natural remedies a miracle????

[laura v]

Hi. I just joined this group to tell of my sister's miraculous story. She was diagnosed 2 months ago with stage IV her2+ inflammatory breast cancer. The doctor said he'd do everything he could for her, and that "best case" would be 7 months of chemo (taxol) combined with herceptin, then maybe they could operate. But, he didn't give her that much hope, considering it was in her liver and lymph nodes.

She learned through a series of miraculous events that tumeric, the indian spice, has been shown to dramatically shrink cancer, to increase the effectiveness of taxol, and to flush out the liver of all toxins (including cancer). Tumeric also protects healthy cells from chemo damage. She also learned that 4 tbls. of flax seed a day ground up (grind fresh in coffee grinder and use within 15 mins.) and added to yoghurt (she makes smoothies with yoghurt and adds the flax seeds) has been shown to shrink tumors by 34% in one month. Based on this information, she added these two things to her diet.

After one month, her cancer markers went down exactly 34%. By month 2, her tumor has shrunk 50%, the spots in the liver have decreased by 60%, the cancer in her lymph nodes is completely gone.

Her doctor was astounded, and now thinks that in 8 more weeks her cancer will probably be gone and says she probably won't need any surgery. She did not tell her doctor about the flax seeds and tumeric because his nurse had already told her not to take them, even though they knew of no particular interactions. He is completely puzzled and amazed at her speedy recovery. I just feel that everyone should know that these things work!!! They have been proven scientifically, but practically no one knows about this, including the doctors.

My sister visited with a nutritionist to make sure these 2 foods would not interfere with her particular treatments. I think they're safe for most treatments, but you should check to make sure.

My sis also has had so many prayers from so many people. I really know this is a "God" thing, but God lead her to know about these two foods, and she and I want God's healing love to be able to reach out to help everyone we can reach to heal as miraculously as she is!!!

[mcgle]

Hi Laura

I was most interested to read your post. I was diagnosed with HER2 weakly positive breast cancer. They believe it was at most 1 cm (there was nothing to remove at surgery as two biopsies had taken care of it).

Interestingly, I have been taking flax seed oil regularly for a number of years now and wonder if this stopped the tumour from growing quickly. Of course, I will never know, and will continue to take it, but it does make you think.

Good luck to your sister.

Mcgle

[RhondaH]

put flax seed in my smoothie and tumeric on my salad and PRAY it keeps the cancer from coming back (my tumor was Stage 1). I hope your sister has continued good health. Take care and God bless.

Rhonda

[R.B.]

There is no question that omega three and six play a part in mediating inflamatory disease.

Please see posts on omega three and six, Greek diet etc.

Curcumin is an "COX" inhibitor of some sort.

Flax seed provides ALA the mother omega three fat.

Flax seed provides weak phyto oestrogens.

Whilst there are many trials and much argument that the above factors can assisit in inflamatory based conditions sufficiently wide trials based on blood tests tissue samples have no been done, and proabably wont be until they are funded by governments. There is no profit in the above for the drugs industry.

There is increasing interest in fats and disease in the medical profession, but we are back to the human dynamic the way the percieved knowledge changes etc.

The medical advisors you refer to might be interested in the links included in the Greek diet post which provides some of the research on the subject of omega three, six and BC.

I am always pleased for anybody who has beaten the odds.

Anybody considering significant dietary change should discuss it with their medical advisors.


RB

[Christine MH-UK]

Doctors are interested in all of this stuff, but I think that they are reluctant to try these things out because of the risk it might not pan out. However, if there is real evidence that it probably works in patients, then that greatly reduces the risk to them of putting a phase II trial in place.

For example, I heard about some doctors (I think at the Mayo Clinic) who wrote an article about some of their animal research indicating that green tea might help CML, a form of leukemia. Well, some of their patients without their knowledge jumped the gun and started drinking green tea or taking extracts. When the doctors saw that these patients were doing much better than expected, they decided to try to set up a proper clinical trial of it.

If anybody else has success with this, they should write in.

[Christine MH-UK]

I couldn't find any studies of turmeric or curcumin in women (lots in mice, as usual).

This is the flaxseed study. Perhaps your sister's doctor was surprised because flaxseed in this study was only shown to reduce tumor growth, not shrink tumors.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...arch&DB=pubmed
Department of Nutritional Sciences, Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

PURPOSE: Flaxseed, the richest source of mammalian lignan precursors, has previously been shown to reduce the growth of tumors in rats. This study examined, in a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial, the effects of dietary flaxseed on tumor biological markers and urinary lignan excretion in postmenopausal patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Patients were randomized to daily intake of either a 25 g flaxseed-containing muffin (n = 19) or a control (placebo) muffin (n = 13). At the time of diagnosis and again at definitive surgery, tumor tissue was analyzed for the rate of tumor cell proliferation (Ki-67 labeling index, primary end point), apoptosis, c-erbB2 expression, and estrogen and progesterone receptor levels. Twenty-four-hour urine samples were analyzed for lignans, and 3-day diet records were evaluated for macronutrient and caloric intake. Mean treatment times were 39 and 32 days in the placebo and flaxseed groups, respectively. RESULTS: Reductions in Ki-67 labeling index (34.2%; P = 0.001) and in c-erbB2 expression (71.0%; P = 0.003) and an increase in apoptosis (30.7%; P = 0.007) were observed in the flaxseed, but not in the placebo group. No significant differences in caloric and macronutrient intake were seen between groups and between pre- and posttreatment periods. A significant increase in mean urinary lignan excretion was observed in the flaxseed group (1,300%; P < 0.01) compared with placebo controls. The total intake of flaxseed was correlated with changes in c-erbB2 score (r = -0.373; P = 0.036) and apoptotic index (r = 0.495; P < 0.004). CONCLUSION: Dietary flaxseed has the potential to reduce tumor growth in patients with breast cancer.

PMID: 15897583 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[mcgle]

Fascinating stuff, Christine.

Might print it out for my onc here in the UK. I think it does both them and us good to know that we are being proactive in the treatment of our disease.

Hope you're as well as you can be.

Mcgle

while I believe that supplements can be beneficial and take quite a few myself, I believe that there is no way to know if these supplements helped her or if she just responded to the chemo really well.

I have seen a few posts where someone had adjuvant chemo and the tumor completely disappeared. There are women here who are stage 4 and are ned, is it because of their supplements or their chemo?

I have trouble attributing "miracle status" to these foods/supplements when it is not known if they truly helped her or if it was the chemo.

Laurie

[MJo]

Maybe it was a miracle for your sister, but I would hate to see desperate women turn down chemo aor rads and count on natural remedies for a miracle.

[Christine MH-UK]

Doh! Sorry, must be the herceptin brain thing. For some reason I thought that the turmeric and flaxseed had been instead of the taxol/herceptin. It could very well be the conventional treatment. Sometimes the conventional treatments work really well. I know someone with IBC who had a total response from just one round of FEC75, which is much weaker than the FECs they use now.

I know that there are concerns about combining turmeric and anthracyclines.

And I do worry about her2-positive patients who reject the standard treatment for their primary, treatable cancer. With recent studies showing that FEC halves the risk of recurrence over an older chemo and herceptin at least halving recurrence versus just FEC, the odds are that her2 positive cancer patients benefit from standard treatment.

[R.B.]

Risk reduction strategies.

Both "drug" treatments and risk reduction through diet have their place.

There are a significant number of trials (some of which I have posted on this site) that suggest very high levels of synergies between particular dietary factors in particular omega three (that is a part of my own wanders) and particular treatment regimes.

Fats are deemed of sufficient interest for a number of trials to be in process looking at DHA with various agents including low level COX as part of a "chemo" treatment.

When you start reading in depth you quickly come to realise how much inflence dietary factors have including the ability to alter the way we "express" our genes (if it were a receipe genes would be ingredients - it would be the quantity of ingedients available to you that you use to bake a perticular type of cake and depending how you use the ingedients you can get a huge variety of tastes textures etc), which genes can have very substantial impact in the body.

A very very great deal is still unknown on the impact of diet and drugs.

It is important to realise both the power of diet as a long term preventative, and the need for drugs to try and shock things back into shape, BUT it is important to ensure that we dont loose sight of trying to find out why we are seeing these dreadful increase in a range of "auto immune / inflamatory related" diseases at the expense of concentrating on the new and sexy and human constant weakness trough the ages to think this cure is it based on then perpective and knowledge - from mercury, aresenic, radium to restore male virility interferon... in retrospect they may all have a relevance but are not the ultimate answer.

Do not misunderstand me I amazed at what has been acheived, the huge mass of effort and work that is going on, the increases in terms of knowledge and treatments, and particularly of conditions caused by external agents, but everyday become aware how complex it all, is how interrelated, and how much we equally do not know particularly about the long term be that diet or drugs. Every day or so one is seeing new reports of long term consequences of diet and drugs.

There is no question diet is linked to health.

There is no question that medical advances have been of huge benifit.

RB

[julierene]

I hate to be rude, but things like this annoy me to no end because the poster has inadvertantly put so much emphasis on the alternative, that they seem to be claiming that these two natural ingredients have done all this miraculous work, rather than the wonderul chemo combination! This is one of the reasons I look at alternatives with a VERY skeptical eye.

My HER2 positive er/pr- very aggressive cancer was COMPLETELY disappeared from my liver, which had 3 lesions in it - after only 3 months. I didn't take flax seed and turmeric, it was the cisplatin/taxol/herceptin! It's a winning combination. As a matter a fact, one liver lesion came back after only being off of the combo for 3 months. It's a terrible thing. But the chemo treatment works. I have tried all the balancing act with my diet, and it just makes me mad that NONE of it works for me. I could give you my cancer history story, but it's too long, and none of it matters anyway, cause I have learned the hard way that the diet balancing act doesn't work for me.

I absolutely have a genetic issue. I have been told by one of the top specialists at St. Jude's that the gene problem can not be fixed yet. Until they can, I am at the mercy of my genetic faults.

It's almost like trying to tell people they can cure a person of Down's Syndrome if they just eat right.

[chrisy]

Laura,
I'm glad to hear your sister is doing so well and hope she continues to do great! You didn't say, but I assume that your sister is getting the chemo Taxol/Herceptin? This is a really powerful combo and, for me, delivered great results. So that was a good start in itself - my oncologist was certainly delighted, but not "astounded" when I had similar results.
It's tough for doctors to communicate a serious prognosis without sucking all the hope out of the patient. In your sister's case, how could the doctor put a time limit on it before she even began treatment??? In fact, women are living longer with such diagnoses and if things go well and you respond to treatment, you can increase survival by "a lot" over the statistics. Most stats do not even reflect the effect of newer, target treatments such as Herceptin.
That said, I also believe that the HEAVY dose of prayers has a lot to do with my response. Also, there is a lot of strong data on curcumin and Omega-3 fats, flaxseed, and other natural compounds, showing strong anticancer properties, so I do use these supplements and include such foods in my diet, hoping that these, along with Herceptin, will keep the beast at bay!
Thanks for your post, and I hope your sister continues to "astound" her doctor!

[heblaj01]

I do not know if curcumin is effective for breast cancer since only a few anecdotic cases have been reported.
One problem is poor absorption even when combined with Bioperine (an extract of black pepper) & short half life (about 2 to 4 hours).

Dissolving curcumin in fat or oil may improve absorption.

I am aware of one case of a women who was advise by Dr Bharat Aggarwal of MD Anderson to take 5g of curcumin three times a day.

He is one of the main researchers on curcumin.

MD Anderson has also undertaken the only trial on humans I am aware of for pancreatic cancer:



http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00094445?order=2

Trial of Curcumin in Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

This study is currently recruiting patients.

Verified by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center June 2006

Study start: November 2004; Expected completion: June 2007

Last follow-up: June 2007; Data entry closure: June 2007

[R.B.]

I think it is important to keep things in perspective.

Cancer of all sorts involves many pathways.

A great deal is not know.

Some agents like fats work at very fundmental levels.

Curcumin is reported to be an anti inflamatory (COX blocker). Like many food it may have multiple effects.

COX 2 pathways are reported to have a role in cancer. The COX pathways are very complex and what are are often commonly referred to as COX blockers may and do work on different areas within that frame work.

A number of studies are looking at low level cox blockers as part of a risk reduction treatement strategy.

BUT it is equally important to look at those things in our diet that were around a very long time before plant and date back to the veyr begining such as intake of fats and sugars (see posts on omega three sixes and sucrose) as well as the more commonly discussed topics.

From everthing I have read our departure from our dietary roots in very large margins in tems of fat intake amount and balance, refined sugars particularly fructose, along with other often cited factors are magors factors to be considered in terms of a risl reductio strategy.

This is an abstract from an exellent article which I recommend as a read.

Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century1,2
Loren Cordain, S Boyd Eaton, Anthony Sebastian, Neil Mann, Staffan Lindeberg, Bruce A Watkins, James H O’Keefe and Janette Brand-Miller

"In the United States and most Western countries, diet-related chronic diseases represent the single largest cause of morbidity and mortality. These diseases are epidemic in contemporary Westernized populations and typically afflict 50–65% of the adult population, yet they are rare or nonexistent in hunter-gatherers and other less Westernized people. Although both scientists and lay people alike may frequently identify a single dietary element as the cause of chronic disease (eg, saturated fat causes heart disease and salt causes high blood pressure), evidence gleaned over the past 3 decades now indicates that virtually all so-called diseases of civilization have multifactorial dietary elements that underlie their etiology, along with other environmental agents and genetic susceptibility. Coronary heart disease, for instance, does not arise simply from excessive saturated fat in the diet but rather from a complex interaction of multiple nutritional factors directly linked to the excessive consumption of novel Neolithic and Industrial era foods (dairy products, cereals, refined cereals, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils, fatty meats, salt, and combinations of these foods). These foods, in turn, adversely influence proximate nutritional factors, which universally underlie or exacerbate virtually all chronic diseases of civilization: 1) glycemic load, 2) fatty acid composition, 3) macronutrient composition, 4) micronutrient density, 5) acid-base balance, 6) sodium-potassium ratio, and 7) fiber content. However, the ultimate factor underlying diseases of civilization is the collision of our ancient genome with the new conditions of life in affluent nations, including the nutritional qualities of recently introduced foods."


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract