After five years, survival in the radiation-only group was 37 percent. But among those receiving both radiation and Chinese herbs, the figure was 53 percent, a significant difference. Shiitake mushroom extract enhances effectiveness of chemotherapy in stomach cancer . Long considered a health-promoting delicacy in Asian cuisines, shiitake mushrooms contain a compound, lentinan, that stimulates the immue system against infections and cancer. The lentinan group showed greater immune system activity, and survived significantly longer.
Many Western herbs have antitumor effects .
Among the most widely used American herbal cancer therapies is the Hoxsey program, which Harry Hoxsey, an ex-coal miner with no medical training, began promoting in the 1930s as his family's secret herbal cancer cure. Tried several times for practicing medicine without a license, but never convicted because no patient ever testified being harmed by his herbs, Hoxsey was hounded out of the country in 1963 after his Dallas clinic was raided by the Food and Drug Administration. He died in 1974, but his clinic, the Biomedical Center, continues to operate in Tijuana, Mexico. Mistletoe may be beneficial . University of Texas researchers recently analyzed 34 clinical trials of mistletoe extract in human cancer patients.