Cancer prevention is certainly one motivator for this trend. While knowledge and experience with dietary supplementation is still in its infancy, scientific evidence for the power of good nutrition to prevent cancer is growing. According to experts, the future holds potential to match nutritional strategy with specific cancer prevention. For now, however, important questions are being asked and work is underway to find unbiased answers. A Growing Concern For those with cancer, their is growing concern that pharmocologic use of antioxidant vitamin, mineral and herbals might interfere with anticancer therapies such as chemotherapy.
Pharmocologic use is when a vitamin, mineral, or herbal is used in excess of basic daily needs.
Many chemotherapy drugs work by creating free radical species of oxygen to produce an anti-tumor effect. When there are high circulating levels of antioxidants, it is proposed that this may interrupt the reactive oxygen effect early thus resulting in a reduction of the chemotherapy dose. Not all chemotherapy drugs utilize the reactive oxygen pathway. If you are using high dose antioxidants and undergoing chemotherapy, notify your oncologist so they may appropriately manage your anticancer therapy. In the meantime, the research goes on.