Natural Medicines for Pancreatic Cancer
Article on Natural Medicines for Pancreatic Cancer
Here's the bad news: Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of death from cancer in America, and it's on the rise.
Because pancreatic cancer is usually diagnosed in advanced stages, the cure rate is a mere five percent, and the median overall survival span for patients without treatment is only three months.
Forty percent of patients who do seek conventional treatments live about one year (depending on the treatment), and very few live past three years with metastatic pancreatic cancer.With statistics like these, it's clear that conventional treatment methods - such as chemotherapy, surgery, and pharmaceuticals – are in vast need of improvement.
But there's good news!
New studies are being performed combining conventional therapies and natural medicines with very encouraging results! To better understand comprehensive treatment for pancreatic cancer, it helps to understand a potential cause of the disease first.
Certainly we're seeing a rise in pancreatic cancer because it's primarily a cancer found in elderly people, and we're living longer than ever before. But the more common reason why rates of pancreatic cancer are increasing is obesity and high carbohydrate intake. There’s a strong link between what’s called metabolic syndrome and pancreatic cancer. Metabolic syndrome is basically a condition where your body produces too much insulin in response to carbohydrates.
THE INSULIN LINK TO PANCREATIC CANCER
So here's the scenario: you wake up every morning and enjoy a slice of toast or a bagel, or perhaps some pancakes and a glass of juice. For dinner, you're having pasta, bread, and potatoes and you’re maintaining this sort of routine for years. You might be a little bit overweight (especially around the middle), with blood pressure on the high end, and an exercise routine that is slightly lacking.
Eventually, with this sort of lifestyle, your body will start to produce too much insulin.
And it is these high circulating levels of insulin that could act as a catalyst for the development of pancreatic cancer simply because there are insulin receptors – binding sites – for insulin on pancreatic cancer cells.
In short - insulin increases cell proliferation in pancreatic cancer cells.
So there is definitely incentive to focus on lowering insulin levels as a method of cancer treatment and prevention!
DIETARY MEASURES FOR PANCREATIC CANCER PREVENTION
- Avoid high glycemic foods which contain lots of starches and sugars, but not much fiber.
- Try to follow a Low-carb / Paleo diet focusing on healthy fats, moderate amounts of animal protein, nuts, seeds, and a variety of colorful veggies.
- Keep grains to a minimum, particularly grains that have no fiber such as white flour and pasta.
- Avoid preservatives, especially the nitrites and nitrates contained in cured meats such as lunch meat, bacon, and hot dogs. Once these preservatives mix with the acid in your stomach, they form nitrosamines which are directly linked to pancreatic cancer.
- Avoid grilled meats and deep-fried foods which contain toxic substances called HCAs – heterocyclic amines – that are not only linked with pancreatic cancer but also stomach cancer and other gastrointestinal-related cancers.
NATURAL TREATMENTS FOR PANCREATIC CANCER
THE IMPORTANCE OF BLOOD TESTING FOR PANCREATIC CANCER TREATMENT
For a more targeted treatment plan, it's crucial for pancreatic cancer patients to have comprehensive blood tests performed. This allows for a therapeutic approach that is formulated specifically for the patient.
For example -
If Interleukin 10 is found to be elevated in a patient, efforts need to be made to lower the level. A form of Vitamin E called Tocotrienols has been found to be an effective inhibitor of Interleukin 10 while also making chemotherapy more effective.
Another noteworthy example of the importance of testing is the RGCC lab in Greece. This cutting edge test actually takes the cancer cells out of the patients blood and tests them to determine which therapies will be most effective for this particular patient.
This test can be ordered anytime and simply requires about twenty millilitres of the patients blood to be sent to the lab in Greece where it is then put through the OncoQuick procedure to isolate the cancer cells. The professionals at RGCC labs then grow these cancer cells until there are enough to test a variety of chemotherapy drugs. This test provides the patient with the highly beneficial information of which chemotherapy drug is most effective for them.
These advanced forms of testing help sort the wheat from the chaff when determining the best, most effective approach for each individual patient.
There is still much to learn about treating pancreatic cancer, and as you can see – natural therapies, including diet, seem to be a large part of enhancing the outcome for patient survival.
References:
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/7/1674
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25842732
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17440100
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4963909/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21935918
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23674070
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371140/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22190076