B cell lymphoma and supplements

That is not what I meant. I meant on nutrtion and sugar intake.

My husband and I were also told not to add supplements due to the interactions with chemo.  He's very active in research so I have to consider he's enlightened.  By the way - his advice worked; we're both survivors for almost 6 years.

In all honesty, what we ate during chemo was so limited due to the gi side effects that whatever we got down was considered a good thing.  I lost 75 lbs during chemo; ate alot of puffed cheetos and spaghetti 0's - can't tolerate the thought of them now, but was all I wanted during rounds 2 & 3. 

I've heard the argument on sugar before but our oncologist didnt put any stock in it; reinforced that whatever we could eat during chemo was a good thing.  Another family member went to mayo and asked about sugar; they also didn't put any stock in it.  Who knows - what works for one doesn't for another.  Stay well.

Congratulations.  Nutrition was my biggest advocate going through chemo, wheatgrass, healing and nurturing spices, probiotics with supplements taking on a bigger role in aftercare in restoring the body, mind and soul. I am a survivor of almost 3 years.

Knowledge is power, yes I agree whatever you can tolerate during treatment, because you need some kind of nutrition. But to disregard what nutritionists say about balancing blood sugar during treatment for better prognosis is, how to say as not to offend, not in the patients best interest. And that goes for any disease process, not just cancer. Our Standard American Diet in America (SAD) is just that. Life is about choices and there are many in diet and lifestyle that can either bring us closer to health or into a state of disease.

  I agree with you heaing1.   Some doctors are unenlightened when it comes to the value of using  supplements and antioxidants when treating cancers with the standard of care treatments.  There is a great deal of reliable scientific evidence that backs this up that is easy to find so it's hard to understand why every healthcare giver is not aware of the benefits.

Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate. Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different,

Heaney's team wrote.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/02/cancer-fructose-id

Antioxidants and other nutrients do not interfere with chemotherapy or radiation therapy and can increase kill and increase survival,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17283738

It's been known since 1923 that tumor cells use a lot more glucose than normal cells.

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090817184539.ht

Tumor cells do use more glucose, because their mitochondria doesn't use the glucose as efficiently, energy wise, as mitochondria in non-cancerous cells. (1 molecule of glucose normally = 36 molecules ATP, the major energy carrying molecule, but in tumor mitochondria another pathway is active that only makes 2 ATP per glucose and the waste products are what are thought to lead to tumor proliferation, and increased acidity.)

I'm not sure if you can really take from that that you should avoid glucose to prevent the tumor from eating, although there are plenty of other reasons to avoid processed sugar. Lots of complex molecules are broken down into glucose that the tumor cells and other normal cells can use.

DLBCL is diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and mine is pretty aggressive. If anyone has any specifics regarding supplements that have worked for them I'd appreciate hearing them. I also have a couple of scientific journal articles I can share on natural anti-cancer compounds.

Everything I have read in medical journals so far points to supplements either helping or not affecting the efficacy of chemotherapy drugs. The problem is, most of the studies are in petri dishes or animals, so the interactions in humans are still unknown and probably will be for a long time, since the natural compounds aren't patentable and the drug companies have no incentive to help fund the research. And human trials are very, very expensive.

It sounds like you follow the glycemic index dietary guidelines;definately a good nutritional basis.  Actually, my Oncologist wrote one of the books on this and is a strong proponent of it.  My point was primarily during chemo - any nutrition was better than none.  After treatment (assuming the person is in remission or has obtained cure status) I remain a strong proponent of a well balanced nutritious diet.  In the "ideal" world we would all eat only the best of foods in their original unprocessed forms; but even after remission alot of people just can't tolerate alot of foods due to the damage the chemo did to the gi tract; it's my opinion that is where common sense comes in.  It's just general information - I'm very glad we are in America and can express our different views.

Thank you Shemay