Herbal Therapies For Cancer

For thousands of years prior to the advent of modern allopathic medicine, herbs and substances derived from plants have been the mainstays of traditional medicines around the world. But in terms of their use with cancer, most plants used in traditional medicines have been used with easily diagnosed skin cancers. Internal cancers can be difficult to diagnose, even with the aid of modern technology. Therefore, there are fewer plants traditionally used for these cancers, and many of the plants that have been used for skin cancers are too toxic to be taken internally.{1}

Nevertheless, many chemotherapeutic drugs currently in use were first identified in plants, including taxol, vinblastine and vincristine, etoposide and teniposide.{2} The potential wealth of as yet undiscovered medicinal substances from plant sources is one of the rallying cries for those rightfully concerned about the catastrophic decline in the number of plant species globally.

In his book, Plants Used Against Cancer, Jonathan Hartwell, formerly with the National Cancer Institute, catalogued hundreds of plants from around the world that have historically been employed for treating cancer in various cultures.{3} James Duke, Ph.D., formerly chief botanist for the Department of Agriculture's Medicinal Plant Laboratory, compiled the Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, a reference for the listing the traditional uses for many of the herbs described here, as well as a brief description of the state of current research on each.{4}

In Cancer and Natural Medicine, an excellent compilation of research on natural agents believed to have anticancer properties, John Boik provides a basic discussion of the processes surrounding carcinogenesis and the mechanisms by which natural agents might influence these processes. As an acupuncturist, his discussion focuses on, but is not limited to, herbs found in the Chinese pharmacopeia.

Boik describes the difficulties inherent in the effort to identify plant materials that are active against cancer in the context of the National Cancer Institute's screening program. Though it is the largest such program in the world, having screened over 114,000 plants since its inception, this figure still represents only two percent of the world's plant species.

The NCI decided to test plants based on existing biodiversity. While selections based upon traditional medicines might have yielded a high ratio of active plants, there were also perceived disadvantages to this approach. These included secrecy issues within primitive cultures, difficulty in obtaining accurate botanical identification based upon folklore, and the possibility of missing plants that might be active but not used in traditional medicines.{5}

We will use the term "herb" in this paper to describe materials that are either whole, unprocessed parts of plants (such as garlic), plant components that are minimally processed (such as aloe or ginseng) or substances isolated from plants (such as laetrile). Essiac and the Hoxsey therapy are herbal combinations, and ginseng is often employed in various formulas in traditional Chinese medicine.

Many of the natural agents described below, such as ginseng, aloe and garlic, are the subjects of a growing body of intriguing mainstream research which is described in Cancer and Natural Medicine, while others, such as laetrile and the well-known herbal formulas Essiac and Hoxsey, are discussed here because they have been, and continue to be sought out by many people with cancer, though the evidence for their efficacy is primarily anecdotal.

It is important to note that herbs can also be of use to people with cancer for purposes other than their direct antitumor activity. In fact, many people with cancer seek out herbal therapies specifically for alleviating symptoms or side effects of mainstream therapies. Certainly, patient experiences, the clinical experiences of practitioners, and the research that does exist all point to the potential of natural substances when used for this purpose.

To the extent that may prove to be useful, research indicates that mistletoe, aloe, garlic and ginseng may all be immune modulating herbs, which may affect tumor growth directly and may also be important for alleviating the immune-depression that often accompanies chemotherapy. A good deal of research indicates that ginseng might be particularly useful for the latter purpose. Research also indicates that ginseng, aloe and garlic may also potentiate various chemotherapies, and that garlic may play a role in reducing the mutaginicity of chemotherapeutic drugs.

Aloe, for instance, in its well-known traditional use as an aid in the healing of burns and skin irritation, can be very useful to patients with internal or external irritation resulting from radiation therapy.

Proponents of Essiac, the Hoxsey therapy and laetrile point to a large body of anecdotal evidence, but very little research, that they believe supports the case for anticancer activity for each, but supporters also cite reports of symptom relief and a perception of improved health and general well being. Clinicians who use mistletoe also report important quality of life improvements such as deeper sleep, improved appetite, relief from tension and depression, and increased initiative and functional capacity.

Most practitioners of herbal medicine or mainstream practitioners who incorporate herbs into their practices feel that it is wise to seek out expert advise in the use of herbs with cancer. Garlic, for instance, is a food item, but can cause gastrointestinal irritation at the doses a person with cancer might use. Some herbs discussed here are virtually non-toxic, like aloe and Essiac, while ginseng, mistletoe and laetrile may have significant side effects or contraindications.

Many of these agents have been in long use in traditional medicines, and the diagnostic and prescriptive process can be quite complex. And, as Grossman points out, for many of these substances, the paucity of research means that clinical experience and knowledge of traditional usage are critical, in some cases for safety and in other cases for simply deriving the greatest benefit from the use of the herb.

Though research most often focuses on the activity of a given herb, a fraction of the herb or a single chemical constituent, the fact is that most herbs are used as part of a larger overall regimen, either herbal or including other modalities. This is certainly the case with ginseng, the Hoxsey therapy, laetrile and mistletoe.

 

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56k (1 hr., 24 min. - 24 Megs - 1987 - Color)
DSL (163 Megs)

Produced by Ken Ausubel & Catherine Salveson.
Narrated by Max Gail.

In most countries of the industrialized West, cancer is more a political disease than a medical disease. You don't really realize the truth of this unless you have worked inside the cancer industry and come to understand the sole currency guiding the support of expensive, ineffective therapies and the suppression of effective, inexpensive ones: profit.

The Hoxsey movie, released in 1987, lead to a book version in 2000, (which begins with an empassioned forward by Bernie Siegal, M.D.). The movie version, downloadable above, is a vivid, heart-wrenching portrait of the life of Harry Hoxsey, whose effective cancer remedies lead to the creation of 17 cancer clinics across the U.S.A. by the 1950's. Hoxsey's clinics reported a success rate which rivalled those of orthodox clinics. Despite numerous attempts by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to put Hoxsey out of business, and numerous legal actions involving the testimony of thousands of successful cases, Hoxsey was able to carry out his work in the U.S. for nearly 40 years, starting in 1924. Today, a relatively small clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, is all that remains of the original Hoxsey practice (called "Bio Medical Center," it was founded by Mildred Nelson, Hoxsey's long-time nurse).

History of Hoxsey Treatment

T

he cancer treatment practiced by Harry M. Hoxsey (1901-1974) is one of the longest-lived unconventional therapies of this century. It has retained great popular appeal, despite unrelenting opposition by the medical profession; despite 40 years of biting journalistic ridicule by such skilled AMA journalists as Arthur Cramp and Morris Fishbein; despite an unceasing stream of court actions; even despite an unprecedented "Public Warning Against Hoxsey Cancer Treatment" which the Commissioner of the FDA ordered mounted in 46,000 US post offices and substations in 1956 (Young, 1967, 387; Larrick, 1956). Since Hoxsey's death, his treatment has continued under his longtime nurse assistant, Mildred Nelson, [RN,] who currently oversees the thriving Bio-Medical Center at Tijuana, within sight of the border between Mexico and the United States. (Hoxsey himself chose this site in 1963, when his heart had begun to fail and the combined pressures of organized medicine and the FDA had finally closed down his last operation in the US [Chowka, 1984; New York Times, 1955].)

An Illinois coal miner before he began to promote himself as a healer in the 20s, the colorful, dynamic Hoxsey mixed his medicine with flamboyant public statements that skillfully contrasted his populist heritage with the growing elitism and hauteur of the American medical profession at mid-twentieth century (Young, 1967). In common with many advocates of unconventional therapies, Hoxsey considered cancer a systemic disease, however localized its manifestations might appear to be. Hence his therapy aims to restore "physiological normalcy" to a disturbed metabolism throughout the body, with emphasis on purgation, to help carry away wastes from the tumors he believed his herbal mixtures caused to necrotize (Hoxsey, 1956, 44-48, 60).

Hoxsey treated external cancers apparently with considerable success, even in the judgment of his critics, with local applications: sometimes by a red paste containing antimony sulfide, bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and zinc chloride; sometimes by a yellow powder containing arsenic and antimony sulfides, various plant substances, talc, and what Hoxsey called yellow precipitate (JAMA, 1951, 253; Hoxsey, 1956, 47). In 1941 Frederick Mohs, a respected surgeon in Madison, Wisconsin, with the help of the Dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School and several of its faculty, devised a method of surgically removing accessible cancers under complete microscopic control (Mohs, 1941). The substance which Dr. Mohs and his co-workers created for fixing the suspected tissue in situ, to enable him to excise it layer by microscopic layer, contained the same ingredients as Hoxsey's red paste. Dr. Mohs published his new method in 1941 in the ultra-respectable Archives of Surgery and in 1948 in JAMA (for later refinements, see Mohs, 1956; Phelan 1962, 1963a, and 1963b). Nonetheless, AMA spokesmen, during their accelerated onslaught on Hoxsey in the 40s and 50s, discounted the fact that Mohs' paste and Hoxsey's were identical. In condemning caustic pastes as one type of frauds and fables in 1949, the AMA implied that arsenic was the chief ingredient of Hoxsey's paste, on the basis of their own testing of a sample pirated in the 20s (JAMA, 1926, 57; Young, 1967, 365). Apparently Mohs' use of surgery (which, along with radiation, constituted the entire range of what the Council considered "established treatment") made his method, in contrast to Hoxsey's, "scientific" and acceptable. The Council failed to grasp the central fact that both men were using sanguinarine, an alkaloid of bloodroot which has potent antitumor properties described in the medical literature as early as 1829 (Young, 1967, 365; Hartwell, 1960, 23-24).

The most controversial aspect of Hoxsey's method, in the eyes of orthodox medicine, was the dark brown liquid which he used to treat internal cancer. For many years Hoxsey refused to divulge the formula for this substance, generating a frenzy of vituperation in the pages of JAMA over a period of decades. He later gave several differing accounts of its origin (Young, 1967, 362). According to his autobiography (Hoxsey, 1956, 62-64), it was his great-grandfather, a horse breeder named John Hoxsey, who developed it at mid-nineteenth century, out of grasses and flowering wild plants which John took from the pasture where a favorite stallion, afflicted with a cancerous growth, grazed daily until the growth necrotized. According to Harry, John Hoxsey reasoned that the wild plants had caused the stallion's recovery. He therefore concocted a liquid out of "red clover and alfalfa, buckthorn and prickly ash" (and other plants which John could not identify), gathered from the area where the stallion had apparently cured himself.

 

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Good News: Diet Can Help Prevent Cancer

Can eating the right foods actually help prevent cancer? According to Dena McDowell, MS, RD, a registered dietician for the Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center, the answer is yes. Studies indicate that if you eat a well-balanced diet and maintain other healthy habits like exercising and eliminating tobacco, it will help reduce your risk of cancer by as much as 70%.

"There is a strong connection between what you eat and whether you develop cancer in your lifetime," says McDowell. "The American Cancer Society Nutrition Guidelines call for a diet that is as plant-based as possible. That means more fruits, vegetables and legumes," she said. "I tell people that when they are in the grocery store, shop the perimeter of the store first. That is where the fresh produce, dairy products and meats are located."

Mix It Up
It is important to eat a wide variety of foods each day, such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains or cereals, lean meats, poultry without skin, and fish, legumes (beans), and low-fat dairy products. "Most of us eat a diet that is too low in fiber. I recommend increasing the amount of fiber in your diet by eating more fruit, vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals, and legumes," McDowell said.

Just how much of the various foods should you eat? "There is a new food guide pyramid that helps you decide how much of each food group to eat," McDowell said. "Try to include vegetables and fruits at every meal and as snacks." You can take a look at the new pyramid and other useful information including a plan for your daily needs based on age and gender by going to mypyramid.gov (free registration is required for using some areas of the website.)

As for carbohydrates, McDowell suggests choosing whole-grain, complex carbohydrates. Despite their popularity, she is not a proponent of low-carbohydrate diets. "If you don't eat carbohydrates, you won't have any energy. However, I do recommend avoiding white bread, white potatoes, and pasta, otherwise known as refined carbohydrate foods," she said.

Foods to Choose
With all of the food choices available to us, how can you tell which ones are the best? "Ten foods have been labeled 'super foods' by the American Cancer Society because of their cancer-fighting abilities," McDowell said. Try to incorporate these foods into your diet whenever you can:

• Berries (raspberries, blueberries, etc.)
• Broccoli
• Cold water fish (salmon, tuna)
• Flax seed (use as a food additive or in bread)
• Legumes ("Go meatless at least once a week," McDowell said.)
• Low-fat dairy products
• Spinach (fresh)
• Soy foods such as tofu; although "You may want to avoid soy foods if you have breast cancer. There is a potential relationship between the two," McDowell said.
• Sweet potatoes/pumpkin/squash (rich in Vitamin A or Beta Carotene)
• Walnuts (rich in Omega 3 fatty acids)

Portion Size Counts
Determining serving sizes can be confusing - and people tend to underestimate how much they're actually eating. What counts as a serving? Following are some examples:

• 1 medium piece of fruit
• 2 cups leafy greens
• 1 cup fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables
• 1 slice bread, ½ hamburger bun, ½ bagel
• ½ cup pasta, rice or mashed potato
• ½ cup cooked cereal
• 1 oz. dry cereal
• 3 oz. cooked meat, poultry or fish
• 3 slices of thin sliced deli meats
• ½ cup beans
• 1/3 cup nuts

"Buy fresh food as often as possible. Learn to read product labels because they can help you choose foods that are better for you," McDowell said.

Cancers Linked to Diet
Several types of cancer are directly linked to diet, according to research. In the typical American's diet, about 40% of calories come from fat. "Some evidence indicates that diets high in fat might increase the risk of cancers of the colon, breast, prostate, and the lining of the uterus (the endometrium). Diets low in fat may reduce these risks while they help to control weight and also reduce risk of heart attack and stroke," McDowell said.

Obesity is also a risk factor for kidney, pancreatic, and oral/esophageal cancers. "To reduce the fat in your diet, choose more low-fat or fat-free dairy, legumes, lean meats, poultry or fish. Skip rich sauces that are made with butter, cream or mayonnaise, and limit fried foods," McDowell said.

Diets rich in foods containing vitamin A, vitamin C, and beta carotene may also reduce the risk of certain cancers, such as bladder, breast, colorectal, and stomach cancer. Many vegetables and fruits contain vitamins A and C and beta carotene, such as dark green leafy vegetables, red, yellow and orange vegetables and fruits and citrus fruits and juices.

Using Herbs and Supplements
"The supplement market is a multibillion dollar industry that is not regulated by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), therefore, consumers must be well informed," McDowell said. To make the best choice, look for the USP label on the product, which means it has been standardized; take no more than 150% of the daily value of any given nutrient; look at current research regarding the supplement and make sure the research is peer reviewed - not just a claim that the company has made. "Make sure to inform your doctor of any supplements that you are taking, and talk to your pharmacist about the possibility of any nutrient-drug interactions," she said.

Changing Your Habits
The benefits of a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables and grains are numerous. "Not only will you decrease your risk of cancer, you will be able to better manage your weight, and reduce your risk of heart disease," McDowell said.

Speaking of managing your weight, McDowell recommends trying to lose some weight if you are overweight. Most importantly, get some exercise. "A goal for adults is to exercise for 60 minutes or more five days a week. Children and teens should get sixty minutes every day," she said.

If you drink alcohol, limit your consumption to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men. "Avoid mixed drinks with sugar or juice. Instead, choose dark beers and wines," McDowell said. "If you don't drink, don't start."

Likewise, don't smoke. Tobacco causes about one-third of all cancer deaths - more than all the other reliably known cancer causing agents added together, according to the National Institutes of Health. Heart disease and emphysema caused by smoking kill even more people than cancer.

It takes years to form bad habits, so don't expect to change them overnight. Instead, consider some ongoing changes. For example, add fruits and vegetables gradually over a period of weeks. Each time you shop, choose a low-fat dairy product in place of one made with whole milk. Instead of buying a loaf of white bread, try one made with 100% whole grain flour such as whole wheat or rye.

"It isn't necessary to give up all the foods you like to help protect yourself from cancer. Instead, try to increase the number of times you choose foods that may reduce your risk of cancer," McDowell said.