My Malignant Melanoma

I see someone is promoting a dietary supplement called Biovitali Vitalcells on the What Now board with what looks to the unsophisticated eye like some reasonable scientific evidence. I guess the moderators will eventually get round to deleting this, but wouldn't it be better to have a look at how strong the evidence is?

So let's have a look at that evidence, which is:

1. The product has apparently been patented

2. It is supposedly endorsed by the MD Anderson Cancer Research Centre and the National Foundation for Cancer Research

3. Laboratory trials show it not just to stop cancer and cardiovascular illnesses in their tracks, but to prevent them occurring in the first place, and to extend life by 30%

Taking these claims one by one-

1. Patenting something does not mean that anyone has shown it to actually work. It is a commercial device to prevent anyone copying your work. Having a patent does not mean that something does what it claims. This is no evidence at all.

2. It seems not to be endorsed by either the MD Anderson Cancer Research Centre, or the National Foundation for Cancer Research as is claimed in the manufacturers literature. Both of the organisations in fact have advice against cancer patients and others taking non-prescribed food supplements on their websites, here and here. Neither of their websites make any mention of this product.

3. If the non-peer-reviewed in-house research on the manufacturer's website were true, and applicable to humans, cancer would be no more serious than the common cold. Every single one of the ingredients shows at least 80% tumour inhibition, and together they are even more powerful. But every one of these ingredients is a substance present in normal foodstuffs. How can this be?

Let's see what might be going on. Have a look at the table at the end on lifespan increase. 100% of these mice get cancer during their lives. That is because this strain of mouse has been specially bred to get skin cancer.

The experimenters made getting cancer a racing certainty in their antioxidant experiments by also injecting the mice with a powerful cancer-causing agent, and then constantly feeding them with something which helps cancer to grow.

They have not published their experimental protocol, but let us generously assume it was similar to that used in this real scientific research, despite us not being in a position to check whether they did things properly.

They fed the supplements along with the substance which helps cancer to grow, so that exposure to the promoter and the antioxidants was simultaneous.

Every single one of the ingredients showed incredible levels of tumour inhibition, far higher than that shown by the real treatment linked to previously. If I were a mouse genetically engineered to get a type of skin cancer who happened to have accidentally been injected with a potent carcinogen, and to be unfortunate enough to be on a drip of a drug which promoted the growth of cancer, it seems like this product would be well worth a look. Any other species, any other sort of cancer? Well, we'd have to look at the peer reviewed evidence.

Of course, this product is just a vitamin and antioxidant supplement, which contains the usual stuff, including a number of substances that in real people have been shown promote cancer when taken as a supplement, rather than inhibiting it, such as:

Beta Carotene
Vitamin A
Vitamin E
Vitamin C

Furthermore, the claims that taking combinations of these substances improved their effect is the opposite of what has been found in real studies. Combining beta carotene with vitamin A or vitamin E actually kills more people than either ingredient alone. Source.

There is therefore no chance whatever that the lab results shown in its website have any meaning for cancer patients.

Cancer Research UK advise as follows about all food supplements:

" We need a lot more research in this area before we will know for sure which vitamin and diet supplements may play a role in helping treat, prevent or control cancer. The best way to get the vitamins and minerals you need is through a balanced and varied diet, with plenty of fruit and vegetables. Vitamin supplements don’t have the same benefits as naturally occurring vitamins in fruit and vegetables."

And of course we now know that for those receiving active treatment, antioxidants and vitamin C can block the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Source.

Someone has suggested on the What Now site that explaining all of the above is unnecessary, and that the last thing the site needs are know-alls telling you all what to think. But here is that same person thanking me for educating them on this very subject after they gave bad advice to someone.

Maybe the site doesn't need know-alls, but know-somethings are useful in situations like this, aren't they? Failing that, the know-nothings could at least not give advice to desperate people in areas they know nothing about.

I see someone has started a new "natural treatment" thread on WN. I'll be interested to see if Gary's polite and sound advice is well-taken. History suggests no, but the site is under moderator lockdown whilst my complaint is being investigated, so who knows?

Labels: Biovitali, Cancer, Clinical, Diet, evidence, immune system, Malignant, Medicine, Melanoma, Nature, promotion, quack, Supplements, Trial, Vitalcells, Vitamin D, Vitamins

An article in last Friday's New Scientist may interest some of you. Though Green Tea has positive associations with heart health, and inhibits tumour growth in the lab, there is considerable evidence against it helping prevent cancer incidence or recurrence.

A new study shows that it is worse than that. Green tea actually completely inactivated a chemotherapy agent called velcade (bortezomib) in the lab. As the only place green tea has shown any effect on cancer is in the lab, and the dose required to produce the effect was one easily reached by using green tea supplements, this is a worrying result, which drives home the message: speak to your medical team about any supplements you might be thinking of taking

Labels: Alternative, Green Tea, Medicine, Supplements, velcade

There's been some posting recently on Cancerbacup's message boards about Vitamin D and cancer prevention.

Whilst this is not as ridiculous as all other claims for megavitamin therapy, the evidence is presently inconclusive as far as Cancer Research UK and the NHS are concerned:

CRUK
NHS

The poster on the subject also failed to understand that the study showing poor prognosis associated with low vitamin D levels did not prove that low vitamin D was responsible for poor prognosis. It showed that one followed the other, but day does not cause night. It is false reasoning to say that if something follows something else, the first necessarily caused the second.

In any case, as ever, prevention is not cure. Even if a higher RDA for vitamin D did have beneficial effects on the incidence of some cancers, that's a bit late for those of us already diagnosed, and recommending sunbathing to melanoma patients would be highly contentious.

Labels: Cancer, Malignant, Melanoma, Supplements, Vitamin D, Vitamins

I've just been over to the US Melanoma Patients Information Page to publicise the site. Whilst the main site has much good and fairly up-to-date information, I would never send anyone to the bulletin board, as there is a lot of unchallenged mumbo-jumbo on there.

I was particularly disgusted to see communications from the Gerson Institute, and the contact address of their staff on the BB, along with testimonials from the poor mugs they have cheated for their worthless "treatment". Gerson Treatment has no proven effect on MM, even if we are willing accept the clinic's own data.

I also saw much discussion of worthless, and in some cases harmful supplements and vitamins. Patients who had taken them were acting as if they were experts, making claims that they knew the precise temperature at which the enzymes in noni juice which cure cancer were deactivated, when no-one has ever shown that these enzymes exist, or that they affect cancer.

It isn't my job to regulate MPIP, but until they regulate themselves, the bulletin board is a very dangerous place for anyone not possessed of the facts about these alternative approaches.

S

Labels: Alternative, Gerson, Malignant, Medicine, Melanoma, MPIP, Supplements, Vitamins