The one syndrome just as deadly as cancer

When Steve Jobs died, reports circulated that he’d rejected conventional cancer therapies in favor of alternative approaches.

That’s actually 100 percent false.

Jobs’ team of doctors resorted to a series of drugs, in an attempt to stay ahead of his pancreatic cancer. What becomes clear in his biography is that the wasting condition known as “cachexia” actually played a major role in his death, just as it does in a majority of cancer patients.

Jobs’ experience underlines why it’s vitally important for patients and their caregivers to mount a battle against cachexia right alongside their battle with cancer. And one remarkable herb can help make the difference between wasting away or surviving.

Coming back from the brink

When someone with cancer dies, chances are that the muscle atrophy, malnutrition, and dehydration of cachexia is what really caused their demise.

Cachexia in cancer patients is usually caused by the combined effects of the disease and treatments. In many patients, chemotherapy and radiation make food taste and smell repulsive — an effect that sometimes lingers for months even after therapy ends.

Not only does this condition prompt rapid weight loss and depression, but more importantly, patients end up not getting proper nutrition. The type of nutrition they need in order to stay strong and fight off the dual attacks of both the cancer and the toll these treatments can take on the body.

The American Cancer Society recommends nutritional counseling for every cancer patient, but this issue typically gets sidetracked or lost completely in the overwhelming emotions that come with a cancer diagnosis and the major focus on treatment.

Generally, cancer patients should concentrate on increasing their food consumption in four key areas:

  • Total calories
  • High-quality whole foods (as featured in a Mediterranean-style diet with organic produce, nuts, legumes, whole grains, seafood, and olive oil)
  • High-quality protein to prevent muscle wasting (like non-processed, grass-fed and grass-finished meats)
  • Omega-3 fatty acids (from either food sources like wild-caught fish, or high-quality supplements)

And when it comes to omega-3’s, a recent University of Iowa study underlined the importance of cancer patients increasing their consumption.

For the study, researchers recruited 43 cancer patients who were moderately to severely malnourished. Participants took fish oil supplements in mega-doses of varying amounts depending on their weight. Among the 36 participants who finished the study, 24 stabilized their weight, and six gained enough to return to their normal body weight.

Regaining an ideal balance

In Dr. Marc Micozzi’s Authentic Anti-Cancer Protocol, he offers this insight about cachexia: “The presence of cachexia in cancer patients has long been understood to mean that cancer is a metabolic disorder, raging systemically throughout the body, rather than being just the presence of a malignant tumor.”

So in addition to increasing your intake of high quality calories and omega-3s, Dr. Micozzi also recommends using an herb called Sutherlandia frutescens.

Sutherlandia is an adaptogen — that is, it helps your body adapt to what it needs to increase our resistance against physical, emotional, and mental stressors. Adaptogens do this by strengthening the immune system and improving your stress response, so your body can achieve a state of balance, or homeostasis.

Dr. Micozzi refers to adaptogens (which include ginseng and ashwagandha) as “Mother Nature’s secret weapon,” because of the way they help your body find the balance essential for optimal health. And that’s exactly what every cancer patient should strive to achieve.

This herb is especially helpful to cancer patients in particular, because as Dr. Micozzi notes, Sutherlandia functions as an appetite stimulant in patients who are experiencing wasting, but doesn’t have the same effect in healthy people of normal weight who are looking to rebuild lost muscle mass.

Prevention of wasting, and much more

In addition to helping your body find healthy balance and avoid wasting, Sutherlandia has several other properties that are ideal for cancer patients:

  • It contains gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) — another tumor cell suppressant
  • It contains L-canavanine, a compound proven to inhibit pancreatic cancer cells
  • It’s an immune stimulant
  • It has significant antioxidant activity

And as Dr. Micozzi points out, “Sutherlandia has [also] traditionally been used for enhancing well-being, immune support, longevity, stress, depression, and anxiety.” Another few health benefits cancer patients certainly could use.

For these many reasons, Dr. Micozzi recommends 600 mg of Sutherlandia frutescens leaf extract for anyone experiencing chronic diseases like cancer that carry the risk of cachexia.

And of course Dr. Micozzi discusses many other supplements — including a wide variety of adaptogens — that offer excellent support to cancer patients in his Authentic Anti-Cancer Protocol. Click here to learn more about this essential protocol, or to enroll today.

SOURCES

“Phase II study of high‐dose fish oil capsules for patients with cancer‐related cachexia” Cancer 2004; 101(2): 370-378. doi.org/10.1002/cncr.20362