Staying Safe

STAYING SAFE while going through the process of cancer means establishing what foods are safe for you to eat, what natural compounds are safe for you to supplement your diet with, which medicines and treatments are safe for you and what ways work to keep your mind safe and strong.

Some of this you may be advised by your medical specialists and for other components there are active steps that you can take.

Having a team of medical specialists comprised of oncologist, general practitioner, oncology pharmacist, psychologist and other relevant professionals is a very important asset to your health. If you don’t feel you are gaining the right care from an individual and if you have the means to find another person to replace their role in your team then it is worth the effort.

There are important reasons to find out how safe a natural compound is for you to consume in extra amounts and on a regular basis are. Three are;

Contraindications

Definition of CONTRAINDICATION – a sign that someone should not continue with a particular medicine or treatment because it is or might be harmful. – Cambridge Dictionary.

In terms of consuming supplements and foods that contain active natural compounds or using when you have a diagnosis of cancer, there are four main aspects to consider.

1. What cancer treatment are you currently on or about to have?
2. What medications are you taking?
3. What possible genetic, medical conditions and allergies do you have?
4. Which are the primary other cancer types you have a predisposition towards (look at your family tree of cancer incidence, environmental exposure to carcinogens and relationship of your current cancer to other cancers).

Radiosensitizers

Definition: radiosensitizers are chemical or pharmacologic agents that can increase the radiation effects if administered during the treatment.

Don’t be mislead by another definition of radiosensitizer that suggests “Any drug or substance that makes tumour cells more sensitive to radiation therapy“.

The problem with radiosensitizers are that they can change the way the radiation effects not just the tumour tissue but also the healthy tissue surrounding.

An example of a substance increasing side effects of a traditional anticancer therapy is soy. Too much soy can act as a radiosensitizer for radiotherapy.  The physicist designing the plan of ray directions and penetration intensities for a person about to undergo radiotherapy uses a very specific and accurate algorithm. 

This limits the rays’ penetration  and effect on healthy tissue surrounding the tumour area. A radiosensitizer increases the intensity of the rays to penetrate the tissue in a way that the physicist will not have incorporated into the algorithm. This means the rays can damage tissue beyond the treated site thus increasing the side effects.

How to check safety

One of the slides in the safety module from my online STARTER COURSE

Some Recommended Sites

1. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 2. The Mayo Clinic

Traditional Treatments First

What is known for humans is the success rate for traditional anticancer treatments of chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy. 

These are still the current frontline priority treatments for combating cancer until human studies show success of other therapies such as the Suppression-centric Anticancer Natural Strategy.

Going through the safety check.

1. What cancer treatment are you currently on or about to have?
2. What medications are you taking?
3. What possible genetic, medical conditions and allergies do you have?
4. Which are the primary other cancer types you have a predisposition towards (look at your family tree of cancer incidence, environmental exposure to carcinogens and relationship of your current cancer to other cancers).

CASE STUDY Madison

Madison works through some safety steps to find out if it is safe for her to actively supplement her dietary intake of the anticancer compound allium found in garlic.

1. What cancer treatment are you currently on or about to have? Well I’ve just had chemo for hormone positive breast cancer and I am about to have surgery and then radiotherapy. Maddi looks up in a search engine the combined keywords “garlic” and “radiosensitizer” but finds nothing. Maddi then looks up “garlic” on a reputable medical website.

She reads how garlic can protect against cancer growth and can reduce cancer growth rather than increase growth or having no influence.

Madison reads that garlic is not recommended and is unsafe to consume prior to surgery as it can cause increased bleeding. Upon reading this she makes a mental note to make sure she has none during the two weeks prior to her day of surgery.

• 2. What medications are you taking? I take insulin.

Maddi reads about warnings for garlic.

• The medical advice from the website indicates garlic is contraindicated with insulin. Because Madison has diabetes, she understands it is unsafe for her to consume excess garlic and she decides against supplementing her diet with extra garlic. She reads further out of curiosity….

• 3. What possible genetic, medical conditions and allergies do you have? I am diabetic and have metabolic syndrome.

The medical advise from the website indicates garlic is contraindicated with insulin therefore Madison wont supplement her diet with extra garlic. She also knows her conditions of diabetes and metabolic syndrome can mean low blood sugar or hypoglycemia is a significant risk. She reads how garlic can lower blood sugar.

Maddi reads further…

She is scheduled to have her COVID Vaccination in a a fortnight. Maddi knows that with some of the current vaccines, platelet levels can drop. If it had already been safe for her to consume garlic, she would have stopped two weeks prior to having the vaccine as a precaution that no extra reduction on platelet levels by garlic occurred.

• 4. Which are the primary other cancer types you have a predisposition towards (look at your family tree of cancer incidence, environmental exposure to carcinogens and relationship of your current cancer to other cancers). As I used to be a smoker, I know I have a high chance of getting lung cancer.

Even though garlic is beneficial in killing lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells, because of Madison’s other health history, Maddi wont take extra or excessive amounts of garlic.

Maddi is now confident that supplementing her dietary intake of garlic is not safe for her.

Prior to starting each stage of her treatment, Maddi asks her Team; her surgeon, anaesthetist, general practitioner and oncologist the questions; Is there anything I should not eat or take during this phase of my cancer treatment? Because she is unsure of whether to eat citrus fruits and she loves mandarins, she also asks them all; Will mandarins or citrus have any bad influence on this treatment?

Keep your Mind Safe Too

For ways to keep your mind safe CLICK HERE.

To learn about signs that you might be slipping beyond depression and some steps of what to do CLICK HERE.

For more detailed instruction on learning which natural compounds are safe for you and at what stages of treatment, I have two lessons in my online STARTER course dedicated to this topic. See below for more information.