Thursday Nov 24, 2016 (foodconsumer.org) -- It cannot be emphasized enough that patients with any cancers including breast cancer should pay attention to their nutritional status and follow a healthy diet and if needed take some dietary supplements to better their prognosis. A study in Molecular Aspects of Medicine supports the notion that nutritional therapy helps conventional cancer treatments and improves the outcomes.
The study involves 32 breast cancer patients aged 32 to 81 years who were classified as high risk patients because their disease has spread to the lymph nodes in the axilla. The patients were followed for 18 months during which an Adjuvant Nutritional Interventional in Cancer Protocol was employed along with surgery and therapeutic treatments.
The nutritional therapy for the breast cancer patients includes antioxidants (2850 mg of vitamin C, 2500 iu of vitamin E, 32.5 iu of beta-carotene, 387 ug of 387 selenium and other vitamins and minerals), essential fatty acids (1.2 grams of gamma linolenic acid and 3.5 grams of n-3 fatty acids) and Coenzyme Q10 (90 mg per day).
As a result of the nutritional intervention, no breast cancer patients died during the 18-month treatment, as compared to 4 that were expected to die; no patients had signs of further distant metastases; all patients improved their quality of life; and six patients (slightly over 22%) experienced partial remission.
This study indicates that nutritional support helps improve the outcome of the breast cancer treatment.
Dr. Linus Pauling and Dr. Ewan Cameron and colleagues conducted a study and found that of cancer patients who were treated with conventional therapies like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, those who were also treated with nutritional supplements such as vitamin C and other vitamins and minerals lived much longer than those who did not take any nutritional supplement.
Some breast cancer patients testified that they used certain functional foods and dietary supplements along with a raw vegetarian diet but without conventional treatments and they achieved a complete remission. A woman who was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer did not use any conventional treatment became cancer free after 10 months of multiple alternative treatments.
Although nutrition plays a key role in a patient's prognosis, oncologists often times do not tell their patients that nutrition or dietary supplements are important for their wellbeing (they should not be blamed because they are not trained to provide such a service.). Instead, they may tell their patients to stop using any supplements because they are concerned about the potential interference from supplements with conventional treatments.
Breast cancer patients should do their homework to learn what they can do to improve their odds of survival. The vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids mentioned in the current study report are not the only nutrients they can use to help their disease.(David Liu)
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