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Chemo For Breast Cancer? You Better Take these Antioxidants

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Breast Cancer Patients, Consider My Mantra “If I Knew Then What I Know Now” Integrative Therapy to Enhance Chemo While Reducing Toxicity 

For breast cancer patients the more chemo and radiation you undergo the more side effects you will experience. Doxorubicin in particular is known to damage the heart of those who undergo this chemo. There is no known conventional therapy to prevent this heart damage.

Image result for photo of breast cancer

The study below documents the ability to resveratrol, curcumin and EEAC to

1) moderate or eliminate the damage to your heart from Doxorubicin adminitration

2) enhance the efficacy of dox

3) reduce dox toxicity (reduce Dox-induced ROS)

The sooner you, the breast cancer patient, begins his/her antioxidant supplementation, the sooner you will experience the above effects. Moderate exercise, eat as nutritiously as possible and practice those mind-body therapies as you are familiar with such as praying, meditation, yoga, etc.

I am both a cancer survivor and cancer coach. Scroll down the page, post a question or a comment and I will reply to you ASAP.

Thanks

David Emerson

  • Cancer Survivor
  • Cancer Coach
  • Director PeopleBeatingCancer

Efficacy of Antioxidants as a Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Combination With the Chemotherapeutic Agent Doxorubicin

“Introduction. Although doxorubicin (Dox)-induced cardiac toxicity and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD)–induced hand-foot syndrome (HFS) were reported to be correlated with reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, there is no effective preventive treatment at present. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether antioxidants—resveratrol (RSVL), tetrahydroxystilbene glucoside (THSG), curcumin, and the ethanolic extract of Antrodia cinnamomea (EEAC)—have the ability to reduce Dox-induced ROS and have a synergistic anticancer effect with Dox that could prevent those side effects and enhance the efficacy of cancer treatment…

Results. Pretreatment of cells with RSVL, curcumin, and EEAC increased the cell antioxidant ability by improving the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), prevented or limited intracellular damage, and ameliorated the harmful effects of ROS. Additionally, RSVL, curcumin, and EEAC had synergistic effects with Dox against MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Conclusion. RSVL, curcumin, and EEAC have the potential to be clinically applied to prevent cardiac toxicity and HFS and enhance the anticancer efficiency of Dox.”


The Most BioAvailable Curcumin Formulas

“Based on a review of these studies, it is evident that better bioavailability of formulated curcumin (CU) products is mostly attributed to improved solubility, stability, and possibly low first-pass metabolism”

A search of the Pubmed database for the word curcumin yields 601 studies spaning health topics from multiple myeloma and colorectal cancer, to chemotherapies that synergizes with CU, to Alzheimer’s Disease, arthritis and more. Based on years of reading studies and personal accounts, I think it is safe to say that CU supplementation is safe and relatively inexpensive.

I have read about myeloma patients taking daily doses of CU from 400 milligrams to 8 grams (1000 milligrams = 1 gram). By almost any measure, CU is a safe, inexpensive wonder drug.

The only challenge is that CU is famously difficult to absorb in the body. In other words, a person has to mix curcumin with some sort of fat (coconut oil, chocolate, etc.) or take a brand of curcumin capsule that is already formulated to be more “bioavailable” in order to derive the full benefit of CU.

The study linked and exerpted below reviews different formulations of CU. The study itself lists the three most bioavailable formulation/brand of CU and I’ve added an excerpt from a further review from Consumerlab.com that lists four additional bioavailable brands of CU.

I consult the independent evaluation service Consumerlab.com frequently. For one low annual payment, I can read about and evaluate all of the nutritional supplement that I take.

David Emerson

  • Myeloma Survivor
  • Cancer Coach
  • Director PeopleBeatingCancer

Recommended Reading:


Curcumin

CU is a bright yellow chemical produced by some plants. It is the principal curcuminoid of turmeric (Curcuma longa), a member of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is sold as an herbal supplement, cosmetics ingredient, food flavoring, and food coloring.[1]

Bioavailable curcumin formulations: A review of pharmacokinetic studies in healthy volunteers.

“Curcumin is a widely studied natural compound which has shown tremendous in vitro therapeutic potential. Despite that, the clinical efficacy of the native CU is weak due to its low bioavailability and high metabolism in the gastrointestinal tract. During the last decade, researchers have come up with different formulations with a focus on improving the bioavailability of curcumin. As a result, a significant number of bioavailable curcumin-based formulations were introduced with the varying range of enhanced bioavailability.

The purpose of this review is to collate the published clinical studies of CU products with improved bioavailability over conventional (unformulated) CU. Based on the literature search, 11 curcumin formulations with available human bioavailability and pharmacokinetics data were included in this review. Further, the data on clinical study design, analytical method, pharmacokinetic parameters and other relevant details of each formulation were extracted.

Based on a review of these studies, it is evident that better bioavailability of formulated curcumin products is mostly attributed to improved solubility, stability, and possibly low first-pass metabolism. The review hopes to provide a quick reference guide for anyone looking information on these bioavailable curcumin formulations.

Based on the published reports,

exhibited over 100-fold higher bioavailability relative to reference unformulated CU. Suggested mechanisms accounting for improved bioavailability of the formulations and details on the bioanalysis methods are also discussed.”

According to Consumerlab.com:

“Novasol has the highest bioavailability (185 x compared to unforumulated CU), followed by Curcuwin (136 x), Longvida (100 x), Meriva (48 x), BCM-95 (27 x), Curcumin C3 Complex + Bioperene (20 x), and then Theracumin (16 x).”

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