Category Archives: Alternative Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips, News

New Study Shows Value of Vitamin C in Treating Cancer

Vitamin C Against Cancer
Vitamin C Against Cancer

Nearly half a century after Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling suggested that large doses of vitamin C (ascorbate) could be effective in preventing and treating cancer, a new study indicates that vitamin C may indeed be a valuable alternative cancer treatment. In a study recently published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center found that intravenous administration of high doses of vitamin C increased the cancer-killing effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs in mice and significantly decreased chemotherapy’s toxic side effects in people.

The recent research would seem to vindicate Pauling’s claims about vitamin C which were largely discredited by practitioners of Western medicine in the 1970s when they were unable to document Pauling’s claims in clinical trials.

“There’s been a bias since the late 1970s that vitamin C cancer treatment is worthless and a waste of time. We’re overcoming that old bias,” study co-author Dr. Jeanne Drisko, director of integrative medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, told the Los Angeles Times.

The difference in results between previous studies and the latest research may lay in the method of delivering vitamin C. In studies conducted in the 1970s patients took vitamin C orally in pill form. University of Kansas researchers administered the vitamin intravenously.

“When you swallow a pill or eat an orange, vitamin C is absorbed at a certain rate by the gut and excreted very quickly by the kidneys, Drisko explained. “But when you give it intravenously, you override that. Plasma levels can get very high.”

The new development is one more example of alternative cancer treatments that were not “wrong,” just ahead of their time!

Alternative Cancer Treatment, News

Should Age Play a Role in Cancer Treatment?

Age And Cancer
Age And Cancer

Doctors and patients are rethinking their approach to cancer treatments for people in their 70s, 80s and 90s. According to the National Cancer Institute, the average age of cancer diagnosis in the U.S. is 66; yet the average life expectancy is 81 for U.S. women and 76 for men, according to National Geographic’s U.S. life expectancy map. With the average American living well past 65 and a growing number of people living into their 90s, cancer advocates say it’s time to take age out of the cancer treatment equation.

“What really matters is not chronological age, but functional age,” Dr. Ewa Mrozek, an oncologist at the Ohio State University Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center, told the Columbus Dispatch. With plans to begin a clinic devoted to serving the needs of older cancer patients, the center is riding the leading edge of a national sea change in America’s approach to treating older cancer patients.

A growing number of people are arguing that age should no longer be the primary basis for deciding whether a person will be unable to withstand the rigors of traditional cancer treatment — surgery, chemotherapy and radiation — and its usually traumatic side effects. Of more importance in determining how aggressively to fight cancer should be the individual’s general health – physical, cognitive and emotional — and the impact any other medical conditions or chronic illnesses might have on his ability to benefit from cancer treatment.

Older cancer patients may want to consider the important options offered by alternative cancer treatment centers. Issels Integrative Oncology’s individualized immunotherapy provides cancer patients with a personalized, non-toxic alternative to harsh chemicals and radiation without the strenuous side effects.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Alternative Cancer Therapy Breakthrough Could Transform Cancer Treatment

New Cancer Breakthoughs
New Cancer Breakthoughs

The combination of two alternative cancer therapies that are still in experimental stages could have the power to transform cancer treatment. The breakthrough discovery was recently announced by Canadian researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute (CHEO).

The new cancer therapy combines two alternative cancer treatments pioneered at CHEO: a recently developed viral therapy and an apoptosis protein inhibitor developed nearly two decades ago. Separately, each treatment showed promise but had failed to have a significant impact on cancer remission results. However, when the two therapies were combined in the lab and tested on mice, the results were dramatic. Combination magnified the cancer-killing effect of both therapies, resulting in a 90% cure rate in laboratory mice.

“The discovery, in effect, takes a drug that knocks out the genes that make cancer cells ‘bullet proof’ – something like pulling the plug on those cells’ resistance to dying – and gives it an extra push by priming the body’s immune response.” as lead researcher Dr. John Bell explained to the Ottawa Citizen.

Like other immunotherapy cancer treatments, the Canadian discovery is non-toxic, safe for children, highly effective against cancer and has the potential to be applicable to many different forms of cancer. Clinical trials of the combination therapy are expected to be scheduled soon. If successful, the Canadians estimate it will take about a decade before the new treatment will be available to patients as a non-toxic alternative to traditional chemotherapy and radiation and the destructive toll they take on the body.

As a pioneer in the use of immunotherapy to treat cancer, Issels welcomes this promising new addition to the growing body of immunotherapy-based alternative cancer treatments that are changing the way cancer is treated.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Predicting Hereditary Cancer Risk

Hereditary Cancer
Hereditary Cancer

A new international study spearheaded by Spanish cancer researchers has developed a method of identifying people with a hereditary risk of cancer related to Lynch Syndrome, Science Daily reports. While the focus of the study was limited to a specific hereditary condition known to increase cancer risk, researchers believe their findings may be applicable to other hereditary cancers.

Cancer develops within the body. Errors in normal DNA replication and other issues can cause genetic alterations or mutations that interfere with normal cell functioning and may lead to cancer. Some people, however, are born with a genetic mutation that predisposes them to a certain type of cancer. An estimated 5% to 10% of all cancer tumors are hereditary through predisposition.

An inherited colorectal disease, Lynch syndrome, also known as HNPCC (Hereditary Nonpolyposis Colorectal Cancer), carries an increased risk of colon cancer and endometrial cancer. In a cooperative international effort to identify the genetic variants responsible for Lynch Syndrome, researchers around the world culled through data on thousands of genetic variants.

The significance of many of these variants is as yet unknown. However, it is hoped that consolidation of global research into a public database will allow researchers to translate data into useful clinical information, expanding our understanding of Lynch Syndrome and its genetic implications. The project is being funded and managed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Scientific Foundation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer.

Identifying the genetic variants responsible for hereditary cancers may help identify at-risk families, encourage early monitoring and preventive measures, inform targeted cancer therapies and provide affected families with useful genetic counseling in the hopes of minimizing cancer risk for future generations. Researchers believe that the process they are using with Lynch Syndrome could be applied to other hereditary cancer genes.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

A Good Night’s Sleep May Protect Against Prostate Cancer

A Good Nights Sleep
A Good Night’s Sleep

Men have another reason to catch some Z’s. According to a new study, getting a good night’s sleep may help protect men against prostate cancer. A Harvard study has linked high levels of the hormone melatonin, which the body produces during nighttime sleep, with a 75% reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer. The study also found that melatonin levels dropped when sleep was disrupted. Prostate cancer joins a lengthening list of diseases linked to sleep length and quality, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension and coronary artery disease.

There’s no magic number, but the National Sleep Foundation says the average adult needs from 7 to 9 hours of sleep. Most U.S. adults say they get about 7.5 hours of sleep a night, but a 2006 study found that adults aren’t getting as much sleep as they think they are. A University of Chicago study found that white men actually slept only 6.1 hours; black men, 5.1 hours. At the time, study author Diane Lauderdale, an associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago, told Science Daily:

“People don’t think they get enough sleep, and they get less sleep than they think. As we learn more and more about the importance of sleep for health, we find evidence that people seem to be sleeping less and less.”

Average sleep times have declined steadily since the early 1900s when most people averaged 9 hours of sleep. The rise of sedentary white collar jobs that don’t require physical labor is thought to have had some impact on the drop in sleep duration. But even more culpable is the increase in nighttime leisure options that began with the introduction of the television and has exploded during the current digital age.

Perhaps the new findings will encourage men to unplug and go to sleep.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Is Cancer Inevitable? Immunotherapy May Change the Answer – Part III

Cancer Immunotherapy
Cancer Immunotherapy

Cancer risk increases with age, but why that is true and whether we can change that is the complex question we have been discussing in our previous two posts. For a long time, the relationship between cancer and age was assumed to be a simple matter of living long enough for mutations to accumulate and trigger cancer development. Now, new cancer research from the University of Colorado Cancer Center shows that tissue changes that occur with aging, not accumulated mutations, allow the development of age-related cancer.

Colorado researchers found that by the time we reach our teens and stop growing, our bodies have already accumulated most of the mutations we will ever have, refuting the argument that mutations increase with age. They also found many mutations in healthy tissue, refuting the argument that more mutations cause cancer. Further, they argue that if mutations were the key cause of age-related cancer, our immune system should have developed better protections against mutations; but it hasn’t.

As our “tissue landscape” begins to deteriorate with age, those changes erode our ability to fight off cancer, as well as other diseases. The Colorado team didn’t take their findings further, but what if our bodies could “rejuvenate” aging cells and return them to the disease-fighting strength of our youth? Issels’ more than 60 years of experience with cancer treatments including integrative immunotherapy has shown us that boosting the body’s immune system has tremendous power to fight cancer. Perhaps taking steps to “supercharge” our immune system as we age could have similar benefits for preventing cancer.