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jasfi

Does this mean that people undergoing chemo shouldn't have any supplements at all?

Lutein, for example, is a strong antioxidant but also has anti-cancer properties.

Edit: thanks for the replies!

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I was advised not to take supplements or antioxidants during chemo.

"The healthier you are, then so too is your cancer." was something that threw me off a bit.

Edit: just to be clear, at the point in which you already have cancer, the most important treatment is the science of chemotherapy. Antioxidants can in turn “strengthen” tumor cells (just as they do regular cells) and cause chemo resistance/refractory.

Sounds like a mythical riddle. "To survive, you must go knock on the doors of death."

Chemotherapy is deadly. The idea is to administer enough to kill the cancer but not kill the patient. It's literally a well-regulated and well-monitored poison.

Don't get the wrong idea - chemotherapies are among the best therapies we have for treating cancer. I'm not anti-Western medicine or anti-chemotherapy or anything like that, it's just we have to recognize the nature of the beast and what it is exactly that we're doing when administering it.

>> "The healthier you are, then so too is your cancer." was something that threw me off a bit.

There is debate to this. I've spoken with oncologists that say that you need your organs to survive the chemo process, so you should be taking care of yourself and eating a normal diet.

Another reason oncologists don't want supplements involved is that it can interfere with the chemo absorption. Sometimes it can enhance the chemo. It really depends on the chemo and the supplements.

When my mother in law (RIP) was going through treatment for lymphoma, the doctors did in fact advise against taking supplements. Because -- either doing nothing (waste of $$), doing "something" that could likely discourage cell death and therefore maybe cancer, or doing... who knows what? because under-regulated and studied.

Chemo is rough, for sure.

I don't think this is the case for antioxidants across the board. Peter Langjoen, who has pioneered CoQ10 research and used it extensively clinically addressed coQ10 use with chemotherapy in this interview and reluctancy of cancer centers to allow patients to use it: https://youtu.be/9Z7X9WPWv4Y?si=avOV0u4ruy_zNslr&t=746.

While coenzyme Q10 may show indirect anticancer activity through its effect(s) on the immune system, there is evidence to suggest that analogs of this compound can suppress cancer growth directly[1].

1. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/hp/coenzym...

In literally 3 hours, I'm about to start my first iv chemo session (18 weeks total).

And yes I was instructed to not take any supplements, especially naturopathic stuff but even including common multivitamins.

Not sure why you were getting downvoted - I'm of the age where I've had several friends and acquaintances deal with cancer and have had to have chemotherapy. In most cases they were instructed to not take any supplements. They especially don't want you taking naturopathic stuff because that's so poorly regulated and they really have no idea what it is you were actually taking and how it might affect your therapy. My understanding is this is pretty much standard operating procedure.

Should not take high doses of antioxidants to be more specific.

It might just mean "wait for replication"

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