Nowadays there is particular enthusiasm for “alternative diets.” They have been attributed with helping prolong the life expectancy of oncology patients who adhere to them strictly. However, a systematic review (1) of research carried out on the effects of these diets, identified that not one of the many diet regimes has convincingly demonstrated that it helps to cure cancer or significantly prolong the life of oncology patients..
Consists of a lacto-vegetarian diet, low in sodium and high in potassium, with emphasis on consumption of fresh vegetables, fruit juices and vitamin supplements.
A retrospective, comparative analysis reported that survival rates at 5 years were increased 6 fold in patients with melanoma who were treated with the Gerson diet.
However, defective methodology limited the reliability of this study therefore providing no good scientific evidence to support this result.
Vegetarian diets, low in fat but high in complex carbohydrate content.
Scientific evidence of the benefits of a macrobiotic diet in patients with cancer is limited to two methodologically defective, retrospective studies.
It is also important to emphasise that a third of oncology patients who follow a macrobiotic diet experience problems due to weight loss, the restrictive and unpleasant nature of the regimen, the time dedicated to preparing food as well as the cost and inaccessibility of some of the ingredients.
A programme which is associated with diet restriction and consumption of digestive aids – pepsin and pancreatic enzymes – with a “detoxification” regime including frequent coffee enemas.
This study included 36 patients with pancreatic cancer who had not undergone resection, or had only undergone partial resection. Only 11 were considered assessable for the results. In these the average survival was 17 months, in comparison with data from the literature which talks about survival of four to six months.
A product which has been mixed, boiled and freeze dried and which contains ingredients possessing immunostimulating and anticancerous properties: soya, mushrooms, mung beans, red dates, chives, garlic, lentils, leeks, hawthorn berries, onion, ginseng, angelica, dandelion, senega root, liquorice, ginger, olives, sesame seeds and parsley.
Two small studies have been performed in patients with cancer. In the control arm of the study which included patients with stage III/IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the average survival rate in the 11 patients who had a daily intake of SV was three times greater than in the 13 patients who did not receive the supplement (15 months as opposed to 4 months).
A similar suggestion of prolonged survival was observed in a second study of 18 patients with stage III/IV NSCLC who had refused, or not responded to, conventional treatment. The average survival was 33.5 months for the 12 patients who used SV for two months or more. At five years, 50 percent of the patients were still alive.
When these details were presented to the Cancer Advisory Committee for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, SV was judged worthy of further, definitive research.
It is important to remember that even if at first sight beneficial results from certain diets appear to be encouraging, until now existing research has been performed on a small scale (small numbers of patients included in the clinical trials) and the results cannot therefore be extrapolated to the general population nor can the results be attributed to scientific fact (rather than mere coincidence).
(1) Systematic review is considered to be a supportive tool in the implementation of research as it involves a synthesis of the studies available on a particular theme which then orients practice based on scientific evidence. A good systematic review has indisputable value in practice as it helps to solve clinical problems.
March 22, 2017
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