Micronutrients and Phytonutrients in Cancer
February is national cancer prevention month. The “War on Cancer” declared by U.S. President Nixon more than 5 decades ago is still going on and cancer remains the second leading cause of death worldwide. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Cancer Research has projected that cancer diagnosis will increase by 75%-90% by the year 2030. While we understand more about cancer development and progression, the treatment has not changed much from the standard trio-surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Many of the chemotherapy drugs are labeled as carcinogens, yet they are still the mainstay of the treatment. Each of the current treatments is associated with inherent health risks and side effects, however, all remain a part of standard cancer therapy. Chemotherapy drugs kill the rapidly growing cells, and therefore they attack not only cancer cells but also healthy cells in the body (i.e., hair follicles, blood cells, intestinal lining cells). Due to such indiscriminate killing of all cells, the chemotherapy drugs cause widespread damage to the body. When a cell dies as a result of chemotherapy, its remains, called the cell debris, can be dangerous too. They can induce inflammation, which in turn can trigger other cancers and health problems. In one of the studies conducted at the Dr. Rath Research Institute, one group of mice was exposed to the breast cancer cells together with debris generated by the chemotherapy drug, docetaxel, and another group of mice was exposed only to breast cancer cells. The results indicated that the group of mice that was given the cancer cell debris after docetaxel showed significantly more pronounced tumor growth and aggravated inflammatory markers (TNF-alpha, IL-1) than the mice that were exposed only to breast cancer cells.