cancer -alternative therapies?

[Quicksilvre]

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he states clearly that most people can't make the radical dietary changes necessary.

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Well, of course not. It's a vacuously true statement.

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The alternative treatments are basically bogus.

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[dylan's alias]

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from what I've heard you have to totally change your lifestyle and diet as a prerequisite for any of the alt thera;pies, and most poeple are unable to do so.

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Right, so that way, when the alternative therapy fails, it is the patient's fault for not following the diet.

OP, sorry about the whole situation, but sadly, esophageal cancer that has spread is not curable. Like others have said, chemo and RT offer the best chance for prolonging life, and hopefully for controlling symptoms. The therapies are lousy and have a ton of side effects. My best advice is to go through the options with the oncologist and decide whether the possible benefits of treatment outweigh the negatives. There are no good choices and anyone who is offering up an easy cure is just selling snake oil.

Oh, and if there's a line, I'll be next to blast Kevin Trudeau in the face with a shotgun.

[PLOlover]

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Right, so that way, when the alternative therapy fails, it is the patient's fault for not following the diet.

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actually the OP best bet is to go to a naturpath for his cures and an M.D. for his cures, and then do a cost/benefit analysis.

[PLOlover]

fwiw I've heard that naturpaths are licensed in oregon, not sure abouut other states.

[ginko]

To the people who say alternative therapies are bogus, well that's a poor argument. I have access to thousands of peer reviewed studies that prove the opposite.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/ Look for studies here.


Supplement wise, high dose vitamin d3(or a lot of sunlight), and if hes doing chemotherapy, Theanine. If I had cancer this is what I would do.

"There are also more than a dozen reports in the scientific literature which show a clear benefit of theanine in fighting various forms of experimental cancer. In many of these studies, theanine has been shown to enhance the anti-tumor activity of some cancer drugs such as pirarubicin, doxorubicin and adriamycin. It appears that theanine slows the ability of the tumor cells to eject the cancer drugs - so combination therapy with the chemotherapy agent plus theanine seems to maintain high levels of the drug in the tumor cells and both slow their growth and accelerate their death."

I would probably start consuming green tea and other antioxidant/anticancer foods by the handful.

If he's depressed or has anxiety, which is common for people with terminal diseases, something like rhodiola rosea, ashwagandha, lithium orotate, and/or high dose Taurine would be good.

If there is a will, there is a way. Don't give up, ever.

[Quicksilvre]

I couldn't get into the link you're giving, but the one I have here puts D3 thusly:
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp#h6

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Laboratory, animal, and epidemiologic evidence suggests that vitamin D may be protective against some cancers. Epidemiologic studies suggest that a higher dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D, and/or sunlight-induced vitamin D synthesis, correlates with lower incidence of cancer [44-51].
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Additional well-designed clinical trials need to be conducted to determine whether vitamin D deficiency increases cancer risk, or if an increased intake of vitamin D is protective against some cancers. Until such trials are conducted, it is premature to advise anyone to take vitamin D supplements for cancer prevention.

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Meanwhile, the more optimistic sites generally ping my quackery meter--the claims they make are absolutely beyond belief. What I'm seeing is that D3 might have some preventative value, but that's not what OP is looking for. Same goes for antioxidants--they've got preventative value, but I don't see it as a treatment.

That said, I agree with

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If there is a will, there is a way. Don't give up, ever.

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because cancer predictions are so often wrong. Each case is different and pinning down how much of a chance someone has or how much time they have is, as mentioned, an inexact science.

[ginko]

Vitamin D is extremely important to health. It's a 7 dollar supplement. It's free if you spend time outdoors.

It definitely has preventative value, and it probably has value when someone has cancer as well since it regulates the immune system and can turn genes on and off.

"In 1999, researchers in Israel, found that calcitriol(vit D) levels were twice as high in patients with less aggressive colon cancer but were quite low in those with advanced metastatic disease. They concluded that higher calcitriol levels may prevent further transformation of the cells or may induce cell differentiation, growth inhibition or apoptosis (normal cell death)."

So in colon cancer, higher vitamin d levels equated to slower cancer growth. Does this mean it will have the same effect in other cancers? Maybe not, but I think it's worth a shot, dont you?

[ginko]

Further, vitamin D acts as an anti-depressant by increasing tyrosine hydroxylase which is the enzyme that increases conversion of amino acids into neurotransmitters.

[kevin017]

ginko, linking pubmed is useless. link a study. how you've been talking so far has been purely correlational, you're not describing studies showing that these things actually affect cancer.

[PLOlover]

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So in colon cancer, higher vitamin d levels equated to slower cancer growth. Does this mean it will have the same effect in other cancers? Maybe not, but I think it's worth a shot, dont you?

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if you've got a year to live you don't really have the luxury of self doctoring. you need to find an expert. seems to me 2 choices, m.d.(allopath) or naturpath. i know naturpaths are licensed in some states, not sure about cancer treatments though.

also something to consider, although it is distasteful, is the monetary cost.

I mean, basically the m.d.'s are telling him , hey, we can't cure you, but we can treat you for 1 year (then die), for a cost of X.

depending on his health insurance, X could be anywhere from 0 to everything he's got I suppose.

if the cost is high he may as well figure that he can just live 6-12 months with no treatment, die, and give the money to his family instead. farmer logic I suppose.