All in a Day's Work

By Marcia Prenguber ND, FABNO


Photo by fmc.nikon.d40 via Flickr, under the Creative Commons license.

All in a day’s work – a day of repeated inspiration. The challenge is how to record the events of the day, to savor the beauty, to reflect on the challenges, and process the losses. Starting the day with an early morning meeting referred to as Breast Clinic, the team of providers (pathologists, radiologists, mind-body counselors, naturopathic residents, medical, surgical, radiation, and naturopathic oncologists) sit in a darkened room to view scans and path slides. The details of the diagnoses of patients with newly diagnosed or recurrent cancers of the breast are presented, reviewing the pathologic nature of cells projected more than 200-fold on the screen in some ways give us a more real view of the enormity that these cancer cells play on an individual’s life. The stains that color these larger than life cells cast them in a friendly hue, but the meaning that those stains convey is not so good natured. I’ll admit, at first glance, this environment may not appear very inspirational. However…

The intensity of thought and depth of care that is evident during the discussion of the PET/CT scans, the path slides, and the Breast Surgeon’s review of each patient’s story as told to her by the patient is inspirational. The focus on the significance of each assessment, the conflicting information, the challenge to weigh the details appropriately make it very interesting, but inspirational? The details of each patient’s efforts to cope with the circumstances of the changes in their lives since the diagnoses, their lifestyle habits and all the rest of the information gathered by each of us in the time spent with the patients contribute to our understanding of the patients and fuels the fires of inspiration. Knowing these details about their lives gives us pause to reflect on what we do with our own moments in time. These patients inspire us to pay attention, to focus on the details, to bring to them the best that we can be, in whatever discipline we represent.

As a naturopathic physician, all of those details that patients bring to the cancer center matter to me. I look at this as winning the big prize – I get to use all that information in developing my treatment plan. And then to put icing on the cake, I get to spend time exploring these pieces of information with the patient – and just getting to know the patient. The most significant source of inspiration comes from learning who each patient is and how each one of them is dealing with this new challenge. What strategies do they each use? When and why do they choose not to know more? How do they deal with pressure from family and friends to try everything under the sun to try to treat the cancer? That these patients share this is such a privilege. Their courage, their strength, and their vulnerability inspire me. And makes me look a little deeper.

So, as the sun starts to come up in a spectacular sunrise and the morning meeting comes to a close, I am reminded that it is the start of another gorgeous day that I have the good fortune to go spend time with those patients. And to do so as a naturopathic oncologist – what a fabulous profession.

A Comedy of Foxes

By Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO

Photo by Ciaran McGuiggan via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.

Every so often a fox pokes his head from a storm sewer opening just a few blocks west of our home on the corner of Dahlia and 22nd Street. I doubt he lives there but instead suspect he uses the city's storm drains as an underground passage way, a fox-style subway system. Early one morning last winter, a good hour before dawn, I saw him emerge and trot down the sidewalk south toward Montview Boulevard. Rather, I should say, we saw him emerge as, our dog Poppy has generally been with me for these various sightings. Suffice to say that our usually mellow dog is now obsessed with this storm drain opening, and has to sniff at it every time we pass by on our morning and evening walks on the off chance that the fox might be there.

I am contemplating my dog's habit of 'looking for the fox' as I think about my own habit of late: talking to my patients about Hirojme Kimata’s study published last June. Something about the implications of this paper keep drawing my mind back to it for another sniff whenever the opportunity presents itself.

This particular paper is one in a series of studies that Kimata has conducted and published over the last year on the effects of watching humorous movies on health, typically on allergic sensitivity. He has shown that viewing humorous movies has beneficial effects on a wide range of physiologic reactions, ranging from asthma and eczema to testosterone levels and erectile dysfunction. This June’s study is the most intriguing one to date.

This study looked at the effect of watching humorous movies on the polyamine levels found in stool samples of 24 patients with atopic dermatitis. Polyamines are fermentation products of particular bacteria that live in the human gut. In general these chemicals are considered undesirable, actually carcinogenic and potentially toxic. This past summer, French researchers reported that lowering polyamine levels in men with advanced prostate cancer significantly slowed disease progression.

It has always been considered difficult to change polyamine production in the gut. To do so requires changing the ambient bacterial flora living in the intestines, a process that involves eradicating unwanted bacteria and then encouraging desirable bacteria to colonize the area. This takes time to make happen, periods of time measured in weeks and months... or at least that is what we thought.

Kimata reported that having the patients in his experiment watch a humorous movie for an hour a day for a week was enough to make significant changes in the intestinal bacterial flora of his subjects and significantly lower polyamine levels in their stools.

There may be some of our readers who do not appreciate just how significant this is. Just by changing the moods of these people for a few minutes a day was enough to change a significant risk factor, polyamine production, for cancer development and progression.

Our patients put so much effort into eating healthy diets and taking the right supplements and exercising with the appropriate frequency and intensity... and in the end the greatest influence may simply be their moods. A little laughter may have greater impact on their health than what they eat or take.

It's this thought that I keep coming back to for another sniff. If this is true, why do we put so much emphasis on eating right or swallowing the right pills? Well, because these things help. But maybe they don’t help nearly as much as having a good laugh.

Over the years we've watched cancer support groups come in and out of vogue. In some studies, they seem to be useful in prolonging survival statistics. In other studies, no benefit is measured. Could the variance in benefit have little to do with deep emotional processing, but simply the character of the various groups? Groups that encouraged good humor and in which members wasted meeting time telling jokes might have been the ones whose members benefited the most. Those groups that spent their time in serious and weighty discussions, whose members were too serious to crack a joke, could those be the groups that did little to prolong the lives of their members?

Or circling back again for another sniff at this study, could those people who we typically diagnose with dysbiosis simply have an undeveloped sense of humor? That if they were to laugh more often and harder, might find their gastrointestinal flora rebalanced and then find themselves cured?

Once one starts wondering about things like this, it's hard to stop. How much of our lives are spent in serious endeavors versus comedic interludes? It's hard to let these questions drop and get this blog thing written. It's like my dog. Once she gets a sniff of that fox, even if it's only a distant memory from last winter, she can't let go of the idea. Nor can I let go of this newest Kimata study.

It may be that something as simple and natural as laughter may be key to improving the health of many of our patients.

Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2010 Jun;22(6):724-8.

Modulation of fecal polyamines by viewing humorous films in patients with atopic dermatitis.

Kimata H.

Department of Allergy, Moriguchi-Keijinkai Hospital, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. kimata-keijinkai@mkc.zaq.ne.jp

Abstract

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Alteration of intestinal flora was involved in the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis. Patients with atopic dermatitis were less colonized with Lactobacilli or Bifidobacterium, whereas they were more colonized with Staphylococcus aureus or Enterobacteria. Consequently, fecal levels of bacterial metabolite (polyamines) were reduced. In contrast, stress also induced intestinal mucosal dysfunction against bacteria and impaired intestinal barrier function. We studied the effect of relaxation by viewing humorous films on fecal flora and fecal levels of polyamines.

METHODS: Twenty-four healthy individuals and 24 patients with atopic dermatitis either viewed seven control nonhumorous films or seven humorous films sequentially for 7 days. Before and after viewing, feces were obtained, and fecal flora and fecal levels of polyamines were assessed.

RESULTS: Neither viewing humorous films nor viewing control nonhumorous films had any effect on healthy individuals. In contrast, viewing humorous films (i) increased colonization with lactobacilli and bifidobacterium, (ii) decreased colonization with S. aureus and Enterobacteria, and (iii) increased fecal levels of polyamines; whereas viewing control nonhumorous films failed to do so in patients with atopic dermatitis.

CONCLUSION: Viewing humorous films may modulate fecal levels of polyamines by restoring intestinal flora in atopic dermatitis.

PMID: 19543102

Order Matters

By Jacob Schor, ND

Photo by Kanko* via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.

If order matters, what comes first?

The implications of a study published way back in February in Clinical Cancer Research have been stewing around in the back of my mind. It’s one of a growing cascade of studies in which researchers at fairly mainstream medical institutions reveal that they’ve been playing with stuff that’s standard fare on a naturopathic doctor’s dispensary shelves.

In this instance we are talking about researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota playing with various combinations of curcumin, an extract of turmeric and green tea, and seeing how they affect lymphocytic leukemia cells.

As much as we still occasionally hear and read the myopic criticisms of our profession that claim our therapies are not backed by research, this study is just one of many. A PubMed search just now of the National Library of Medicine’s published scientific literature on curcumin and cancer yields a list of 1,265 articles. A search on green tea and cancer yields 1,338 published papers in the peer reviewed journals.

This particular study was similar to many others; cancer cells were grown in a laboratory, exposed to the ‘natural’ ingredient, and the degree to which growth was slowed down or that cancer cells were inspired to drop dead was measured. In this particular experiment, chronic lymphocytic leukemia B cells were the targets. Nothing unique about this setup.

And no surprise that the curcumin was found potentially useful. Here let me quote from the results in the abstract and then translate the interesting parts:

“Curcumin induced apoptosis in CLL B cells in a dose-dependent (5-20 micromol/L) manner ...”

‘Apoptosis’ is when a cell decides life isn’t worth living and self-destructs. Curcumin convinces these leukemia cells to commit suicide. The more curcumin added to the cells, the more died.

“Coculture of CLL B cells with stromal cells … decreased sensitivity to curcumin.”

Adding some other cells, stromal cells, into the mix decreased the curcumin effect; fewer cancer cells died.

“When curcumin was administered simultaneously with EGCG [green tea], antagonism was observed for most patient samples.”

Adding green tea extracts along with curcumin to the mix of leukemia and stromal cells caused, what these scientists called ‘antagonism.’ That’s an odd term and you need to view the full text article to get an idea of what they mean by antagonism. Put simply, the combination of the two natural substances, green tea and curcumin, didn’t work as well as predicted: “… simultaneous culture had a less than additive effect.” That is if you measure the anti-cancer effect of each substance separately, you can add the two ‘effects’ together to predict what should happen when both are used simultaneously. It turns out they don’t work as well as predicted; they antagonize each other.

“In contrast, sequential administration of these agents led to substantial increases in CLL B-cell death ...”

When instead of adding both curcumin and green tea to the culture at the same time, the cells are instead exposed to one agent and then the other, the story changes completely. They tried treating the cells first with curcumin followed by green tea, and vice versa. To quote the authors, “… sequential administration led to dramatically more leukemic cell death than simultaneous administration.”

Not only did exposing the cancer cells to these substances one at a time matter, but order mattered as well. Green tea first, followed by curcumin, worked much better than if the cells were exposed to curcumin first.

Think about the implications this brings to our practices. Sequential administration of treatments may work better than simultaneous treatments. Order matters. In this case green tea works better first.

Typically in practice we pile a bunch of different substances into a patient’s blood stream on the assumption that each has a specific action and these effects will add together. This reminds me of those combination locks that have four or five parallel numbered rings and to open the lock. You line up a number on each ring, get all the right numbers in a row at the same time, and the lock opens.

This leukemia study makes that image obsolete. If sequence matters, just knowing the combination is no longer enough. This is more like the dial lock on a safe. Sequence is essential. Three turns to the left and stop on the right number, then turn the dial to the right past your first number and stop on another specific number. And so on…

Think about this: our cancer patients often take a long list of supplements. This study suggests that, at least in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, we should start them on green tea for a period of time and then switch to curcumin. What if it is a similar story with quercetin, resveratrol, sulforaphane, vitamin D, melatonin and so on? What if there is a ‘best sequence’ for all of these? What if that combination were to vary by cancer? By patient? Or even by dose?

This is worth stewing about. It makes me think of certain patients who tell me they vary what supplements they take day-to-day based the way a pendulum held in their hand swings. Though this sounds less than ideal, it can’t work any worse than flipping a coin to decide on a sequence, which for the time being may still be of some utility.

Now that this study has been published, we shouldn’t be surprised to see other studies up asking this question: “If order matters, what comes first?”

Ghosh AK, Kay NE, Secreto CR, Shanafelt TD. Curcumin inhibits prosurvival pathways in chronic lymphocytic leukemia B cells and may overcome their stromal protection in combination with EGCG. Clin Cancer Res. 2009 Feb 15;15(4):1250-8.

Will Asparagus Cure Cancer?

By Jacob Schor ND, FABNO

Photo by La Grande Farmers' Market via Flickr, used under the Creative Commons License.

If you have cancer, you have likely read that asparagus will cure it. A letter gone viral online claims this. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s only a matter of time until a copy is forwarded to you by some well-meaning friend or relative.

Those of us who specialize in naturopathic oncology hear about this asparagus business often from our patients, many of who assume the information is true. It’s not.

There is no reason to believe that asparagus will cure cancer. It may actually make a few cancers worse.

Here is what we do know about these claims:

The “Asparagus Cure for Cancer” first appeared in print in the February 1974 issue of Prevention magazine. A second, similar article was printed in the December 1979 issue of Cancer News Journal, a magazine once distributed in health food stores. Both articles claim that a dentist named Richard R. Vensal discovered that eating asparagus could cure cancer.

According to the letter, a cure can be achieved by consuming four tablespoons of pureed cooked asparagus twice a day. Improvement is supposedly seen in two to four weeks.

Unfortunately there is little reason why we should believe this information. Richard Vensal never had anything published to substantiate this claim.

There is one study from 2009 that suggests asparagus has an anti-cancer effect. Chinese researchers reported that a chemical, which they named asparanen A, showed an anticancer effect when added to liver cancer cells.ⁱ

No studies describe the results of feeding asparagus to animals with cancer. Nor are there any published clinical trials on giving asparagus to human cancer patients.

It is certainly widely understood that diets high in vegetables are anticancer. Yet no evidence singles out asparagus in particular, suggesting it has an anticancer effect. There may be some health benefits from eating asparagus because it is a vegetable, but there is little reason to think that asparaguses are special.

In contrast there is substantial information on the anticancer effect of other vegetables. For example, a current search of the National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine, lists 597 published articles related to the anticancer effect of broccoli.ⁱⁱ A search for published papers on garlic and cancer yields 648 references.ⁱⁱⁱ

There are only two clinical trials involving asparagus and humans. One paper published in 2009 describes a study in which patients with high blood pressure took a combination of parsley and asparagus extracts in the hope that their blood pressure would go down. Unfortunately, no effect was seen.^iv An earlier study published in 2008, reported that a combination of asparagus and elderberry extracts helped patients lose weight.^v Losing weight is not curing cancer.

While there is little reason to think that asparagus will cure cancer, there is good reason to think that asparagus may make some cancers, in particular acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), worse.

There is a long established link between asparagus and leukemia. In 1953, John Kidd discovered that blood serum taken from healthy guinea pigs, if injected into mice, killed leukemia cancer cells.^vi It wasn’t until ten years later that John Broome explained why. Guinea pig blood contains an enzyme called l-asparaginase, which breaks down the amino acid l-asparagine. Healthy cells make l-asparagine, but certain leukemia cells do not. These leukemia cells must rely on nearby healthy cells to supply them with l-asparagine. The enzyme in the guinea pig blood breaks down the needed l-asparagine depriving the cancer cells of this chemical that they need to grow.^vii

L-asparaginase enzyme is sold as a drug (Elspar) and is now part of the standard protocol used to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Taking the drug decreases l-asparagine and starves the cancer cells. Most types of cancer do make l-asparagine, so Elspar is only useful in treating a few specific cancer types.

As the names hints, asparagus contain l-asparagine. Eating asparagus would seem ill advised for people who have cancers that respond to l-asparaginase. This enzyme may be useful in treating lymphoma and multiple myeloma.^{viii ix} Eating asparagus may make all of these cancers grow faster, most especially ALL.

People diagnosed with cancer are often desperate to do everything in their power to fight the disease. They grasp onto every story and rumor about anything that might possibly help them. The myth that asparagus cures cancer is a good example. Eating daily doses of asparagus will not cure anyone. Some of these people may actually worsen their situation.

A wiser course of action than believing everything you read online would be to consult a medical practitioner who specializes in naturopathic oncology. There is ample knowledge and evidence that dietary changes and specific foods and supplements may be useful in fighting cancer. It makes sense to base these diet and food choices on evidence and knowledge rather than web-based ‘urban myths.’ When you need specialized knowledge go to a specialist.

The Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians (OncANP), an affiliate of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, lists naturopathic doctors who specialize in caring for cancer patients on their website: www.oncanp.org

This group tests and provides board certification in naturopathic oncology to those members who meet specified standards of education and experience.

If naturopathic physicians are specialists in natural medicine then OncANP members are specialists in using natural medicine in an oncology setting.

---

ⁱ Liu W, Huang XF, Qi Q, Dai QS, Yang L, Nie FF, Lu N, et al. Asparanin A induces G(2)/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2009 Apr 17;381(4):700-5.


ⁱⁱ To search yourself, go to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=broccoli%20and%20cancer


ⁱⁱⁱ To search yourself, go to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=garlic%20and%20cancer


^iv Chrubasik S, Droste C, Black A. Asparagus P(R) cannot compete with first-line diuretics in lowering the blood pressure in treatment-requiring antihypertensives. Phytother Res. 2009 Sep;23(9):1345-6.


^v Chrubasik C, Maier T, Dawid C, Torda T, Schieber A, Hofmann T, Chrubasik S. An observational study and quantification of the actives in a supplement with Sambucus nigra and Asparagus officinalis used for weight reduction. Phytother Res. 2008 Jul;22(7):913-8.


^vi H. D. Moon Presentation of the Gold Headed Cane to John G. Kidd. February 24, 1973. Am J Pathol. 1973 October; 73(1): 1–6. PMCID: PMC1904051
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1904051/pdf/amjpathol00248-0005.pdf


^vii Broome JD. Evidence that the L-asparaginase of guinea pig serum is responsible for its antilymphoma effects. I. Properties of the L-asparaginase of guinea pig serum in relation to those of the antilymphoma substance. J Exp Med. 1963 Jul;118:99-120.


^vii Jaccard A, Gachard N, Marin B, Rogez S, Audrain M, Suarez F, et al. Efficacy of L-asparaginase with methotrexate and dexamethasone (AspaMetDex regimen) in patients with refractory or relapsing extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, a phase 2 study. Blood. 2011 Feb 10;117(6):1834-9. Epub 2010 Dec 1.


^ix Taylor CW, Dorr RT, Fanta P, Hersh EM, Salmon SE. A phase I and pharmacodynamic evaluation of polyethylene glycol-conjugated L-asparaginase in patients with advanced solid tumors. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2001;47(1):83-8.

The Invisible Inflammation: Leaky Gut and a Possible Connection to Hot Flashes

Written by Holly Lucille, ND, RN
Chair of Public Education and Media Outreach Committee

We had a saying in Naturopathic Medical School that stated, “if you want to heal a person, heal the gut." It's fitting that I have written about digestive issues like intestinal permeability or “leaky gut syndrome” and all of its complications at various times in the past decade and the time has come again.

Intestinal permeability describes a cascade of symptoms and disorders that stem from small intestine’s semi-permeable membrane becoming excessively permeable for a variety of reasons, allowing infiltration of microbial and metabolic toxins (as well as undigested food) into the bloodstream. The symptoms and disorders include fatigue, immune deficiency, food allergies, asthma and eczema. Intestinal permeability may also be a contributor to other modern illnesses such as insulin resistance, obesity, neurotransmitter disorders, autoimmune disorders and cancer. In fact, it may account for 50 percent of chronic illness.

One symptom that I have not linked to intestinal permeability in the past, which has been getting my attention lately, is the vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats, an overlooked aspect of inflammation. Here's the story as I see it: Intestinal permeability stimulates a classic hypersensitivity response to the undigested foods and to components of the normal gut flora that are “leaked” into the bloodstream. This creates a “non-specific” activation of inflammatory pathways through inflammatory mediators. TNF Alpha, produced mainly by macrophages mediates acute inflammation, by helping to stimulate inflammation in the endothelial tissue cells; it also helps WBC migrate into the tissue space and helps macrophages secrete IL1 and PGE2. This is all a part of the body’s response to inflammation. Another function of inflammation is something called, “diapedesis”. This is the passage of blood cells through the intact wall of the capillaries and it accompanies an inflammatory reaction. It is basically vasodilatation!

Sure, it is helpful for women to avoid spicy foods, alcohol, dairy products and sugar when experiencing the vasomotor symptoms but I have been getting fantastic results by going back to core of my curriculum and “healing the hole”!

Holiday Cheer in Trying Times

By Lise Alschuler, ND, FABNO
AANP Past-President (2008-2009)

Photo by CCAC North Library via Flickr, used
under the Creative Commons License.

‘Tis the season to be jolly! … A whole season to be full of joy, conviviality, glee and laughter.  I reflect on that as I think about two patients. One is an extremely vivacious, fast-talking, go-and-get-‘em young woman diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She concluded integrative therapy early this Fall. She felt great and her motivation to continue to live healthfully was strong. She even took her mile-a-minute self into a Tai Chi class and is learning to love the peaceful gracefulness of this exercise. And then, a follow-up scan just before Thanksgiving found several new tumors in her liver.  Just after Thanksgiving, she began a new round of chemotherapy. She understands that her that her prognosis is guarded and yet, her jolliness has not diminished in the least. She ends every email with a salutation of love and gratitude. She wishes her providers good health and happy Holidays. Her sense of exuberance in daily living continues to reverberate in her being.

The other patient is a woman that I have had the honor of providing naturopathic care to for the past 2 years.  She was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer with an inflammatory breast cancer component. This is an ominous diagnosis, to say the least. Over the past two years, she has had sequential chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy. She has also maintained a comprehensive regimen of diet, exercise and supplements. She has exemplified health and radiance throughout her treatments, amazing all of her care providers. In September, she was without evidence of disease. Then, the week after Thanksgiving, a follow-up evaluation revealed metastasis in her bones and more inflammatory breast cancer. Upon hearing what, for most people, would be a devastating blow, she absorbed the news and, as she put it, “picked up the shattered pieces of myself and got right back into the saddle.”  She too, continues to shower her care providers with gratitude and well-wishes. She understands the seriousness of her situation and, at the same time, has managed to focus on the opportunities, the hope and the love around her.

For me, these two courageous women personify the true meaning of holiday cheer. They have taken being joyful and jolly to a whole new level. They are giving life a big bear hug and are squeezing every drop of its vitality into their attitude, communications, actions and ultimately, into the lives of those around them.  So, in the spirit of the season, and with deep love and admiration, I thank them for their splendor. 

Here's An Easy Tip For Curing Cancer

By Shiva Barton, ND, LAc
2011 AANP Physician of the Year

Photo by esmtll via Flickr, used
under the Creative Commons License.

So now that I have your attention, you hopefully know that there are no natural cures that have been researched well enough to state that they can cure cancer of any kind. Yes, isn't it interesting that there are no known natural cures for ANY TYPE OF CANCER! Is this because there is nothing out there that works or because the scientific/medical community hasn't put the resources into finding the cure? I don't know the answer to that. Time will tell.

However, there are definitely things that you can do to improve the outcomes and help the survival of cancer patients. I am focusing on one of those treatments, below. If you are like me, you probably see many patients who have cancer. Some of you choose to treat people with cancer and some of you don't. I encourage all of you to treat these patients because there is so much that we can do to help these patients have better outcomes. Sometimes EXTREMELY better outcomes. That is what I want to share with you now.

As you may know, (if you have attended any recent Clinical Anecdotes sessions that I have moderated at either the AANP or NHAND conferences) I am very interested in periodic fasting for health improvement. I am particularly interested in periodic fasting to improve outcomes of patients who are undergoing cancer treatments, specifically chemotherapy. There is emerging research that doing alternate day fasting or a pre-fast before chemo enhances the effectiveness of the chemo while protecting the normal cells and reducing the side effects. This is what I have been doing with my last few cancer patients with great success. Here's an example with my latest case:

A 50 year old man came to see me 2 weeks after being diagnosed with stage 4 duodenal carcinoma that had spread to the liver. Prognosis for survival was 2 months (Christmas 2011). He was scheduled for 4 rounds of chemo (once every 2 weeks) which would have taken him to his drop dead date. Clearly, his oncologist didn't have much hope but thought something should be done. The patient had one chemo treatment before seeing me. After learning what chemo he was getting I suggested some of the supplements recommended in Lise Alshuler's book, The Definitive Guide to Cancer. (This is an indispensable book and I strongly urge you to get a copy.) In addition, I recommended that he fast for 24 hours, starting from 24 hours before the end of his chemo the following day. To clarify, his chemo infusion ends on Friday at 2pm. I recommended that he fast from Thursday at 2pm until Friday at 2pm. In addition, I recommended that he fast daily from after dinner until noon the next day.

So, here is what happened. A PET scan was taken at the 6 week mark. The tumors had shrunk "significantly" (30 -50%). The oncologist was stunned (said they never see that kind of result), the patient was happy (doh!), and I was inspired to write about it in this blog. Now, I can't say for certain that it was the fasting that had the biggest part in the response. But it is a potentially powerful tool that is non-toxic, inexpensive, "easy" to do and mimics our natural prehistoric seasonal cycle of times of plenty (building cells) and times of famine (breaking down cells). Sounds uniquely naturopathic to me and it could save many lives. That’s why I am encouraging all of you to treat patients with cancer and to use this treatment to improve their outcomes of their chemotherapy. It could help to change lives.