In the older days, cancer had no treatment. After sometime came the surgery. But even after a surgery was performed there was a possibility of caner cells to return again. To minimize this and to make the surgery easy, in the year of 1940, a method called chemotherapy started to emerge. The ultimate aim is to kill the cancer cells present in the body by passing anti cancer drugs into the body.

While offering the chemotherapy treatment using different types of drugs depending upon the stage of the cancer, sometimes the cancer cells may resist the treatment offered. This is termed as chemo drug resistance. Even the chemotherapy may fail sometime too.

On the time of performing the chemotherapy treatment, some infected cells may not respond to the treatment. In sense they are not killed. Once they start to multiply, the resistance offered will be more. An infected cell may produce several copies of a gene. This gene amplification factor makes the chemotherapy drugs inactive and inefficient.

With a help of a molecule called p-glycoprotein, the infected cells can pump out the drugs injected into the body and thus making it inactive. The cancer cells also learn how to break the DNA pairs produced by the drugs to kill the defected cells.

It is the reason why the drugs are given in combination to kill the infected cells. If the physician uses a single drug, the cancer cells may learn how to inactivate the drug inserted into the body. So choosing the right drug combination would be the first aspect for any physician while treating a cancer patient.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anand_Prabhakar
Technorati Tag: Chemotherapy

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It’s been estimated by some experts that by the year 2018, cancer will be the number one killer of us humans in North America. I can almost see the confused look on your face. If so much money is being poured into cancer research and so much progress being made, how can this be? Well, I imagine there’s much more money being made than progress when it comes to conventional cancer treatment. It’s obvious that some form of chemotherapy is the first choice of most doctors when it comes to treating your cancer. But is chemotherapy really safe?

Basically, when you have cancer and are prescribed chemotherapy, the drugs enter your bloodstream and destroy every rapidly dividing cell they can find. This means cancer cells. This means hair follicles. This means digestive tract cells, reproductive cells, and even bone marrow. This is why chemo patients become so violently ill and lose their hair during treatment. So, if your chemotherapy regimen kills your cancer before it kills you, then I guess it was a success. The cancer industry will shout about newer, gentler forms of chemo, but in order to be successful they all have to search and destroy.

According to a study published by Clinical Oncology in 2004, the average 5 year survival success rate of chemotherapy was just over 2% for all cancers. Pretty great odds, don’t you think?

Add to that the fact that many polls and questionnaires suggest that as many as 75% of doctors would refuse the very same chemotherapy treatments they’re prescribing for you! Can you believe that?

We live in a society where we’re able to make educated choices about these types of things. When it comes to chemotherapy, you should educate yourself before making any decisions. Chemotherapy is very questionable in its effectiveness and certainly unsafe. In the end, I just can’t see how something so utterly destructive can ultimately heal your body. There are many, many other options out there. You just have to take a look around.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joshua_McCarron
Technorati Tag: Chemotherapy

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Conventional medicine wants you to believe that surgery, radiation and chemotherapy is your only recourse against cancer. Maybe it’s because the average cancer patient represents a $500,000 payday for the cancer treatment system. Money is being made while your health is undergoing collateral damage. Never mind that most cancer patients will spend many months receiving chemo poison and radiation which shreds their body, including the immune system.

Go ask a person who has gone through the conventional chemo process and see if they wouldn’t mind going through it again if informed of the bad news that there was still cancer present. It will be like trying to find an athiest in a foxhole.

Did you know that 75% of the average oncologist’s “take home pay” is profit from the chemo drugs he gives to his patients. Your oncologist is just doing his job, working with information that’s been approved by our fabulously corrupt Food and Drug Administration and its overlords at the American Medical Association. Cancer therapy is big business which means huge dollars. we all want live in a world which is cancer free from the suffering which it brings, but the hypocrisy is amazing

Before you submit yourself to toxic tests and “therapies” that so often just increase your pain and suffering, doesn’t it make sense to know all of your options?

Recently, when one of the world’s largest cancer centers surveyed oncologists about how they would treat their own cancers, almost 90% said they would refuse chemotherapy. They said that chemotherapy drugs were non-neffective and have a high degree of toxicity.

The fact is that by shrinking tumors, chemo actually encourages stronger cancer cells to grow and multiply, becoming chemo-resistant. To top things off, there are the new cancers caused by chemotherapy, or secondary cancers. Somehow they forget to mention this life-threatening detail on the list of “side effects” in some drug company accompanying literature.

Sometimes people become statistics. The big-pharma and the other special interest groups which have an obvious conflict of interest due to huge profits that cancer reaps will present a different picture to continue to get the funds. They want you to be like sheep with a leash. The minute “sheeple” start to think for themselves and investigate other options, the leash gets a firm jerk and in some cases, an extreme jerk to let you know “who is boss”. Pretty soon, the sheep is content to go where his leader lets him.

The truth is, good health is a matter of common sense and having a healthy dose of cynicism about what the “authorities” have to say about what’s good for you, and what’s not. Too often society, in regard to cancer, will look to natural alternatives as a last resort. Some natural metabolic cancer treatments will include small amounts of chemo in the protocol, but it would be compared to adding a little seasoning with the food. Conventional cancer treatment is the other way around and it is big money which equal big profit.

Prevention is the key, but there are other options available for those that have been diagnosed than the conventional chemo and radiation package. Various cancer “awareness months” are in vogue and the spirit is all good, but I can’t help shaking my head knowing that any natural, non-pharmaceutical drug will not be considered in treating cancer.

Please consider that centuries ago some people thought that the earth was flat, and more recent, World War 1 would be the war to end all wars. we all know how these proclamations worked out and same is true that chemo is only way to beat cancer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joni_Bell
Technorati Tag: Chemotherapy

Vitamin C, cancer and chemotherapy treatment is either a good or bad combination, depending on the research that’s making news.

Since this essential vitamin is known to be an antioxidant, many experts suggest it may help in the fight against cancer. But when chemotherapy drugs are involved, vitamin C may not be the supplement to use, according to a team of New York scientists whose findings are soon to appear in the journal Cancer Research.

The work, conducted in the test tube and on live mice, showed that levels of vitamin C reduced the effectiveness of some cancer drugs. These drugs are known to produce oxygen free radicals that are meant to kill the cancer cells.

If you supplement with vitamin C while taking these medications, the vitamin C is suspected of soaking up the free radicals intended for the cancer cells – letting them continue to live and grow.

“What we found is that vitamin C blunted the effectiveness of all the chemotherapy drugs we studied,” says Mark Heaney, MD, PhD, associate attending physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the study’s lead author. “What vitamin C does is protect the cancer cells from the chemotherapy mainly by protecting their mitochondria [the cell's power sources],”

Chemotherapy medications are meant to damage the mitochondria in the cancer cells, signaling the cell to die.

Here’s how the research was done. The team pretreated some leukemia and lymphoma cells (and did not treat others) with the form vitamin C takes when it enters a cell. Both sets of cells were then exposed to a range of chemo drugs including Adriamycin, Platinol, Oncovin, methotrexate and Gleevec. The effects were then measured and a 30% to 70% cut in effectiveness was observed.

Chemotherapy just was not as effective.

Next, the cancer cells were implanted into mice. Here the tumors pretreated with vitamin C grew more quickly than those that had not been exposed to the vitamin.

It seems that just like healthy cells, cancer cells might be able to benefit from the protective effects of vitamin C. The team felt that the buildup of vitamin C levels in cells was similar to what would result if a patient took large doses of vitamin C supplements.

The idea that vitamin C could be used to treat cancer was first put forward in the 1970s by American scientist Linus Pauling, awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1954. Still the link wasn’t born out by three separate Mayo Clinic studies during the 1980s – all well designed, controlled, double blind experiments.

However, although the recent study seemed damning cancer expert, Balz Frei, PhD. the director and chair of the Linus Pauling Institute, looked at the work of the New York researchers, and mentioned some problems with the study:

- Doses of vitamin C used were very high.

- Mice produce vitamin C naturally, and even more when they are ill.

- Only leukemia and lymphoma cancers were studied.

- Only some chemotherapy agents were studied.

Frei continues to believe that very high concentrations of vitamin C, as the late Linus Pauling advocated, could well prove toxic to cancer cells. He does admit that vitamin C may be contra-indicated during some types of chemo. And while the New York researchers may discourage vitamin C supplements during chemotherapy, Frie believes that in daily doses up to 500mg it can be more helpful than harmful.

In the meantime, all sides agree that more study is needed. The recommended intake of vitamin C is 75 milligrams for women, 90 for men. Supplements come in many forms, but natural sources are always best… especially if you are undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. If you’re using any of the drugs used in the study, talk with your own doctor about how much vitamin C is right for you.

About the Author:Over 14,000 people have joined Kirsten’s popular (and sometimes controversial) Daily Health Bulletin, so why not join them and stay up to date with effective chemotherapy treatment options and other health news daily. You also get 5 comprehensive health reports free when you join – giving you all you need to treat common ailments, lose weight, look younger and feel healthy.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Straight Talk on Vitamin C During Chemotherapy Treatment

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