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September 8, 2010
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 My Recipe for Chemotherapy Success
Chemotherapy is not for the faint of heart. It’s a grueling process during which you will literally fight for your life. Before undergoing this treatment, it is nearly impossible to imagine the emotional and physical toll it will take on your body. Because of this unfortunate reality, it is imperative that you make every effort to bolster your immune system before, during, and after chemo—so that your body is in the best condition possible to endure this “treatment.”
Below are my recommendations on the best way to prepare your body for chemo, support it during treatment, and recover from the toll it takes on you. The amazing thing is that supporting your body and strengthening your immune system will not only help you to feel better during your treatment, it will also maximize the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. By strengthening your immune system, you are supporting your body in its efforts to kill the cancer cells—which makes the chemotherapy’s job a little bit easier.
Rather than let chemotherapy ravage your system, make a concerted effort to strengthen your immune system, protect your healthy cells, and support the chemotherapy in its work to eradicate cancer from your body.
The ABC’s of Cancer
Cancer isn’t something that invades you from the outside. Cancer lives inside us all, all the time. If you “get” cancer, it’s because something inside your body has changed, allowing cancerous transformations and growth to get way too comfortable. Cancer cells can remodel your body into an environment where everything’s just the way they like it—high in acid and sugar, low in oxygen and nutrients, and with a weakened immune system.
By the time cancer develops to the point of diagnosis, it may have been growing for years and may be hundreds of millions of cells strong. That’d be a challenge for even the healthiest body to combat, so the wisest policy may be to let chemotherapy do some of the heavy lifting while you focus on restoring your body to the natural, healthy state that makes cancer sit back down and behave itself. Getting chemotherapy and natural health strategies to work together for you, in other words, could be just the powerful cancer-fighting partnership you need.
Make Chemotherapy Work Better
The recommendations below are simple, easy-to-implement therapies that will give you multiple powerful benefits. Most of these are things that you’re probably already doing, only now you’ll be doing them better and with more motivation. Here are my favorite immune-boosting strategies:
- Every day, eat foods chock-full of vital nutrients and antioxidants, including dark and vividly colored (and naturally alkalinizing) organic vegetables, fruits, and legumes. Be sure to include the cruciferous family of vegetables such as broccoli, kale, turnips, cabbage, and cauliflower. They’re rich in the compound DIM (diindolylmethane), which is a direct cancer fighter. Juicing is great for delivering rich cancer-fighting phytonutrients to your body.
- If you have a hormone-dependent cancer, boost your DIM intake even further with a bio-available supplement such as BioResponse DIM (www.bioresponse.com or 877-312-5777) or Indolplex with DIM (www.phytopharmica.com or 800-376-7889). Follow package directions.
- Drink whey protein shakes between meals (or as the meal itself). Add flaxseed and balanced omega-3/-6/-9 oils to the shakes. This combination will help meet your body’s increased metabolic demands. Being well-nourished makes your chemotherapy more cancer-selective and less toxic to you. It also builds your immune competence, so your gatekeepers are sharp and strong, helping easily convert cancerous cells into debris to be flushed from your system.
- Eliminate sugars (including high-fructose corn syrup), alcohol, refined grains (like white bread), and all processed foods from your diet. Cancer’s preferred food is sugar, so starve it to make it weak and vulnerable. Plus, these foods are acidifying and nutrient-sapping, when what you need is high-quality, nutrient-dense fuel.
- Drink pure, clean water between meals (avoid drinking beverages with your meals, so that you don’t interfere with the stomach acid needed to digest food). You want to keep your body hydrated and your kidneys clean to flush waste away.
- Exercise every day. You don’t need extreme exercise, just get moving—get your circulation pumping, delivering cancer-fighting oxygen (and needed nutrients) to your tissues, further neutralizing excess acid, and reducing stress. Chemo works better in a high-oxygen environment, because the cancer is weaker.
- Boost your immune system as well as your body’s ability to heal by supplementing with the following antioxidants:
- CoQ10: 100 mg with breakfast and again with lunch. I recommend Life Extension’s patented form of CoQ10, a CoQH2 formula they call Super Bioactive CoQ10 Ubiquinol, which is available at www.lef.org or by calling 800-544-4440. (I explain why I prefer this brand in the February 2007 issue of Naturally Well Today).
- Glutathione, the “master antioxidant.” I recommend taking glutathione in a liposomal liquid formulation. One brand I particularly like is LipoCeutical Glutathione from BrainChild Nutritionals. Follow label directions.
- N-acetylcysteine: 500 mg three times daily. Jarrow Formulas (www.jarrow.com) makes a product I like called NAC.
- Vitamin E containing mixed tocopherols: 100 IU three times daily. This dosage is available from Now Foods (www.nowfoods.com).
- Melatonin: 6 mg vegetarian Melatonin 1/2 hour before bed. Natural Health International’s Herbatonin (www.naturalhi.com) is my favorite melatonin supplement. Both of the following can be found in health food stores:
- L-Carnitine: 1,000 mg three times a day, with meals.
- Vitamin C: 1,000 mg with each meal.
- Mushrooms work as a partner with standard cancer treatment. They contain polysaccharides that bind to the surface of immune cells and activate them. There are several high-quality products available, all of which are proven immune boosters. They work against everything from flu to wound infections to cancer, increasing the production and activity of several immune system elements including natural killer cells, T cells, and cytokines. They enhance the immune system’s ability to detect and respond to cancer cells, bring significantly prolonged survival and improved prognosis in patients with advanced cancer.
- AHCC (active hexose correlated compound) is a blended extract of Japanese mushrooms. It’s used in Japan to soften chemo’s side effects and improve healing and recovery from chemo. Take 2 to 6 capsules per day in divided doses. (Available from American BioSciences at www.theharmonyco.com or by calling 888-809-1241.)
- Immune-Assist from Aloha Medicinals (www.alohamedicinals.com, 877-508-1077) is my favorite. It’s the most potent, as it has more of the active ingredients. It is also grown under strict quality control and uses only organic mushrooms. Tell them you heard about it from Dr. Laux; you’ll get a 10 percent discount.
My friends, more is always better when it comes to supporting your body before, during, and after chemotherapy. You can never do too much.
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