Chemotherapy and Radiation Recovery IV
Combat the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation such as fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and decreased neurological function.
Chemotherapy and Radiation Recovery IV
Combat the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation such as fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and decreased neurological function.
As effective as chemotherapy and radiation can be in the treatment of cancer, both come with a wide variety of well-known side effects. Nausea, vomiting and gastrointestinal symptoms are common, because rapidly dividing cells of the mucous membranes of the mouth, stomach and the intestines are often destroyed along with the cancer cells. Similarly, fatigue and anemia can occur when rapidly dividing cells of the bone marrow—which make red and white blood cells—get depleted.
The ingredients in this IV, when administered at the right time in conjunction with a comprehensive treatment plan provided by your oncologist, can help mitigate some of these side effects. B vitamins and minerals, which are essential in cellular DNA formation, gene expression, neurotransmitter formation and energy production are included to provide support to these fundamental biochemical processes. And powerful antioxidants like vitamin C, alpha lipoic acid and glutathione can be added to help “mop-up” the increased oxidative burden that comes with cancer and its treatment after radiation and chemotherapy.
We encourage you to discuss the use of this IV with your treating oncologist—especially when including antioxidants—as the timing and use of these agents is important and sometimes controversial in overall treatment (see below for more details).
Pair With: After discussion with your oncologist, add Liposomal vitamin C, Liposomal glutathione for continued oral high absorption antioxidant support.
The B vitamins are important in converting food to energy. They are also involved in DNA synthesis and replication, mitochondrial phosphorylation, the electron transport chain and ATP production, neurotransmitter production, immune system function, and hemoglobin production.
Another critical metabolic process B vitamins are involved in is called methylation. This is how your body generates carbon groups(C-H3) which are essential for managing just about every operation in every cell in the human body. Here are some of the functions of methylation:
Vitamins such as B12, B6 and B2 are necessary for the proper functioning of the methylation cycle. Without enough, methylation breaks down at the very root and all of the biological processes above can be compromised.
Due to their critical role deficiencies in B vitamins can lead to a VERY wide variety of symptoms including fatigue, anxiety, weight loss, emotional disturbances, muscle weakness, dementia, insomnia, skin eruptions, dermatitis, numbness, paresthesia, anemia, peripheral neuropathy, memory loss, demyelination, multiple sclerosis, paralysis, “brain fog” and cognitive impairment, sore throat, mental confusion, and diarrhea among others.
The earliest symptoms of thiamine deficiency include constipation, appetite suppression, and nausea. Progressive deficiency will lead to mental depression, peripheral neuropathy and fatigue. Chronic thiamine deficiency creates more severe neurological symptoms including ataxia, mental confusion and loss of eye coordination (nystagmus).
ALA also serves a critical role in mitochondrial energy metabolism.
ALA has been described as a potent biological antioxidant, a detoxification agent, and a diabetes medicine in the treatment of peripheral neuropathy and pain. It has been used to improve age-associated cardiovascular, cognitive, and neuromuscular deficits, and has been implicated as a modulator of various inflammatory signaling pathways.
Deficiencies of B5 can lead to symptoms such as painful and burning feet, skin abnormalities, retarded growth, dizzy spells, digestive disturbances, vomiting, restlessness, stomach stress, and muscle cramps.
Deficiency is caused by poor diet, alcoholism, and malabsorption or poor digestion. Symptoms of deficiency include headaches, muscle weakness, anemia, nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, skin eruptions, mental fatigue, “brain fog” or mental sluggishness, and hair loss.
This vitamin is a key player in the Krebs cycle and in the methylation cycle as it is a critical cofactor in homocysteine conversion to methionine by the enzyme methionine synthase. In its absence the processing of methylfolate and other steps in folate metabolism stop. This blockage of proper folate (B9) metabolism results in anemia and deficiencies in DNA formation.
Other symptoms of B12 deficiency are demyelination (as in multiple sclerosis), slowed nerve conduction, accumulation of homocysteine and increased heart disease risk, defective cell membranes (branched fatty acids), anemia, fatigue, painful and burning feet, skin abnormalities, retarded growth, dizzy spells, digestive disturbances, vomiting, restlessness, stomach stress, and muscle cramps.
Vitamin C is also required for conversion of tyrosine to epinephrine (adrenaline). That’s why it is present in high amounts in the adrenal gland cortex and these levels are depleted after adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) stimulation of the gland and synthesis of the stress hormone cortisol. That means under times of high stress (whether from illness, psychological stress, or some other form) your vitamin C levels are liable to plummet.
Free radicals and ROS can cause damage to DNA, proteins and cell membranes altering their function, causing mutations and may be implicated in chronic illnesses like cancer or heart disease. Glutathione renders these molecules inert, protecting you from their destructive effects.
Detoxification is another major function of glutathione. GSH attaches to substances like heavy metals and xenobiotics—molecules that need to be excreted—forming “conjugates” that make them easier to be eliminated by the liver via bile and the kidneys via urine.
Chemotherapy and radiation treatment creates a huge increase in demand for new essential nutrients. This happens because “innocent bystander” tissues are damaged during treatment and new cells must be made to regenerate these tissues.
B-Complex, B1, B2, B3, B9 (folate), B6, B12, and minerals such as magnesium and manganese are especially important as they are necessary for the Citric Acid Cycle (also called the Krebs or TCA cycle) which is how your metabolism operates and energy is produced in your body. These nutrients also play an indispensable role in methylation—the process by which your body generates the carbon groups(C-H3) that are essential for managing just about every operation in every cell in the human body. Methylation is involved in immune system function, DNA synthesis, neurotransmitter production, hormone metabolism, detoxification and energy creation to name just a few.
This is why the basic form of this IV is built on these key B vitamins and minerals. Providing your body high doses of these nutrients while you undergo chemotherapy and radiation provides your body the support during this time of increased demand.
With your oncologists approval we can also add powerful antioxidants to the IV which may further mitigate side effects. To understand why this works, we need to know a little bit about how radiation and chemotherapeutic agents work.
The actual mechanism that drives these treatments is the generation of free radicals. Free radicals are toxic oxidative substances such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). When the generation of ROS/RNS exceeds cellular adaptive and repair capacities—a condition that is referred to as oxidative stress—biological molecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, and membrane phospholipids become damaged through oxidative reactions. Oxidative stress results in the failure of normal cellular functions and even cell death.
This is how radiation and some chemotherapeutic agents kill cancer cells. They drive up oxidative stress to the point where these cells—along with other “innocent bystanders”—are destroyed.
To learn more about the effects of the chemotherapy drugs you may be taking, click button link below
Class | Examples | Biochemical activity | Biological effects | Use in clinical oncology |
Antimetabolites | 5-Fluorouracil | Analog of pyrimidine nucleoside | Perturbation of RNA and DNA synthesis | Colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer |
Gemcitabine | Non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, bladder cancer, breast cancer | |||
Methotrexate | Inhibits dihydrofolate reductase | Reduction of folates required for DNA synthesis | Breast, head and neck, leukemia, lymphoma, lung, osteosarcoma, bladder and trophoblastic neoplasms | |
Alkylating agents | Cyclophosphamide | Adds an alkyl group to DNA | Inhibition of DNA replication | Lymphomas, leukemias, brain tumors |
Dacarbazine | Metastatic melanoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma | |||
Melphalan | Multiple myeloma, ovarian cancer, malignant melanoma | |||
Anthracyclines | Doxorubicin | Intercalates base pairs of nucleic acids | Inhibition of RNA and DNA synthesis | Leukemias, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, bladder cancer, breast, stomach, lung, ovaries, thyroid, soft-tissue sarcoma, multiple myeloma |
Antimicrotubule agents | Vinblastine | Binds tubulin, thereby inhibiting the assembly of microtubules | M-phase-specific cell cycle arrest by disrupting microtubule assembly | Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, and testicular cancer |
Platinum compounds | Cisplatin | Crosslinks DNA strands | Inhibition of DNA replication and transcription | Head and neck, lung and ovarian carcinomas, lymphomas, germ cell tumors |
Oxaliplatin | Colorectal cancer | |||
Taxanes | Paclitaxel | Stabilizes GDP-bound tubulin in microtubules | Inhibition of mitosis | Lung, ovarian, breast, head and neck cancer, advanced forms of Kaposi’s sarcoma |
Docetaxel | Breast, ovarian, prostate and non-small cell lung cancer | |||
Topoisomerase inhibitors | Irinotecan | Interferes with type I topoisomerases inducing DNA strands breaks | Cell cycle arrest and apoptosis | Colorectal cancer |
Etoposide phosphate | Interferes with type II topoisomerases inducing DNA strands breaks | Kaposi’s and Ewing’s sarcomas, certain leukemias, lung, ovarian, gastrointestinal cancers, glioblastoma multiforme | ||
Mitoxantrone | Metastatic breast cancer, acute myeloid leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma |
In order to check the activities of ROS/RNS your body evolved antioxidant systems that consist of biological antioxidants (e.g., vitamin C, vitamin E, and glutathione) and antioxidant enzymes (e.g., super-oxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase). However, under times of duress, these systems get easily overwhelmed and free radicals run rampant.
When you undergo chemotherapy or radiation high levels of ROS/RNS typically remain in the body even after treatment. When this happens they may contribute to increased nervous system inflammation. In fact, research has shown this process may be the driving factor in memory and cognitive issues commonly seen after chemotherapy and radiation (1).
Giving antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, alpha lipoic acid and glutathione has been controversial in cancer treatment, because many think that antioxidants neutralize the actual intended free radical damage effect of radiation and some chemotherapy in the killing of cancer cells.
Others think that these anti-oxidants are useful in cancer treatment, because they neutralize oxidation which in turn supports the proliferation of malignant cells thus adding to cancer. This view maintains that antioxidants may counter the harmful effects of oxidation in the malignant process and thereby increase the effects of drugs or radiation therapy to the benefit of the patient. Moreover, they note that some evidence suggests that antioxidant supplements offer patients protection from the toxic effects of therapy, “mopping up” the collateral damage done by these treatments.
An article published in 2007 supports this view. Researchers form the Simone Protective Cancer Institute in Lawernceville, NJ (2) “looked at 280 peer-reviewed studies, including 50 human studies involving 8,521 patients, 5,081 of whom were given nutrients have consistently shown that non-prescription antioxidants and other nutrients do not interfere with therapeutic modalities for cancer. Furthermore, they enhance the killing of therapeutic modalities for cancer, decrease their side effects, and protect normal tissue. In 15 human studies, 3,738 patients who took non-prescription antioxidants and other nutrients actually had increased survival”.
More recently, the epicenter of dual treatment of cancer with conventional treatments (chemotherapy and radiation) AND vitamins C has been The University of Kansas Hospital. Dr. Qi Chen has conducted several human trials showing the effectiveness of High Dose Vitamin C as an oxidant alongside chemotherapy. For an FAQ of their 10-chair integrative IV cancer infusion clinic click here.
Dr. Weil’s summarized the answer to the question of antioxidant use in cancer in 2006 this way:
“As things now stand, we need more research before we can confidently advise patients one way or another. However, I posed (this question) to Donald Abrams, M.D., an integrative oncologist at the University of San Francisco and a graduate of the associate fellowship at the Program on Integrative Medicine here at the University of Arizona. Dr. Abrams told me that questions about antioxidants are the most frequent ones he gets. In the absence of strong evidence, he now advises patients as follows:
By the way, there is no justification for telling patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiation therapy to avoid antioxidant-rich foods.”
Ultimately the decision to use antioxidants as an adjunct to alleviate cancer treatment and side effects is a personal decision which should be arrived at with careful consideration of risk and benefits with one’s oncology doctor.
References
In cancer treatment to combat the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Use for defined periods of time while symptoms are severe and after careful discussion with your oncologist so that the treatments are timed safely away from the immediate use of chemotherapy and radiation if antioxidants are to be used.