Defeat Cancer (14 page)

Some patients benefit greatly when we do chemo sensitivity testing using either their tumor pathology slides (which we take from their biopsy procedures), or live tumor tissue which we send by overnight mail to nationally reputable labs. These tests can show us where their cancers are weak, and what treatment agents and regimens would be most effective for them. Patients with stage three and four cancers greatly benefit when low-dose chemotherapy agents (used in an IPT format) are combined with a nutritional protocol to build them up. Even those with early stages of cancer are likely to have metastatic cells, and may also benefit from such a protocol.

Sometimes, we add other types of pharmaceutical drugs, such as Herceptin, to our patients’ protocols if their test results suggest that they will have improved outcomes with these. Other prescription drugs, which we administer in low doses, such as the diabetic medicine Metformin, or aromatase-inhibitor drugs like Aromasan (which we use in estrogen-positive cancers), as well as low dose naltrexone, can also add to our patients’ success.

When we have success in treating people’s cancers, it’s amazing how their other conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, improve. This is because the factors which contributed to these conditions in the first place: inflammation, chronic infections, poor detoxification, and/or a weakened immune system, have been addressed. Unfortunately, we have a specialty-based medical system where every specialist is off in their own little corner, learning primarily about only one area of the body, and too often, they get “stuck out on a branch.” But it’s not the branches that matter—it’s the trunk of the tree, and the roots.

Note: IPT is explained in Chapter Five and other chapters throughout this book, so the specifics about how it works won’t be discussed here. Please refer to the IPT section in Chapter Five for more information.

We do IPT, Insulin Potentiation Therapy, at our clinic in Phoenix (but not at our clinic in Prescott). At our clinic in Phoenix, we see patients from all over the country. In fact, 80 percent of them are from different parts of the country.

It takes well-trained people to properly administer IPT. We have a very able and caring nurse (who was originally a thoracic surgeon from Poland) who does our treatments, as well as a highly skilled physician’s assistant. We hold weekly group meetings at a big round table with our physicians, nurse, physician’s assistant, patients, and
their families, to discuss our patients’ progress and answer any questions they might have. There are many issues involved in doing IPT, such as the timing of its administration, the type of agents being administered, the role of insulin in the treatments, and a thorough knowledge of chemotherapeutic drugs. Those who do IPT need to be good at it. We have a lot of confidence in the nurse and physician’s assistant who work at our clinic.

I recommend IPT as part of most patients’ protocols, because it makes good sense. It’s less toxic than traditional chemotherapy, and often works well, even though the drug dose is only one-tenth of that which is normally used in chemotherapy. That said, even low-dose chemotherapy can affect the bone marrow, and consequently, the body’s white and red blood cell counts. This means that patients might become slightly anemic during their treatments. We recommend bone marrow soup and botanicals (herbs) to support their bone marrow and white blood cell production. Most people tolerate the low-dose chemotherapy well, though. Another great thing about low-dose chemotherapy is that we can combine several chemotherapy agents together at once without overdosing patients, making it more likely that at least one or two agents will work well on their cancers, especially when we have chemo sensitivity lab test results to help guide us in our decisions.

A new approach to chemotherapy, called metronomic chemotherapy, has been growing in popularity in conventional oncology. This involves giving patients one-third of the dose of some of the drugs that they would be given in a normal chemotherapy regimen, and on a weekly basis instead of once every three weeks. Like IPT, I believe its success is enhanced by doing chemotherapy sensitivity testing to identify the one or two chemotherapy agents that the cancer will be most sensitive to. Unlike IPT, however, both metronomic and full dose chemotherapy require that doctors give their patients just one agent at a time.

Regardless of the chemotherapy method that’s used, the most important thing when making treatment decisions is to apply good
science and not make decisions out of fear. It’s important for patients and their doctors to take the time to develop a good treatment plan together. And of course, it’s important for doctors to help their patients maintain a positive mental attitude. Bernie Siegel, MD, has an intriguing approach to this. He teaches art and does group therapy sessions for people with cancer, which are very effective for helping them to stay positive.

One of the challenges facing patients who choose to use IPT is finding oncologists who will support them in it. Patients who come from out of state may have problems getting approval for it from their oncologists, because most oncologists think it’s unproven.

While it’s true that million dollar research studies haven’t been completed on IPT (for a lot of reasons that I won’t go into here) there is good outcomes-based evidence on it from our clinic and other participating clinics. Still, many people who are in the early stages of cancer get a lot of pressure from their oncologists to do certain treatments. Many of my patients have told me that they are scared to death of going against their physicians, so doing a therapy that is outside of the box takes courage.

Finally, if patients with early stage cancers don’t want to do chemotherapy, we can put together a treatment protocol for them based on dietary recommendations, botanicals (herbs), lifestyle changes, Vitamin C and magnesium IVs, and mistletoe therapy. They can sometimes get good results from doing just these treatments alone. Recently, I had a female patient whose tumor mass shrunk 40 percent after six weeks, with just the use of natural medicine. It is, however, difficult to predict whether natural therapies alone will be sufficient for patients.

If patients have already had biopsies done by the time they come to our clinic, then we will send their pathology slides to a lab here in the United States to determine which chemotherapy agents their
cancer cells will best respond to, based on the results of their biopsies. Ideally, tests should be done using tumor tissue, so biopsies are very helpful. This is my perspective, although I know that some physicians have a different opinion. If patients want to do live tissue testing (which is done when the tumor sample is freshly removed from the body) we help them by working with their surgeons to get their live tissue sent overnight to one of two labs in Southern California. However, this type of testing isn’t practical for many people because of the location of their cancers. So the second best option, which works well for the majority of our patients, is to do chemo sensitivity testing using pathology slides from their biopsies.

In addition to chemotherapy sensitivity testing, we do many other types of tests to help determine what our patients need. Everyone needs to have intermittent but extensive blood tests for levels of C-reactive protein (C-reactive protein is an inflammatory marker), fibrinogen and D-dimer (proteins which play a role in blood clotting), along with other factors. For example, knowing the amount of fibrinogen in the blood is important because doctors can be treating their patients successfully for cancer, but if they have high levels of fibrinogen, they can suddenly develop a blood clot or embolism and become worse. Cancer, in general, predisposes people to blood clots, and some chemotherapy agents can contribute further to this tendency. Blood clotting factors such as fibrinogen are high in people with non-small cell lung and pancreatic cancers. Systemic enzyme products such as Lumbrokinase, and sometimes Heparin injections, can remedy this problem.

Testing hormone levels is also important. We check our patients’ thyroid function, because low thyroid function is associated with breast cancer. We also check estrone sulfate, which is a storage form of estrogen, in patients whose cancers are particularly affected by hormones. If their estradiol levels are high, we may recommend the herb chrysin, which is a natural aromatase inhibitor that blocks the effects of estrogen upon cancer, or add a pharmaceutical aromatase inhibitor to their regimens. We always test estrogen and
dihydrotestosterone levels in our prostate cancer patients, since high estrogen promotes prostate cancer growth. Then we use the appropriate botanicals and pharmaceuticals to treat those hormones.

We test our patients’ hemoglobin, A1c (A1c measures the body’s average blood glucose over a period of time) and fasting insulin levels. High insulin and A1c levels impair healing from cancer, and also lead to many other chronic illnesses. We help normalize our patients’ blood sugar with minerals, including chromium, zinc, and magnesium. We also use good botanical (herbal) tincture combinations that include Gymnema sylvestre and celery root. Other herbs help to normalize blood sugar function, as well. Usually, patients’ blood sugar problems correct over time when we use a well-thought-out combination of botanicals, nutrients and minerals. Of course, making significant dietary changes is also crucial for helping the body to better regulate its blood sugar.

Additionally, we always look at blood tumor markers. When initially elevated, these tumor markers are important for determining our patients’ progress on a particular treatment regimen. We also look at their ferritin levels (ferritin is the body’s storage form of iron), because high levels of iron feed cancer. We have to work intelligently to get the body’s chemistry to normalize. In a subsequent section, I mention the importance of testing Vitamin D levels.

Finally, we test copper levels and levels of the copper-carrying protein ceruloplasmin, because copper is a cancer stimulant, and is involved in tumor blood vessel formation. We can give our patients all of the immune support in the world, but if they have high copper levels, new blood vessels will get created and their cancers will spread. A drug called TM (Tetrathiomolybdate) reduces copper levels and thereby shuts off the cancer’s ability to spread. Zinc supplementation is also very helpful for reducing copper levels.

Growth factors are substances made by the body which govern cellular behavior. It’s important to address these in some types of cancer. For example, if a woman has a HER-2 positive breast cancer, we (as well as oncologists) may use other type of drugs such as Herceptin to suppress the growth factors on the receptor sites that are on the surface of the cancer cells. We may give these drugs in addition to chemotherapy. By testing our patients’ cancers, we can discover whether there are markers on the surface of their cells which would respond to these types of medications. In addition, we look at their pathology test results to determine whether there are factors in their cancers that could prevent the Herceptin or other medications from working as well. If so, we give them botanicals and sometimes drugs to help counter those factors.

Note: HER-2 positive breast cancers test positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2), which promotes cancer cell growth. Herceptin is a biological pharmaceutical drug (not a chemotherapy agent) which stifles the growth of this particular HER-2 protein, and which has fewer side effects than some of the other drugs of its type. Other drugs target growth factors in other types of cancer in a similar manner.

At our clinics, we have many different approaches to nutritional supplementation. We formulate our protocols according to good research, clinical experience, and common sense. We start our patients off with nutrients and adaptogenic or normalizing herbs, to support the body’s foundations. If you have a building that’s falling apart, you have to gird its foundations, so we use herbs for this purpose. The most common adaptogenic herb that we use is eleutherococcus, or Siberian Ginseng. Thousands of published studies demonstrate the benefits of eleutherococcus for people with cancer, even those who are currently doing chemotherapy. Rhodiola, astragalus, knotweed, schizandra, and ashwaghanda, as well as
many medicinal mushrooms and other primary and secondary adaptogenic herbs, are likewise useful.

Herbs are amazing plants that, when used properly, have multiple ways of correcting the same problems that led to the body’s development of cancer in the first place. They modulate hormones and immune function; improve cell-to-cell communication, reduce inflammation, down-regulate cancer pathways, and so on. In addition, the body needs anabolic agents to build up its tissues, and help counter its tendency to tear them down, so we make sure that we provide our patients with this foundational support early on in their treatment programs.

As part of a good foundational support program, botanicals are also important for improving the body’s cellular energy, as are certain kinds of whey protein, amino acids, and an abundance of minerals. Almost everyone in this country, whether or not they have cancer, has depleted levels of magnesium, chromium, zinc, iodine, and Vitamin D. Many physicians now routinely measure their patients’ Vitamin D levels. Rarely do I see anyone with a 25 (OH) Vitamin D level that’s higher than 50 ng/ml, even in people who are taking Vitamin D supplements. Yet people with serious illnesses need to have a Vitamin D level that’s between 80-100 ng/ml. We just saw a colon cancer patient whose Vitamin D level came back at 4 ng/ml. Unfortunately, when I prescribed him a high dose of Vitamin D for a month, his regular doctor thought he was going to poison himself with Vitamin D. It’s important for practitioners to be aware of the risks of low levels of Vitamin D, because one in two, or perhaps one in three people, are getting cancer today, and increasing Vitamin D levels can dramatically lower the risk of developing many types of cancer. Michael Hollick MD, at Boston University, and Soram Khalsa, MD, at UCLA, among others, have published research about the effects of Vitamin D upon cancer and its role in preventing cancer.