Vitamin and Mineral Supplements for Cancer Patients
While researching the use of vitamin and mineral supplements and the possible benefits they may have as a part of cancer treatment, I very often came across statements such as this one:
“Ask your oncologist (or doctor) before you take any type of supplements.”
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Yet there is an assumption included in that advice that is far from well-grounded: namely, the assumption that your doctor and/or oncologist is an expert where the utilization of vitamins and minerals is concerned; that he or she is completely up to date on the most modern (and objective) research into the effectiveness of vitamins and minerals, and also is knowledgeable about all of the possible benefits of these substances when administered in larger-than-normal doses.
Believe me: the odds are that your doctor has huge gaps where this knowledge is concerned.
Just today, I found a study at this site (sciencedaily.com), entitled: “Why high-dose vitamin C kills cancer cells”. Though the results of this study were published more than two years ago, I’ll bet your doctor has never read about it. Why? Because doctors, as busy as they are, more often than not simply don’t have the time to read about every single study that has been done. And yet some of those studies indicate that certain supplements (vitamin C, in this case) can well be used to improve a cancer patient’s chances of survival.
I mention this article merely as an example; there are many more out there that you will no doubt run across while you are doing your own research. In this chapter, my aim is merely to point out how easy it is to be led astray, and to thereby ignore methods that may well be of great help.
Consider the “vitamin D” debate.
As far back as 2007, even the “mainstream scientific community” had come up with evidence that vitamin D quite possibly could have beneficial effects in the prevention, and treatment of cancer. Three scientists from the Departments of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, published a study entitled:
“Vitamin D signalling pathways in cancer: potential for anticancer therapeutics ”. Here a quote from that article:
“Data support the hypothesis that vitamin D compounds may have an important role in cancer therapy and prevention, and merit further investigation.”
See also an article from 2009, with the title “Doctors start to include vitamin D in fight against cancer”. In it, you will read that physicians who are convinced that vitamin D can play a vital role in cancer prevention, and treatment, think that if someone already has cancer, mega-doses of the vitamin should be given (highlights are my own):
“Current Health Canada dietary recommendations for vitamin D range from 200 to 600 international units a day, depending on age, and were designed to promote bone health and not the far larger amounts being explored for therapeutic possibilities in cancer treatments.
“Dr. O'Connor says some breast-cancer patients have such low stores of the nutrient that they need to embark on a crash course of taking up to 50,000 IU a week for several months to bring up their levels. Other patients whose starting levels aren't so poor take a few thousand IU a day. She also monitors blood levels to make sure people don't get too much.”
Thus, over 10 times the normal recommended daily dosage is given. Will your doctor/ oncologist know about this? Even if they have read about it, they may well respond by saying something like: “Taking large doses of vitamin D can lead to all kinds of negative side effects, such as fatigue, dizziness, nausea, and more.” When faced with such statements, some people would then immediately decide to forget vitamin D, and do “what the doctor orders” (which will more likely than not be chemotherapy, whose side effects will be much worse than those of vitamin D, and which may well not help the patient at all.)
Yes, it is true that extremely high doses of vitamin D, over many months, could cause the side effects mentioned. But it is also true that those doses would have to be extremely high for such effects to occur − much higher than even the elevated doses used by Dr. O’Conner in her cancer treatment. And there is another factor to consider…
Many times, when we are ill, it is necessary to use substances in doses that are higher than we would normally take, in order to fight the serious illness we have. No doctor, mainstream or alternative, would recommend taking (for example) 20,000 IU of vitamin D per day. However, if one has cancer, an alternative physician may well recommend such an extreme dose, at least for a few months. The same goes for vitamin C: a healthy person would have no reason to take huge doses of vitamin C intravenously (to avoid bowel intolerance) two or three times a week. But if you are battling with cancer, an alternative physician may (and probably should) prescribe exactly that, in order to strengthen your immune system as quickly as possible.
In other words: when faced with an extreme illness, extreme measures must sometimes be taken.
That last statement could have come right out of the verbal repertoire of doctors who use chemo, right? After all, that is the main idea of chemotherapy: to subject the patient to poisonous drugs that will eventually overwhelm his system and kill him, unless they first kill enough cancer cells so that their administration can then be stopped.
If I had the choice between being injected with chemo drugs, or high doses of vitamin C, I sure know which one I would choose! For the vitamin C would certainly not kill me, and could possibly strengthen my immune system to the point where the cancer cells disappear, whereas the chemo drugs would not only weaken my system: they wouldn’t help me whatsoever for a number of different type of cancer (See this chapter to refresh your memory on the evidence for this.)
In case you still feel that it would be better to rely on mainstream medicine for everything that ails you, and take any and every drug the doctor prescribes, perhaps you should read about a study done by a team of physicians at the world-renowned Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, entitled: “Johns Hopkins Study suggest medical errors are third-leading cause of death in U.S.”
Horrifying as that is, things might be worse yet: certain other studies indicate that iatrogenic disease (that is, disease caused by the medical system itself) may be the leading cause of death in the United States. Here an article by Dr. Veronica
Desaulniers, entitled: “Can Iatrogenic Disease Really Be the Leading Cause of Death in the US?”
Read those articles carefully, and ponder what they could mean for your health and well-being!