Women Health and Care Tips-Can you take supplement when having cancer?

Many oncologists believe that you have cancer that you should not be taking nutritional supplements. This is a theoretical concern that these supplements may improve the antioxidant defense system of the cancer cells. Since their chemo and radiation therapy uses free radicals and oxidative stress in an attempt to destroy these cells, they do have a concern. However, when you look at the medical research that studied patients who took high-quality, complete and balanced nutritional supplements while receiving their chemo or radiation therapy, the patients did better than those who did not take supplements.

Dr. Kedar Prashad, a radiation therapist from the University of Colorado Medical School, actually reviewed over 90 of these studies. He found that those patients who took nutritional supplements while taking either their chemo or radiation therapy not only tolerated their treatments better, but also responded to them better. He concluded that antioxidant supplements improved the normal cells antioxidant defense system; however, they made the cancer cells more vulnerable to cell death. This is win-win situation for cancer patients. In fact, this has led some major cancer treatment centers like the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa, OK and Chicago, IL to give all of their cancer patients antioxidant supplements while receiving their treatments.

-source: Ray D. Strand M.D, Specialist in Nutritional Medicine