Complementary Treatments

Hi Steve,

Sorry you join us due to your PCa diagnosis. Many men here have cut out or greatly reduced red meat and dairy and it is widely believed that exercise is beneficial. However, when it comes to complementary medicine, care has to be exercised because some things can actually work against conventional treatment so it as well to run what you have in mind past your clinicians. Complementary medicine does not get tested in trials the same way as conventional treatment, perhaps because it would not be in the interests of clinicians and drug companies but most likely because few men would rely exclusively on complementary medicine so it could be compared in a meaningful way with conventional treatments.

Rob, has some strong ideas on foods that are best not eaten or are taken in moderation and vitamins his research leads him to believe may be beneficial and he follows this stoically. I am sure you would find a reply from him very interesting if he reads this thread.

Locally advanced PCa is different to advanced PCa and so treatment regime is not the same. I don't think we will be seeing chemo introduced for anyone with local spread any time soon!

As it happens, no one gas yet proven that early chemo is 'best' for advanced disease either; we are simply seeing results of one or two newish studies that suggest it may make abiraterone and enzalutimide effective for longer.

If Steve is seeing an onco re radiotherapy, it seems he may be being offered a curative path?

I'm new here too Steve, they're good people, & I know considerably less than most of them but i would urge extreme caution with regards to complimentary treatments. A good diet and exercise regime is undoubtably a good idea & whatever keeps you positive can't hurt. On no account would I go down any route I didn't run past both my GP & oncologist. If there were anything to complimentary treatment they would be called medicine and already be routinely offered but then I'm way past sceptical.

mike

Hi Steve,

I would just like to say that I agree with Mike and that most complementary treatments have little if any sound evidence to support their use in cancer.

You might the interested to read this article from the website Science-Based Medicine. It is about the risks associated with some types of complementary treatments.

Tom

Edited by member 10 Jun 2015 at 15:27  | Reason: Not specified

Steve,

While my husband was going through surgery and radiation therapy, in California, I was shocked by the complete lack of medical information and interest in nutrition.  There was a booklet listing foods that might help with upset stomach or mouth and throat sores.  That was it.  I decided to double or triple servings of salad and fresh fruit.  My husband gobbled them down.  One time I set out a bowl of fruit for visitors and my husband ate all of it before they arrived.  He would eat three giant, sweet oranges in a day.  I assume that his body wanted what he ate.

Vivian

Hi Sandra. Many thanks for your PM. Regards Steve

Hi Steve

Whilst I have no experience on alternative medications I do have a very close friend who is following the Gerson Therapy. She has been on the initial assessment and treatment at the Gerson Institute in Austria and she is following regime strictly.
For her stomach cancer it is working and her tumour is shrinking at every review with her onco..
She takes no other foods or medications other than those stipulated by Gerson.

I would also recommend the book "The Rainbow Diet" by Chris Woollams. He reviews everything including Gerson and other alternatives.

Best of luck and I hope this helps

Paul

I would dispute that - I think that generally, the oncos are trained in oncology, the uros are trained in urology, dieticians are generally the ones we turn to for expertise on diet, researchers rather than practitioners usually do the bulk of the research. The main cancer centres will all have people looking at foods as a potential cause of cancer along with other environmental factors; not so many will have the funding to look at foods as a treatment. However, that doesn't mean the research ian't happening anywhere - many of us follow (more or less rigidly) the Plant diet and Jane Plant has been a guest at our annual summer get-together in the past. Prostate Cancer Research UK have also undertaken research and published a cookbook which is a vailable on Amazon etc - this includes diet to help keep a prostate healthy and avoid getting PCa as well as some advice regarding foods for men diagnosed with advanced PCa. There is no research yet into what difference food makes to a man diagnosed and successfully treated on a curative path. 

A lot of us care about what we are putting in our mouths but apart from the Plant-ers, we are extremely diverse! In my house: no food wrapped in plastic, no food that has been burned or barbecued, no processed meats, no plastic drink bottles, no microwave. I have never bought an apricot kernel so I guess you could say we are apricot-free? I think (personal view this) that diet may support traditional treatment regimes - particularly if they improve the patient's overall health & fitness - but no-one is going to get cured by eating cannabis. If you aren't already aware of the back-story, google Steve Jobs :-O

I will check out your diet suggestions, there seems to be a lot of alternatives and some contradictions.  I have only seen urology and oncology so far, no one has mentioned nutrition.  I went to the local PCaSO meeting last night and they had a talk a few months back by a Macmillan dietitian.  I will arrange to see her asap.  In the meantime a lot of reading to do.

I have read the Steve Jobs (of Apple) biography.  He had pancreatic cancer and only used alternative therapies for a few years.  After that he realised it wasn't working and went to conventional surgery and treatment, but too late.  I'm not advocating alternative, just some complementary to the conventional treatment.  I'm sure that radiotherapy and chemo work, but at what collateral damage and for how long?

Steve

Hi Tom. The Onco wasn't promoting it, she was just aware of it.  I'm not using apricot kernels as an alternative, just complementary.  I will check it out with the Macmillan dietician to see what she thinks.  There is lots of positive information on the web as well as negative.  I wonder if Cancer Research UK did their own research?  Have a look at:

Laetrile and Amygdalin (B17)

This treatment involves a naturally occurring substance that is found in certain nuts and seeds. Amygdalin is found in apricot kernels, cherry pits, some apple seeds, and a special type of almond seed called “bitter almond.” (Regular almonds do not contain amygdalin.) The bitter almond was the best source for amygdalin, but the USDA ordered all bitter almond trees to be destroyed, supposedly because  of a concern about cyanide poisoning. (Amygdalin contains cyanide.)

Amygdalin is a glycoside. It consists of a molecule that combined glucose with cyanide. As discussed earlier, cancer cells must have glucose to survive. Thus, when the molecule of amygdalin enters a cancer cell, the molecule breaks apart and releases the cyanide. The cyanide then kills the cancer cell. The cyanide is not released in a healthy normally functioning cell, because a cancer cell contains a special enzyme, which must be present to release the cyanide. Thus amygdalin is harmless to a normal cell.

Laetrile, also called vitamin B17, is a synthesized version of the naturally occurring amygdalin. There were a number of doctors in the US who successfully treated cancer with Laetrile, but they were required to discontinue the practice, because they were using cancer treatments that were not approved by the US FDA. Some of these doctors moved to Mexico so that they could continue treating patients.

See also http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/apricot-kernels-display-promising-effects-in-fighting-cancer/

See also http://www.anticancerinfo.co.uk/index.html

[Ref: http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/unapproved-but-effective-cancer-cures/]

Steve

Just to be clear, chemo doesn't 'work' for Prostate cancer, the way it does for some others such as leukaemia and lymphoma. In PCa it is used as a slowing tool to damage the cells and disturb their replication

Bri, I think XK8 asked the onco for her opinion rather than her volunteering it. He reports above that she said she had no experience of apricot kernels or cannabis.

I didn't mean you - I meant the people who carried on having that treatment after it was banned in the US

Hi Peter

I seem to be in a similar position to where you were when first diagnosed. I have stage T3b, infiltration to right hand seminal vesicle, large bilateral tumour in prostate, Gleason score of 4+3. Cancer found in 10 of the 12 biopsy cores. Started hormone therapy end of April. PSA now down to 1.I. Have planning scan in July. Probably start radiotherapy around end of August. I am only due to have 6 months of hormone therapy, but I think my oncologist may consider adjuvant therapy if I am prepared to risk side effects like bone thinning etc. I favour having the extra hormone therapy myself from what I have researched in books and on the net. I also have gone red meat free and have very little dairy products - have soya milk and a soya light spread in place of butter.

                                                                  Richard

Hello Sandra

Thanks for your comments. I should have said I also do have the soya yoghurts. I try and have a very healthy diet, although the diet the hospital is prescribing for the radiotherapy treatment is quite restrictive. Hope that John is doing alright.

                                                           Best wishes

                                                                     Richard