I continue to receive a number of requests for the specific supplements I take. Here is my story and an updated list of specific supplements. All supplements chosen were made on the basis of cancer research reviewed mainly through pubmed.gov. Doses were more challenging and were derived from the experiences of other patients, experts, etc., published in the health press. I am open to suggestions for modifying doses if there is evidence-based data indicating a need to do so.
For the first 3 1/2 years of hormone therapy treatment (diagnosed in late 2012) my wife and I resided in AZ where my urologist had me on Casodex pills and Lupron 6-month shots. My schedule of Lupron shots and Casodex was intermittent: six months on, six months off.
In 2015 I found the cancer research of AKM Shamsuddin, MD, PHD, at the U. of MD Medical School. (Incidentally, My wife told me I needed to start doing something about this death sentence. Start doing research, she said ("you're good at research, why aren't you finding something that can stop this cancer")! I laughed and started researching the medical literature which led to Dr. Shamsuddin.
I have used Dr. AKM Shamsuddin's most recent book "IP6 and Inositol..." (go to Amazon) and the IP6 powder he reports on in his text. There are two suppliers of this powder. Both are excellent quality, however, Enzymatic Therapy's Cell Forte is significantly less expensive (allstarhealth.com)
I take 12 scoops a day in divided doses on an empty stomach mixed in cold water (never mix with a protein like milk as the IP6 molecules will bind to the protein molecules). This massive dose may not be required by all. My choice was driven by my need to respond aggressively with a cancer cell that had been described to me by my urologist as aggressive. Also, I had been originally diagnosed with 2 pelvic bone metastases (which can no longer be imaged).
At our first meeting seven weeks after starting IP6 in the summer of 2015 my PSA was 0.1, lower than my urologist anticipated. He acted surprised by the result and insisted on a DRE, which he hadn't performed for more than 2 years. He said in a startled tone "no nodules can be felt in your prostate."
Later, I emailed Dr. Shamsuddin and he explained that was only logical as his studies have found cell normalization to be a common occurrence in his studies. Yes, Dr. Shamsuddin is a gracious gentlemen who took time to explain that to a person he did not know thousands of miles from Baltimore. We continue to periodically communicate about my status. The following video will explain how "phytate", aka "IP6", "inositol hexaphosphate", "phytic acid" rehabilitates cancer cells.
I also use Dr. Vaclav Vetvicka's book (Beta Glucan: Nature's Secret") and the Transfer Point company's Beta 1,3-D Glucan (#300) based on Dr. Vetvicka's research into beta glucan efficacy across brands. This natural immunomodulator involves taking three capsules a day on an empty stomach with resveratrol and vitamin C (per Dr. Vetvicka's protocol). I have chosen to take 2 capsules from Nature's Answer for the resveratrol/vitamin C.
Go to vitawithimmunity.com for a short course in beta glucan and the need to amplify the immune system when fighting cancer.
These are my two major supplements. Not long after starting this combined regimen my Lupron side effects lessened and I have hardly noticed anything since 2016.
Here is a list of the other supplements I have added over time as I review cancer research:
1.Berberine (natural equivalent to Metformin so DO NOT TAKE IF ON METFORMIN. I use two brands simultaneously at each meal. Be cautious as low blood sugar currently will drop more. Mine was trending higher and brought it down as measured by my A1C, now 5.6. Before each meal 2 capsules of Solaray Berberine, total 500 mg. at each meal. Also take Wild Harvest Oregon Grape (a root) 2 capsules 800 mg.
2.Life Extension European Milk Thistle with Isosylybin A and B. 1 capsules at each meal. A capsule is about 920 mg.
3.Doctor Recommended Turmeric-Curcumin with Triphala (from Ayurvedic tradition) and Piperine. 2 capsules before each meal for approximate total of 1,500 mg. BE ADVISED THAT THERE ARE ADVOCATES OF SEPARATING THE BERBERINE AND TURMERIC DOSES BY 3 HOURS AS BOTH CAN DRIVE DOWN BLOOD SUGAR. I HAVE TRIED THAT APPROACH AND NOT FOUND IT NECESSARY.
4. Turkey Tail Mushroom extract from Swanson's.
5. Muscadine Grape Seed Extract from Vitacost. At each meal 3 capsules
6.Amla (Ayurvedic tradition) at each meal one 500 mg. capsule [NOW I'VE DISCONTINUED Amla]
7.AT AM AND PM MEALS ONLY: Red yeast rice (do NOT TAKE if you are on a statin drug) from Solaray combined with co-q-10. Solaray makes a combo capsule. 2 capsules in AM for 1,000 mg. total, 2 capsules again at dinner for 2,400 daily total. Some PCa patients complain of statin drug side effects. I have been taking red yeast for more than 20 years for chol management. No side effects.
8.Swanson’s Super Cayenne capsules with ginger. ALWAYS drink a 5 oz. glass of V8 for the lycopene before each meal. You should also consider tomato soup, pasta sauce, etc,.Recent cancer research shows significant synergy between these two. One 250 mg capsule of cayenne, 90,000 Scoville heat units.
9.Nature’s Answer Resveratrol at every meal along with the 2 capsules that I combine with Beta 1,3-D Glucan from Transfer Point in a separate dosing session (cited above)I use 3 500 mg. capsules of glucan. Significant synergy established by Dr. Vetvicka (U. of Louisville Medical School).
10. I take Bitter Melon now (added since this post was originally written). One tablet 3x daily from Jarrow Formula. I also added Modified Citrus Pectin when I added the Bitter Melon. I take 6 capsules of MCPectin 3x daily half hour before meals and other supplements with the Bitter Melon.
11.Vitamin D3 from Kirkland, the Costco brand. 3 capsules with each meal daily total of 18,000 IU’s of D3. This is a new and heavier dose in light of research indicating dose-dependency in Vitamin D3 effectiveness.
I am a vegan and therefore must supplement with vitamin B12 as all vegans do. I take a modest dose of 25 mcg following Keith Block's (MD, oncologist) recommendation that B12 be kept low due to cancer cells' affinity for it. This is part of a high quality multivitamin.
This video will be useful to anyone seeking to better understand a plant-based diet and its benefits in fighting cancer, heart disease, and many other diagnoses.
Please message me if you are confused by anything I have said. I have tried to eliminate all the grammar blunders, etc., but you may find errors that hinder understanding. Also, if something seems inappropriate medically, let me know.
CalBear74
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With Amazon Prime, the price for the Enzymatic Therapy's Cell Forte IP-6 powder is about the same or slightly less than the price plus shipping at allstarhealth.com, depending on how many you purchase.
Yes, I do take 3 at each meal. My dosage for this product is based on a successful experiment involving prostate cancer patients. I will see if I can locate that study again. When I was guesstimating a dose, I had hoped to find more in vivo studies. What I found was not on pubmed as I recall when I found it.
If you have a recommendation for an optimal dose (I weigh 185 lbs.), please offer it.
As you can see, I take quite a few products that reduce platelet aggregation which is, admittedly, risky. I need to have a platelet count some day.
I just checked my European Milk Thistle and it says "Advanced Phospholipid Delivery", so we are taking the same product.
Excellent suggestions. I had an issue a couple of years ago where taking IP6 drove my platelet count very low. You should definitely get yours checked and consider adding Vitamin K2 MK7 to your regimen as well.
No side effects from this heavy dose, which is typical with milk thistle. As I understand it, milk thistle is considered low in toxicity and side effects.
I have my husband on a similar routine, I have read both the books on IP6 and on Beta Glucan. I really have enjoyed them. They are some of the more helpful books that I have read in my cancer research. I hope you can help me with some questions
IP6 source:
I thought Dr. AKM Shamsuddin initially worked to develop IP6 Gold.. that is the one we take.. here is the amazon link a.co/c8HJSlH - When I talked to IP6 Gold they said that they no longer have a relationship with him and I noticed his name on this IP6 by Seymour BioTech a.co/fPcQEuJ - I notice your supplement is much less expensive and would love to switch to a quality but less expensive grand.. How did you determine that your brand is a good one ?
Beta Glucan synergy:
We love Transfer Point Beta Glucan.. I have my husband at the therapeutic dose of 1 pill for every 50lbs.. I rounded up and he is over 200 pounds..so that is 5 pills a day. I have always wanted to try implementing(for my husband) the synergistic protocol that they talk about in the book. Would you mind discussing this more ?
Do you just take the pills all together ? Did you notice a difference when you started doing this ? How many milligrams of resveratrol do you take with your beta glucan ? How many milligrams of vitamin C ?
This video is an elephant in the room for me.. I saw it in April and was wondering if you have a thoughts on it nutritionfacts.org/video/th... - in a nutshell it made me think about cutting out resveratrol as a supplement for my husband. Normally I consider nutritionfacts to be a good source.
Thanks for any suggestions. I appreciate that you shared your research with us. I can tell you put a lot of hard work into it.
As I understand it, Dr. Shamsuddin was originally quite open with the companies formulating IP6 and inositol in the nineties. He might have realized he had an endorsement opportunity he was passing up on after the cool reception by the National Cancer Institute. Ivana Vucenik, Ph.D., a hematologist colleague at U of MD Med School wrote and interesting chapter about this situation in "Too Good to be True?" Enzymatic Therapy was on the market when his first endorsed product came out. His relationship with Seymour suggests he got a better offer on the override. My comparison of contents indicates that the Enzymatic Therapy will have the potency I am seeking. This is more about business than medicine.
Some Personal Observations: Please be aware that I spent 30 years in the health care industry, hospital planning and marketing, and the last 14 years in medical software. Dr. Shamsuddin is a marvelous gentleman and unrelenting enemy of cancer, and is entitled to a retirement program of his own making.
I take two capsules of Nature's Answer resveratrol with vitamin C, quercetin, and a proprietary blend of polyphenols. The label can be examined online for the milligram breakout. Dr. Vetvicka does not provide guidelines on the minimal milligrams of these chemical agents to achieve synergy. Your decision. All pills are taken together in the middle of the night when my stomach has some empty space available for a new tenant.
Dr. Greger has some solid ideas and some odd ones. NutritionFacts provides general guidelines. Don't miss Dr. Joel Fuhrman's videos at YouTube and by all means read his "Eat to Live". His video on the End of Dieting is essential viewing.
I seek a medical consensus before I give up something. Right now, Dr. Shamsuddin and Dr. Vetvicka Rule.
I recently posted a question to the group titled "Beneficial Supplements?", and have received several responses including one from CalBear74. So I came across your recent post to him regarding you having conducted a good amount of research about PC and supplements such as Transfer Point Beta Glucan. I appreciate your insights about this subject, as it is a shame that the doctors I talk to don't have a clue about beneficial supplements. They are most concerned about negative interactions with standard PC treatments such as hormone therapy (Elligard + Zytiga/Prednisone), which is what I am currently on. Thanks.
I believe this is a summary report of the study that gave me a green light on the heavy dose of milk thistle I take. The study has some significant flaws even though it is helpful on indicating 13 grams was considered tolerable and potentially efficacious. The study tells me milk thistle, like IP6, is both dose-dependent and time-dependent.There are other studies that indicate specific prostate cancer cell actions:
By the way your list of supplements is awesome. I do have a reservation about Reishi mushrooms. It is delivering as I understand it, polysaccharide chains in the extract, thus you are taking beta glucans, which is good but not the optimal source of this immunomodulator. The Japanese were ahead of us in using them with cancer patients, but now more bang for your buck can be achieved with a purified, highly potent delivery system like the one perfected at Transfer Point in Beta 1,3-D Glucan (#300). Just a thought.
See Vaclav Vetvicka's comparative studies of mushroom-based beta glucans compared to American yeast-based glucans in his text "Beta Glucan: Nature's Secret. Transfer Point is consistently the top performer. Vetvicka by the way uses Transfer Point in his own experimental work with human subjects. For example,
You will have to find the original report where he lists the chemical agents administered to the subjects with BPH. He had significant reductions in PSA among those BPH patients taking #300.
I hope he is honestly confused about liability issues and isn't making that up. My urologist knows I am taking many supplements but chooses to overlook it and stay focused on Lupron. etc. He has never shown any concern about liability.
I recommend getting the 3rd edition, the latest, of Dr. Vetvicka's book. You may have to dig around to find a copy but it is worth it.
I just came across your post this AM (8-6-18). I haven't been ignoring you, I am apparently lost much of the time I wander around on this website. As for monthly cost, the single biggest item is the IP6 which is priced at $37 per 14oz. container at Allstarhealth.com. I probably spend between $600-800 a month because I am mega-dosing on the IP6 powder.
The beta glucan from Transfer Point is $70 for a 35 capsule bottle (3 per day; only one dose allowed of this natural immunomodulator.) I am actually spending more on these two supplements as we have a sheltie diagnosed in January with an aggressive anal-rectal cancer. She receives both supplements. The cancer at this point has disappeared in her and this is confirmed by her vet. The vet is very surprised indeed, as she did not know anything about IP6. To be fair, her assistant vet, a recent grad, had heard about experiments with dogs in vet school.
I now take about 19 more supplements (this post written in August, 2018 a couple of months after the original post above). The top 5 after the two already cited above begin with two Dr. Mark Scholz recommends in his book on prostate cancer:
1. Red yeast rice - natural equivalent to lovastatin - Solaray brand
2. Berberine - natural equivalent to metformin - Solaray brand
3. Turmeric-curcumin
4. European milk thistle with isosylibin A and B (Life Extension brand)
5. resveratrol (Nature's Answer)
The next 5
6.vitamin C combined with resveratrol when I take beta glucan nightly; Solaray brand
7. green tea extract (Life Extension brand)
8. alpha lipoic acid (Life Extension brand)
9. Mixed gamma E tocopherols and tocotrienols (Life Extension brand)
10. Capsaicin-Cayenne powder in capsules (Swanson brand)
The next 9
11. Vitamin k2
12. Vitamin D3
13. zinc
14. ginkgo biloba
15. Lutein
16. Tocotrienols (Unique brand)
17. Quercetin
18. Krill oil
19. amla
As you can see ucladany, it would take some serious accounting time/effort to pin down total monthly cost. I suspect, I am spending at least $1,500 - $2,000 a month on supplements. maybe more. My favored suppliers are allstarhealth, jet, vitacost, Life Extension, luckyvitamin, and swanson.
This regimen requires monitoring kidneys and liver which I do twice a year. Everything is OK at this point after three years. This regimen built slowly over the 3 years. My wife is also a heavy user but does not match my intake of course.
My oncologist has no interest in supplements. His nurse warned me that he does not like supplements. I said OK I’ll never bring the subject up and then we won’t get into a fight. She gave me a strange look and we stopped talking about it
That's not a surprise. Most are like that. they assigned me to a care manager nurse prior to my radiation treatment and I started asking her questions about food and exercise and then I stopped after about two sentences that cuz I started making this up how ridiculous it was asking her questions I workout my whole life and eat healthy and this lady weighs like 300 pounds so i quickly realized that hospitals are screwed up in many ways.
I took a lot of this supplement stuff. I then went into a clinical trial. So for 2.5 years it was supplement city plus lupron. I then got on xtandi in a clinical trial at NIH. Supplements are frowned upon there but I stopped mainly because of the expense involved. I'm 7 years out and left wondering if they did any good. I took a lot of aspirin too. I don't recommend this because it causes sinusitis among other things. I was a Gleason 9, stage 4, PSA 31, and stage M1. I'm now 4 years at .02 PSA with lupron and Xtandi. Whatever floats your boat. I can remember buying a fair amount of Zyflamend.
The scoop is provided inside the canister. I’ve only used enzymatic therapy (Cell Forte) and I P6 gold so I would be recommending the amounts provided by those scoops. (as I recall off the top of my head it was around 20 to 22 g ) If you are using a different company’s Product, check out the number of grams provided in their scoop.
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