Category Archives: Alternative/complementary

Alternative cancer treatment claims in the media are damaging and misleading

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Avocado

Fruit and vegetables are good for you but there’s no evidence that they can treat cancer. (Image from Wikimedia commons)

We were concerned to see an article in the Daily Express today asking “Do cancer alternatives really work?” This piece contains factual and scientific inaccuracies, as well as misleading information that could potentially cause harm to people with cancer. We have written a short letter to the Express with our concerns (Edit: which they have declined to publish – see end of post KA), and wanted to address the claims made in the article in full here.

We completely understand that people would like to try everything to help themselves after a diagnosis of cancer, but strongly urge any patient considering complementary or alternative therapy to talk to their cancer doctor or specialist nurse about the safety and effectiveness of such treatments. Some are not safe and can cause serious side effects.

Furthermore, we spend a great deal of time and money doing research to find out what treatments work best (or don’t work) for people with cancer. It is disheartening to see health advice or even therapies being recommended with very little or no evidence to show that they have any benefit for patients.

To highlight specific flaws in this article:

Diet: The article makes claims for the cancer-fighting properties of a number of foods, including avocados, garlic, tomatoes and beetroot (which has apparently “been shown to kill cancer cells”) and also mentions the power of “antioxidants”. While we would agree that it’s important for everyone – including cancer patients – to eat a healthy diet rich in fruit and vegetables where possible, there is no good evidence to suggest that any particular foodstuff can really treat cancer. The writer makes the mistake of using evidence from experiments with purified vegetable extracts carried out on cells grown in the laboratory to suggest that certain fruits or vegetables can treat cancer in patients. This is not a plausible link. We’ve addressed this issue several times on the blog, including here and here, and have also taken an in-depth look at antioxidants and cancer in two parts.

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Cannabis, cannabinoids and cancer – the evidence so far

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An illustration of cannabis plants

Cannabis has long been used for medicinal as well as recreational purposes. Image source

Few topics spark as much debate on this blog and on our Facebook page than cannabis.

So we thought we’d take a look at the common questions raised about the evidence and research into cannabis, cannabinoids (the active chemicals found in the plant and elsewhere) and cancer, and address some of the wider issues that crop up in this debate.

We’ve broken it down under a number of headings:

This post is long, but can be summarised by saying that at the moment there isn’t enough reliable evidence to prove that cannabinoids – whether natural or synthetic – can effectively treat cancer in patients, although research is ongoing around the world.

Read on to get the full picture.

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Ginseng for cancer fatigue? The jury’s still out

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Ginseng

Ginseng has been tested to see if it can help reduce cancer-related fatigue

As well as some of the exciting developments from this years’ ASCO cancer conference, we also spotted trial results, presented at the conference, which suggested that the herbal supplement ginseng could reduce cancer-related fatigue. This got a fair amount of media coverage.

As the researchers state in their abstract, the study enrolled around 360 cancer patients who were either having or had recently finished curative cancer treatment.  For 8 weeks, half of them took 2000mg of American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) per day, and the other half took a placebo.

At the end of the study, those taking the ginseng had significantly lower fatigue scores for both ‘general’ and ‘physical’ fatigue. But there was no difference in ‘mental or emotional’ fatigue, and those taking ginseng didn’t rate themselves as having more energy (‘vigor’).

Overall, this is an encouraging and interesting study – anything that can help with the devastating fatigue some people feel after a course of cancer treatment is very welcome.  But, as is so often the case, there are caveats.

Firstly, people with other cancer symptoms, such as pain, were excluded; and those taking part presumably didn’t have advanced cancers as they were having curative treatment. So unfortunately these findings can’t be generalised to everyone with cancer fatigue.

Also, we don’t know what it is in the ginseng that might have helped to lower people’s fatigue scores.  The constituent chemicals of plants vary with type as well as growing conditions, and there are several different types of ginseng.  Types on sale in the UK mostly seem to be Asian or Korean ginseng (and in fact, American ginseng – as used in this study – is now an endangered species and exports are banned).

But most importantly for those taking other medicines, there’s evidence that ginseng is one of the plants that can affect the metabolism of other drugs, by affecting enzymes involved in drug absorption (particularly an enzyme called CYP3A4).

This means that taking ginseng could cause higher or lower levels than intended of other drugs that your doctor has prescribed for you. There is information about why you should tell your doctor about herbal remedies you are taking on our patient information website.

Furthermore, the Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) advise against taking ginseng if you are on warfarin, as there is some preliminary research evidence that it could affect blood clotting.

Liz

Liz Woolf manages Cancer Research UK’s patient information website, CancerHelp UK

News digest – ‘stratified’ medicine, government reforms, and improving survival rates

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Hot off the press... our news digest

There’s been another glut of fascinating stories this week, most of which focused on aspects of the NHS. Here’s our digest – follow the links for the full story:

  • On Monday, we announced that we’d enrolled the first patients into our Stratified Medicine Programme – which aims to help the NHS establish a world-class genetic testing service, while simultaneously generating data for research. As well as our press release, we published full details, including a map, a list of genes to be tested, and a video explaining the programme, on this blog.
  • Tuesday’s news was dominated by a story that showed cancer patients were living much longer than in the 1970s. But the report didn’t find improvements across the board. Some types of cancer have seen dramatic improvements, while others have barely changed – further highlighting how much more work we still have to do
  • As we said above, several stories this week focused on NHS cancer care. The first was an investigation by GP newspaper which found – alarmingly – that several NHS trusts aren’t prescribing cancer drugs that NICE has approved. If this turns out to be the case, it’s extremely concerning, and we’ll be keeping an eye on how this story progresses.
  • We posted a piece about the Government’s NHS reforms and what could mean for people with cancer – a topic that’s generating a lot of media interest at the moment.
  • Researchers at our Beatson Institute in Glasgow, leading an international team of scientists, made an intriguing discovery about how melanoma spreads
  • On Friday, research by the Royal College of GPs looked at how long people had to wait before seeing a cancer specialist. Overall, they found that nearly three quarters of patients only saw a GP once or twice before being referred.
  • Also on Friday, the Department of Health announced it had decided to switch the HPV vaccine it uses to one that protects against virus strains that cause both genital warts and cervical cancer (the previous vaccine only protected against the strains that cause cancer). Here’s their press release.
  • We discussed how we were concerns about media reports of people fundraising for an unproven US cancer clinic.
  • And finally, results of a decade-long French trial showed that some younger patients with an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, known as ‘diffuse B-cell’ lymphoma, might benefit from more intensive chemotherapy than normal. The big caveat here is that the side effects are consequently more severe, so doctors will need to carefully select who will benefit.

Cancer research is constantly moving forward – we’ve already spotted several interesting stories for the week ahead, so keep your eyes peeled, and see you next week.

Henry

Hope or false hope?

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A blue jay on a snowy branch“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all”
Emily Dickinson

 

Note: we have edited this blog post to correct factual errors, and made changes to some of the language at the request of the family of a patient being treated at the Burzynski clinic. For transparency, these changes have been tracked.

We’ve recently seen an increasing number of stories in the media – such as this heartfelt piece in the Observer – describing how desperate cancer patients and their families are raising tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds to go for treatment at the Burzynski Clinic in Texas, USA.

Many of us working here at Cancer Research UK have lost loved ones to this terrible disease (or, indeed, been through it themselves) and it’s what fuels our passion for the work that we do. So we have the very deepest sympathy with these families and understand the need for hope, however faint, in their darkest days.

Across the country, kind-hearted people – from local communities to big name celebrities – are understandably moved to raise money for these patients. But it is also important for them to know that the available scientific evidence does not support the clinic’s claims that their treatment (known as antineoplaston therapy) is effective against cancer. At the moment, Burzynski’s antineoplaston treatment has to be regarded as experimental and unproven. (Edited 3/12/11 KA)

And although we have no wish to extinguish the small flame of hope that these families carry, the current scientific evidence tells us truth is that the Burzynski Clinic’s treatment is not the miracle cure that the recent slick movie about the clinic would have you believe. (Edited KA 22/12/11)

There is nothing we want to see more than effective treatments for cancer, and to save families from going through the pain of losing a loved one to cancer. Some families may feel that a chance of a cure – however slim – is worth it, on the understanding that there are no guarantees. But we cannot stand silent while people are lured by promises based on an unproven therapy. (Edited 30/11/11 KA; Edited 5/12/11 KA)
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What should you eat while you’re being treated for cancer?

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A meal

Can certain diets help with cancer treatment?

In the years we’ve been writing this blog, we’ve published scores of articles looking at how different types of food and drink do or don’t influence a person’s chances of developing cancer. By now everyone should be familiar with our basic advice (and how this topic is frequently misreported in the media).

But we’ve only occasionally touched on what for many of our readers is a much more pressing issue – what to eat when you already have cancer.

This isn’t deliberate; indeed, there’s a very good reason for this: the scientific evidence is much less solid, and it’s very difficult to say anything concrete.

Tonight, Channel 4 airs the first of a new series called The Food Hospital, which will “examine the science behind using food in medicine, tackling patients’ health problems through the food they eat”, according to the accompanying blurb.

To mark the series’ launch, we thought it would be good to highlight some of the online information we have about diet and cancer, and briefly discuss what the evidence does – and doesn’t – say.

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There’s no conspiracy – sometimes it just doesn’t work

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Glass bottle of elixir

"Miracle cures" usually do more harm than good

At Cancer Research UK, we’re often asked about alleged “miracle cures” for cancer, usually based on claims made on the internet. There’s an impressive list of these collected on the Quackwatch website (here and here), ranging from the slightly wacky to the downright dangerous.

In virtually all cases, when researchers have rigorously tested these treatments, they don’t work. But the rumours persist, fuelling the belief that there is a “conspiracy” preventing cancer patients from getting effective treatments.

Not only is this simply not true – just because something doesn’t actually work, it doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy against it – it’s harmful to cancer patients. And, as we’ve found out whilst digging through our archives, it’s also not a new idea.

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