23. Nutrition: Love your Body

As I continue to write my Blog about my fight with melanoma I realise I am slightly falling into dangerous territory. I don't want to move too much away from telling my story and start providing advice to others who have been sadly hit by the same awful disease as me. First of all because this was never what I set up to do, but also because there are plenty of informative sources out there already. And not least because I am not in any way qualified to provide medical advice to anyone. So when in this post I talk about dietary supplements and changes to diet, I am really talking about my choices, and foods which in my opinion should at least be considered by cancer patients. However one general piece of advice for fellow patients I do have, and after more than two years of pain and suffering and fighting melanoma I take the liberty of giving it: do not limit your resources to what your doctors say. Do your own research. Consider complementary treatments and have a valid reason to reject them. When they tell you that there are no more options for you, do not believe them. Believe in yourself.

I mentioned sources of information on cancer treatments. This is how I would loosely list them (the list is not exhaustive) according to the decreasing order of trustworthiness I personally attach to them:

1. Outcome of medical trials;
2. Scientific publications in peer-reviewed credited journals;
3. What your body tells you (how you feel);
4. What your instinct tells you (when making decisions);
5. What your oncologist tells you;
6. What other doctors tell you;
7. Information on credited websites;
8. Other patients' experiences;
9. Patients Blogs (such as this one!)

When it comes to nutrition, what I feel very strongly about is that everyone should do what they feel most comfortable doing. And one certainly needs to be aware of quackery and false promises, which can easily be found on the Internet. Certainly to be avoided are any products that claim to be “miracle cures” or are based on a “secret ingredient” or method. Such claims are likely to be fraudulent, and the product may be harmful.

Do your research and complement or change your diet as you feel is appropriate to you. As a cancer patient I find it hard to understand why other patients would dismiss any complementary foods. My survival instinct tells me to try remedies that with little effort may help me, where there is no downside (other than the effort to ensure that you consume certain foods).

When doing my research, I always focus on studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals or other credited published sources. The findings of these studies are often sadly ignored by oncologists as they have been conducted in vitro or on animals, or on small populations of patients, they are however credited pieces of work.

As for myself, items that I have added to my diet (not necessarily all at the same time) are:

• Food supplements: vitamin C, D (very important for mm patients who are unlikely to spend enough time in the sun), zinc, omega 3 oil and multivitamin;
• Apricot kernels;
• Flax seed oil;
• Green tea;
• Curcuma;
• Dietary sulphur: Methyl Sulphonyl Methane (MSM);
• Bicarbonate of Soda;
• Probiotics;
• Milk thistle;
• My daily smoothie: 250g carrots, 40g ginger, a piece of fruit, chamomile and calendula flowers, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon of honey and 1 spoon of flax seed oil (NB you need to get used to the taste!!).

Ginger, curcuma, chamomile flowers, calendula flowers, milk thistle and omega 3 (NB not omega 6!!) are wonderful natural anti-inflammatory foods. Cancer relies on inflammatory mechanisms to recruit blood vessels (angiogenesis), which are required to feed tumours, so without inflammation cancer is in trouble! I would stock up on anti-inflammatory foods. I also eat several portions of fruits and vegetables every day. By the same token, I believe it is a good idea to stay away from foods which are pro-inflammatory for the body, such as too much red meat, and processed foods in general.

Probiotics are fundamental to keep a healthy and strong immune system, and there are recent studies that show their synergies with immunotherapies (including drugs such as ipilimumab and pembrolizumab). (www.ascopost.com/issues/december-10-2015/gut-bacteria-may-facilitate-efficacy-of-anti-pd-l1-agents).

MSM has been shown to revert malignancy in melanoma cells, in vitro and on mice models (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011788). It has extremely low toxicity (similar to water) and low probabilities of mild side effects. Of course the chances of having a medical trial on an inexpensive product are close to none, as what pharmaceutical company would fund such trial?

It really upsets me that the oncologists who are administering the hugely expensive and potentially deadly immunotherapies, would not even talk to their patients about nutrients such as MSM and probiotics which are inexpensive and safe to take. Again I am not saying that MSM or Probiotics would save the patient's life without the use of the expensive drugs, however according to recent research there is a good probability that they can make a difference to the efficacy of the standard treatment, so why not take them?! 

One thing which is fundamental for natural treatments to work is the constancy of use. You must consume the product daily (or several times a day) with dedication. An occasional or discontinued use of any natural food is unlikely to provide any real benefits. Natural foods are not chemicals or medicines, they are not concentrated, so they can only have a material impact if you feed your body continuously with substantial amounts of that substance, so that it has time to build up and start to work.