Cancer and Supplements
About every month or so, some newscaster or reporter will tell of a new compound, food or food group, genetic finding, or supplement (vitamin, mineral, or nutritional) that decreases one’s cancer risk. These findings are great and play a role in natural medicine care, especially if someone who has a high cancer risk is trying to prevent cancer. There is nothing better than preventing cancer from forming, but cancer prevention is not cancer treatment.
A patient came in with all of his supplements. He had lycopene supplements, modified citrus pectin, Echinacea, selenium, saw palmetto, and a host of others. Any supplement that he read about that supposedly helped the prostate gland he bought and used. He must have been taking 200 pills a day from about 20 different bottles. He was also eating healthy foods and drinking distilled water. His PSAs (prostate-specific antigens) were not climbing as quickly, but they were still going up and were now hovering about 28. A biopsy confirmed prostate cancer.
The patient was slowing the progression of his disease, but it was still progressing. Most of the items that he was taking were great for prostate health, but they were not likely to give him tumor remission, which was the ultimate goal. I (Ross) explained the possibilities with natural medicine, IPT, surgery, and the differences in nutritional supplements.
He underwent a comprehensive prostate cancer profile that looked at various hormone levels. We agreed that he needed to get his dihydrotestosterone levels down, which was one of the factors involved in feeding his cancer. He was started on a nutritional supplement for this. I also felt that he may have some heavy metal toxicity that might be related to his cancer, but he choose to just go ahead with prostate removal. He has done well and remains cancer free. He continues to take his nutritional supplements and eat a healthy diet.
The patient had read a lot about prostate cancer prevention and felt that he must take gobs of selenium. Well, that is great if you want to get selenium poisoning. Selenium is a good mineral for a cancer patient to take, but what is the goal of therapy? If it is tumor regression, a cancer patient then needs to be under the care of a physician. Just because a vitamin, mineral, or nutritional product has some cancer prevention properties does not mean that it will cause a tumor to shrink. One can almost assume the opposite; it will be great for tumor prevention but not nearly strong enough for tumor regression. This is why when picking an appropriate cancer treatment or therapy, or even a supplement for that matter, it is important to know what its purpose is. Taking a little selenium is fine if you have prostate cancer; just don’t put your hopes in it to shrink your tumor.
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