What supplements should I take while on Chemo and Radiation for Cervical Cancer?

It depends on what you’re looking for, and you’re not alone. 80% of cancer patients do take some form of dietary supplements during therapy. However, you do need to consider that there is the danger that you will have a drug-supplement or drug-disease interaction; that dietary supplements are essentially unapproved, untested drugs; and that you need to be 100% sure that you fully disclose any supplement use to your team of physicians.

In cervical cancer, you will want to limit your phytoestrogen intake from foods such as soy products to no more than one serving per day as per current indications.

Black cohosh extract has putative estrogenic activity, but has also been shown to interact with some drugs, likewise, silybum (milk thistle), garlic, and St. John’s wort have been noted to interfere with drug metabolism or immune response.

You want to avoid antioxidants as many chemo drugs, as well as radiation, rely on the generation of reactive oxygen species for effect. Further, studies with vitamin E and beta-carotene have actually shown increased incidence of complications, recurrance, and all cause mortality in cancer patients. There has been some clinical data to perhaps support CoQ10 and vitamin C, but given the theoretical concerns of antioxidants and that these were small trials or often uncontrolled, I’d still advise against antioxidants.

There have been some clinical trials with medicinal mushroom extracts; particularly one called MSK that have been shown to modulate immune balance and help with immune response to the tumor. Talk to your physician, but it could definitely be something to consider.

Simply put, if there were a supplement that could cure cancer, the pharmaceutical companies would be all over it. There are a lot sites with products they claim can cure or treat cancer, but that’s fallacious at best. Often these sites are snake oil salesmen trying to blind people looking for hope. The FDA does its best to police this sort of thing, but the part of the FDA handling supplements is like, three people.

Where dietary supplements do have a niche in cancer research, however, could be in dealing with side effects. The amino acid, Glutamine, has been shown to help with mucositis (inflammation of the mucous membranes of the mouth with chemo or radiation), Stomatitis and diarrhea, as well a cancer associated pain in doses of up to 3 g per day with no limiting side effects. Ginger has been shown to help with nausea, however, can also increase risk of bleeding so should not be used if surgery is likely in the future. Also, there are three different cultivars of "ginger": Russian, chinese, and american which have different actions, one of which (I’m sorry, I forget which) isn’t even technically ginger.

Nothing’s really been shown to help with the loss of appetite (cachexia) except for cannabinoids, and depending on where you are there are a lot of legal issues with cannabinoid extracts (or the whole plant, I’m sure everyone’s familiar with). Omega-3-fatty acids have been shown to help to a degree, but often chronic diarrhea occurs before a therapeutic dose is reached.

I’ve tossed out a lot of information, but what’s important in summary is that, literature does not support a blanket interdiction of all supplements, but that you should talk openly with your primary physician or oncologist about your needs, complications, and case and come to an agreement.

You need to be sure to buy supplements only from reputable companies, and if at all possible. Look for USP certification. This is the US Pharmacopeia, a non-profit organization that oversees all pharmaceuticals–over the counter and prescription, and dietary supplement companies can opt in for a fee. What this label means is that the suppliers have agreed that they will use fair operating practice and that they will submit to surprise inspections for quality control.

While not all non-USP supplements may be dangerous, there have been cases in the past of ingredient switching, or straight up adulterations. With a USP label, you’re getting what they claim, dose wise, and product-wise. You’re not guaranteed that otherwise.

I hope this helps

Definitely check with your onco before taking anything. I’m on a different chemo than you, but my onco gave me the all clear to take whatever I wanted. I take a vit d with calcium, flax seed oil capsule with omegas, ala and lignans. Am also going to start taking vit b’s for platelet production. Also I take a high anti oxidant juice concentrate, where you only drink an ounce a day. Good luck with treatments.

Thank you Xie for very relevant and appropriate information. I would second the caution against antioxidants for sure. The rest are generally in the "completely unproven and not even clearly safe" category. Ginger has been studied extensively and can be very helpful for preventing nausea if begun before chemotherapy.

Blessings