, we looked into this pretty deeply, and in the end couldn't take such a gamble without having any solid evidence to back up the claims that such treatments would work. Many of them are based on ideas that originated before DNA etc. had even been discovered. Not much has any verifiable scientific basis in studied involving humans.. Actually, some of it, though well-meanung, might be harmful (use of Chinese herbs in cases of estrogen positive tumors). I had extensive email exchanges about this with an expert in such treatments, and he freely admitted that there is no evidence that such treatments work, and he certainly did not suggest such treatments as an alternative to orthodox medicine. As a compliment maybe, but not as an alternative. But any use of herbs etc, along with chemo should ne done only with the consent of your oncologist.

Muttsmom

Hi Francis,
Very well said!!!!!!!!!!! I've known 3 people who chose strictly the " natural route" and they died of " natural causes" called cancer.

I know, just 1 example, St. John's Wart so depression will demish the effects of chemo, as as you said, don't take anything without your onco saying it's o.k. Too many things interact with chemo and I for one, am going with what has proven to work.

I found it interesting. There was a guy on t.v. on an infomercial promoting his book. Can't think of the exact name, but basically doctors are hiding stuff from us and there are all these natural ways to cure every kind of disease. Not only does the book not have any names of natrual remedies in it, the guy has served time in fed. pen for fraud. It had nothing to do with this book, but not this girl.

Ya'll have a great day
Nancy
_________________
Nancy
2/14/02 ILC 43 - 5.5 cm 9+/16 nodes
Stage IIIA er/pr+ Her2-
2/02 MRM
FECx6 radsx33
Tamoxifen - Arimidex (chemo induced menopause)
4/03 SM w/bilat. recon.
9/03 expanders removed
5/04 repair reconst. disaster
10/04 Actonel for bone/joint pain from Arimidex
NED - 5 years
3/07 Diabetes
In memory of Kim 12/1/04

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

Lest the tone of this thread become an advertisement for the sole use of conventional treatment and a total rejection of alternative treatment, please consider the following:

The following information is taken from:

http://patient.cancerconsultants.com/supportive_treatment.aspx?id=23160

Table 1 Chemotherapy drugs that have been reported to cause kidney damage in 10% or more of patients

Kidney damage occurs in 30% or more of patients
* Cisplatin (Platinol®)
* Cytarabine (Cytosar-U®)
* Gemcitabine (Gemzar®)
* Ifosfamide (Ifex®)
* Interleukin-2 (Proleukin®)
* Streptozocin (Zanosar®)

Kidney damage occurs in 10-29% of patients
* Carboplatin (Paraplatin®)
* Gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg®)
* Melphalan (Alkeran®)
* Methotrexate (Rheumatrex®)
* Oxaliplatin (Eloxatin®)
* Pemetrexed (Alimta®)
* Plicamycin (Mithracin®)
* Trimetrexate (Neutrexin®)

The following information is taken from:

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/109/25/3122

"Therapy for cancer has progressed dramatically in recent years, and tremendous progress has been made in reducing the morbidity and mortality from many forms of cancer. An emerging concept is that cancer is a manageable disease, similar to hypertension or diabetes, and requires early detection, periodic surveillance, and coordinated therapeutic decision making. It is therefore critical for cancer survivors to limit comorbid illnesses. Many cancer survivors will actually be at as great a risk from cardiac disease as from recurrent cancer.1 The therapeutic options for patients with cancer now include increasingly complex combinations of medications, radiation therapy, and surgical intervention. Many of these treatments have important potential adverse cardiac effects and are likely to have significant effects on patient outcomes. Therefore, understanding these effects is crucial to their effective management. The purpose of this review is to highlight medications commonly used in the treatment of cancer and their associated cardiovascular complications."

This web site includes tables showing the various chmotherapy agents and their effects.

It also has similar information concrning the long term health efects of radiation therapy.

If the conventional therapies had an overall good cure rate and few side-effects, nobody would pay much atttention to the alternative treatments, but such is not the case.

The conventional therapies have been shown to work well for a limited number of cancer types and this is great. What if your type of cancer is not in this group? What do you do?

Many people are reluctant to undergo chemotherapy because of the stories that they have heard concerning hair loss, fatique, and nausia. These are nothing compared to the more serious side effects such as kidney, liver, and cardiovascular damage. Our oncologist did not point out any of these possibilities to us, and my wife suffered permanent and irreversable kidney and cardiovasular damage from her chemotherapy.

I am not making any recommendation to Rocky as to what he and his wife should do. This is the provence of his/her oncologist and them. Having lost my wife to conventional treatments, I wish I had at least been aware of the alternatives.

francis · Regular Joined: 12 Jun 2005 Posts: 35

Mikes,

The original question was not about side effects of chemo, it was about the efficacy of altrnative remedies. The fact that chemo has side effects has nothing to do with whether or not alternative tratments work.

I know this is a tough issue, and we would all like to believe that the alternatice treatments work, but their just is no documented evidence. If there was, we'd all use them.

Right now my wife is dealing with chemo side effects, and we are wondering if there are alternatives, so its a real question for us. But we need more than unsupported claims. Also, can all the different alternative therapies work? How does one choose among them? They are all very different from each other (fruit vs. no fruit)

Best wishes,

Francis.

Muttsmom

First, let me say how sorry I am that you lost your wife to cancer. It is definately a very cruel disease.

On the list of chemos that you typed out, not one of them, unless things have changed very much, are chemos given for BC during original dx. Since I've never had BC mets, and pray I never do, I don't know alot about the chemos used but the only one I've ever heard of on that list is Gemzar. Just my personal feelings, I'll take the 30% chance of kidney problems instead of the 100% chance that I'll die if I don't take it.

I have no doubt had I not taken the treatment I did, I wouldn't be here now and would have been gone long ago. I was Stage III and that's not far from Stage IV.

Did you wife have breast cancer if you don't mind me asking?

I know Suzanne Somers said she didn't want chemo because it was poison, but she injected herself in the stomach for 5 years and still doing it with mistletoe extract............which is poison.

I pray that everyone stays NED regardless of the route they choose, but for me, I took the route with proven results. I do take a multi vitamin, calcium w/Vitamin D since I'm taking Arimidex. Arimidex has caused my cholesterol to be very high, especially the lipids, so besides cholesterol/lipid medicine, I take Omega 3 capsules everyday. I've changed my diet to include plenty of anti-oxidents (sp) everyday, especially blueberries in my oatmeal every a.m. This is what was best for me, not to say it is for everyone.

Nancy
_________________
Nancy
2/14/02 ILC 43 - 5.5 cm 9+/16 nodes
Stage IIIA er/pr+ Her2-
2/02 MRM
FECx6 radsx33
Tamoxifen - Arimidex (chemo induced menopause)
4/03 SM w/bilat. recon.
9/03 expanders removed
5/04 repair reconst. disaster
10/04 Actonel for bone/joint pain from Arimidex
NED - 5 years
3/07 Diabetes
In memory of Kim 12/1/04

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

Hi Francis,

You said:
"The original question was not about side effects of chemo, it was about the efficacy of altrnative remedies. The fact that chemo has side effects has nothing to do with whether or not alternative tratments work. "

If you die from the side effects, it has everything to do with whether the treatments work because even good alternatives only work on living patients.

You said:
"I know this is a tough issue, and we would all like to believe that the alternatice treatments work, but their just is no documented evidence. If there was, we'd all use them. "

I gave links for you to check out where some of these alternatives are acually being used and mentioned the PubMed/NIH web site where you can see for yourself. Melatonin is considered a conventional treatment in Europe and PSK has long been a conventional treatment in Japan and China. MD Anderson is considered the #1 cancer center in the US by many. Check out what they say.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi is the PubMed/NIH site.

Both of these alternatives have good, authoritative, documented reviews on the mainstream sites I mentioned. These two alternatives are given especially good reviews as far as their ability to relieve chemo side-effects. In case you are not aware, the PubMed/NIH site is the official repository of medical knowledge in this country and it used by virtually all medical professionals. It is also the official repository for trial results.

I would guess that most of the alternatives advertised on the various health and nutrition sites do not work. The way you choose among them is to check them out on PubMed/NIH and other authoritative sources. Never let a sales pitch sway you in a matter of life and death.

Best regards,

Mike

Hi Nancy,

Thank you for your kind words.

My wife had NSCLC. I did not mean to imply that the chemos given were for breast cancer. The list is not for NSCLC either, although my wife used 2 of them (1 from each list). It is just from a web site that is explaining the general danger to the kidneys from chemo.

You said:
"I know Suzanne Somers said she didn't want chemo because it was poison, but she injected herself in the stomach for 5 years and still doing it with mistletoe extract............which is poison."

I don't know whether mistletoe works or not. But you say it is poison. I believe you. Did you know that virtually all chemo agents are poison? Have you read the handling precautions for the preparation of these agents? Most are toxic even to the touch on skin. There was a survey taken in which the oncologists were asked whether they would use chemo if them or a member of their family had cancer. Only 15% said yes. I'm glad that chemo worked for you and anyone else that it helps. That does not mean it is not dangerous or does not have potentially fatal side-effects. There are a lot of medicines that work for people, but are nonetheless dangerous with dreadful side-effects.

It sounds to me like you are looking out well for your nutritional requirements. You should do this whether you are on conventional or alternative treatment or both.

I tend to think of alternative treatment as separate from good nutrition (as it seems you do also). I have seen a number of sites that claim nutrition is everything to the exclusion of any other treatment. I disagree with this, as do most of those posting here.

I think it is unfortunate that all of the hipe concerning nutrition and miracle cures has contaminated the landscape for legitamate alternative treatments.

All the best,

Mike

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

Just a note to put melatonin into the context of breast cancer.

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/71/81159.htm

Has an article entitled "Hormone Melatonin Slows Breast Cancer"

http://www.komen.org/intradoc-cgi/idc_cgi_isapi.dll?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&ssDocName=s_003323

Has an article entitled "Preclinical Study Shows Melatonin Slows the Growth of Breast Cancer"

http://www.breastcancersource.com/breastcancersourcehcp/6096_17043_3_0_0.aspx

Has an article entitled "High melatonin levels may protect against breast cancer"

This is but a small sampling of what is out there.

Hope this helps.

francis · Regular Joined: 12 Jun 2005 Posts: 35

I am not trying to be argumentative, and I won't go on any more about this, but none of those links have anything directly to do with using melatonin as a recommended treatment for breast cancer in humans. They show some interesting and hopefully promising connections, but nothing that shows clearly that melatonin, if taken by humans, will impact existing cancer.

I think that is the main problem with many of the alternative treatment websites and books. They use very preliminary studies, usually done on lab mice, and extrapolate that to human use. They always say that these things "may" help with breast cancer. Nothing definite.

mikes · Senior User Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 143

Francis,

I'm not trying to be argumentaive either... let's be friends.

I carefully chose the 3 sites because they are NOT alternative treatment websites. There are plenty of alternative sites to quote from. I NEVER do so.

The other sites I quoted from in the earlier post are reputatble clinics and government medical sites.

You said: "They show some interesting and hopefully promising connections, but nothing that shows clearly that melatonin, if taken by humans, will impact existing cancer. "

Here is a report posted to the US Government repository for medical trials concerning breast cancer as well as others at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10674014&query_hl=20

which states:
"Decreased toxicity and increased efficacy of cancer chemotherapy using the pineal hormone melatonin in metastatic solid tumour patients with poor clinical status.

Lissoni P, Barni S, Mandala M, Ardizzoia A, Paolorossi F, Vaghi M, Longarini R, Malugani F, Tancini G.

Division of Radiation Oncology, S. Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Milan, Italy.

Melatonin (MLT) has been proven to counteract chemotherapy toxicity, by acting as an anti-oxidant agent, and to promote apoptosis of cancer cells, so enhancing chemotherapy cytotoxicity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of concomitant MLT administration on toxicity and efficacy of several chemotherapeutic combinations in advanced cancer patients with poor clinical status. The study included 250 metastatic solid tumour patients (lung cancer, 104; breast cancer, 77; gastrointestinal tract neoplasms, 42; head and neck cancers, 27), who were randomized to receive MLT (20 mg/day orally every day) plus chemotherapy, or chemotherapy alone. Chemotherapy consisted of cisplatin (CDDP) plus etoposide or gemcitabine alone for lung cancer, doxorubicin alone, mitoxantrone alone or paclitaxel alone for breast cancer, 5-FU plus folinic acid for gastro-intestinal tumours and 5-FU plus CDDP for head and neck cancers. The 1-year survival rate and the objective tumour regression rate were significantly higher in patients concomitantly treated with MLT than in those who received chemotherapy (CT) alone (tumour response rate: 42/124 CT + MLT versus 19/126 CT only, P < 0.001; 1-year survival: 63/124 CT + MLT versus 29/126 CT only, P < 0.001). Moreover, the concomitant administration of MLT significantly reduced the frequency of thrombocytopenia, neurotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, stomatitis and asthenia. This study indicates that the pineal hormone MLT may enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy and reduce its toxicity, at least in advanced cancer patients of poor clinical status."

Here is a link to 17 studies on the subject:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed

Just type in "melatonin breast lissoni" into the search box.

Hope this helps.

Mike

francis · Regular Joined: 12 Jun 2005 Posts: 35

Thanks. You've done some homework!

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