Recently Diagnosed or Relapsed? Stop Looking For a Miracle Cure, and Use Evidence-Based Therapies To Enhance Your Treatment and Prolong Your Remission
Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
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Myeloma Side Effects- Inner Ear Damage
Collateral Damage aka Side Effects of Chemotherapy and Radiation Can be Identified and Prevented
I am a long-term multiple myeloma survivor. Several years of conventional therapies including induction therapy, an autologous stem cell transplant, consolidation therapy, local radiation all caused short, long-term and late stage side effects of various types. Somewhere along the way I developed tinnitus aka ear damage.
I don’t know what caused the ear damage and the tinnitus has since resolved itself. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t try to prevent other newly diagnose MM patients from preventing side effects such as inner ear damage.
My experience has been that oncologists don’t talk about the real possibility of short, long-term and late stage side effects because they a) there is no guarantee of any single side effect happening and b) they don’t want to scare off their cancer patients.
Dr. Nathan Berger and Dr. Hillard Lazarus are well-trained, well-educated oncologists. University Hospitals of Cleveland Seidman Cancer Center is an excellent organization. But my oncologists sure didn’t do me any favors when I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. My induction chemo cocktail and autologous stem cell transplant resulted in a 10 months partial remission and a lifetime of long-term and late stage side effects.
Which is why I can speak from personal experience when I say that newly diagnosed cancer patients need to identify and reduce/prevent those side effects that are well-researched and known.
Cisplatin (Cisplatin, cisplatinum, platamin, neoplatin, cismaplat carboplatin and oxaliplatin) chemotherapy causes a number of short, long-term and late stage side effects. This fact is well documented. The list of side effects can include:
- Nephrotoxicity (kidney damage)
- Neurotoxicity (nerve damage)
- Nausea and vomiting
- Ototoxicity (hearing loss)
- Myelotoxicity
As the study linked and excerpted below indicates, hearing loss may be tied to genetic make-up of the patient undergoing cisplatin therapy. Certainly, I think that gene testing is an important method to identify at-risk patients undergoing cisplatin chemotherapy.
However, it is also important to point out that evidence-based science, linked and excerpted below, indicates that many, if not all, of the toxicity stemming from cisplatin therapy can be prevented.
For more information on managing, healing or eliminating the side effects caused by chemotherapy and radiation, scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply to you ASAP.
Thank you,
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading-
- Multiple Myeloma Treatment Side Effects
- Multiple Myeloma-Heart Failure from Autologous Stem Cell Transplant
- Green Tea, Curcumin as Integrative Multiple Myeloma Therapy
Inherited gene variations tied to treatment-related hearing loss in cancer patients
“Cisplatin is one of the most widely used anticancer drugs and is a mainstay of treatment for children and adults with many types of brain and other solid tumors. But in some patients the drug causes debilitating side effects, including severe hearing loss….
This is an important first step in being able to pinpoint patients who are at higher risk of developing cisplatin toxicity and to learn how to better manage that risk,..
Our primary goal is to cure children with brain tumors, but we also have a duty to help patients survive with a high quality of life. Hearing loss can have a significant impact on a child’s quality of life, language development, and academic performance,”
Protective effects of resveratrol on cisplatin-dependent inner-ear damage in rats.
“The present study examined the protective efficacy of resveratrol on cisplatin-dependent ototoxicity through an experimental model…
Resveratrol attenuated cisplatin-dependent inner-ear damage, as shown by the ABR-I, ABR-IV, ABR I-IV interval, and hearing threshold values. Our results suggest that this natural antioxidant may be effectively used in reducing the unwanted effects of cisplatin on the ear physiology of patients, particularly those undergoing chemotherapy.”
Curcumin enhances the effectiveness of cisplatin by suppressing CD133+ cancer stem cells in laryngeal carcinoma treatment
” In the present study, curcumin and cisplatin were used as a combined treatment to induce the sensitivity of CD133+ cancer stem cells to chemotherapeutic agents and to enhance therapeutic effectiveness…”
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.
Recommended Reading:
- CU versus Turmeric as Cancer Therapy-What’s the Difference?
- CU Suppresses Colon Cancer, Enhances Chemotherapy
- Prostate Cancer: CU Curbs Prostate Cancer Metastases, Study Shows
- CU vs. cancer: The scientific evidence continues to pile up
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).”