Category Archives: Cancer Care Tips

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips, Cancer Research

Scientists Are Sniffing Out Cancer’s Scent

Sniffing Out Cancer
Sniffing Out Cancer

The scent of cancer caused a national ruckus recently when a New Mexico school principal banned a mother with stage 4 breast cancer from participating in school activities with her children (see our November 18, 2013 tweets). Why? School staff complained about her smell!

The incident raised the ire of people in the woman’s own community and across the nation. Messages poured in condemning the principal’s decision and supporting the cancer patient and her family. The take-away message was that cancer patients and their families rely on and profit from the support of their families, friends and community; but the incident also piqued people’s curiosity. Does cancer affect the way a person smells?

Body odor is the natural result of the expulsion of waste products through our breath, blood, urine and skin. The way we smell can be affected by changes in body chemistry. Certain dietary practices, diseases and medications are known to cause changes in body scent. Chemotherapy appears to have been the cause of the chemical scent that created so much trouble for the New Mexico mom. But the evidence linking cancer to scent is largely experiential.

Organic chemist George Preti of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, who has spent more than 40 years studying human scent, hopes to change that. Working with an interdisciplinary team from the University of Pennsylvania, Preti is now attempting to identify the scent of cancer, specifically ovarian cancer. If Preti’s team is successful, the ability to scent cancer in its early stages before it is detectable by other methods could prove to be a powerful diagnostic tool.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips

What Are Probiotics and How Are They Beneficial

Probiotics
Probiotics can benefit cancer treatment

You have many options for receiving treatment for your cancer, and the use of probiotics may be one companion treatment you’d want to investigate.

The link between cancer and probiotics is still being assessed by researchers, but there’s evidence that this “good” bacteria often found in a healthy gut may lessen the often damaging side-effects of chemotherapy.

About probiotics
Probiotics are live-culture organisms like bacteria and yeast, which grow naturally in our body’s digestive systems. Although the word “bacteria” may sound risky (think about all the antibiotics prescribed for various ailments), when processed correctly these organisms actually contribute to a healthier gut and a boosted immune system.

Cancer and probiotics
Probiotics’ benefits to the immune system is particularly relevant in terms of cancer treatment. If you have undergone chemotherapy, you know that this treatment works by seeking out and killing not just the cancerous cells, but fast-growing cells of all descriptions – that’s why you lose your hair.

And among other targeted cells are the ones that contribute to your immune system. When those are killed off, you risk infection. So a regimen of probiotics may help keep your immunity stronger during and after chemo.

Forms of probiotics
Because they are a supplement and not a drug, probiotics are widely available over the counter, added into products like yogurt, chocolate and granola bars. You can also find probiotics capsules.

Probiotics can become part of an alternative or  holistic cancer treatment program. But before jumping into probiotics on your own, make sure to check with your cancer team at Issels for their recommendations and program.

Cancer Care Tips

More Ways to Help a Friend with Cancer

Family Portrait
Family Members Supporting a Cancer Patient

When someone receives a cancer diagnosis, their world turns upside down. The need to evaluate and make treatment choices, the devastating effect standard cancer treatments can have on mind and body, the uncertain outcome of treatment and the impact of the cancer experience on the patient’s family can overwhelm all other aspects of the individual’s life. As we noted in our previous post, when friends and family want to help, cancer patients appreciate specific offers of aid that make their lives easier or that make life feel more normal for their families.

While help navigating the responsibilities of everyday life is necessary and always appreciated, what many cancer patients say they need most is emotional support from their friends and family members. Making time to listen to your friend with a sympathetic ear, provide a sounding board as your friend struggles to evaluate options and make cancer treatment decisions, doing little things to boost your friend’s spirits, and serving as a communications conduit to other friends and family members can be of tremendous help to cancer patients.

Cancer can be an isolating experience. The alternative cancer treatment experts at Issels Medical Center in Santa Barbara, California have found that cancer patients who have supportive friends and family members that are willing to share their cancer journey are best able to cope with the stress and fear that follows cancer diagnosis.

Sign up for Issels’ free e-newsletter to stay abreast of new developments in alternative cancer treatments. For more suggestions on how to help a friend with cancer, follow us on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Cancer Care Tips, Uncategorized

How to Help a Friend with Cancer

Lend a Hand to Friends With Cancer
Lend a Hand to Friends With Cancer

When learning that a friend has cancer, most people will offer to help. But as heartfelt as their friend’s offer of aid may be, cancer patients are often reluctant to call and ask for help. A friend’s vague offer of “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help” may be heartfelt; but it’s a hollow promise if not backed by action.

The best way to help a friend with cancer is to consider the type of help you can realistically provide. This will allow you to make a specific offer of help; such as: ”I can shop for groceries on Tuesday evening” or “I’m free on Fridays to drive you to chemo.” Then follow through by calling a few days beforehand to pick up her grocery list or get her chemo appointment on your calendar. By specifically defining your offer to help, you reassure your friend that accepting your offer will not place an uncomfortable burden on your other responsibilities and allow her to accept your offer without guilt.

If you want to help a friend with cancer, offer to do things that will make life easier for your friend or will make life feel more normal for her family. Consider these additional ways to help:

• Take children to music lessons and soccer practices

• Babysit young children one or two mornings or afternoons a week

• Pick up prescriptions

• Mow the lawn, rake leaves, shovel snow or weed the garden

• Send over a prepared dinner • Help your friend research alternative cancer treatment centers.

Next time: More ways to help friends with cancer

Cancer Care Tips

U.S. Goes Pink to Promote Breast Cancer Awareness

The Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon
The Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon

From pink yogurt lids to blushing tow trucks to pink shoes on the NFL gridiron,  pink has become October’s most fashionable color in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. More than 2.8 million American women are undergoing or have completed breast cancer treatment.

One in eight U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer. According to BreastCancer.org, nearly 300,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year: 232,340 with invasive breast cancer and 64,640 with non-invasive breast cancer. For nearly 40,000 women that diagnosis will prove fatal.

Men are also at risk of developing breast cancer, but their risk is far lower than it is for women. BreastCancer.org estimates a man’s lifetime risk of breast cancer at 1 in 1,000. An estimated 2,240 men are expected to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year.

After skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in women, accounting for nearly 30% of all female cancers. Breast cancer is also one of the top two cancer killers among women. Only lung cancer is more fatal.

Despite those grim figures, breast cancer rates have been slowly decreasing since 2000. Greater public awareness, better cancer screening methods, reduced use of hormone replacement therapy and advanced cancer treatment options appear to be contributing factors in reducing both the risk and fatality of breast cancer.

Despite heavy publicity about the increased risk of breast cancer among women who carry BRCA gene mutations or have a family history of breast cancer, “about 85% of breast cancers occur in women who have no family history of breast cancer,” notes BreastCancer.org.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips

Heavy Metals Can Have Negative Impact on Cancer Treatments

Organic products and sustainable living reflect a modern recognition of the value of keeping life close to nature. A century or so ago nearly everyone lived a sustainable lifestyle and ate locally-sourced, home-grown food; there weren’t any other options. But since the Industrial Revolution man has been moving farther and farther away from his natural roots. In the process we have exposed our bodies to some very unnatural things: chemicals, plastics, petroleum distillates, nitrates, heavy metals, etc.

55 gallon waste drums
Toxic chemicals surround us.

Toxic substances have become part of our everyday lives. They are in the foods we eat, the clothes we wear, the construction materials used to build the homes we live in, the toys our children play with. Few of the items used to live a modern life seem to be completely free of toxicity; and in recent years many have been found to be carcinogenic.

Not so long ago, cadmium was found in children’s jewelry; and lead was discovered in the paint used on children’s toys. These and other high density metals are called “heavy metals.” In order to function properly the human body actually needs small quantities of certain heavy metals; but in excess even useful metals can be damaging. A large number of heavy metals are extremely toxic to the human body and can cause cancer and/or serious physical and mental degeneration.

Chelation therapy for cancer is a treatment that eliminates from the body harmful heavy metals and other undesirable substances that may interfere with cancer treatment and recovery. Find out more about chelation therapy for cancer on our website.