Supplements aid cancer therapy, lit survey finds

For nearly a decade, oncologists have been telling patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiation therapy that they should not take antioxidants and other nutritional supplements because they interfere with treatment. However, a two-part article published in the April edition of Alternative Therapies argues that this is wrong. Oncologist Charles Simone and colleagues searched the on-line journal databases MEDLINE and CANCERLIT and came up with 280 peer-reviewed studies on the concurrent use of chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy and dietary supplements, including 50 studies with 8,251 patients.

They found that antioxidants and other nutritional supplements did not interfere with conventional cancer treatments and actually enhanced the killing effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In 47 of the human studies, supplements were also found to protect normal tissues and reduce the often-serious side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while in 15 trials, 3,738 supplemented patients demonstrated increased survival - a finding that is rare for any cancer outcome.

According to Dr Simone, an oncologist who advocates nutritional supplmentation, the misconception originated from an erroneous statement made in a 1997 New York Times article by a physician from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital, who contended that vitamin C interfered with chemotherapy and radiotherapy in humans. This statement had absolutely no scientific backing yet, without even reviewing the evidence, the entire oncology community adopted and continues to spread this harmful, biased misconception, he noted.