herb drug interactions with chemo and radiation therapy

[Guest guest]

I have been reading two cancer books. One book is called, Integreative Oncology

edited by Andrew Wiel and Donald Abrams. The other book is called Alleviating

the Side Effects of Cancer Treatment with . It is from China

written in English. Neither book when discussing Chinese herbal medicine

mentions herb-drug interactions. Why that is so is an interesting question all

by itself. But not my primary question. The integrative Oncology book does

mention the potential for herb-drug interactions and mentions some of the

mechanisms especially herbs that suppress or induce CYP liver enzymes that work

on the same pathways as drug. As a practitioner that is just

ok but it is not enough info. because the CYP transportation pathways are not

known for all the herbs. So it is really not much help. What the Chinese do

claim in their literature is that they get much better results with an

integrative TCM -Western medicine strategy than they do using either alone.

This is echoed in the Wiel, Abrams book. Apparently the Chinese integrative

oncologists don't put any energy into herb-drug interactions.

 

Why even bother with herb drug interactions with chemotherapy? Why not have a

wash out period of 5 days (the half lives of most chemo is not very long from my

prelim. research) and so one can give whatever they want in the period between

the washout period and a few days before the next round of chemo? Am I missing

something here? Doesn't that keep the fears of the oncologists calm and still

deliver benefit. It is certainly not the only strategy. On deeper analysis

there are herbs that increase the effectiveness of chemo that would want to be

given at the same time. And there are others, i.e. astragalus formulas that

don't interfere with chemo at all.

 

With radiotherapy there is no break between treatments. In the radiation

situation, the Chinese literature again claims fabulous results far better than

either TCM or western med. alone. And again with no discussion of

herb-radiation interactions. Whereas in the Wiel, Abrams book they recommend

against antioxidants with radiotherapy and the herbs they mostly discuss in a

section written by Naturopaths about herbs takes a " when in doubt leave it out "

approach except to . What am I to make of all this

 

I know each patient is unique and different but can anyone shed light on this

important topic of herb drug interactions.

 

Thank you in advance,

 

 

Alex Berks L.Ac.

alex