Cancer, Antioxidants and Herbs
Dr. Michael Tierra, L.Ac., O.M.D., AHG (founder of the American Herbalists Guild), author of Treating Cancer With Herbs (pub. 2003 by Lotus Press).
Should cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiation therapy take herbs or antioxidant food supplements such as vitamin C, E and Beta Carotene? It is unfortunate that given all the truly difficult decisions that cancer patients must make regarding their choice of treatments, this should become an issue at all. After all, we all know that conventional cancer therapy is fraught with many adverse reactions. Some highly qualified individuals such as Dr. Ralph Moss questions the value of these therapies for many cancers and even goes so far as to say that while they may initially reduce tumors they leave the body a thousand times more vulnerable to deadly recurrence.
Therefore the idea that patients should deprive themselves of the significant edge that a wholesome anti-cancer therapeutic diet consisting of fresh juices, legumes, brown rice and fish, a large number of vitamins and antioxidants and immune potentiating, cancer fighting herbs seems a bit like insult on top of injury.
Yet, that is precisely what many oncologists maintain. In fact a number of oncologists are known to deny treatment altogether if there patients (or should I say ‘victims’) integrate these powerful cancer fighting and life supporting tools into their regime.
The basis to this is hardly based on fact and is more in the realm of conjecture. The theory is that since part of the cancer killing effect of chemotherapies and radiation treatment is to generate cell-killing oxidants so that taking herbs or antioxidants may be a problem because they might counter the effect of the conventional cancer therapies.
While this may seem to be a reasonable supposition, the fact is that the oxidative method is more of a side effect of the cancer cell killing drugs and therapies rather than a primary method. Further, while there are as yet no definitive studies supporting their us or not, there are a number of studies that indicate that far from interfering with the effect of chemo and radiation therapies, many herbs and antioxidants in fact add to the overall efficacy of conventional cancer therapies.
Aside from the fact that any plant based food is likely to have antioxidants, at least one study based on in vitro (outside of the body) and some animal studies suggests that oral administration of high dose multiple antioxidants (vitamins A, C and E, and carotenoids) may improve the efficacy of standard therapy by increasing tumor response rate and decreasing the toxicity of at least some agents. [1] A preliminary randomized study using high-dose multiple antioxidants (vitamins C and E, and beta-carotene) in combination with standard chemotherapy (carboplatin and paclitaxel) for the treatment of non-small cell lung carcinoma, showed that tumor response was much better in patients receiving both antioxidants and chemotherapy rather than chemotherapy alone (Pathak et al., personal communication).
The National Cancer Institute in conjunction with the National Institute of Health announced a announced a new study they are initiating comparing the efficacy of an alternative-therapy regimen involving a vegetable and whole grain based diet, digestive enzymes, nutritional supplements (I presume antioxidants such as Vitamin C are included) and coffee enemas against those who followed the standard medical protocol. This is a $1.4 million dollar study based on a prior 11 patient study conducted by immunologists Nicholas J. Gonzalez, M.D. and Linda L. Isaacs, M.D. where it was shown that that patients undergoing the alternative protocol lived three times longer than those who did not.[2]
Nutrition is the key to natural cancer therapies with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), after years of denying any correlation between nutrition and cancer, coming to ‘officially’ recommend that all people consume at least 5 servings of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables a day. The problem that even emphasizing ‘organic’ fruits and vegetables, known to contain 50% or more denser nutrients than their inorganic counterpart, these organically grown foods may still be lacking in adequate nutrients for health. This is the rational basis for adding at least minimal amounts of nutritional supplementation to one’s daily regime.
To measure the effectiveness of fresh fruit’s and vegetable’s ability to neutralize cancer causing oxygen free radicals in our body, Dr. Guohua Cao and colleagues in the 1990’s devised a standardized Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) test at the USDA laboratory at Tufts University, Boston. It was found that the average intake of ORAC from fruits and vegetables was around 1200 per day. However, by increasing to five vegetable and fruit servings (a single serving is about a quarter of a cup), this could increase to 1,640. Ralph Moss points out how a diet concentrating on the most powerful cancer fighting superfoods could boost even this to 6000 per day, thus lowering our risk for cancer as well as other chronic diseases. [3]
As an herbalist, I have many who call or visit my clinic each week for a comprehensive dietary, supplement and herbal program to assist them as they undergo conventional cancer therapies. Over 35 years of practice it is clear with no exceptions that patients benefit from such an integrative treatment approach. So is it no wonder that this integrative approach is the preferred mode of treatment in China, for instance.
Some of the more popular from hundreds of herbs I routinely prescribe individualized formulas include high doses of anticancer herbs such as chaparral, red clover, pau d’ arco, astragalus root, reishi mushroom and burdock root.
Specifically the Indian herb, Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) should always be prescribed with radiation therapy based on its ‘radiosensitizing effects’ allowing the body to endure higher doses of radiation without damage along with its well know cancer killing properties and tonic properties. [4]
Dr. Michael Tierra can be contacted via his website www.Planetherbs.com or his Santa Cruz Clinic (831) 429-8066. His herb course, books and herbal supplements are available from this website.
[1] Prasad KN, Kumar A, Kochupillai V, Cole WC. High doses of multiple antioxidant vitamins: essential ingredients in improving the efficacy of standard cancer therapy. J Am Coll Nutr 1999;18(1):13-25.
Lamson DW, Brignall MS. Antioxidants in cancer therapy; their actions and interactions with oncologic therapies. Altern Med Rev 1999;4(5):304-29.
Jaakkola K, Lahteenmaki P, Laakso J, et al. Treatment with antioxidant and other nutrients in combination with chemotherapy and irradiation in patients with small-cell lung cancer. Anticancer Res 1992;12:599-606.
Sakamoto K, Sakka M. Reduced effect of irradiation on normal and malignant cells irradiated in vivo in mice pretreated with vitamin E. Br J Radiology 1973;46:538-540.
[2] Reported in Nutrition and Cancer, 1999.
[3] Moss, Ralph W. Antioxidants Against Cancer, pub by Equinox Press, 2000, pages 14-19
[4] Ashwagandha and Radiation
J Ethnopharmacol 1998 Oct;62(3):209-14