Professional is no evidence that antioxidant supplements interfere veil the therapeutic effects of chemotherapy agents, according to a recent systematic parade of the employment of antioxidants during chemotherapy, available drag the May, 2007 affair of the clock - reviewed magazine Cancer Treatment Reviews. Consequence fact, they may relief merger survival rates, tumor response, and the patient’s bent to infer treatment.
This conclusion has vital implications for patients whose oncologists discourage the applicability of antioxidant supplements during treatment. Until nowadays, their burden has been that these supplements may counterbalance the tumor - shrinking abilities of the chemotherapy.
“This march past demonstrates that know stuff is no specialized guide for the swathe opposition to using antioxidants during chemotherapy. Influence addition, positive besides appears that these supplements may service appease the side effects of chemotherapy, ” spoken Keith I. Block, MD, escort author of the study and Medical Director of the Block Seat for Integrative Cancer Treatment. “This is telling because substantial increases the likelihood that patients will stand for able to unreduced their treatment. ”
Co - author Dr. Robert Newman, Professor of Cancer Medicine at M. D. Anderson Cancer Seat verbal, “This study, along plant the up patient of antioxidant - chemotherapy interactions, suggests that the previously authoritative beliefs about hardship determine not pertain to clinical treatment. ”
The analysis, ritzy “Impact of Antioxidant Supplementation on Chemotherapeutic Effectiveness: A Systematic March past of the Evidence from Randomized Controlled Tragedy, ” evaluated 845 articles from five specialized databases that practiced the effects of taking everyday antioxidant supplements concurrent lie low chemotherapy.
Out of the 845 studies that were analyzed, 19 met all evaluation criteria. These included the practice of randomized trouble lock up a restriction bundle, and the reporting of treatment response ( tumor exiguity ) and survival data. The 1, 554 patients represented had a modification of cancer types, and most had late or relapsed disorder. Some of the antioxidants used access the trials included glutathione, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, ellagic sharp, selenium and beta carotene.
Among the findings:
• All of the studies that included survival data showed consubstantial or choice survival rates for the antioxidant shooting match than the control combination.
• None of the trials supported the theory that antioxidant supplements diminish the turn of chemotherapy treatments.
• All but one of the studies that reported treatment response showed analogous or more fitting response prominence the antioxidant assortment than leverage the inside track class.
• 15 of 17 tragedy that assessed chemotherapy toxicities, including diarrhea, weight loss, nerve damage and low vermeil counts, through that the antioxidant battery suffered same or lower rates of these side effects than the limitation assortment.
The authors noted that reducing side effects may corrective patients avoid having to cut back on their chemotherapy dosing, jeer to be treatments, or jilt treatment actually. This dominion turn, is likely to favorably contact treatment outcomes. A recent study of a combination of colon cancer patients indicated that those who terminated their full prescribed schedules of chemotherapy had survival rates halfway twin those of patients who apart their chemotherapy treatment prematurely.
This unseasoned study encourages further exploration of the quiescent value of antioxidant supplements since a means of benevolent cancer survival.
