What is your philosophy regarding using herbal medicine to treat cancer?
My research staff and I have been delving into the area of tumor molecular growth pathways and nutrients/herbs for over a dozen years now. We have been working on and developing tumor type specific molecular panels over these years. This is a big area of research in the world of Big Pharma; and nutrients have been shown to have profound effects on tumor growth pathways; in fact, nutrients/herbal extract may have an advantage over drugs because they are nontoxic and have what is known as pleiotropic activity (hitting many targets versus a single target like a drug is designed to do). The other advantage of nontoxic nutrients is they can be used in anticipation of the tumor’s next molecular “chess” move. When one growth pathway is blocked, the typical tumor response (yes, we could say tumors have a malicious intelligence of sorts) is to find the next convenient pathway (which can be referred to as substitute or compensatory pathway). Drugs are too toxic to find use in this strategy but herbs/nutrients can be helpful here, potentially slowing down tumor progression.
While most of the research is still in the early preclinical stages, most herbs are safe with the exceptions of those that may interact with certain drugs. A common example is St. Johns Wort, which interacts with many drugs and thus, we generally encourage avoidance unless a patient is able to avoid the use of any conventional drugs. However, some herbs can address multiple targets at one time. For example, curcumin is able to regulate not just a single molecular target but entire pathways (the entire communication network from start to finish). For example, it has been shown to regulate TNFalpha, COX-2, EFGR, HER2/neu receptor, VEGF, Topoisomerase, tubulin, CXCR4, MMP-9 and pAKT.
While most of the research is still in the early preclinical stages, most herbs are safe with the exceptions of those that may interact with certain drugs. A common example is St. Johns Wort, which interacts with many drugs and thus, we generally encourage avoidance unless a patient is able to avoid the use of any conventional drugs. However, some herbs can address multiple targets at one time. For example, curcumin is able to regulate not just a single molecular target but entire pathways (the entire communication network from start to finish). For example, it has been shown to regulate TNFalpha, COX-2, EFGR, HER2/neu receptor, VEGF, Topoisomerase, tubulin, CXCR4, MMP-9 and pAKT.
For more information on The Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment, call (847) 230-9107 or visit BlockMD.com.
Comments