Cancer Adjunct Therapies

Paul Reller, L.Ac.

The American Cancer Society defines cancer as a group of diseases characterized by uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells. Standard medicine has spent the last 50 years learning how to attack cancer cells and largely ignored the question of how to correct the environment that governs this abnormal cellular growth and spread. The allopathic approach in medicine dictates the focus on destruction of cancerous cells, while the realm of Complementary Medicine focuses on restoring the holistic physiological environment that allows cell mutations and spread of cancer only when it is out of balance. To exert control over cancer you need to restore the natural homeostatic defenses against it by restoring the cellular environment. When our body functions normally, we have the inherent defenses to protect us from excessive cell mutation and unregulated growth, and to fight cancer we need to restore that balance and drive cancer back into remission. A new biologic focus in cancer therapy is finally adopting this strategy, utilizing the body’s own immune system to destroy cancer cells, and finding even greater success as allopathic medicine integrates with Complementary medicine or provide an array of benefits, especially utilizing TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine).

In 2011 there are nearly 12 million cancer survivors living in the United States, many of them finding a path in life that prevents spread (metastasis) or recurrence, and keeps them if what we call remission. Many of them, like the New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor, Kris Carr, did not receive radiation or chemotherapy, but instead found ways to utilize the body’s natural defenses with diet, herbal and nutrient medicine, and an array of naturopathic cancer treatment techniques, including acupuncture and physiotherapies such as Tui na (massage, acupressure, and deep tissue, or soft tissue mobilization). There are more and more examples of people famous for not just surviving, but doing the right things to maintain their health. People are finding out that they don’t need to view themselves as victims or cancer zombies, but as smart people that educated themselves, sought help and understanding, and used adversity to find a more positive life. The TCM physician, or Licensed Acupuncturist and herbalist, can be an integral part of the team of support that turns around this theatening diagnosis and works with an oncologist that takes a more positive and open minded integrative approach to individualized cancer therapy.

How does cancer occur and how do our bodies get rid of it? Our cells multiply and grow in a highly controlled fashion evolved over millions of years. Our genes encode proteins that regulate cell division and growth, and these genes often experience mutation. Our immune system constantly repairs these genetic mutations. By focusing on the promise of oncogenes, or genes that cause cancer, our research has overlooked the bigger picture of genetic repair and maintenance. The search for the magic oncogenes has not produced a cure for cancer, and the focus on inherited genetic mutations has not produced successful therapy. Research has largely overlooked such important topics as fat cells that play a key role in preventing cancerous cell mutation. Our fat cells produce most of our local steroid lipid-based hormones, as well as many of the immune modulators, or cytokines, that regulate inflammatory processes. Healthy fat cells maintain a delicate balance between localized hormone and immune regulation. What is a healthy fat cell? Healthy adipose cells are not overwhelmed by reactive oxidants and chronic inflammation, maintain renewal of healthy lipoprotein cell membranes, and respond to hormonal triggers to store and release triglycerides and free fatty acids in a healthy manner. Healthy fat cells also produce and release important regulatory hormones, immune cytokines, and growth factors. Unhealthy fat cells fail to provide us with these vital services. As Dr. KN Frayn of the University of Oxford Centre for Diabetes Endocrinology stated in 2003: “Adipose tissue is now recognized as a highly active metabolic and endocrine organ.” (Intl J of Obes 27:875-888). Dr. Frayn pointed out that adipose cells as a whole organ possesses the ability to regulate differentiation of new adipocytes as well as production of new blood vessel growth, issues that are extremely important to oncology and cancer treatment today. The time has come for doctors and patients to stop attacking fat cells and start restoring this organ system so important for our health and for cancer prevention.

Steroid hormones regulate programmed cell death, or apoptosis, and work with many different protein receptors to guarantee that cells are replaced before they form dangerous cancer cells due to excess mutations in aging cells. Hormones operate in a feedback system, and a delicate balance of natural hormones in the whole body is necessary to guarantee proper regulation of apoptosis. Some hormones, such as adrenaline (epinephrine), also function as neurotransmitters. We now know that a balance of neurotransmitters, some of which also effect hormone responses, and immune cytokines, which often act on hormone receptors as well, are important in a holistic manner to insure proper homeostatic regulation of cell apoptosis and protect us from excess cellular mutations that drive cancerous growth. The only answer to reversal of cancer in our bodies is to not just destroy cancerous tumors, but to also holistically restore the natural balance that protects us every day of our existence, especially the homeostatic balance of the endocrine, autonomic and immune systems. As the science of neurohormonal immunology progresses, this field will overtake simple oncology as the best hope for cancer prevention, treatment and, hopefully one day, a cure.

An article in the August 16, 2011 New York Times Science Times entitled Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus outlines how the realm of cancer research is finally realizing that the overly simplistic genetic theories of cancerous cell mutation that we took as dogma were indeed wrong, and how research in the last few years has demonstrated that broad holistic or quantum aspects of genetic control are indeed involved in the overall environment that allows cell growth to create tumors and malignant spread of cancer cells. The cancer experts who wrote the landmark paper, The Hallmarks of Cancer, Douglas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg, have published a follow-up article that admits that their focus on random mutations of just 2 percent of the human genome were wrong, and that a broad environment of pseudogenes, normally noncoding, from the human genome may play a significant role in cancerous cell mutations. More importantly, researchers are coming to grips with the truth that about 90 percent of the genes in our bodies that encode regulatory proteins are microbial, and that the symbiotic bacterial and viral microbiota in our bodies create most of the RNA that alters the normal cell programming determining cell life and death (apoptosis) and growth regulation. In addition, normal healthy cells are conscripted into cancerous growth to promote blood vessel growth and build the tissue structure, or fascia. Dr. Jeremy K Nicholson, a professor at Imperial College, London, and the Head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer, is quoted: “The signals that these microbes do is dramatically complex. They send metabolic signals to each other - and they are sending chemicals out constantly that are stimulating our biological processes. It’s astonishing, really. There they are, sitting around and doing stuff, and most of it we don’t really know or understand.” Indeed, the complex nature of evolved cell biology, constantly changing and adapting to our environment, make even the subject of genetic control of cancerous cell growth too complicated to be corrected with present narrow allopathic protocols. Helping the whole organism, both animal and microbial cells (probiotic), to regain the evolved programming that keeps us healthy, seems the only way to reverse cancer.

Complementary and Integrative Medicine plays a key role in the treatment and prevention of cancer. While standard allopathic medicine refines many ways to remove or kill our cancerous cells, it does not address the underlying cellular environment that drives cancerous growth and prevents our natural homeostatic mechanisms from reversing and correcting this abnormal growth when it is unhealthy and dysfunctional. Restoration of our natural homeostatic mechansisms is absolutely necessary to achieve cancer remission. Acupuncture and herbal/nutrient medicine, and professional guidance with targeted healthy diet and lifestyle choices and stress reduction, as well as physiotherapies that reduce tissue inflammation and physiological stress, provides a comprehensive approach to achieve the goal of restoration of a healthy cellular environment, optimum homeostatic mechanisms, and cancer remission. It‘s a big job, get to it and take a proactive approach.

Is there a clear cure for cancer? The answer is no. Neither standard allopathic medicine or holistic Complementary Medicine offers a clear cure, only means to help the body to achieve cancer remission and protect it against future cancerous mutation and growth. Simply cutting away cancerous growth or damaging it with toxic chemotherapy or radiation does not prevent cancerous cell mutations from continuing to occur and cancerous cells to spread. The cancer patient is faced with a very complicated and risky course of treatment no matter where they turn, but restoration of a healthy homeostatis must be included in the treatment protocol. The stress from this decision process, coupled with the stress from the disease and the therapies, is an enormous challenge. Many patients today utilize Complementary Medicine to help them deal with this overwhelming feat of survival, not only to better cope with the phsycial and psychological stress inherent in cancer treatment and recovery, but also to insure that their total protocol of treatment and prevention is optimized by restoration of the body's natural defenses against cancer. Patients today see real life remarkable recoveries, such as Lance Armstrong's defeat of metastatic cancer and return to win another Tour de France, and find that these patients have utilized a comprehensive Complementary and Integrative medical protocol to achieve almost miraculous success. The key to a complete treatment protocol is in the integration of allopathic and holistic medicines.

Do we advocate Alternative Medicine over standard therapy? The answer should be no, we use the tools at our disposal and integrate them. There is no such thing as alternative medicine, only more medical protocols to integrate with standard practice to achieve better outcomes. The decisions in choices of treatment options are complex and should be left completely to the individual patient. There is no alternative to the treatment options that the patient decides are the correct course to save their life. There are a host of complementary and integrative treatment options, though, that improve chances of healthy outcome, decrease risk of harsh therapies, and provide help in maintaining optimal physical and emotional health during the difficult course of therapy. Modern research is also revealing more and more herbal and nutrient chemicals that perform similar tasks in your body that the latest pharmaceuticals perform, as well as revealing more and more natural homeostatic ways that reverse cancer that the pharmaceutical industry is trying to copy with a new class of “biologic” drugs. Medical doctors and researchers throughout the world are busy utilizing the wealth of pharmaceutical research data to find safer and more benign effects that may accomplish the same goals as synthetic pharmaceuticals with herbal extracts and nutrient chemicals to reduce the alarming side effects of comprehensive cancer therapy.

Herbal and nutrient medicine can be quite exacting in its treatment strategies, as there is a wealth of natural chemicals in herbal medicines. Oncologists around the world that specialize in herbal medicine have long utilized research that links specific cancer biomarkers and cytology data to specific herbal chemicals. Just a small portion of this body of research is available at the end of this article with links to research summaries. In addition, the science of nutrient medicines is becoming increasingly complex and producing new data and medicines at an accelerated rate each year. More and more patients and doctors are utilizing this wealth of new research to form a more effective overall treatment plan. Acupuncture works synergistically with these herbal and nutrient therapies to help our bodies better utilize these natural therapies. The combination of acupuncture and herbal/nutrient medicine is more effective than just one of these modalities alone. A knowledgeable Licensed Acupuncturist is able to deliver a superior treatment protocol with much less expense than the allopathic cancer clinic. Integrating such a practice with your standard care may be a life saver.

A patient centered approach in modern integrative cancer therapy

Effective cancer screening and patient education is the first step in a patient centered approach that is increasingly utilized throughout the world. You can go to the article entitled Cancer Screening and the need for better approaches on this website to better understand cancer screening the United States. Of course, as science continues to expand and explore cancer screening and assessment, each year we develop more tools and information to help the patient and the cancer specialist to work together to choose the most appropriate course of therapy. If the cancer is fast growing and life threatening, aggressive allopathic treatments need to be performed, but if the cancer is slow growing, the patient has time to try a more complex and thorough approach with Complementary Medicine and integrate this with less invasive and harmful approaches in standard medicine. Screening should provide the patient and doctor with the information to proceed to the next levels of assessment, such as ultrasound and MRI, physicial exam, extensive laboratory analysis, and then tissue biopsy. The biopsy should result in an extensive cytology assessment, so that the patient understands the cell type, where it comes from, what drives the cancer mutation, and what specific therapies can be utilized for this particular cell line. Rushing into quick decisions and being treated with a one-size-fits-all protocol instead of an individualized patient-centered approach is not what most patients want.

The approach of a one-size-fits-all treatment to cancers is finally coming to an end. Extensive genetic research has not uncovered specific cancer genes, or oncogenes, and instead has uncovered a large number of genetic abnormalities that could potentially link to each type of cancer. The number of individual genetic abnormalities in just one of these genes is often high as well. Adding to the complexity is the discovery that other genes may play significant roles in triggering and modulating gene expression, with most studied genes showing the ability to express multiple proteins and RNA. The discovery of the importance of the epigene, or the molecular pool of chemicals that surrounds our genes, and its ability to also alter and modulate genetic expression, and in fact pass on inheritable epigenetic traits that are reversible with improvement in the health and environment, also adds to the complexity. Newer research is revealing how environmental chemicals may alter the epigenes over time, increasing the risk that carcinogenic chemicals may cause or contribute to cancerous mutation over time. The study of genetic biomarkers has not yielded the clear path to chemical therapy that was hoped for. Drugs that block a specific genetic expression to suppress cancer, such as those that target the B-RAF genetic expression in specific breast cancers, have been found to be ineffective against cancers with the B-RAF biomarker in other areas of the body. The genetic environment is just too complicated to rely solely on specific allopathic drugs. Cancers that spread, such as breast cancer that may spread to the liver, often have shown that these metastatic cancer cells now differ from the original tumor in the genetic biomarkers. While some cancer drugs that target cells with specific genetic biomarkers are effective, they do not cover all of the genetic drivers of the cell mutations, and may not be effective for a percentage of patients when the cancer cells spread and change.

A new approach is emerging in cancer therapy, and this is a more comprehensive and individualized approach to each patient. While neither the patient or physician likes the complexity of treatment, this is emerging as the only effective approach to many cancers. Comprehensive and individualized testing is now being applied to cancer care. Europe is far ahead of the United States in such testing, but leading genetic scientists from Harvard and M.I.T. have started a company called Foundation Medicine that is developing comprehensive individualized tumor profiling to help guide therapy, and many of the leading cancer treatment centers, such as Sloan-Kettering are now using comprehensive analysis of genetic biomarkers with individualized results that help guide the therapy. To expand such an individualized approach the cancer specialists also need to integrate Complementary Medicine into the protocol. Pharmaceutical medicine will never be able to develop the number of drugs needed to provide such an individualized and comprehensive protocol. A specific patient might need twenty different drugs to target the array of individualized genetic drivers of a particular cancer. Even if this many drugs are developed in the future, the side effects from this therapy would be overwhelming. Complementary Medicine offers an array of scientifically proven herbal and nutrient chemicals that are largely without side effects, as well as an array of treatments to decrease the side effects of standard therapy. These natural chemicals may be enhanced by stimulating homeostatic mechanisms with acupuncture. Integrative and Complementary Medicine is thus an important part of the future individualized approach to cancer therapy.

Depending on standard allopathic medicine to provide the best Complementary and Integrative care may not be a sensible approach. There is a long history of economic competition and a sense of rivalry between standard medicine and Complementary Medicine. To assume that this does not play a role in the designing of modern integrative protocols is naive. The medical industry still sees Complementary Medicine as a low cost care that eats into overall profits. Just because these therapies are now being demanded by the public does not mean that the medical industry is looking to provide the best and most efficient, low cost care in this realm. The best Complementary Medicine physicians are still in private practice, where they control their own treatment protocols and decisions. They do not take low paying jobs with standard industry clinics and hospitals. The thoughtful patient realizes this, and also realizes that each Licensed Acupuncturist and herbalist is not providing the same expertise and care. By carefully choosing the Complementary and Integrative Medicine physician, such as a Licensed Acupuncturist, the patient insures that they are receiving the highest quality integrative care at the most reasonable cost.

The failures of standard medicine in the treatment of cancer, and the obvious need to integrate Complementary Medicine

Standard medicine admits that there is no known cure for cancer, but that many cancers go into remission. Remission may be induced by an array of therapies, or it may be spontaneous. There is currently much concern surrounding long-term studies that show little difference in the world-wide rates of spontaneous remission and those attributed to standard cancer therapies. Some of the most prevalent cancers, such as prostate cancer, show an age-adjusted mortality rate unchanged since 1949 (Cancer J Clin 1989;39:3-10 and Postgrad Med 1992;92:67-89). The stated goals of cancer therapy in standard medicine include delaying death by a relatively short period of time for many (partial remission), or relieving symptoms (palliative). The psychology of cancer is now a concern in the medical community, as numerous studies indicate an unrealistic attitude on the part of most patients. Chemotherapy is the most prevalent treatment for cancer, and most chemotherapy is administered as a palliative, to temporarily reduce the worst symptoms of the cancerous growth, yet numerous studies cite surveys that show that a majority of patients receiving palliative chemotherapy believe that the treatment will cure their cancer. Unrealistic expectations drive cancer therapies today, and inhibit many patients from exploring an expanded protocol with Complementary Medicine.

A March 3, 2011 article in the New York Times explores the psychology of cancer patients and false expectations. The article reveals that generally, fewer than 5 percent of patients benefit from trials of new cancer therapies, and that the stated goals of early trials are to determine dosage and toxicity, not to test for cure, which is not expected. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to find patients for these trials, and studies reveal that a majority of patients in these trials do believe that the new therapy will cure their cancer. Medical ethicists are concerned that a culture of false belief has benefitted the business of cancer therapy, but not the patient. Such as false set of expectations deters many patients from expanding their search for a better overall treatment protocol, and for many years, financial competition has led most standard oncologists to strongly discourage Complementary Medicine. Only when surveys found that a large percentage of patients were now interested in this integrative therapies did standard oncology start to incorporate them. The types of Integrative and Complementary Medicine offered, though, are often not the most effective in standard oncology practices. More and more, oncology is becoming the realm of corporate business, not private practice, and this type of business model is based upon monetary expectations.

An article in the November 22, 2011 New York Science Times by Gina Kolata continued the reporting of an evolution of concern in the medical community about how we use the term cancer to inappropriately alarm patients to sell therapy that is often unnecessary and lacks a true objective decision making process. Leading experts in the field of cancer have urged the medical community to quit calling noninvasive tumors cancer or carcinoma, words that are loaded with frightening expectations of the worst type of malignancy and death, such as the so-called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in breast cancer screening, and the Gleason 3 + 3 lesion in prostate cancer screening. A 2009 expert panel at the National Institutes of Health recommended that the DCIS should be renamed without the use of the word carcinoma, since a carcinoma is invasive, and the term in situ means that the tissue lesion is not spreading outside of ductal tissue. The panel recommended that the term cancer, or carcinoma, be relegated to the very small percentage of these lesions that do develop into an invasive growth. The pathologist that invented the Gleason score to identify potential cancerous lesions in prostate cancer, Dr. Donald Gleason, called for this type of tissue lesion to be called an adenosis, not a carcinoma or cancer. The standard medical community overrode his wishes. Most men would not consent to harsh anticancer therapies if the lesion was termed an adenosis. Some of these noninvasive cell growths have been properly termed. In 1988, cervical dysplasia, or cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, was renamed from the prior classification of Stage 0 cervical cancer, or carcinoma. Since then, almost all women have opted for conservative therapies to prevent the potential of the dysplasia to develop into true invasive cancerous growth. This has resulted in much lower profits, but a much better outcome and quality of life for the patients. If cervical dysplasia was still called “cancer” most of the women with this tissue abnormality would have chosen a harsh and expensive therapy to stop the cancer. The term cancer comes with an incredible amount of simplified definition in the patient population, striking immediate alarm and fear, whereas only a few percent of even true cancers develop into a threatening and invasive disease. Medical doctors are not doing a good job of educating the patient population to the nuances of the term, instead using the fear of cancer to gain consent to perform harsh, and often unnecessary, and expensive, therapies.

When tissue lesions and noninvasive cancers are detected, patients should be informed of the actual risks in detail, and when appropriate, safe and effective treatment with Complementary Medicine should be recommended and integrated into the treatment protocol. If the tissue lesion poses no immediate threat, the guidelines in standard medicine most often recommend that the growth or abnormality is monitored, not treated with harsh drugs, surgery or radiation. What is missing from this protocol is the integration of herbal and nutrient medicine, dietary protocols, acupuncture and physiotherapy, and a holistic approach to overall health improvement, as well as improvement in the specific cellular environment related to the abnormal tissue. Even if the diagnosis is one of invasive cancer, Complementary Medicine will improve the outcome. Complementary Medicine has long been proven to effectively improve quality of life and treat the symptoms of cancer, yet the standard medical community continues to refer to this treatment as a dangerous alternative rather than a safe integrative medicine. Complementary Medicine also has the capability to assist the patient in health improvements that could contribute to spontaneous remission. Complementary Medicine, in the form of professional acupuncture and herbal/nutient medicine, is also proven to alleviate the harsh side effects of standard cancer therapies, and to assist in a quick recovery from the deleterious effects of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. To date, standard medicine has not produced cancer therapies that are very effective, and there is no standard cure for cancer. On the other hand, there is a fairly large percentage of cancers that do go into remission, and for many, this remission is long-term or permanent. There is much cause for optimism on the part of the cancer patient, and utilizing Complementary Medicine, and personalized care and treatment, to guide the patient to improved health and cancer remission is a smart choice.

Making the best decisions in the treatment protocol with cancer

The first thing that the cancer patient must learn is how to utilize an array of integrative medical care to achieve optimum results. Each case has its own set of paramenters, and there are many types of cancer, each with many potential physiological concerns. Cancer is now defined not as a single disease, but a set of various diseases with dysfunctions in an array of systems in the body. This definition implies that a holistic approach is important to the overall treatment strategy in cancer therapies. Modern medicine continues to improve the first line of therapies for malignant cancer, and the first decision is whether the biopsy and oncology report produces evidence that the cancerous cells are benign or malignant, and whether they are fast or slow growing. If the cancer is malignant, or potentially able to spread, and the type of cells are fast growing, realistically, the options available are to 1) destroy or remove as many of the malignant cancer cells as possible and then clean up the damage from treatment, 2) help the body to destroy the tumor cells, and 3) help the body to stop the mechanisms that are causing the cancerous cell mutations, and restore the physiological environment that protects against future cancer growth. To insure optimum results, the patient may choose to include all three of these strategies into the integrative treatment protocol. If the cancer is not fast growing and malignant, more conservative options should be discussed, and a realistic window of treatment opportunity defined, so that you can utilize less harmful treatment strategies and measure the results before committing to harsh treatments.

In 2010, a five year study conducted in Europe showed that breast cancer patients with a diagnosis of a precancerous lesion or small tumor in early stages, fared just as well with lumpectomy, removal of just the sentinel lymph node, and application of radiation once during surgery, than with the standard practice of removal of all the lymph nodes under the arm, and weeks of radiation therapy. In fact, research showed that the course of 6 weeks of radiation was the deciding factor in opting for a complete mastectomy for many patients, which required no radiation therapy, but often was accompanied by chemotherapy or hormonal ablation. The study designers at University College London were trying to ascertain whether improved quality of life could accompany effective cancer protocol, and the results showed that the outcomes were identical with much less treatment (see the link to the article in the New York Times below). Many experts still question whether most of these cases of breast cancer with precancerous lesions, called carcinoma in situ, should be treated with even the lumpectomy and one dose of radiation. In the United States, most women are receiving lumpectomy with extensive radiation and hormonal therapies, or a mastectomy with chemotherapy and hormonal ablation. The side effects of these extensive therapies are very harsh, especially when the chance that the precancerous lesions will develop into a metastatic cancer are slim. Recent studies show that the percentage of ductal carcinoma in situ, or precancerous lesions, that become a true metastatic cancer are less than one percent. The fact that the more minimal surgery and radiation worked just as well as the extensive protocol suggests that perhaps cancer experts were suggesting too harsh of treatment for a disease with little chance of mortality.

While many breast cancer patients opt for the more extensive surgeries and treatment instead of more minimal surgical and radiation or chemotherapy treatments that are proven to be just as effective, these choices are often made without the complete knowledge of risks and harm. For example, a large percentage of breast cancer patients that received extensive lymph node removal are unaware of the percentage of these surgeries that result in lymphedema of the upper arm. Similarly, a relatively large percentage of patients undergoing extensive lymph node resection at the groin in cervical, endometrial, and ovarian cancer patients experience lymphedema in the legs. A 2009 study of 694 such patients found that about 21% of ovarian cancer patients, 28% of endometrial cancer patients, and 30% of cervical cancer patients developed lymphedema over time after extensive lymph node removal, with a median time of onset between 4-7 months, but some occurring as late as 4 years after the procedure. Radiation therapy increased this risk, but other surgeries did not. (Gynecological Lymphedema Study Group, Sappora Medical University Hospital et al, BMC Cancer. 2009;9:47). Lymphedema is a permanent enlargement of the limb resulting from poor lymph flow and subsequent vascular damage, and is accompanied by pain, painful sensitivity, and decrease in mobility. There is no cure at present for lymphedema. Numerous studies show that the risk for lymphedema is much higher with more extensive lymph node removal and radiation than with removal of just the sentinel lymph node and minimal radiation. Just 4-13% of women will eventually experience lymphedema of the arm after sentinel lymph node dissection, while between 20-40% of women with more extensive axillary lymph node dissection eventually experienced lymphedema. With integration of Complementary Medicine, the risk of lymphedema could be further reduced.

The February 9, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported on a U.S. followup to this European study of treatment with stage 2 invasive breast cancer with metastasis to a sentinel lymph node. This large multicenter trial involved 115 cancer treatment centers and enrolled 891 patients, from 1999 to 2004. All of the patients received lumpectomy and a short course of radiation, and the long-term survival rate for those opting for lumpectomy, removal of just one or two lymph nodes, and a short course of radiation was about 93%. The study clearly showed that half of the patients who received just a removal of one or two sentinel lymph nodes fared better in suvivability and quality of health after 6 years, with the breast cancer patients receiving a removal of many lymph nodes having a higher mortality rate than those receiving less surgery. “The authors note that these results suggest that breast cancer patients, such as those in this study, do not benefit from the addition of axillary lymph node dissection in terms of local control, disease-free survival, or overall survival, and that axillary lymph node dissection may no longer be justified for certain patients (stage 2 breast cancer with metastasis to sentinel lymph nodes).” (JAMA 2011;305(6):569-575). The authors, Dr. Armando Guilano of the John Wayne Cancer Institute of Santa Monica, California, et al, stated that with implementation of these guidelines, that thousands of women each year would have improved outcomes, and reduction of the “unacceptable risk of complications such as seroma, infection, and lymphedema”, and improved quality of life, with no decrease in the survivability and recurrence of their cancer.

Each year, scientific research has produced more and more evidence of herbal and nutrient medicine capability to reduce the risk of recurrence of breast cancer, and address the underlying causes of the breast cancers that surgery, radiation and chemotherapy do not address. This adjunct therapy is without side effect or harm, and will potentially improve overall health as it helps in the breast cancer protocol.

Patient choices in breast and prostate cancers, and integrating Complementary Medicine to reduce the risk of recurrence and improve health during treatment

The first choice of the patient with fast growing malignant cancer comes with deciding whether it is viable or sensible to use surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy to kill the malignant cells. Your oncologist should be able to give you the chances of treatment success. If this course is followed there will be much damage to clean up caused by the treatment, and even the best surgeon and radiologist will not be able to remove or destroy all cancer cells, or remove the cause of these cancer cells. Complementary and Integrative Medicine offers more treatment options to accomplish these goals. If this course of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy is not followed, an intense program of aiding the body’s natural defenses against cancer must be initiated, and this program must be comprehensive. Either way, Complementary Medicine provides successful adjunct care to achieve your goals, and a knowledgeable Licensed Acupuncturist is able to provide a variety of treatments that are at the forefront of current evidence-based medical strategy. Clinical studies also consistently show that there are many patients of almost every cancer type who experience progression of the cancer or recurrence despite the use of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, and here too is where Complementary Medicine is utilized to insure greater chance of success in reducing future risk of recurrence.

One of the primary concerns with radiation and chemotherapy is the subsequent anemia that results from toxic therapy. The ability of your marrow to produce new blood cells may be severely hampered by the damage caused by either chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Damage from these therapies is not limited to the site of the cancer. Standard treatment has included the use of EPO, or synthetic erythropoetin, a hormonal analog that stimulates marrow production of blood cells. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), published in February of 2008, concluded that “Erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) administration to patients with cancer is associated with increased risks of venous thromboembolism and mortality. Our findings, in conjuction with basic science studies on erythropoietin and erythropoietin receptors in solid cancers, raise concern about the safety of ESA administration to patients with cancer.” (JAMA. 2008;299(8):914-924). Complementary Medicine does offer safe and effective therapy to stimulate healthy bone marrow production of blood cell lines without the risks and side effects of synthetic hormonal therapy.

An article in the New York Times Business Day, Saturday, June 25, 2011, entitled F.D.A. Urges Less Use of Anemia Drugs, reveals that the FDA is urging medical doctors to curb the use of widely used drugs to treat anemia in cancer therapy. These drugs, erythropoetin-stimulating agents, referred to as EPO, or Epogen, Aranesp and Procrit, have been increasingly prescribed despite the 2008 conclusion cited above. The FDA concluded in 2011 that there are no risk-free dosages of EPO, and that the use of these drugs may have cost many patients their lives by inducing stroke and heart attack, and in cases may have sped the growth of cancerous tumors. Since these drugs are expensive and generate much profit in cancer therapy the prescription of these drugs in the U.S. system is much higher than in Europe, and government investigations have uncovered large consulting payments to the medical professionals that wrote guidelines for the drugs usage as well, raising eyebrows. With this stronger FDA guidance, we may finally see more utilization of, and integration with, Complementary Medicine, where research is increasingly identifying the efficacy of herbal medicines.

Another of the primary concerns in recent years is the development of multiple drug resistance with the use of chemotherapy. Drug resistance can be intrinsic (failure with the first use of the chemotherapy agent), or it can be acquired (success with the first chemotherapeutic course of drugs, but failure with the second). The failures of chemotherapy drugs may be attributable to the actions of the chemotherapy drug chosen, the tumor environment, or cell-specific issues related to the type of cancer. Researchers have been exploring herbal chemicals in order to find natural anti-tumor and anti-proliferative agents to utilize in case of multiple drug resistance in cancer, especially with regards to breast cancer and metastatic cancers. This research is finding promising herbal chemicals that have now passed early stage human clinical trials with success (see the link in additional information to one such study). Since herbal medicine utilizes nontoxic treatment, as well as formulary that reduces even mild toxicities and supports the systems as well, the professional herbalist is able to deliver adjunct cancer therapy that not only protects against the toxicities of chemotherapy and radiation, but is also able to simultaneously deliver herbal therapies that may work even when the chemotherapy does not. Future research may even show that these herbal chemicals reduce acquired chemotherapy drug resistance, and provide a synergistic effect that allows for reduced dosage of chemotherapy drugs, and less chance of developing a drug resistance, giving Integrative Medicine more tools to insure a better outcome. In fact, a number of herbal extracts and formulas have demonstrated the ability to counter chemotherapy toxicities or reduced effective dosages (see studies cited below). For example, resveratrol, a chemical extracted from the Chinese herb Polygonum cuspidatum (Hu Zhang), effectively lowered the necessary dosage for chemotherapy in various studies. A combination of resveratrol and another chemical constituent of Chinese herbs, curcumin (E Zhu), was found by researchers at the Barbarea Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit to improve response rates to chemotherapy in the treatment of colon cancer. Dr. Adhip Majumdar, lead author of the study, stated that this research could lead to the lowered effective dosage of chemotherapy and less chance of colon cancer cells surviving chemotherapy or becoming drug-resistant.

The second treatment option in cancer therapy, after surgery and chemotherapy, concerns means of promoting the body's natural mechanisms to fight cancer and destroy cancerous cell growth. Since cellular mutation is occurring in each of us at all times, the body has devised a complex system of correcting this problem, utilizing primarily the immune and hormonal systems, but also the regulation of immune and hormonal mediators by enzymes and inflammatory mediators produced primarily in the liver. The main line of defense occurs with regulation of apoptosis, or normal programmed cell death, which clears old cells before they reach a point of dysfunction that prevents our immune system from controlling the cell mutations. The immune system constantly recognizes and attacks both cancerous cells and the cancerous mutations of the DNA within those cells, but may be overwhelmed both by the number of mutations in older cells, and by the degree of chronic inflammatory stress on the immune system. While newer biologic cancer therapies are now being utilized that enhance the patient’s own immune blood cells to better attack cancer cell lines with specific antigens and mitogens, much can also be accomplished by integrating a more holistic, or less specific, immune enhancement with Chinese herbal medicine, nutrient medicine and acupuncture. Integration of these therapies could be the key to a better outcome for many patients.

Other systems of the body are integrated to help the immune system, and the neuroendocrine balance is very important to the successful function of the cytological immune response. Hormones are simple cells that are created both systemically, and locally, and levels of the various hormones create the proper balance of hormone receptor stimulation. This complex feedback system creates a balance between maintaining cells and removing them, or anti-apoptosis and pro-apoptosis. The metabolic regulation of important chemicals and nutrients by the liver is also a key component to healthy immune function, as raw ingredients are a prime necessity for formation of the proper immune chemicals and hormones. Complementary Medicine, which addresses all of these concerns holistically, is thus shown to be a highly successful adjunct therapy in total cancer protocol. Cancerous tumors and metastatic spread of cancer cell lines occur when the body is overwhelmed by the level of cellular mutation. Maintaining optimal health and vitality is very important in the overall protocol, and this can be a big challenge when harsh therapies are destroying your vitality and you must maintain a level of activity to support your income and/or to care for your family.

Current scientific study has shown that a great number of cancers go into remission, even metastatic cancers. An October 27, 2009 article in the New York Times cited below (additional information) explains the findings published in a recent Journal of the American Medical Association. The intelligent patient will utilize every means possible to enhance the body's ability to slow, stop or reverse the progress of cancerous growths, and Complementary Medicine provides this type of therapy, while standard medicine does not. This is the reason that many of the cutting edge cancer specialists in the world are now utilizing Complementary Medicine in their practice. Collaborating and integrating your care with a physician trained extensively in these therapies is a sensible choice. Allopathic physicians are not trained in herbal medicine, nutrient medicine, acupuncture, stress reduction techniques, and other standard therapies offered in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

How do these therapies work? Besides maintaining and optimizing the natural homeostatic mechanisms against cancer in your body, recent research is opening up the role of herbal therapeutic approaches to stimulate the mechanisms of apoptosis, or single cell death, that your body utilizes to destroy new cancerous cells. As research reveals novel pharmacological approaches to cancer therapies, these approaches are researched to find the same mechanisms triggered by natural chemicals in herbs and foods. Complementary Medicine utilizes this research to improve targeted prescription of herbs and improved knowledge of the preparation of herbal products to achieve these therapeutic goals. Often, the research reveals that herbal approaches are not only without side effect, but are as effective as the pharmacological approach.

The third choice in standard therapy is whether to use the new chemical, or biological, strategies for inhibiting estrogen receptors, androgen receptors, etc., called “biologics”. These are typically Tamoxifen and Herceptin, used primarily in SER2 positive breast cancer, and Lupron et al, to inhibit hormone production that is linked to ovarian and prostate cancers. Tamoxifen occupies estrogen receptor sites in breast tissue to decrease risk of a return of malignancy, although it does not block estrogen's effects elsewhere in the body and is purported to double or triple the risk of uterine and ovarian cancer. It has also been shown to increase risk of blood clots and decrease production of various blood cell lines. Many women go off of these medications quickly due to adverse side effects. If you do use this SERM (selective estrogen receptor modulation) treatment protocol, or protocols affecting androgen and progesterone receptors, adjunct therapy with Complementary Medicine is very useful to decrease risks and problems with side effects. Also, many women are interested in SERM protocol that is not synthetic, but derived from plant sources, such as estriol, as well as the I3C extracts from cruciferous vegetables and herbs, or the active metabolite DIM, etc. Chemicals in plants that exert hormonal modulation, such as lignans and bioflavones, as well as coumarins, are also proven as effective SERM protocol in recent scientific studies and human clinical trials. A particular herbal chemical, Pterostilbene, an analog of Resveratrol, found in the Chinese herb Polygonum Cuspidatum, or Hu zhang, has demonstated potential as a synergistic treatment with tamoxifen that may decrease risk of breast cancer recurrence by inducing cancer cell apoptosis. You do need to consult with a knowledgeable Complementary care physician, such as a Licensed Acupuncturist with this specialty, to insure that you follow a safe protocol.

Recent research at the University of California San Francisco, in collaboration with Peking University in Beijing, China, has confirmed that herbal formulas may be very effective in modulating estrogen receptors that are linked to breast cancer mutations. Initial findings showed that modulation of the estrogen receptors one and two by specific herbal formulas was more effective than the inhibition of estrogen receptor one with tamoxifen. Since the problem with estrogen stimulated tumors lies in the conversion of hormones in local tissues to estradiol, which is regulated by aromatase enzymes and other metabolic and hormonal controls, the dysfunction in the body is a little complicated. Allopathic medicine seeks to block just one step in the cancer causing process, but Complementary Medicine takes a holistic approach and utilizes scientific findings to restore healthy function throughout the entire sequence of steps. We now know that the body protects against cancerous cell mutations by controlling apoptosis, or programmed cell death, and the balanced effects of estrogen receptors one and two modulate each other to control this complicated regulatory process more efficiently. This same balance between testosterone receptor types are known to maintain proper apoptotic regulation to prevent or clear prostate cancers. This is just one example of the yin and yang balance that pervades our homeostatic mechanisms. Herbal formulas that aid the modulation of both types of estrogen receptors may exert a better effect than the allopathic drug. This type of science was developed over many thousands and even millions of years in Mother Nature's research laboratory, which we call evolution. A knowledgeable Licensed Acupuncturist can explain this metabolic process and what needs to be accomplished.

Even if you make the reasonable choice to utilize pharmaceutical drugs as the primary treatment strategy to reduce risk of cancer recurrence, recent research shows how this treatment can be made more effective with the adjunct use of specific herbal chemicals to increase effectiveness of the pharmaceuticals. For instance, research has found that breast cancer tissues with excess vascular endothelial growth factors, called VEGF, had a much reduced effect over time when treated with Tamoxifen, a synthetic progestin. While pharmaceuticals are scrambling to come up with a safe combination of synthetic VEGF inhibitor and tamoxifen, research has already shown the efficacy of certain herbal chemicals to inhibit and modulate VEGF with no side effects. VEGF, or vascular endothelial growth factor, is linked to tumor growth with excess blood vessel formation. Recently, a cancer drug that is touted to decrease tumor blood vessel growth, Avastin, had its FDA approval in breast cancer therapy withdrawn due to lack of effectiveness and numerous side effects in long-term studies. Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA stated that this was, of course, an emotional issue for cancer patients, but she stated: “After reviewing the available studies it is clear that women who take Avastin for metastatic breast cancer risk potentially life-threatening side effects without proof that the use of Avastin will provide a benefit, in terms of delay of tumor growth, that would justify those risks. Nor is there evidence that use of Avastin will help them liver longer or improve their quality of life.”

So pharmacological inhibition of new tumor vascularity presents more risks than benefits. On the other hand, numerous studies show that specific herbal chemicals and nutrient medicines may either inhibit excess VEGF formation, or block VEGF receptors, and do this in a modulatory way that does not significantly effect other healthy mechanisms related to vascular growth factors. Plants and animals have evolved ways of inhibiting tumor growth. One such evolved mechanism is to inhibit VEGF receptors, which are a type of tyrosine kinase receptor, by inhibiting excess phosphorylation of this type of tyrosine kinase receptor. This is proven to decrease the effects of VEGF on tumor formation, and to decrease the stimulation of increased VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor). Chinese herbal chemicals have been found that accomplish this feat. The Chinese herbs Scutellaria barbatae, Cleistocalyx operculatas, Sheraia bambusicola, and Trypterygium wilfordii, were found to effectively inhibit VEGF receptor activity (see study link below). A variety of other herbal and nutrient chemicals have also been found to inhibit VEGF, via a number of physiological mechanisms, and the study of plant lignans and the bacteria-derived gut hormones that they generate have proven dramatic effects may occur with the correct dosage and delivery. These herbal and nutrient medicines effectively inhibit tumor vascularity, cancer promoting inflammatory cytokines, and will create a cellular environment where Tamoxifen is more effective. Proof of herbal efficacy as an integrative adjunct in cancer therapies expands each year.

The use of Lupron in prostate and ovarian cancer therapy also presents severe side effects and risks, limited benefit, and the need for a more comprehensive therapeutic approach to achieve maximum results. Lupron, and other drugs in this class, work by inhibiting hormone production throughout the body, and effect the entire endocrine system. The theory behind this treatment is that androgen ablation will decrease the stimulation of androgen receptors that are responsible for the uncontrolled growth of cancerous tumors. The truth revealed in recent research is that DHT (dihydrotestosterone), an active metabolite of androgens, or testosterone, converted in local tissues, is what stimulates androgen receptors the most, not systemic androgens/testosterone. Conversion of one type of hormone into another in local tissues is much more important than total circulating hormone levels, and a variety of factors acting holistically controls this homeostatic process. Recent research on hormonal receptors also reveals that a gradual imbalance of hormonal cell receptors in local tissues tilts the balance of maintaining older cells with replacing these cells. This process is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death, and is utilized by your body to remove older cells and replace them with new healthier cells to avoid the cell mutations that result in cancerous growth.

When the body faces hormonal imbalance, such as in menopause, andropause, or even with premenstrual syndromes, this hormonal imbalance may stimulate an increase of the receptors that prevent normal cell death, or apoptosis. This is because the deficiency in certain local hormones prompts increased creation of the receptors for these hormones on the outside of the cell. In testosterone driven cancers, such as prostate, it is now known that the deficiency of testosterone drives this process of excess creation of external cell receptors. When an imbalance of testosterone receptor types is created, and a relative excess of receptors on the outside of the cell in relation to testosterone receptors on the inside of the cell occurs, normal programmed cell death, or apoptosis, is inhibited, and the older cells mutate excessively into cancer cells. Maintaining physiologically normal levels of testosterone is important. While active testosterone metabolites, such as DHT, as well as estradiol, do stimulate cancer growth, restoration and maintenance of physiological normal levels of hormones has been proven to reverse this process. The scientific understanding of last year is being overturned by the increased scientific understanding of the present year. Complementary Medicine is not tied to the need to promote expensive drugs based on old evidence, but is able to utilize current research to deliver a host of natural products that are not tied to the patent system.

We now know from extensive research how misdirected the standard therapy in prostate cancer was, and still is in many cases. A meta-analysis by the Harvard Medical School in 2009, published in the Frontiers of Hormone Research, 2009;37:197-203, found that a number of “clinical trials and population studies consistently failed to support the historical idea that Testosterone therapy posed an increased risk of prostate cancer or exacerbation of symptoms due to benign prostate hyperplasia.” This was because exogenous testosterone does not raise intraprostatic concentrations of testosterone or DHT (dehydrotestosterone), the active metabolite of testosterone. The study found that, in contrast, “there is mounting evidence that low serum testosterone is associated with greater prostatic cancer risk, and more worrisome features of prostate cancer.” To see a summary of this study, click here: http:www.//ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19011298. The damage to overall health from hormone ablation therapy coupled with the physiological lack of positive effect in reversing or slowing prostate cancer has harmed many patients with a usually slowly progressing form of cancer, which may be in fact be slowed or reversed by restoration of normal anticancer homeostatic mechanisms, including restoration of a physiologically normal level of testosterone production.

While androgen ablation with pharmaceuticals is still the primary protocol in more aggressive prostate cancers, a relatively large percentage of these patients develops a clear resistance to androgen ablation. To treat these patients, new drugs have been devised that act to individually enhance immune cells in the patient’s blood by inserting genetic components to enhance the normal immune responses to these prostate cancer cells. While this therapy was shown to increase survival time by up to a year and a half, the cost for this treatment per patient has been controversial, considering the fact that escalating health care costs are the prime reason for the enormous federal and state deficits, and even military expense growth. These escalating health care costs are an issue with affordability of health care insurance as well, creating a scenario where more and more families can no longer afford the insurance, even when it is partially paid by the employer. The average cost of this new immune enhancement therapy could be as high as $500,000 per patient over the course of a year to two years, or more. Many researchers are looking to the promise of herbal and nutrient medicine to integrate into this immune enhancement to reduce the overall dosage and need of the therapy, thus greatly reducing the cost.

Much research has also been directed at the physiological reasons why hormone ablation drug therapies do not work. In studies of prostate cancer that was found resistant to the androgen ablation, a number of mutations were found at the testosterone/androgen receptors. With normal androgen receptors, DHT (dehydrotestosterone), or the active form of testosterone, was the active agonist at the receptors. With a single mutation at the receptors (keep in mind that cell mutations are the hallmark of cancer) corticosteroids now triggered the receptor, and with a double mutation at the receptors, corticosteroids now were found to have a high affinity for the testosterone/androgen receptors. Keep in mind that prostate cancer is driven by excess stimulation of these receptors on the outside of the cells in relation to the receptors on the inside of the cells, which drive an anti-apoptotic (anti-normal programmed cell death cycle) mechanism which is responsible for the cancerous growth. Now, corticosteroids are a class of hormones produced in the adrenal gland, and include cortisol, cortisone, corticosterone, and aldosterone, which are derived from healthy cholesterol, and are constantly secreted in the body to maintain metabolic rates, first line inflammatory regulation, immune response, and electrolyte balance. But standard medicine has now made synthetic corticosteroids a very common part of pharmaceutical treatment for a wide range of diseases. The population now consumes synthetic corticosteroids as asthma inhalers, topical anti-inflammatories, eye drops, pills and injections. There are literally dozens of synthetic corticosteroids now prescribed to treat allergies, sinusitis, asthma, hepatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, eye disease, autoimmune disorders, skin diseases, etc. Injections of synthetic corticosteroids are frequently used to treat joint pain. Added to this, cortisol imbalance, and excess diurnal cortisol, is a frequent sign of chronic stress syndromes, post-menopausal hormone imbalances, andropausal syndromes, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and other common diseases and syndromes. With all of these common circumstances as potential stimulators of androgen/testosterone receptors, androgen ablation drug therapy does not seem to be adequate in a treatment protocol where the patient desires a more thorough and comprehensive effect. This is why restoration of the cellular environment and normal homeostatic functions at the androgen/testosterone receptors is important in cancer therapy.

These same mutations in prostate cancer cells are found in hormone receptors in breast cancer, ovarian cancer and uterine cancer, and once again, corticosteroids are a prime trigger of the hormone receptor imbalances that lead to cancer. Both endogenous corticosteroids, such as cortisol, and exogenous corticosteroids used in allopathic medicine, may stimulate these hormone receptor mutations, and maintaining normal hormonal balance and avoiding corticosteroid drugs when possible is an important consideration. Since the diagnosis of these cancers alone triggers a high degree of stress in most patients, affecting cortisol balance, coupled with the underlying hormonal imbalances that already may be present with menopause, menstrual hormonal imbalances, or andropause, this presents the distinct possibility of cancer also driven by something other than localized estrogens and androgens. Both prostate cancer and breast cancer demand a restoration of cellular environments and normal homeostatic mechanisms to insure the optimal outcome.

Hormonally related growth factors are the subject of much study in cancer morphology at present, and drugs have been created to target cancer cells specifically driven by these growth factors. In breast cancer, the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) has been detected in approximately 15-20% of tumors studied, and a drug called Herceptin (trastuzumab) is prescribed in these cases. This drug only inhibits cancer cell growth created by this specific growth factor, and works by promoting a protein enzyme that inhibits cell division related to HER2. It has been found that breast cancer with HER2 overexpression, which is driven by an imbalance of estrogen receptors, is particularly agressive. The problem with this drug therapy, as an April 19, 2010 New York Times Research article explains, is that the side effects and risks are very serious, the cost is very high, and the testing has been shown to be unreliable in many cases. The article is cited below. In this article, a cancer specialist diagnosed with HER2 breast cancer declined the drug due to unclear test results, even though the testing showed that the cancer cells were HER2 positive. About one sixth of patients with HER2 positive tests had negative test results with retesting, casting much doubt upon the efficacy of this approach. Currently, research is finding much potential with specific herbs in the inhibition of epidermal growth factors (EGF), which would present possibilities of utilizing a more benign approach to treatment of HER2 breast cancer when doubt proscribes the use of harsh drugs. No matter what approach is decided in each individual case, Complementary Medicine and adjunct therapies present much potential.

The next step in cancer strategy, after removal and destruction of the cancer cells, and helping the body to restore normal apoptosis, is to confront the subject of risk of recurrence. After your cancer is destroyed or eliminated with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, risk of recurrence needs to be addressed in a comprehensive manner. Your odds of success are greatly magnified with the resources available in Complementary Medicine. Even if you are able to reduce the cancerous growth and succeed with cancer remission without resorting to surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, a knowledgeable Complementary physician can integrate with your oncologists and provide a sound and scientific means of reducing risk of recurrence. This subject is too important to rely on advertisements and self-administered therapies alone. Professional guidance is worth the time and expense involved and can be tailored to your individual case and resources, if your insurance does not cover the expense.

There is no single ‘silver bullet’ in this therapy. Instead, there are a lot of choices to consider and incorporate into the right protocol for the individual. The patient needs to find a knowledgeable Complmentary Med physician or integrative physicians to guide them along this course. The TCM physician, or Licensed Acupuncturist, may provide this knowledge along with herbal protocols, acupuncture, dietary supplements and counseling on diet and lifestyle changes.

Cervical, Uterine and Ovarian cancers

Cancer of the cervix, an extension of the uterine endometrium, has been one of the most prevelant cancers worldwide for some time. Due to aggressive screening of precancerous HPV infection and cervical dysplasia and precancerous tissue changes, the incidence of cervical cancer is one fifth to one twelfth the rate in other countries. It is estimated that 30-50 percent of high-grade cervical dysplasia may lead to cervical cancer, and identifying these cell abnormalities in the early stages and reversing their growth and development is very important. A comprehensive treatment program that addresses both the underlying causes and the variety of problems in the cellular environment that lead to cervical dysplasia, and a program of prevention and preventive medicine that includes more than just the testing and excision, but also include Complementary Medicine and patient education is needed. Waiting until cancer becomes a serious and immediate threat is not a sensible solution, and many intelligent women today are studying this pathology and taking sensible measures to prevent its development. There is today a notion that vaccinating against the human papilloma virus (HPV) will be a panacea, but while this may be of help in preventing cervical dysplasia, there is not evidence that it will in fact be effective. The effectiveness of viral vaccines have not been demonstrated to date, but the adverse effects have been well noted. Even the influenza vaccine, developed and used extensively for a number of decades in the U.S. has not effectively reduced the mortality associated with virulent strains of this virus. The length of time the HPV vaccine will be effective has been called into question by its leading researchers, and the ability of viruses to adapt and mutate has hampered all attempts at utilization of viral vaccines to date. Even if the types of HPV that are associated with cervical dysplasia and cancer are reduced in the population from a legally mandated vaccination of all prepubescent girls and boys, there will still be the cervical cancers that are now unassociated with these HPV types, which account presently for about 25 percent of all cervical cancers. To effectively prevent and treat cervical cancer, we cannot adopt such a narrow allopathic method of prevention alone.

In the United States, it is estimated that two of the many types of human papilloma virus (HPV) are associated with nearly 75 percent of cervical cancers, types 16 and 18. All types of HPV can cause an abnormal Pap test in females, though, and an abnormal Pap does not have a significant rate of risk of advancing to a serious malignant cancer. Pap tests are important as a first line of screening, but should not be a cause of worry and fear. Genital warts are also caused by HPV virus, and two other types of HPV than those that cause cervical cancer are responsible for about 90 percent of genital warts. When an abnormal Pap test occurs, a series of further screening tests may be performed to identify the small percentage of women with a risk of a dangerous cancer, and for most women this will rule out a significant cancer risk. A Pap smear or biopsy may be performed and identify the various types of squamous cell lesions or epithelial neoplasias. These abnormalities are called dysplasia, or abnormal growths in the cervical membrane (epithelium) that may turn into a cancerous growth. Most changes of dysplasia occur in women ages 25-35, but may occur at any age. There are a number of effective strategies for preventing the development of cancerous growth when dysplasia, or abnormality of size, shape or organization of cells in the cervical membrane, occurs. Changing the cellular environment that is responsible for this pathological progression is very important. Monitoring these changes with mild to moderate cervical dysplasia is the standard of treatment today, but many women are now also utilizing Complementary and Integrative medicine to take a more proactive approach and do all that can be done to change the cellular environment and discourage the development of cancer from cervical dysplasia. Utilizing a knowledgeable professional to help in this regard may be the key to success.

Cervical cancer has been about the tenth leading cause of cancer death in the United States in recent decades. In 2007, the CDC reported that a little over 12 thousand women were diagnosed and about 4000 died of cervical cancer. The CDC lists risk factors for cervical cancer as the use of birth control synthetic hormones for five years or more, and smoking. Since contracting of a sexually transmitted virus is associated with up to 90 percent of cervical cancers, the limiting of sexual partners and use of a condom or antiviral contraceptive are listed as important ways to decrease risk, along with a yearly Pap test. Since viral infections are more likely to persist when the vaginal membrane is irritated, control of yeast infections and other forms of vaginitis may also be important in the prevention of acquiring the few types of sexually transmitted HPV associated with cervical dysplasia and cancer. In 2002, legislation was proposed in the U.S. congress to increase funding for NIH microbicidal research that could also lead to ease of use of an antiviral agent on condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, or contraceptive gels, and was defeated, as was a similar bill in the U.S. senate sponsored by the Republican senator Olympia Snow. An emphasis is now placed on the HPV vaccine developed by Merck pharmaceuticals, which presents many significant unanswered questions concerning benefit and risks, and which is being heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical without a real questioning of the benefit versus risks, thus giving the public a false impression of the efficacy of this strategy to effectively further reduce the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer.

There may be an unspoken reason behind the huge amount of money involved in the marketing of the HPV vaccine as the primary preventive measure against cervical cancer. The vaginal ring (OrthoEvra) may also be associated with a higher risk of cervical cancer, given that the use of the combination progestin and synthetic estradiol is associated with an increased risk of viral infections such as HIV in large studies, and that the vaginal ring also has a risk of irritation of the vaginal membrane, vaginitis, and increased incidence of yeast infections, all of which increase the risk of the human papilloma virus (HPV) types that are associated with most cervical cancers to infect and spread. Added to this is the finding by the manufacturer that the vaginal ring is associated with a higher risk of uterine cancer. Since Merck is the manufacturer of both the popular OrthoEvra vaginal ring contraceptive and the most popularly prescribed HPV vaccine, Gardasil, there is an obvious reason why Merck is investing so heavily into lobbying to mandate the HPV vaccines in prepuberty, which may alleviate future concerns about the OrthoEvra vaginal ring and the increased risk of cervical cancer. But the question of the HPV vaccine has not addressed the effectivness, or the risk-versus-benefit, of this vaccine.

In 2009, Dr. Diane Harper, a lead researcher for Merck who helped design the phase 2 and 3 trials of Gardasil, questioned the efficacy of this vaccine (see the link to the CBS investigative report below). Dr. Harper stated that data showed that the vaccine lasted a mere 5 years, with no data to support its effectiveness after this time period. Dr. Harper stated: “If we vaccinate 11 year olds and the protection doesn’t last...we’ve put them at harm from side effects, small but real, for no benefit. The benefit to the public health is nothing, there is no reduction in cervical cancers, they are just postponed, unless the protection lasts for 15 years, and over 70 percent of all sexually active females of all ages are vaccinated (to significantly stop the spread of the HPV strains that cause cancer).” Dr. Harper also stated that the risks of serious adverse events after taking the HPV vaccine is comparable to the rate of serious cases of cervical cancer in the population, and that she believes that these risks with the vaccine are underreported, as they are based statistically on the denominator of doses distributed from Merck’s warehouse, not the number of doses taken by the patients. Dr. Harper also stated that she believes that the aggressive marketing by Merck may be giving women a false sense of security, undermining sensible measures that can be taken by women to decrease the risk of HPV and of cervical and uterine cancers.

There may be a number of simple strategies to reduce the risk of human papilloma virus types that may cause cervical cancer. Of course, use of a condom or antiviral barrier could effectively reduce the risk of acquiring the types of HPV that cause the cancer, as well as the limiting of sexual partners. In 2002, legislation was introduced in the U.S. congress to increase NIH funding for research into antimicrobial and antiviral chemicals that could inexpensively be used to both effect contraception and the acquiring of sexually transmitted HPV, as well as HIV. These chemicals could be included with condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps, or be included in spermacidal gels and foams. Similar legislation was proposed in the U.S. senate, sponsored by the Republican senator Olympia Snow. Both of these acts were defeated, while the lobbying to promote the HPV vaccine reached enormous levels. Since the HPV virus needs a route of entry into the tissue membranes, and a less acidic environent to survive, a decrease in the irritation of the vaginal membrane from yeast infections as well as low-grade bacterial vaginosis, and a maintenance of the normal homeostatic pH of the vagina would be very effective in prevention. The use of lactic acid bacteria, or probiotic strategies, has been proposed, and douches with yoghurt containing these probiotics has long been used as an effective way to control alkalinity. Semen may be very alkalinizing, and the vaginal pH is often much less acidic following sexual intercourse. The vaginal acidity changes in the menstrual cycle, and is least acidic on the days just prior to and during menstruation, making infections more common with intercourse at these times. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh investigated the use of suppositories of Lactobacillus crispatus that could be inserted monthly, or after coitus, to maintain high vaginal bacterial populations and a homeostatic acidic environment unfriendly to HPV. Studies researching the combining of such a strategy with the seaweed extract carrageenan, which would have antimicrobial properties and thicken the vaginal secretions to prevent viral entry, have also been found promising. Antiviral chemicals in Chinese herbs have been used for some time to effectively provide a suppository to treat a broad spectrum of vaginal infections, including yeasts and bacteria, and could be added to this simple preventive measure.

Nutritional research has uncovered a number of chemicals that may be effective in prevention, or as an adjunct in treatment, for cervical cancer. For instance, research in 2011 at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia (PMID: 21967781) found that catechins in green tea demonstrated significant inhibition of the SiHa human cervical cancer cells with sufficient concentration, inducing cell apoptosis. Of course, to obtain a sufficient concentration, pill supplements may be needed, but it wouldn’t hurt to drink green tea as well. Other nutritional strategies have been researched, and the use of DIM (diindolymethane) and plant Lignans has shown great promise as both a preventive and treatment, affecting the underlying hormonal mechanisms that promote abnormal cell growth. A large epidemiological study by the Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea, found that there was a significant benefit from increase in dietary antioxidants, and that antioxidant micronutrients play a role in the prevention of cervical cancer (PMID: 19589102). A study at the Kyung Hee University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea, also found that blood plasma levels of beta-carotene and lycopene were inversely associated with risk of endometrial cancer in a sizable epidemiological study (PMID: 19235557). A 2008 study at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, found that fatty acid imbalances were highly associated with uterine and cervical cancers, with patients diagnosed with these cancers studied, and findings that weight loss programs with fatty acid depletion and decreased ingestion of healthy proteins was correlated with cancer onset. These researchers found that the blood plasma ratio of 18:0/18:1 fatty acids may serve as an indirect marker of fatty acid disregulation and correlate with prognosis in cervical and uterine cancers (PMID: 18485542). The 18:1 fatty acids that were found deficient include oleic acid, and the 18:2n linoleic acid, as well as the 16:0 hexadecanoic acid and palmitic acid. The inclusion of healthy cold-pressed oils (olive, walnut), fresh nuts, seeds, and whole grains, would supply these fatty acids, as well as a GLA (gamma linoleic acid) supplement, and the microalgaes spirulina, chlorella and blue-green algae. In addition, such prestigious institutions as the Unversity of Maryland Medical Center have listed these as the standard dietary recommendations: dark, leafy green vegetables, beans, almonds, broccolini, kale, collard greens, cabbage, berries, squash, bell pepper, and a variety of healthy unprocessed oils, which will supply a calcium-rich chlorophyll, phytohormonal chemicals, antioxidants, and beneficial essential fatty acids. In addition this source counsels avoidance of transfats, refined foods, processed oils, and reduction in consumption of red meats, alcohol, coffee, caffeine, and other stimulants when appropriate. They also consider these nutritional supplements applicable: omega-3 fatty acids, folic acid (5MTHF with liquid B12), Vitamin D (beta-carotene), Vitamin E (balanced tocopherols), essential minerals (selenium, magnesium, zinc), digestive enzymes, Coenzyme Q10 100-200 mg at bedtime (CoQ10-H2), N-acetyl cysteine 200 mg, acidophilus (or a probiotic regimen), grapefruit seed extract, and MSM (methylsulfonylmethane).

A number of Chinese herbs have been found to be effective as an adjunct therapy in the treatment of cervical cancer. For example, research in 2010, at the Shinsegae Women’s Hospital in Busan, South Korea, found that the Chinese herb Trypterygium wilfordii, or Lei gong teng, induces caspase-dependent, mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cervical cancer cells, in part by negatively regulating the inflammatory pathways related to Akt and Mcl-1 (PMID: 20878065). Research at the Sharati Vidyapeeth University Medical College in Pune, Maharashtra, India, in 2010, found that the Chinese herb Cinnamomum cassia, or Rou gui, both inhibited growth and migration of cervical cancer cells, and inhibited the expression of the growth factor Her-2 as well. Rou gui also induced apoptosis (programmed cell death) in human cervical cancer cells by increases in intracellular calcium signalling and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. These researchers concluded that Rou gui could be used as a dose-dependent effective chemopreventive for cervical cancer (PMID: 20482751). Many other Chinese herbs have been similarly researched and found to have great potential, including Curcuma wenjuyin, an essential oil extract of the Chinese herb Curcuma aromatica, or Yu jin, Artemesia princeps (eupafolin flavonoid), and Smilax chinensis, or Tu fu ling (Kaempferol-7-O-beta-D-glucoside). The potential for Chinese herbal medicine to effectively add to strategies to prevent or treat cervical cancer is now well documented. The University of Maryland Medical Center cited above provides documentation and recommendation for these herbs: green tea catechins, uncaria tomentosa (Cat’s claw), curcuma longa (turmeric or other curcumin Chinese herbs), Reishi mushroom extract (ganoderma lucidum), and bromelain (ananus comosus), all of which are commonly prescribed in TCM practice. A link to the UMM website is available by clicking here: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/cervical-dysplasia-000034.htm. These are the most studied of the herbal therapies, but certainly do not represent the totality of researched herbs, and perhaps not the most specific and potent. Current research is uncovering a wealth of data on herbal chemistry and clinical application at a fast rate.

Understanding of the pathophysiology of cervical and uterine cancers helps guide therapy in treatment of aggressive cancers as well as prevention and treatment of cervical dysplasia. Cervical cancer can occur in the endoepithelium or squamous cells of the cervical membrane. Epithelium is the surface membrane of most structures in the body, and the functions of epithelial tissue include protection, secretion and absorption, as well as transcellular transport and sensation. Epithelial tissues are not vascularized and depend on nourishment via diffusion of fluids from underlying tissues. The endocervical epithelium is one type of tissue where dysplasia occurs, and where adenocarcinoma (cancer of the glandular epithelium) may arise. The endocervical tissue is a term that refers to the uterine tissues that serve as the canal from the vagina, or the cervix, and the term endo- means within. 85-90 percent of cervical cancers occur in the squamous cells, which are also part of the epithelium, though, and are the more superficial cells. Thus the surface epithelium, or membrane, of the canal of the uterus is where almost all cervical cancers originate. The immune system of the vagina and cervix maintains an environment that prevents irritation of these delicate and thin squamous cells of the epithelium. The chief immune protection in the vagina is the biota, or balance of symbiotic bacteria. A type of bacteria, the lactobacillus, produces the acidic lactate, which maintains an acidic environment that prevents the growth of pathological microbes and virally infected cells. An alkaline environment allows the spread of papilloma virus and other inflammatory agents, and inhibits the effectiveness of the immune responses to a virus.

The immune responses in the vagina and cervix have not been well studied. A 1998 study at Marshall University School of Medicine note the “limited information available on the mucosal immunity of the lower reproductive organs”, and noted that the CD4/CD8 ratio in the human vaginal mucosa is reversed compared to the gut membrane lymphocytes. A 2002 study at Louisiana University Health Sciences Center noted that a common infection of the vaginal mucosa, candidisasis, was poorly understood, but study revealed that immune responses to Candida are site-specific, and involve unique responses in vaginal mucosa from both the innate and acquired immune systems, and both systemic and local responses. This tells us that the support of the normal homeostatic mechanisms of immune health are what are important in preventing the viral pathology and mucosal ill health that leads to cervical cancer. Complementary Medicine takes a holistic approach to restore this homeostatic mechanism, and while this may be more complicated than an allopathic approach, we can clearly see the need for such a holistic restorative approach with current research.

Is there proof that Complementary and Integrative medical treatments, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine will be effective?

Yes. There is a wealth of sound research supporting acupuncture and herbal medicine in adjunct care with cancer therapies. Most medically Licensed Acupuncturists are also expert herbalists as well, and provide extensive resources for utilizing evidence-based herbal and nutrient medicine as an effective adjunct in cancer therapy. Since most herbal treatment enhances the natural cancer defenses, there is little chance of producing negative effects for the pharmaceutical treatment, which allopathically alters the body’s response. For Example: Research at the Tumor Immunology Program D030, German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenhermer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany, published in Blood. 2006 Dec;108(12), found that a chemical in the Chinese herb Huangqin, Wogonin, was able to sensitize malignant blood cells to TNFalpha and TRAIL induced cell death, or apoptosis, without harming other cells. This was accomplished by shifting the TNFalpha induced free radical O2- to the less radical H2O2. This was found to be a significant treatment to enhance the body’s ability to use tumor-necrosis-factor to kill tumor cells. Inducing cell death, or apoptosis, is the goal of radiation and chemotherapy, but this type of herbal approach accomplishes the task without the destruction of surrounding healthy cells. This is one of the many clinical research studies that confirm the efficacy of Chinese herbs in the treatment of cancer. Various research databases, including the NIH PubMed database are available to the public to confirm these studies. The available data is too overwhelming to list in this article, but a long list of pertinent research studies is listed below in additional information.

Emerging in 2011 are the results from sound studies of acupuncture from the most respected cancer clinics and university medical schools in the United States. For example, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, or Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, is the largest comprehensive cancer center in the world. This analysis of recent research by the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center shows the number of specific benefits proven with sound human clinical trials in the United States: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21103962. Of course these are not the only proven benefits, just those whose human clinical trials have ended and peer review in standard medicine show unequivocably that these benefits are proven in blinded randomized studies. Particularly notable are the benefits in balancing hormonal effects, autonomic symptoms and anemias that are caused by standard cancer drugs and radiation therapy. But proof of acupuncture relieving pain and dysfunction after cancer surgery, and joint pain induced by aromatase inhibitors, are particularly notable for patients. The studies that confirm significant benefits in reducing the hot flashes induced by hormonal therapies in breast and prostate cancer are also notable. Of course, the many proven benefits for general health, adaptation to stress, and improvements in quality of life seen in other studies also are applicable to the use of acupuncture as an effective and important adjunct therapy for cancer patients.

Examples of herbal research in cancer treatment are even more promising, and the cancer patient would be wise to find a Licensed Acupuncturist that is research based and provides both acupuncture and herbal/nutrient medicine. In 2011, research at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center found that a chemical in a Chinese herb used to treat cancer, Da qing ye, or Isatis indigotica, called indirubin, both blocked the malignant spread of brain cancer cells, or glioblastoma, and the spread of vascular endothelial cells involved in tumor angiogenesis. Glioblastoma is a deadly cancer, affecting about 18,500 Americans yearly and killing 13,000 patients. This research, published in the journal Cancer Research, and conducted at a prestigious university research center in the United States, shows that the potential of Chinese herbal medicine in the integrative treatment of cancer is for real. To view the research summary, click here: http://cancer.osu.edu/mediaroom/releases/Pages/Indirubin-–-Component-Of-Chinese-Herbal-Remedy-Might-Block-Brain-Tumor’s-Spread.aspx. This is just an example of the very sound research verifying the efficacy of Chinese herbs as an important integrative treatment for cancer patients. You may refer to the many links to herbal research studies cited below in additional information to learn more.

By 2011, many prestigious medical universities have expanded their Complementary and Integrative Medicine in adjunct cancer therapy. For instance, UCLA has the Ted Mann Resource Center for cancer patients, which has expanded its services to include the Integrative Medicine Program for Oncology, led by the former director of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Integrative Medicine Program, Dr. Mary Hardy M.D. The UCSF (University of California in San Francisco) has the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, which offers cancer patients a holistic approach to cancer risk prevention that utilizes acupuncture, nutritional medicine and physiotherapies. The UCSF radiation oncology program is currently conducting patient trials to research the effects of acupuncture and acupuncture-like electrical stimulation to see if this relieves radiation-induced symptoms such as xerostomia (dry mucus membranes). Stanford University maintains the Cancer Institute, a National Cancer Institute and Designated Cancer Center, which works with the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine to provide acupuncture and physiotherapies in adjunct cancer treatment. Across the country, our most prestigious University medical schools and many private cancer clinics now offer evidence-based acupuncture, herbal and nutrient medicine, and even Asian physiotherapies, to help the cancer patient achieve better treatment results, decrease adverse effects, and improve quality of life. This article in the Orlando Medical News demonstrates how acupuncture is now gaining favor in adjunct cancer therapy across the nation, and attempts to explain simply how it works: http://orlando.medicalnewsinc.com/acupuncture-gains-acceptance-as-adjunct-therapy-for-cancer-patients-cms-155 . Of course, as research continues, more and more specific evidence of the effects of acupuncture is being revealed, including broad inflammatory modulation, neurohormonal modulation, specific immune effects that help to reverse cancerous mutations. Research with herbal and nutrient medicine is even more promising in the field of oncology, and is no longer relegated to simple therapeutic protocols to calm and improve general immune effects.

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco have recently engaged in an official exchange of information with Peking University in China on herbal research and have published one of the first studies to result from this valuable collaboration: Selective Activation of Estrogen Receptor-beta Transcriptional Pathways by an Herbal Extract, published in Endocrinology Vol. 148, No. 2, 538-547: The authors state: "Our results demonstrate that herbal estrogen receptor beta-selective estrogens may be a safer alternative for hormone therapy than estrogens that nonselectively activate both ER subtypes." The TCM herbal formula studied was shown to accomplish the same task as Tamoxifen, a synthetic estrogen that treats both osteoporosis and breast cancer by inhibiting estrogen receptors. Tamoxifen works by selectively binding to one estrogen receptor type to effectively inhibit the effect of estradiol on the other. The chemicals in the herbal formula was found to bind to both estrogen receptors and modulate the responses, recruiting coregulatory proteins that are required for gene activation. The herbal formula did not activate the estrogen receptor alpha-regulated proliferative genes or stimulate breast cancer cell proliferation or tumor formation in animal studies, and hence is considere beta-selective. Tamoxifen acts on the alpha receptors to modulate the beta, thus having potentially negative effects concerning uterine and ovarian cancer risk, and osteoporosis mechanisms, as well as unseen problems with receptor modulatin that explain side effects. The herbal formula would thus not induce hot flush or other side effects related to hormonal imbalance that Tamoxifen produces.

Even common Chinese medicinal herbal formulas are proving beneficial in studies as adjunct cancer therapies. A 2002 study at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Shanghai Second Medical University, published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology (2002;8(5):792-796) studied the effects of a well used herbal formula, Si Jun Zi Tang, consisting of four benign tonic herbs, Codonopsis, Atractylodes, Poria and Licorice root, on stomach cancer. Human cancer cells were grafted onto laboratory animals and a the effects were studied in a blinded placebo study. The Chinese herbal formula, and the same formula with two herbs substituted, Sargentodoxa and Prunella (Hong teng and Xia ku cao), both proved to inhibit gastric cancer cell growth in vivo by inducing cell apoptosis, or normal programmed cell death, over 41 days. The study measured tumor growth, apoptotic indices, morphological alterations, Ki67 expression (an important cancer biomarker), and bcl-2 and p53 expression (other important cancer biomarkers), utilizing RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction). The altered formula inibited tumor growth rate by 46.53% over a placebo saline solution. Such studies as this definitively prove that standard herbal prescription with TCM formulary will benefit the cancer patient. The effects occurred over 41 days, so the cancer patient must be consistent and persistent with therapy when working with the TCM physician.

Researchers such as Dr. Ronald Watson, a reknowned biochemist that has been researching and teaching at the University of Arizona for some time, and is a principal research at the NIH, documents a large amount of high quality research in his extensive published works. One area of interest is the inhibition of rapid blood vessel formation, or vascularization, of cancerous tumors, which is largely driven by increases in growth factors (e.g. VEGF), and reactive oxygen species (ROS), or oxidants. This is often referred to as angiogenesis. A promising drug on the market that inhibits tumor vascularity, or angiogenesis, was recently withdrawn because it failed to demonstrate significant benefit in long term studies and showed significant side effects. Herbal and nutrient research, on the other hand, has demonstrated remarkable efficacy in inhibiting tumor vascularization, from 3 stages, with direct inhibition of tumor endothelial cells and tube formation, normalization of tumor vascularization by blocking VEGF and strengthening normal blood cell walls to inhibit leaking of chemicals that stimulate new blood vessel formation, and indirect inhibition, by targeting the tumor cells in the bone marrow and inhibiting the growth factors and their receptors on new blood cells and platelets. Dr. Watson has found that the “most efficient anti-angiogenic activity of herbal compounds is related to their properties as antioxidants...(since) reactive oxygen species are involved in the regulation of VEGF expression and VEGF-mediated signaling cascades, as well as the expression of MMPs.” Integrating various herbs and nutrient chemicals into the treatment protocol will thus greatly aid the outcome and present no significant problems in therapy.

Research concerning acupuncture in the treatment of cancer has predominantly focused upon its value as an adjunct to treat the symptoms associated with both the cancers and the harsh radiation and chemotherapy treatments used. The data from clinical human trials has proven the effectiveness of acupuncture, and thus acupuncture is now a significant part of many standard clinical settings providing specialized cancer care. Of course, as always, there are also many studies designed with a so-called placebo acupuncture that show both significant effects from true acupuncture and the placebo effect. These studies are designed to negate acupuncture benefits and deny funding, and get much press. Whether there is a placebo effect that accounts for much of the success of acupuncture therapy has been a controversial question, and many scientists now believe that even if this is the case, that success with acupuncture, no matter what the mechanism, is highly beneficial (see the article on placebo effects on this website). Studies have shown significant benefits in human clinical trials to reduce vasomotor symptoms in hormonally driven cancers, to enhance immune effects that reverse cancerous growth, to treat pain related to cancer, to decrease stress related to cancer therapies, etc. To review the current standard assessment of these therapies, click here to see a 2010 summary by the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21116744. Of course, these human clinical trials utilize standardized point selection and no manipulation of the needles to enhance effect. Real acupuncture in the clinical setting individualizes therapy with point selection, and the effects of acupuncture are largely due to the subtle expert manipulations of the needles by an experienced TCM physician, or Licensed Acupuncturist. The patient should choose wisely when finding an acupuncturist to treat cancer.

So, the patient and acupuncturist/herbalist have a wealth of information that offers proof of efficacy and guides therapy in adjunct cancer treatment. Most of these herbal formulas, unlike standard chemotherapy, are not toxic, and are used with the chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and other prescription drug regimens. In China, cancer specialists utilize stronger and more specific herbal medicine to treat cancer patients as well. In a controlled hospital setting, a small number of slightly toxic herbal extracts have proven remarkably effective with certain cancer cell lines. These herbs are not yet available in the United States, but some patients are travelling to countries that utilize this form of cancer therapy. Dosage is adjusted to achieve the maximum effect and the patients are monitored for side effects just like they are with synthetic chemical agents in standard care. This growing field offers much promise in the future. In the meantime, the patient in the U.S can depend upon the TCM herbalist to utilize a growing body of sound research to provide a variety of proven therapeutic formulas and specific herbs to enhance standard care today. These herbs may be exceedingly gentle and without side effects, and in fact are increasingly utilized by medical doctors in cancer clinics across the country.

How alarmed should the patient be when malignant cancer cells are found?

In the newly published book, The Biology of Cancer, Dr. Robert Weinberg of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA, points out that in experiments with mice carrying malignant tumors, perhaps a million cancer cells are seeded into the circulation each day, “yet the visible metastases formed in such animals may be counted on the fingers of one hand” (courtesy of a N.Y. Times article). The survival of the metastatic cancer cells is precarious and often depends on inflamed tissues to gain hold, and even when affecting other tissues, most of these cancer cells remain dormant or die. Adjunct therapies to support the health of the patient, regulate inflammatory and immune systems, etc. are thus potentially very beneficial. If you follow where research has led us in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, you should be able to design a sound treatment protocol and feel assured that much is being accomplished to make sure the malignancy is being kept under control. Your treatment plan must be comprehensive, though, and should involve all aspects of your life, diet, lifestyle, exercise regimen, a workable therapy schedule, and monitoring via tests. At first this seems overwhelming, but many patients adapt to these routines and therapies in time and find that once a new comprehensive routine is established, the program becomes just another way to live your life, and doesn't really get in the way of your work productivity or enjoyable accomplishments at home. This proactive approach lets you feel assured that you are doing all that you can and thus minimizes alarm and worry.

Research continues to uncover specific ways that herbal chemicals may inhibit malignant spread of cancer. Researchers in 2008 at the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Department of Comprehensive Cancer Center found that the proanthocyanidins of whole grape extract inhibited tumor cell migration and metastases with a number of metabolic mechanisms. These proanthocyanidins inhibited excess nitric oxide and nitric oxid synthase, guanylate synthase, and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways involved in the cancer cell invasion and migration. This makes whole grape seed extract, and whole pomegranate extract, another valuable source of these proanthocyanidins, a potent part of a thorough herbal regimen useful to the Complementary Medicine physician in adjunct treatment of malignant cancer. Related herbal chemicals, such as Resveratrol and Pterostilbene, have also demonstrated potential to induce apoptosis, or cell death, in cancer cells, as well as exhibiting significant antioxidant effects, and are now combined with whole grape extract to provide a more effective herbal supplement. Other examples of herbal and nutrient medicines studied and found to be effective in inhibiting malignant cancer cell growth include the nutrient medicine IP6, mentioned below with a link to scientific study. By themselves, this herbal extract and nutrient medicine will not be enough to insure that the cancer does not spread, but as part of a thorough and comprehensive treatment strategy based on such research, it offers much hope to the cancer patient. Standard medical treatment that is progressive now utilizes a large number of herbal and nutrient therapies in cancer protocol. Medical doctors have received no instruction in medical school concerning these therapies, but do prescribe them based on sound research. Many patients realize that another specialized physician should be added to their cancer team, and this is the professional herbalist and Complementary Medicine physician who has graduated from a medical school that provides 4 years of thorough study in herbal and nutrient medicine. This is the Licensed Acupuncturist.

One of the strategies in biomedicine in recent years to aid in the treatment of malignant cancer growth was the addition of the drug Avastin (bevacizumab), which was designed to inhibit new vascular growth in tumors. This widely used drug was approved in 2009, then FDA approval was removed in 2010 when it was found to be ineffective in breast cancer and other cell lines with a high risk for metastases. Benefits of the drug did not outweigh risks. Research in nutrient and herbal medicine at this time found a number of safe chemicals that were proven to inhibit neovascularization, or angiogenesis in metastatic tumors, though. IP6 is a nutrient chemical mentioned above. Herbal chemicals, though, have proven to be potentially very effective in study with laboratory animals, and human clinical trials will follow. To review one such study, click here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19203212. The beauty of this approach is that a number of herbal and nutrient chemicals may be combined in therapy. For instance, the chemical cited in this study, honokiol, is derived from the Chinese herb Magnolia officianalis, or Hou pou, and potently delivered in alcohol extract. A combination of Magnolia officianalis tincture and IP6 capsules could be even added to an angiogenesis inhibiting drug regimen to increase the potential. Since herbal and nutrient medicine does not present significant risk or side effect, in general, and is proven effective, the addition of such therapy to the protocol when treating metastatic cancer has no drawbacks, is relatively inexpensive, and potentially could make the difference in the treatment.

The most important aspect of therapy that the patient with malignant cancer needs to realize is that this serious state requires an appropriate attitude. Many patients of course feel hopeless when faced with malignant cancer, and so lack the will to do the work necesary to overcome the malignancy, or to maintain a healthy state with quality of health for as long as possible. The challenge is great, and the work required is extensive. With Complementary Medicine, there may be a significant number of medicinal products that need to be taken, as well as a routine of therapy. The number of pills should not discourage the patient, for this is the nature of herbal and nutrient medicine, as a wide variety, or complement, of chemicals may be needed, and the product can only be reduced in size so much with extraction methods. A daily routine of excercise, activity, and a diet that is chosen intelligently to produce the desired results should be followed. If your normal diet and lifestyle is unhealthy, you need to change your appetites and desires and start looking positively at these new healthy regimens. At first, this may seem overwhelming, but in a short time, as you feel the healthy effects of the work and therapy, you will appreciate it.

Do Medical Doctors actually support Complementary and Integrative Medicine in the overall treatment plan?

Dr. Ka-Kit Hui, Dr. Edward K. Hui, MDs, and Michael Francis Johnston, PhD, from UCLA Center for East-west Medicine wrote in Integrative Cancer Therapies, Vol. 5, No. 1, 56-62 (2006): The Potential of a Person-Centered Approach in Caring for Patients with Cancer: A Perspective from UCLA Center for East-West Medicine: "Evolving patient preferences as well as an expanding evidence base for commonly used complementary and alternative medicine therapies for patient with cancer have led to inroads by integrative medicine into clinical oncology. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been used in conjunction with conventional biomedicine in the prevention and treatment of cancer in China for several decades. Methods: the authors, through select review of the existing literature and by drawing on clinical experience, describe a person-centered approach to care of patients with cancer that incorporates TCM concepts and techniques. Two cases are used to illustrate how this approach might address unmet needs and enhance quality of life for patients with cancer. Results: TCM's emphasis on a comprehensive understanding of imbalance in various systems and resultant compromise of homeostatic reserve as well as its ability to treat them with distinctive therapeutic modalities can add unique value to the overall management of the patient with cancer. Conclusions: TCM can be used adjunctively to improve quality of life and functional status during a patient's struggle with cancer. An approach integrating both medicines that is guided by scientific evidence, safety, and patient preferences has the potential to improve modern oncologic care."

History in the West: A long history of medical doctors in Europe has established a firm naturopathic foundation of research and theory in the use of Complementary Medicine in cancer therapy:

The foundation of complementary medical therapies in European cancer protocol rests with the German doctor Max Gershon. Dr. Gershon examined the mechanisms of cell mutation and came up with a comprehensive list of therapies. Alone, these therapies may not be enough to significantly reverse the cancerous mutations, but together, the package of therapies has been shown to be very helpful. Many patients with this approach have gone into cancer remission and survived long term. Cancer Therapy: The Results of Fifty Cases is Dr. Gershon’s classic book. Other books available include: The Topic of Cancer, Cancer: A New Breakthrough by Virginia Livingston, author of a number of books. Dr. Gershon utilized diet high in potassium with raw food juices, oxygen therapies, and a variety of techniques combined in naturopathic clinics and hospitals devoted to treatment of the cancer patient.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, the subject of Complementary Medicine as adjunct therapy in cancer protocol cannot be covered in a webpage. The research and history of treatment is enormous. What I can present to you on this page is a sample of the subject, and is not representative of the total treatment resources available. The key to effective treatment protocol is the knowledge of your physicians, your choices, and the effective management of the protocol. Not everything that is researched can be utilized at once, and the choice of which protocols to use during which phase of your treatment and recovery is extremely important.

Herbs and foods studied in relation to anticancer chemicals:

As the evidence mounts concerning herbs and foods that contain beneficial chemicals to aid in cancer prevention and therapy, there appears a confusing array of simple recommendations in the popular media. Sometimes the information in magazines and newspapers is misleading, and the chemicals that you need are in the food but not in the part of the food that you normally eat, or not found in a concentrated enough form to provide enough benefit. This is where the physician trained and experienced in Complementary Medicine can help the patient sort out the sensational from the scientific. Patient research and a proactive approach helps you in many ways, especially in maintaining the knowledge that you are largely in control of your health, and it is not slipping away from you in a way that renders you helpless. As you work with your Licensed Acupuncturist and herbalist you realize the many ways that you can improve your health and find a holistic and comprehensive path to a healthy future.

As the subject of nutritional medicine becomes more popular, the unfortunate strategies of misinformation to guide patients and medical doctors to the purchase of specific products also comes into play. The patient is often confronted with contradictory information, and this needs to be sorted out. The knowledgeable Complementary Medicine physician can provide sound information and judgement based on a study of this science. Years of a specialized medical school course of study and a history of clinical experience and patient centered research provides excellent background that you can trust in sorting out the confusing data.

There are a large number of herbs and foods that have been extensively studied as anticancer and antitumor agents besides the example presented above. Many of these are specific to various cancer types and should be prescribed by a knowledgeable professional. Also, various herbs are proven helpful to stimulate the immune responses that your body uses to naturally correct cell mutations and inhibit cancerous growth. The mechanisms of the chemicals in these herbs should be understood to best utilize the right combination. Both dietary and herbal/nutrient medicinal protocols are once again touted as an important part of total cancer treatment and prevention. Many experts agree that today cancer rates are higher than they were in past human history, and that dietary changes and environmental factors are responsible. The human organism evolved many natural protections against excess cancerous cell mutations, and many of them had to do with the consumption of common foods and herbs. It is time to utilize these evolved protections again.

Public research worldwide is now heavily focused on health issues related to nutrients and cancer. One example is the vast amount of research devoted to phytohormones, or plant-based hormonal chemicals. Lignans and enterolactones are chemicals that are now highly studied in relation to cancer prevention. Lignan precursors are key nutrients found in healthy grains, seeds, nuts, fruits and green vegetables, and are essential to our bodies creating healthy lignans, enterolactones and enterodiols. There are a variety of lignans and lignan precursors, and certain lignans are concentrated in medicinal plants. These lignans stimulate increased production of enterolactones and enterodiols that help maintain hormonal balance, prevent cancer, act as hormonal stimulators when there is hormonal deficiency, reduce cardiovascular risk, and play other key roles in health maintenance.

The term entero refers to the intestinal metabolism, and the enterolactones and enterodiols are produced when the bacterial balance in the intestines is healthy and we eat sufficient foods or take herbs rich in lignans and lignan precursors. To fully benefit from these chemicals and restore health, we need to take a holistic and comprehensive approach, restoring healthy flora and fauna to the digestive tract, eating locally grown organic vegetables, grains, legumes, seeds, nuts and fruit, and correcting health problems that may inhibit our bodies' ability to utilize and metabolize these nutrients. One step instead of a holistic approach may not be effective, such as taking probiotics. If your gut flora and fauna are unhealthy, probiotic foods and supplements may not colonize efficiently. You may need to correct unhealthy intestinal enviroments first with herbal therapy and acupuncture, and then introduce quality probitics and nutritional cofactors to restore healthy gut flora and fauna. Healthy diet should be accompanied by healthy medical treatment and restoration. This is the key to success. A knowledgeable Licensed Acupuncturist can help identify and correct health problems, provide quality nutrient products that are specific to the individual, and guide the holistic approach to full restoration of your bodies' metabolism to prevent disease.

Isoflavonoids and plant lignans, though, may generate beneficial effects independent of their ability to generate enterolactones and enterodiols. A 1005 study cited below in additional inforamtion found that the plant bioflavonoids genistein and biochanin A, and the plant lignan euqol, were also directly found to exert inhbition of the enzymes that drive prostate cancer, 5alpha-reductase and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. Biochanin A is found in red clover, soy bean, alfalfa sprouts, peanuts, and chickpeas, as well as other legumes. The level in red clover (Trifolium pratense) is of fairly high concentration compared to these other sources, and a medicinal tincture extract of this herb is often used in hormone modulating therapy with Complementary Medicine. Genistein is found in Trifolium subterraneum and brachycalycinum, medicinal herbs related to Red Clover, as well as Mucuna pruriens, soy bean, lima bean, and other beans. The most effective lignan in this regards, though, was enterolactone. These same enzymes drive many breast cancers as well.

Herbs that contain chemicals that boost the natural cellular detox and antioxidant mechanisms have also been a subject of much research in cancer prevention and treatment. Potent antioxidant effects in herbs is shown to be very promising as adjunct cancer therapy, even in human clinical trials. The ability of herbal chemicals to aid the natural cellular detox mechanisms, most of which concerns the glatathione metabolism (see a separate article on this website entitlet Glutathione Metabolism) is proven now to be potentially valuable in both prevention and treatment or cancer. The avenues of anticancer effects in herbal chemcistry are broad, though. Just as our bodies have evolved many natural defenses against excess cell mutation and cancer, nature has also evolved a vast array of chemicals to promote these processes in plants. By utilizing professional herbalism, modern research, and the efforts of a Complementary Medicine physician, such as a Licensed Acupuncturist and herbalist, patients may take advantage of this vast potential to both prevent cancers, as well as help drive them to remission.

Herbs that are less familiar have also been extensively studied, and clinical research in the United States and Europe is adding to evidence-based use of these herbs each year. One example of published research is the book Botanical Medicine in Clinical Practice by Ronald Watson, a professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, who has researched and published many texts on herbal and nutrient therapy. Dr. Watson holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Michigan State University and holds a number of important medical patents in biomedicine. He is a principal researcher on important National Institutes of Health research grants specializing in cancer, cardiovascular disease, and immune dysfunction. Dr. Watson reveals the physiological effects of specific herbal chemicals and documents sound human and animal clinical trials and their results, which are often astounding and match the benefits of current pharmaceutical medicines. Such research points to the need of utilizing herbal and nutrient medicines as adjunct therapies or first line conservative treatments when applicable. The lack of serious side effects make integration of these medicinals into cancer protocols a sound way for the patient to increase the chance of success.

Dietary, nutritional supplement, and simple herbal stategies researched to integrate into cancer therapy

Below are a few examples of common herbs and foods that have been studied and promoted in the West in recent years as adjunct cancer therapies. These are only some of the most commonly utilized phytochemicals that one can easily add to, and integrate into, their cancer therapy, or use to prevent cancer. Stronger and more specific herbal and nutrient medicine may be utilized on an individual basis within a more complex treatment protocol by a professional herbalist and Complementary Medicine physician, such as a Licensed Acupuncturist. Some of the now plentiful research on these herbal chemicals is cited below in additional information with links to studies.

• Cranberry, pomegranate and grape provide a number of chemicals that are beneficial in a dietary regimen that supports cancer therapy and prevention. Since most of these chemicals are concentrated in the parts of the plant other than the fruit itself, extract supplements are a way to obtain these useful chemicals in sufficient beneficial dose. Bioflavonoids, proanthocyanins and triterpenoids are the main types of chemicals that are combined in cranberry, pomegranate and grape seed extract. Click to see this study: http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/nen047v1. Properly extracted chemicals from these plants as supplements can supply concentrated and convenient doses and are best utilized when eaten with the whole food to increase assimilation. Health Concerns Pomagranex provides a concentrated dosage of these chemicals.
• Luteolin and Orientin, common isoflavonoid/isoflavones: these isoflavones, and possibly related isoflavonoids, are proven to suppress prostate cancer growth and induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) of prostate cancer cells, mainly by inhibiting the growth factors that drive this cancer, such as insulin-like growth factor, by inhibiting the IGF-1 receptors on prostate cancer cells, as well as other growth factors and inflammatory signals (MAPK) that are integral to prostate cancer growth. Luteolin is found in a number of Chinese herbs (Lu Cao / Humulus scandens, Jin gu cao / Ajuga decumbens, San ke zhen / Ziao ye gen / Berberis soulieana), and related isoflavonoids in foods may also exert a weak or protective effect. Luteolin is also found in celery, taragon, chamomile, peppermint, cumin, flax seed, basil, oregano, thyme, a variety of beans, and fenugreek. Orientin and Isoorientin are glucoside variants of luteolin, and found in millet, Acai palm, Vitex agnus, and passion flower. Of course, to obtain a significant dosage of these isoflavones, you may need to take specific herbal extracts. To see research verifying luteolin effects, click here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17065200
• Fenugreek: Trigonella foenum graecum, or fenugreek seed, is a food and medicinal herb that has a long history of use in many cultures. In China, Hu lu ba is commonly used to treat abdominal or flank distention pain, hernias, and chronic soreness and swelling of the legs, as well as mountain sickness, problems with lactation after birthing, and is useful to aid detoxification of the intestines, but chemicals in the seed are now also known to be cytoxic to a variety of cancer cell lines, inhibiting growth in breast, pancreatic and breast cancer cell lines via a number of physiological pathways. Studies in China have revealed that fenugreek seed can also reduce plasma cholesterol and support liver and kidney functions. To see a citation of cancer research and an endorsement from the American Cancer Society, click here: http://breastcanceraware.net/2011/10/
• Lignans in whole grain bran, beans, seeds, legumes: plant lignans act with weak phyotestrogen effects, but their strongest effect is as a precursor to the human lignans enterolactone and enterodiol, produced in the intestine from healthy symbiotic bacteria. This is why a whole grain vegetarian diet is found to benefit various cancer patients considerably. Many foods and herbs contain various phytolignans, but to have a strong effect, a supplement of Norway Spruce extracted hydroxymetairesinol has been found to deliver enough of a dosage of this lignan to create enough enterolactone in a healthy intestine to effectively modulate estrogen receptors in breast cancers to reduce tumor cell growth or protect against breast cancer. Effects of these chemicals showed that both estradiol receptor pathways and other pathways of cancer stimulation are affected significantly, and these chemicals are also proven effective in liver cancer inhibition. This concentrated lignan product is called NuLignan. To see related studies, click here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17572100, and here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17571967, and here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19211828.
• Turmeric: curcumin in the spice or root turmeric is a proven anticarcenogenic. In Chinese herbology we prefer curcuma zedoaria or E zhu: which contains up to a 1000 ppm of curcumin, depending on the quality; curcumin exerts anticancer effects in a number of ways, and is also effective topically on skin cancer. Studies cited below show that curcumins are cytotoxic to a variety of cancer cell lines. Click to see one of the numerous scientific studies proving that the chemicals in various turmeric species may provide significant anticancer effects in your protocol: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/48/21/5941
• Green tea and common supplements: besides the chemical wogonin in the Chinese herb huang qin, as mentioned above, other herbs and supplements are proven to enhance the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) effects; these include alpha lipoic acid, melanin in green tea and Nigella sativa, spirulina, omega 3 fatty acids, Reishi and turkeytail mushroom, as well as Echinacia. Catechins in green tea, especially epigallocatechin-3 gallate, have been well studies and show positive effects in anti-cancer therapy. A green tea extract may be needed to achieve effective dosage. A Mayo Clinic study in vitro of curcumin and green tea cathechins found that these induced cell death in chronic lymphocytic leukemia B cells that were cancerous, and prevented transcription or reproduction of these cancerous cells, but worked best when the two herbal chemicals were taken sequentially, and not consumed together. To see this study: http://www.vitaminpost.ca/news/42/Curcumin-inhibits-prosurvival-pathways-in-chronic-lymphocytic-leukemia-B-cells-and-may-overcome-their-stromal-protection-in-combination-with-EGCG.html
• English walnut whole, with the shell: contains up to 2770ppm of ellagic acid, depending on quality and freshness, which would be obtained with alcohol extraction. Ellagic acid is also found in pomegranate husk and seed, and refined methods of extraction are used now in medicinal products. Merely eating a few walnuts or drinking pomegranate juice will not provide enough of this tannic acid. I prescribe Pomegranex from Health Concerns, as well as Aloe22, which contains walnut husk extract. Chestnuts also contain ellagic acid, but higher content is found in the bark than the fruit. Click here to see this information: http://www.sciencedirect.com
• Pineapple, grapefruit, lemon, and tart apples: these fruits contain ferulic acid, but in low concentrations. Plants often evolve chemistry that protects against toxins and cell mutation that is analogous to human physiology, but the chemicals are often produced in cells of the plant body and not the fruit. Pineapple plant has a high concentration, but an extract from the tree bark is necessary for strong medicinal value. The Chinese herbs Dan Shen, salvia przewalski: the seed contains 2770ppm of ferulic acid; Dang gui, angelica sinensis, and Chuan xiong, ligustricum, as well as Sheng ma, cimifuga, or black cohosh, all also have an abundance of ferulic acid, which exerts an anticancer effect with strong antioxidant activity and other metabolic methods: click here to view a 2007 report on ferulic acid: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2127228. Of course, these herbs also contain a number of chemicals that contribute to anticancer, antitumor and cancer prevention. Ferulic acid is found in small quantity in common foods, and anti-cancer activity increases when combined with gallic acid, found in Da huang, rheum officianale, as well as eucalyptus leaf.
• Peaches and plums: a study at Texas A&M University found that these delicious fruits contain phenolic compounds that exert a mild anticancer effect to inhibit the proliferation of estrogen-independent MDA-MB-435 breast cancer cell lines. Phenols produce the aroma, taste and color in yellow fleshed peaches and red plums, and selection of organic fruits with a stronger aroma, taste and healthy color may provide better phenolic compounds. To see the endorsement from the American Cancer Society, click here: http://breastcanceraware.net/2011/10/
• Rosemary, thyme, lavender, sage, savory, lingonberry, oregano, biberry: all contain ursolic acid and other nutrient chemicals helpful in fighting and preventing cancer. To see a summary of the anticancer properties of ursolic acid, click here: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/60/9/2399
• Garlic: contains S-allyl-L-cysteine, a cancer preventing chemical that activates the glutathione antioxidant and other detoxification systems, and which also helps break up beta-amyloid accumulation linked to Alzheimer's. The chemical is obtained from water extraction of aged garlic. To see an Oxford University study, click here: http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/5/1041
• Leafy green vegetables: contain chlorophyll, and cruciferous leafy greens contain I3C and other chemicals that block estrogen stimulated tumor growth; DIM, or diindolylmethane, is a supplement that delivers concentrated I3C metabolites, reducing environmental estrogens in the tissue and protecting against tumorigenesis. Greens also contain chlorophyllin, which is proven to inhibit Cox-2 selectively in cancer cell lines, realized by inhibition of NF-kappa beta protein. Eat healthy. The supplement DIM may also be taken to deliver an effective dose in breast cancer treatment or prevention. A quality supplement is essential.
• Resveratrol and Pterostilbene: these are a potent antioxidant chemicals found in a number of Chinese herbs, and even a small amount in grapes and wine. The professional extracts usually use the herb Hu Zhang, or Polygonum cuspidatum, to produce the isolated chemicals, but resveratrol is also found in Da Huang, or wild rhubard, and other common Chinese herbs. The Chinese developed a process to isolate a type of resveratrol, or isomer, that is proven to be more therapeutically potent, and this chemical is used in the professional resveratrol supplements. Resveratrol has been proven to inhibit growth in at least 5 cancer cell lines in study. Pterostilbine is a resveratrol analog that is also much studied today, and works synergistically with resveratrol to accomplish a more comprehensive antioxidant effect and promote more efficient cancer cell apoptosis and autophagy, or cell death. One study can be accessed by clicking here: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/8/3/893.full
• Isoflavones, genistein, daidzein: soy and some other beans are rich in isoflavones, a type of plant hormone with human effects; genistein is found in lima beans and jack beans as well, and a fair number of medicinal herbs, including kudzu (Ge gen) and Mucuna pruriens; daidzein is found mainly in soy; soy isoflavones are used along with Mexican wild yam (Dioscorea) in topical progesterone stimulating creams; studies have confirmed that a higher intake of isoflavones is protective against prostate cancer, and perhaps breast cancer; soy foods should be eaten as fermented products, such as tempeh, natto, and miso, or as tofu produced in a traditional way with processing with specific herbs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19536097
• a class of herbal chemicals is proven to have potential antimutagenic activity in vitro, such as ursolic and oleanic acids, triterpenoid compounds etc. Oleanic acid is found in the Chinese herbs nu zhen zi, lian qiao, and qing ye dan; Ursolic acid is found in shan zha, zhi zi, and nu zhen zi; triterpenoids are found in he huan pi, etc. Chinese herbal medicine is proven to prevent cancerous mutations, and even herbal formulas designed for other problems often have a side benefit of preventing cancer. Foods with ursolic acid include rosemary, sage, basil, thyme, oregano, savory, marjoram, and lingonberry. Enjoy.
• another class of herbal chemicals is found to have antiangiogenic activity, meaning that the rapid growth of blood vessels in cancerous tumors are inhibited; these include qing hao, viscum album, turmeric or jiang huang, huang qin, magnolia or hou pou, ginseng, grapeseed extract, geen tea, ginger, Gingko biloba, etc. (see studies cited below). In addition, naturopathic research has found such nutrient therapeutics as IP6, or inositol hexaphosphate, is taken up by malignant cancer cells and moderately inhibits formation of new tumor blood vessels (see the research by clicking here: http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/133/11/3778S
• if you want to be truly overwhelmed by the amount of research that has been collected on herbs and foods with anticancer activities, go to Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases, sponsored by the U.S. government, at: http://www.ars-grin.gov/duke/ Scroll down the page to the item with superactivities of plants and chemicals, and then scroll to cancer. http://sun.ars-grin.gov:8080/npgspub/xsql/duke/super2.xsql?superact=Cancer&plants=Y&chemicals=Y&ctt=1000

Information Resources

A number of research databases now provide published scientific study of herbal therapy in the treatment of cancer, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with their PubMed database. One may simply go to PubMed and enter cancer herb into the search box, and see many such sound research study summaries. To access this website, click here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed, or simply google PubMed, or Entrez PubMed.

The most striking detail of the examples of the many research studies cited below is the fact that prominent universities around the world, including the United States, now publish research on the efficacy of herbal chemistry in the treatment of cancer. This research presents specific biochemical pathways and tangible effects, reproduced both in laboratory studies in vivo and in vitro, as well as human clinical trials. No longer can ill-informed and biased individuals claim that this information is quackery found on the internet and not real to the application of therapeutic protocols in treating cancer. Such statement should now be relegated to those individuals that insist that their faith-based beliefs are more important than real science. Science is not a religion, and blind faith is applicable to the metaphysical mysteries, not objective data in science.

1. An article in the New York Times Health section on June 14, 2010, shows how the past approach to cancer therapy with a one-size-fits-all targeting of specific genetic biomarkers and mutations is proving problematic, with current cancer approaches emphasizing the need to adopt an individualized and more comprehensive approach. This more comprehensive approach will utilize Integrative and Complementary Medicine despite the foot dragging of the standard medical profession: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/health/15canc.html
2. An article published in the Journal of Cinical Oncology in 2001 cited studies that show an unrealistic expectation of success with standard cancer therapies: http://www.jcojournal.org/content/19/5/1266.full
3. An article published in JAMA in February of 2008 summarizes scientific findings that synthesized erythropoietin (EPO) and darbepoetin are unsafe for cancer patients in the treatment of post-chemotherapy and radiation-induced anemia. Despite these findings, the prescription of these drugs (Procrit et al) has increased dramatically, prompting the FDA to issue stronger prescribing guidelines in 2011 to discourage unnecessary and ultimately ineffective use of these drugs: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/8/914
4. The FDA has issued increasingly strong warnings of the risks of erythropoetin-stimulating agents (ESAs), Epogen, Procrit and Aranesp: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/08/slides/2008-4345s2-01-FDA-Vinni_files/frame.htm
5. An article published in the New York Times on June 25, 2011 outlines the stronger prescription guidance and warnings from the FDA concerning the erythropoetin-stimulating agenst (ESAs) used to counter anemia in chemotherapy patients and to allow the stronger dosages of chemotherapy to be used. The article also outlines how these drugs in the U.S. have been increasingly prescribed, with over 60 billion dollars spent despite evidence that the cardiovascular risks are high and the long-term benefits are not substantial, and that such prescription countering FDA guidelines may be profit motivated and an example of why health care costs in the United States are so much higher than in Europe: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/health/policy/25drug.html
6. An article published in the New York Times on June 7, 2010, reports how a 5 year study in Britain found that minimally invasive treatment with early breast cancer provided the same results as more extensive radiation and lumph node surgery: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/health/08canc.html
7. An article published in the New York Times Research section of April 19, 2010, outlines the problems with HER2 testing and the harsh side effects of the drug prescribed to block this type of breast cancer, Herceptin: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/health/research/20cancer.html
8. A July 20, 2010 article in the New York Times Business section reports that the US FDA finally revoked approval of the anticancer drug Avastin (bevacizumab), which purportedly treats metastatic breast cancer by inhibiting tumor blood cell growth, and costs $80,000 per year, because long-term studies have shown little or no actual benefit to patients with metastatic breast cancer, slowing tumor growth for only one month, and not prolonging survival time, while producing harsh side effects. On the other hand, research has found a number of herbal and nutrient medicines that significantly inhibit tumor angiogenesis without side effects and with little relative cost: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/health/policy/21avastin.html
9. A study reported in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 9, 765 (October 2010) showed that a Chinese herbal formula known as PHY906 reduced the toxicity of the chemotherapy agent irinotecan, a second line treatment for colon and rectal cancers. PHY906 is a simple formula, consisting of Scutellaria baicalensis (Huang qin), Paenonia lactiflora (Bai shao), Glycyrrhiza uralensis (Gan cao) and Ziziphus jujuba (Da zao), studied at Yale University: http:/www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v9/n10/full/nrd3280.html
10. A study reported in the journal Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, in 2011, showed that the herbal chemical resveratrol, from the Chinese herb Polygonum cuspidatum, or Hu zhang, increased the sensitivity to chemotherapy agents in pancreatic cancer cells with pretreatment, allowing for a reduced dosage and lowered toxicity: http://www.cehd.org/resveratrol-research/resveratrol-strengthens-effects-chemotherapy-pancreatic-cancer/
11. A history of the aggressive blunders in breast cancer screening and why radical mastectomies did not reduce cancer deaths was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1998 (vol.129): http://www.annals.org/content/129/1/74.full
12. A 1997 analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine outlines how statistics are used to increase the risk assessment of so-called ductal carcinoma in-situ, and how this drives an overblown fear in the patient: http://www.annals.org/content/127/11/1023.full
13. A July 20, 2010 article in the New York Times explains how precancerous lesions are very difficult to assess, and that many biopsies of 'so-called' ductal carcinoma in situ do not produce firm evidence of even a precancerous lesion, yet are still used to drive a protocol of mastectomy, lumpectomy, and other harsh therapies: http://www.annals.org/content/127/11/1023.full
14. An April, 2010 article in the New York Times outlines the findings published online by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which finds that 3 biomarkers, p16, COX-2, and Ki67, are the most important in screening of in-situ precancerous lesions of the breast. When all 3 are positive, there is a 20 percent risk of developing invasive cancer in 8 years, while negative markers reduce risk to 4 percent, just one percentage point over that of the general population: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/health/20cancer.html
15. Current treatment research from the NIH, National Cancer Institute, outlines the success with current minimal treatment strategies with precancerous lesions called ductal carcinoma in situ. Progress in classification of these precancerous lesions has led to many women showing a recurrence rate of precancerous lesions after 6 years of 2% with excision only, when the lesion is classifed properly and found to be less threatening: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/breast/HealthProfessional/page5#Section_81
16. An article in the New York Times, April 2010, follows women that have survived the worst type of breast cancer for decades: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/living-for-years-with-late-stage-cancer/
17. An article in the New York Times, July 15, 2010, reveals that the Obama Health Care Reform will include a mandate that eliminates patient fees for many types of cancer screening, certain routine laboratory tests, and some types of preventative medicine: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/health/policy/15health.htm
18. An article in the New York Times, December 9, 2010, reveals that a large follow-up study in Britain (AZURE) contradicted a previous study that indicated that osteoporosis drugs called biphosphonates could reduce the risk of recurrence of breast cancer: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/health/research/10breast.html
19. The history of breast cancer therapy in the West has been marked by alarming mistakes. For thirty years, the chemical DES (diethylstilbestrol), a synthetic estrogen mimetic, or xenoesterogen, was given to women to treat breast cancer and men to treat prostate cancer, until in 1970, after also prescribing DES to pregnant women to decrease pregnancy complications, it was found to actually induce vaginal tumors and other cancers in the daughters exposed in utero, but only after puberty. It was subsequently and abruptly withdrawn by the FDA. DES is still used, though, in feed cattle, and women are still exposed to DES via dietary ingestion from supplemental cattle feed and medication. Recent studies show that DES causes epigenetic changes that promote increasing risk over time to exposure, and is thought to be a likely cause of early breast cancer development. DES acts like polyphenols, which are common in industrial products, and inhibit methyltransferases (PRMTs) that breakdown protein accumulations and detoxify. This study at Ohio University explains the mechanism by which long term exposure increases risks of breast cancers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19549897
20. Treatment for high-grade cervical neoplasia (CIN) to reduce the risk of cervical cancer has used a surgical resection with a conisation biopsy, but researchers in Germany, in 2011, believe that data supports the use of photodynamic therapy with hexylaminolevulinate as a safer and more cost effective treatment with similar long-term results, especially when alternative medicine in the form of herbal and nutrient prescriptions are combined: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22057499
21. In 2009, the head researcher for the phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV) spoke out with concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine strategy, effectiveness beyond 5 years, and the risk-versus-benefit of this strategy in the United States: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/19/cbsnews_investigates/main5253431.shtml
22. Research has found a number of Chinese herbs that significantly inhibit HER2, or human epidermal growth factors, in breast cancer, including Shiraia bambusicola, or Zhu Huang, a genus of fungus that grows on bamboo, long used in the treatment of rheumatic disease: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15846117
23. An article published in the New York Times Health section in 2008 showed that 1 in 5 men that opted for prostate removal to treat the cancer regretted the decision: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/regrets-after-prostate-surgery/
24. A study published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) in 2011 (Prediction of Erectile Function Following Treatment for Prostate Cancer; Mehrad Alemozaffar MD et al), overturned the decades of misinformation given to patients of high percentages of men that emerge with full sexual function. In this study, 37% of all patients reported the ability to have a functional erection 2 years after prostate cancer treatment, and 53% of patients who achieved erectile function without the use of a presthesis used medications or penile pumps. Statistical analysis showed that predicted that estimated 2-year probabilities for erectile function varied from 10-70% depending on the patient’s pretreatment characteristics. A New York Times article of Sept. 25, 2011, entitled The Side Effects? Well, There Is One..., reported that men were routinely told by their physicians that greater than 90% achieved full erectile and sexual function after prostate cancer therapies, which reflected the statistics concerning a small subset of patients: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/306/11/1205.short
25. An article published in JAMA in September of 2009 and outlined in the New York Times in October summarizes scientific findings that we now know that many cancers slow, stop or reverse into remission without standard therapy, the key being how to enhance this natural process with Complementary Medicine: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27canc.html
26. A review of overall treatment strategies for prostate cancer by the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in 2001 shows that experts at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School included alternative medicine, dietary medicine, and improved screening and differentiation as important parts of the promising protocols, along with novel systemic therapies: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11221439
27. A 2005 study in Germany, published in the Oxford Journals, demonstrates how isoflavones from a Chinese herb She gan, or Belamcanda chinensis, effectively inhibits testosterone receptors, growth factors, and other novel targets of pharmaceutical anti-cancer drugs, and reduced PSA and tumor growth in in vitro experiments. These effects were without significant side effects, and acted in a modulatory manner that was safer than comparable pharmaceuticals. Also, the effects of these phytochemicals on upregulation of TIMP-3, a naturally occurring inhibitor of MMP-3, made them an ideal adjunct treatment for breast cancer with tamoxifen, since studies reveal that high levels of TIMP-3 mRNA in human breast tumors are associated with the most positive outcomes with tamoxifen treatment: http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/26/8/1360/
28. A study in 2010, at the University of California at Davis, found that a phytochemical component of the herb Andrographis paniculata, or Chuan xin lian, andrographolide effectively suppressed IL-6 expression and IL-6 induced signaling, which is believed to be the pathway that inhibited cell viability and induced apoptosis in both androgen-stimulated and castration-resistant human prostate cancer cells: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21442031
29. A study in 1999, at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Dept. of Urology and the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York city, confirmed in a small clinical study and in the laboratory, that the herbal formula PC-SPES, consisting of 8 commonly used Chinese herbs to treat prostate cancer suppressed the growth of hormone driven and hormone insensitive (castration-resistant) prostate cancer cell lines and reduced serum PSA in most patients, without significant side effects. The herbs in the formula were Ye ju hua, Da qing ye, San qi, Huang qin, Ling zhi, Dong ling cao, Gan Cao, and Saw palmetto: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10532984
30. After a large clinical human trial was started in the U.S. to evaluate the herbal formula PC-SPES, contamination was noted in some of the product from the Chinese manufacturer, with DES, warfarin and indomethacin found in the product. The subsequent publicity forced the manufacturer to stop all sales, and effectively ended the large clinical trial, and discouraged the growing popularity of prescription of herbal formulas as adjunct therapy in oncology in the U.S. Subsequently, the formula was then produced as PC-HOPE and PC-CARE, with European studies suggesting that this formula lowered PSA levels in most prostate cancer patients and improved quality of life. Medical Journals have not published these studies, though. The source of the contamination was never clarified: http://www.cancer.org/pc-spes-pc-hope-and-pc-care
31. A 2009 study of medicinal mushroom extracts developed in Japan, conducted at the Medical University of South Carolina, Division of Oncology, found that this active hemicellulose compound of herbal extracts from medicinal mushrooms has potential activity against castration-resistant prostate cancer, as evidenced by an excellent response in a 66 year old prosate cancer patient with excellent serologic response. These extracts have been commonly used in TCM practice for years in the U.S.: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19104437
32. A 2003 study of the Chinese herb Rabdosia rubescens, Dong ling cao, and the chemical constituent oridonin, showed significant inhibition of the proliferation of various cancer cell lines, including prostate, breast, lung, leukemia and glioblastoma, inducing cancer cell apoptosis (cell death) and cell cycle arrest in prostate cancer cells.: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12964003
33. A 1995 study found that key lignans and bioflavonoids exerted significant inhibition of the enzymes that drive hormonally driven cancers, such as prostate and breast cancers, by inhibiting 5alpha-reductase and 17beta-hydroxysteroid hydrogenase. These include enterolactone, biochanin A, genistein, and equol. Concentrated dosage of these chemicals may be found in extracts of Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) and Mucuna pruriens, as well as soy, and a variety of beans and legumes. A potent lignan used to stimulate sufficient quantity of enterolactone may be found in the supplement NuLignan: http://joe.endocrinology-journals.org/cgi/content/abstract/147/2/295
34. A study in 2010 found that a phytochemical component of the herb Pygeum africanum, long used to treat benign prostate hypertrophy, is shown to exert antagonism at the human androgen receptors, and could significantly contribute to inhibition of DHT driven prostate cancer cell growth: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20965230
35. A study in 2005 found that a phytochemical component of the Chinese herb Cleistocalyx operculatus flower (Shui weng hua) effectively inhibited tumor vascularization by a blockade of VEGF receptor activity, exerting antitumor activity: http://molpharm.aspetjournals.org/content/67/5/1444.full
36. A third study in 2005 found that the Chinese herb Scutellaria barbatae, or Ban zhi lian, a common anticancer and antiinflammatory herb, also exerted efficient inhibition of vascularization of tumors and down-regulated VEGF in tumor cells: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16351792
37. Prominent research studies conducted by Medical Universities around the world have elucidated the anticancer physiology of Scutellaria barbata, or Ban zhi lian, a key Chinese herb used to treat cancer that contains baicalin, berberine, resveratrol, apigenin and luteolin. This Korean study is highly specific in its positive findings: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15922007
38. Another study in 2005 found that a phytochemical component of the Chinese herb Shiraia bambusicola (Zhe jiang, Tian zhu huang, Zhu huang) also effectively inhibited tumor vascularization by a blockade of VEGF receptor activity, exerting antitumor activity. This herb is a fungus that grows on several genera of bamboo, : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15846117
39. A study in 2009 found that the Chinese herb Trypterygium wilfordii, and one of the active chemicals in the herb, triptolide, inhibits VEGF and COX-2, as well as downregulates multiple cytokine receptors, all of which may explain its antimetastic action. VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) drives angiogenesis in tumors, and COX-2 is one of the key inflammatory cytokines that drive cancerous growth: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19922946
40. Further study in 2010 confirmed that Triptolide, an active chemical in the Chinese herb Trypterygium wilfordii, inibited tumor angiogenesis by blocking 2 different VEGF receptor signaling pathways: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19569053
41. Scientific study in 2006, published in the medical journal Oncology, summarizes findings of an array of Chinese herbs effective in inhbiting tumor angiogenesis. These include Artemesia annua (Qing hao), Viscum album (European mistletoe), Curcuma longa (curcumin, E zhu), Scutellaria baicalensis (Chinese skullcap or Huang qin), resveratrol and proanthocyanidin (found in grape seed extract and various Chinese herbs), Magnolia officinalis (Chinese magnolia tree, or Hou po), Camellia sinensis (green tea), Ginkgo biloba, quercetin (found in many Chinese medicinal herbs), Poria cocos (Fu ling), Zingiber officinalis (ginger), Panax ginseng, Rabdosia rubescens hora (Rabdosia, or Dong ling cao): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1891166/?tool=pmcentrez/
42. Evidence-based herbal medicine: Anticancer and antitumor effects of a common Chinese herb, Huang qin, or Scutellaria baicalensis, conducted in 2003 at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/63/14/4037
43. Anticancer and antitumor effects of a common Chinese herb, Ulmus macrocarpa or davidiana, widely used in Korean herbal medicine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18378057
44. Anticancer and antitumor effects of a common Chinese herb, Ban zhi lian, or Scutellaria barbata: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14599863
45. Anticancer and antitumor effects of a common Chinese herb, Yun Zhi, or Coriolus versicolor, commonly called turkeytail mushroom: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15183073
46. Further research into the activities that make the Chinese herb, Yun Zhi, or Coriolus versicolor, commonly called turkeytail mushroom, effective against breast cancer cells: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15908782
47. Research in Argentina in 2006 found that parthenolide in Magnolia grandiflora and Feverfew was effective in vitro in achieving dose dependant nontoxic cell death of cancerous B-cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia: http://www.209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:OdzpuJNgUvgJ:www.zsf.jcu.cz/jab/4_3/marin2.pdf
48. Research in France in 2006 found that St. Johns' Wort, or Hyperforin, was effective ex vivo in achieving dose dependant nontoxic cell death of cancerous B-cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and also inhibiting the cancer cell capacity to secrete a chemical that stimulates the cancerous creation of new blood vessels: http://www.nature.com/leu/journal/v20/n4/abs/2404134a.html
49. Research in 2008 at the University of Alabama Birmingham's Department of Comprehensive Cancer Center found that proanthocyanidins in whole grape extract prevented the malignant spread of metastatic cancer in a number of novel metabolic ways: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121369644/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
50. Research in 2010 at the National Cheng Kung University Medical College in Tainan, Taiwan, found that the herbal and nutrient chemical Pterostilbene could induce autophagy and apoptosis, or cell death, in chemoresistant bladder cancer cells: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20603834
51. Research in 2010 at Zhejiang University Medical College in Hangzhou, China, revealed that an herbal and nutrient chemical, Resveratrol, could induce apoptosis, or cell death, in bladder cancer cells as well, and decrease the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor, inhibiting angiogenesis in cancer tumors: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20028382
52. Research in the last decade has revealed many potent chemicals in herbs and foods that inhibit cancer growth and cause tumor regression in laboratory animals, and human clinical trials will follow to confirm this efficacy. Finding ways to deliver proper dosage and make these chemicals more assimilatable, as well as ways to provide the right biochemical environment to make them work more effectively in the body is another challenge that is being met in modern herbal and nutrient medicine research. To see some of the important research, sites like this at BioInfoBank Library are helpful to the evidence-based Complementary Medicine physician and the professional herbal companies that supply him with medicines: http:/lib.bioinfo.pl/meid:44645
53. Research published in Clinical Cancer Research has found that resveratrol, found in various Chinese herbs, especially Hu zhang, or polygonum cuspitadum, is effective in inhibiting growth of at least 5 cancer cells lines: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/8/3/893.full
54. Research published in the Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science, April, 2009, found that chemicals in the herb Zanthoxylum setulosum were found to cytotoxic to various cancer cell lines, including the common breast cancer cell lines of the MCF-7: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb178/is_2_80/ai_n356
55. Research published in Landes Biosciences in March of 2006 describes how chemicals in the herb Zanthoxylum piperitum (Hua Jiao) suppresses the growth of breast cancer cells and nerve sheath tumor cells by inhibiting the PAK1 and AKT kinase pathways: http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cbt/article/2404/?nocache=647617092
56. Research published in 2010 in the Journal of Chinese Integrative Medicine (Vol 8:July, 2010;7) and conducted at Fudan University in Shanghai, found that a Chinese herbal formula, Qingyi Huaji (clear the pancreas and tranform tissue accumulation) significantly reduced tumor size and inhibited inflammatory cytokines IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-alpha, which drive cancerous growth: http://www.jcimjournal.com/en/FullText2.aspx?articleID=jcim20100709
57. A 2010 article published in the Journal of Chinese Integrative Medicine by researchers at the Charles Sturt University in Australia outlines how current research demonstrates how traditional Chinese herbal formulas inhibit key inflammatory cytokines and correct dysregulated inflammatory responses to treat cancer: http://www.jcimjournal.com/en/FullText2.aspx?articleID=jcim20101101
58. Research in 2009 at the Hebei Medical University in China found that bioflavonoid chemicals in Gingko Biloba reduce cancerous tumor growth signficantly by affecting the gluathione, superoxide, lipid peroxide and catalase metabolisms of our cells, and that processes that increase the concentration of the aglycone form of these bioflavonoids dramatically increase the anticancer effects of the herbal extract. Utilizing a standardized Gingko extact in this manner may be all important to its use in cancer therapy. Professional herbalists utilize such superior products, and Gingko extracts from commercial outlets may not exert the same effects: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19288403
59. A 2010 study at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in Shenyang, China, found that a single terpene, oridonin, found in a common herb, Rabdosia rubescens (Dong ling cao), is potentially effective in the treatment of laryngeal squamous cell cancer. This herb has been widely used to treat cancers in China, especially esophageal cancer, and found to inhibit Erlich ascites cell growth, HeLa cancer cell lines, S-180 sarcoma cells, and various liver cancer cell lines, as well as hormone driven prostate cancer cells. Research has also determined a synergistic effect with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin, elevating cytotoxicity of the drug to help reduce the effective dosage or length of a course of treatment when using this common harsh chemotherapy agent. The toxicity of Rabdosia rubescens is low, with some dose-dependent nausea and diarrhea produced in a percentage of patients: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20496901
60. In 2009, U.S. researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey tested 15 terpenoids from Rabdosia rubescens for cytotoxic effects against a number of cancer cell lines, including those causing liver cancer, colon cancer, and leukemia, and found that 12 diterpenoid chemicals were modestly active cytotoxins against these cancers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19653147
61. In 2010, research at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, found that a chemical in the Chinese her Cordyceps, or Dong chong xia cao, called Cordycepin, induces programmed cell death (apoptosis) in colorectal cancer cells via upregulation of a number of regulatory proteins that control this cellular process of pro-apoptosis. It was shown here that Cordyceps can inhibit the colorectal cancer cell lines SW480 and SW620. Much research of this potent and unique merging of a fungus and plant root as an insect deteriorates on the root symbiotically, has shown that Cordyceps can induce strong antiviral and anti-inflammatory mechanisms, stimulate the immune complement system, and even reverse Diabetes. The quality and type of Cordyceps is all important, though, and it is suggested that a quality assured professional herbal product is used, from a professional herbalist. Wild Cordyceps is now very expensive, but much more potent, while certain strains of cultured Cordyceps, researched in China, are proven to have significant effects as well. Some commercially cultivated Cordyceps is proven to have little effect, though, and merely purchasing this herbal medicine in a commercial drug store or health food outlet is not guaranteed to be reliable: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20803769
62. In 2001, Japanese researchers at Ehime University School of Medicine proved that resveratrol from the Chinese herb Polygonum Cuspidatum (Hu zhang) prevents tumor growth and metastasis in lung cancer, as well as tumor induced neovascularization, or angiogenesis: http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/131/6/1844
63. A study at Soochow University in Suzhou, China, in 2011, found that the Chinese herb Bai tou weng, or Pulsatilla chinensis, exhibited significant antitumor effects in malignant liver cancer cells, accelerating apoptosis of cancer cells while preserving normal cells and not effecting leukocyte numbers. The effects noted on laboratory mice with a 19 day course markedly decreased the tumor size: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22001699
64. A study at China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing, China, in 2010, found that the Chinese herb Bai tou weng, or Pulsatilla chinensis, also exerted significant benefits when combined with a chemotherapy drug doxorubicin, improving sensitivity to the drug in multiple cancer cell lines. The active chemical was 23-hydroxybetulinic acid: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20176097
65. A 2005 article in the Oxford Journals outlined the findings of a study at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine, which discovered that a Chinese herb, Evodiae fructus (Wu zhu yu), contains an active chemical evodiamine, that proved effective in inhibition of multiple-drug resistant human breast cancer, exerting anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, and anti-metastatic mechanisms: http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/26/5/968
66. A 2005 study at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, found that the chemical honokiol in the Chinese herb Magnolia officianalis (Hou pou) bark, significantly induces cell death to drug-resistant lines of human multiple myeloma cancer cells, and actually enhances the standard chemotherapy, with bortezomib, for this deadly bone marrow cancer: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15870175
67. A study in 2005 at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, India, found that the Chinese herbs containing curcumin, Curcuma zedoaria, or E zhu, especially, may treat and prevent cervical cancer and control human papilloma virus via various biochemical processes, including a strong antioxidant effect: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15514944
68. Most potent anti-cancer herbs in Chinese medicine are anti-inflammatory. This 2010 study at the University of California San Francisco reviews the history of researched links between chronic inflammation and the cancer mechanisms: http:/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2803035/
69. A study in 2010 at the University of Madras, in India, found that zinc decreases the survival of androgen-dependant prostate cancer cells by modulating growth factors. Other studies have proven that isoflavonoids, such as genistein and daidzein, and enterolactones, induced by plant lignans found in soy and other foods and herbs, also inhibit prostate cancers. Supplements designed for prostate health with zinc and these isoflavonoids are thus a proven effective part of prostate cancer protocol: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19913001
70. An article in the New York Times Science section reveals that nearly 50,000 deaths per year are recorded from lung cancer unrelated to cigarette smoking, with a majority occurring in women and related to estrogen imbalance and receptor dysfunction, environmental air pollution, radon gas, asbestos, and hormonal imbalances related to growth factors. A more comprehensive look at treatment and prevention is being adopted, and Complementary Medicine may play a big role: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/health/13brod.html
71. A study in 2008 by the New York University School of Medicine found that lung cancer is highly associated with air pollution and particulate matter when that particulate matter, from cigarette smoke or other air pollutants, contains a high level of heavy metal toxins and aldehydes, which inhibit DNA repair as well as induce DNA damage in human lung cells in in vitro studies: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18804180
72. A 2010 review of the pathophysiology of lung cancer by the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health in Croatia suggests that the sex-specific incidence for lung cancer (lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women in the U.S., accounting for almost twice as many deaths as breast cancer) suggests other mechanisms than what are focused on (such as smoking and airborn carcinogens). Environmental chemicals that have hormonal effects, and effect hormonal receptors, which includes a large number of industrial chemicals with estrogen-like, androgen-like, anti-androgen, and estrogenic effects, apparently play a large role in the pathology of lung cancers, as well as breast and prostate cancers, but they have not been sufficiently investigated, researched, and regulated, due to economic interests and lobbying: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20805318
73. A study in 2003 at University College Dublin, in Ireland, found that many scientific studies demonstrated a link between breast cancer and a variety of thyroid disorders, increasing belief that an iodine deficiency, as well as a selenium deficiency is a potent contributor to the pathogenesis of breast cancer. Iodine and iodide are heavily stored in both breast and thyroid tissues, and exert significant antioxidant effects. In the thyroid, iodine is an integral part of thyroid hormone formation. The role of iodine in breast tissue appears to be limited to antioxidant protection. Large studies have also shown that populations with a higher iodine intake in the diet, such as Japan, have much lower incidence of breast cancer. There is some unclear evidence implicating excess iodine and iodide with supplmentation to decreased antioxidant protection, though, and professional guidance is always recommended. A small percentage of the population also has an inherited allele, with genetic predisposition, for excess iodine to trigger temporary hyperthyroid reaction, which is easily reversed with discontinuation or reduction in dosage: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12927031
74. A study in 2006 at the University of Pisa, in Italy, sought to clarify the association between autoimmune thyroid disease and breast cancer. There is a high incidence of autoimmune thyroid disease among breast cancer patients, and a positive antibody response to thyroid peroxidase (TPO) appears to be associated with better long term outcomes for breast cancer patients, creating some confusion. This study found that the theory that lymphocytic infiltration seen in autoimmune thyroiditis (the acute early stage of autoimmune thyroid disease) may play a role in the early development of breast cancer, did not prove true. A general belief among many clinical specialists is that the only common factor between the diseases is iodine deficiency, although there has been much effort on the part of the pharmaceutical industry to discourage iodine supplementation since the creation of synthetic thyroid hormone as a therapy. Before this drug was created, Lugol's iodine/potassium iodide solution was widely taken, though, without evidence of harmful effects. This economic driven debate continues to dominate the standard attitude toward iodine supplementation, though. By 2010, though, the increased use of Iodoral, without evidence of harm, or causation of autoimmune thyroiditis, has softened the harsh attitude toward this therapy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16682839

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