Antioxidants Or No Antioxidants???

Hello:J MinCA: Sorry to hear your diagnosis. I do not have the same cancer but had end stage Multiple Myeloma (Lack of ability to make red and white cells and degrades the bones )  I took a natural path to remission. I did about 10% medical.

There is so much confusion and so much information.  I did not agree witha lot  Lorraine Days information.  I was a RN with 3 years of Oncology experience before I retired. Does it mean I am an expert NO.  Everyone of us is different and yes one must help oneself.  I took 500mgs of CoQ10 and Polymva along with Epicor for immune boosters, raw juice, no sugar, an occasional tsp honey in an egg custard (Made with heavy whipping cream as dairy is not so good for cancer-mucous forming) Several people on our survivors website did Budwig but no one said that taking the antioxidents were bad....YOu have to balance Omeg 3's and 6. My memory is not always correct on this. I chose the polymva but it is a little expensive for some however if you just take lipoic acid, it is a huge boost to killing off cancer cells.  Ihave a couple of websites I will send you to but will send a private note. www.cancercenter.com does alternate as well as traditional medicine but you cannot be accepted if you have HMO insurance.  I also did not drink sodas (never really did) I stuck to purified water and homemade grapejuice from the vine. Bowel cleansing and eating small nourishing meals helps.  YOu might want to go to:www.ph-ion.com. and read about how to keep your body ph alkaline to kill the cancer cells. You have to work out what works best for you.  I hope this info helps as there is so much confusing conflicting information out there. Take care MMS

On 4/6/2008 JMinCA wrote:

I was diagnosed with stage 3C colon cancer -- had a large tumor removed from the sigmoid area, then underwent 6 months of chemotherapy -- 5FU and oxaliplatin.  6 weeks since the end of chemo, but my fingers are still very numb.

Well, at any rate, my most recent CAT scan shows "suspiciously enlarged lymph nodes in my upper abdomen". The oncologist hemmed and hawed about what this meant, but I know what it means.  Cancer is still there.  And these are  cells immune to chemotherapy, basically.  And that gives me about a 30% chance of living for 5 years according to the statistics.

So time to look at alternatives.  I've been reading a lot about alternative therapies.  They all have one thing in common -- the "cancer diet" -- lots of juicing, raw foods, no meat, no sugar, etc.  Okay -- got that down. 

But where there is a wide divergence is in the use of antioxidants.  Lots of success stories about IV C.  Some success stories involving CoQ10.  Linus Pauling's Canadian associate even claimed niacin played a big role in stopping cancer, but I haven't seen any follow-up on this.

But then we get the Budwig Diet, which claims large doses of antioxidants are BAD BAD BAD.  The Budwig crowd (which seems to have a very impressive track record) claims that the antioxidants severely interfere with the omega 3's re-establishing the electrical balance of the cells.  Their basic idea is to turn back on the aerobic respiration of cancer cells and they will become normal again.

What's her name -- Donna Summers (?) of Three's Company fame claims she cured herself of stage 4 breast cancer with a mostly raw food diet.  She too believes that antioxidants are ... if not bad, then not needed.

Dr. Day of San Francisco also claims to have cured herself of stage 4 breast cancer with, again, an all natural, mostly raw food diet (and a lot of barley grass powder) and she too says antioxidants are bad, because "you can't improve on God". 

Then there's the "cancertutor" website that has such a mishmash of information that one gets lost.  Some methods say don't use any antioxidants.  Others are based mainly on antioxidants.  Some say NO SUGAR, even fruit sugar -- stay away from fruit!  Others say fruit (and even honey) is a-okay. 

I've just started taking IV C.  I also wanted to do the Budwig diet in conjunction, but I posted this to the Budwig board and they jumped all over me, claiming that the IV C would render the Budwig diet completely ineffective.   They went as far as to say that the antioxidants would turn the omega 3's into "bad oils" and damage my body.

Yet there is one guy on the internet who claims that Budwig kills so many cancer cells so quickly that you must have a strong supply of antioxidants to clean up afterwards.  This is actually contrary to what Budwig claims -- they claim to "convert" cancer cells.  But I have seen posts by "Budwigists" who claim that there can be large die-offs of cancer cells.

Well, I'm completely confused.  Any advice?