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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MGUS, SMM, Myeloma-Antioxidants in Food vs. Supplements
“researchers have linked antioxidant supplements — including omega-3 fats, curcumin, selenium, resveratrol, and vitamin C — with various beneficial health outcomes.”
Let me go on record as saying I agree with most everything in the article linked and excerpted below. Antioxidants (AO) found in foods are more complete and safer for people than antioxidants that come in supplements aka pills.
The need for this blog post is the one million, seven hundred thousand plus people who are diagnosed with cancer annually in the United States. In short, conventional oncological therapies cause short, long-term and late stage side effects. More importantly, oncology can’t cure many cancers. My cancer, in particular.
I was diagnosed with a blood cancer called multiple myeloma (MM) in early 1994. Several years of aggressive conventional therapies led to end-stage MM in September of 1997.
Not only did chemotherapy not cure my MM, I live with several chemotherapy-induced late stage side effects. Chemotherapy damaged my heart, brain, bladder, bones, nerves, eyes and skin. Having undergone aggressive chemotherapies in 1995, I live with a substantial risk of a treatment-related secondary cancer.
Numerous studies have documented antioxidant supplements either preventing/healing chemotherapy-induced side effects or integrating with and enhancing the efficacy of specific chemotherapy regimens.
For example:
- Curcumin and MGUS-
- Resveratrol and Velcade, MM-
- Selenium and Cardiovascular Disease-
- Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Side Effects in General-
- Vitamin C and Multiple Myeloma-
I eat as nutritious a diet as I can each and every day. The most popular blog post on PeopleBeatingCancer.org is simply titled Multiple Myeloma Diet.
MGUS, SMM and multiple myeloma patients and survivors must learn about and consume a diet filled with antioxidants as well as anti-angiogenic foods.
Unfortunately, I can’t consume enough fish to get the amount of omega-3 fatty acids IN my system needed to do the things I need. The same is true for curry (curcumin), citrus fruit (vitamin C), and red wine (resveratrol).
I supplement my antioxidant nutrition with antioxidant supplementation. Not mega doses of antioxidant supplementation but I do supplement.
Are you are an MGUS, SMM or multiple myeloma patient or survivor? Do you supplement? Scroll down the page to post a question or a comment. I will reply to you ASAP.
To Learn More about antioxidants and cancer therapy- click now
Thank you,
David Emerson
- Multiple Myeloma Survior
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
- Multiple Myeloma Chemotherapy – Antioxidants Enhance Action
- Multiple Myeloma Treatment- Antioxidants, Yes or No?
- Multiple Myeloma Chemotherapy- Antioxidants Inc. Effective, Reduce Toxicity
What do we really know about antioxidants?
“What are antioxidants?
Antioxidants are compounds that reduce or inhibit cellular damage through their ability to neutralize molecules called free radicals.
Free radicals are molecules that have one or more unpaired electrons in their outer orbit, making them unstable and highly reactive. The body creates them through normal endogenous metabolic processes, including energy production.
The body also produces them in response to environmental and lifestyle factors, such as sun exposure, smoking, alcohol consumption, and more.
Antioxidants inhibit a process called oxidation, which generates free radicals that leads to cellular damage. Antioxidants safely interact with free radicals, neutralizing them before they can cause damage to proteins, lipids, and DNA.
Oxidative stress occurs when there are too many free radicals in the body. This imbalance can occur due to increased production of free radicals or decreased antioxidant defenses.
Free radicals play an important role in the normal physiological functioning of the body and contribute to a person’s health. However, when the body produces an excess of free radicals, it can increase a person’s disease risk.
For example, many chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer, have links to progressive damage from free radicals.
Cells have antioxidant defense systems that help keep free radical production in check.
For example, cells contain antioxidant enzymes that help reduce free radical levels. The primary antioxidant enzymes in the cells include superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and glutathione reductase (GRx).
These antioxidant enzymes are known as first-line defense antioxidants. They help regulate free radical levels by neutralizing both free radicals and other molecules that have the potential to become free radicals.
The body also produces metabolic antioxidants through metabolism. These include lipoic acid, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, melatonin, uric acid, L-arginine, metal-chelating proteins, bilirubin, and transferrin.
However, there are some antioxidants that the body cannot produce, which means a person must consume them through food or by taking dietary supplements. These nutrient antioxidants include carotenoids, antioxidant vitamins, including vitamins C and E, selenium, manganese, zinc, flavonoids, and omega-3 and omega-6 fats.
Dietary and supplemental antioxidants tend to receive the most attention within the nutrition world because consuming a diet rich in antioxidants can help boost the body’s antioxidant defenses.
Unraveling the intricacies of dietary antioxidants can be challenging and confusing. Many antioxidants occur naturally in food, and countless other compounds that claim to boost the body’s antioxidant defenses are available as dietary supplements.
Foods such as fruits, vegetables, spices, and nuts contain thousands of different compounds that act as antioxidants.
For example, grapes, apples, pears, cherries, and berries contain a group of plant chemicals called polyphenol antioxidants. There are over 8,000 different polyphenol antioxidants in nature.
Brightly colored fruits and vegetables also contain high concentrations of carotenoids, another class of antioxidants.
However, these natural food-derived antioxidants are very different from those found in dietary supplements.
For example, there are many forms of vitamin E, including synthetic vitamin E and natural vitamin E, such as alpha-tocopherol esters. All these forms of vitamin E may have different effects on the body.
This may be why studies investigating the potential health benefits of vitamin E supplements have produced conflicting results.
Additionally, supplements typically contain concentrated doses of isolated AO compounds that can impact health differently than AO-rich foods.
Although AO-rich foods are extremely nutritious and important for health, taking a very high-dose AO supplement may not suit everyone and may even be harmful to some people
It is clear that a diet concentrated in AO-rich foods, especially fruits and vegetables, is beneficial for overall health.
However, the relationship between supplemental AOs and disease prevention is less clear.
Many studies have shown that taking supplements that contain concentrated doses of AOs may benefit certain aspects of health.
For example, researchers have linked AO supplements — including omega-3 fats, curcumin, selenium, resveratrol, and vitamin C — with various beneficial health outcomes.
However, although certain AOs may deliver health benefits when a person takes them for a specific reason, this does not mean that taking supplemental antioxidants is always safe or necessary.
Some research suggests that taking certain AO supplements may interfere with the body’s natural signaling pathways and adversely impact health.
What’s more, studies have shown that high-dose AO supplements may be harmful in certain populations.
For example, scientists have linked vitamin E supplementation with an increased risk of prostate cancer in healthy men. Similarly, studies have linked beta carotene supplementation with an increased risk of lung cancer in smokers.
Research has also found no clear benefit of AO supplements on disease risk.
Some evidence suggests that high-dose supplementation with vitamin E, vitamin A, and beta-carotene may increase mortality risk.
This suggests that taking supplements of certain AOs may disrupt the body’s natural AO defense network and even harm health when taken inappropriately.
Conversely, research has consistently linked AO-rich diets high in vegetables, fruits, spices, and other natural sources of AOs with decreased disease risk and have found no associations with any adverse health outcomes.
For this reason, experts suggest that people should focus on consuming AOs through the foods they eat. They do not recommend that people take high-dose AOs supplements unless specifically recommended by a healthcare provider.
There is no doubt that consuming a diet high in AO-rich foods is beneficial for health and may help prevent disease development.
However, researchers do not routinely recommend AO supplements for health promotion because some evidence suggests that taking high-dose AO supplements may be harmful to a person’s overall health.
It is best to avoid high-dose AO supplements unless a trusted healthcare provider prescribes or recommends them. The best way to take in AOs is through foods and beverages, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish, spices, and tea.