Chemotherapy takes a big toll on the body of a cancer patient. It's common to have side effects such as lack of energy, nausea, lack of appetite, mouth sores and hair loss. Many people think that because these side effects are quite common, everyone on chemotherapy will have the same experience. The good news is that this is not true.

Lack of energy, nausea, lack of appetite, mouth sores, and hair loss can be prevented by using all natural herbs that are combined in specific dosages in an herbal formula. When an all natural formula is created properly, it is not uncommon to find many patients reporting the elimination of chemotherapy side effects after using it for only 7 days. Some patients may even report that they are able to get off bed rest and start working again while others notice that nausea and lack of energy has become a thing of the past.

Why Chemotherapy Patients have Lack of Energy

Chemotherapy drugs often cause low levels of white and red blood cells, which contributes to the feeling of lack of energy. By killing cancer cells with chemotherapy drugs, some healthy cells are also killed. It takes time for the body to recover and start the production of new cells again. In the meantime, the person feels tired and as if all their energy has been zapped out of them. Once in this weakened mental and physical state, it becomes easy to give up the will to live.

That's where the all natural herbs come to the rescue. In many cultures, all natural herbs have been used to build the cell counts in the blood back up to normal levels. Other all natural herbs act on a part of the white blood cell line, for example, the natural killer cells which specifically kill cancer cells.

Natural Effects from Herbs Only Help the Body

The reason that all natural formulas work so well is that they combine herbs together. For example, the combination of 15 all natural different herbs with known anti-cancer effects, known action that supports the immune system, and known anti-oxidant properties can work wonders. Research on the actions of herbs is plentiful. For example, the all natural herbs Astragalus and Bai-zhu atractylodeshas activates white blood cells, both T and B cells, important in the battle against cancer. Reishi mushrooms have been heavily researched and promote the production of natural killer cells which kill cancer cells specifically.

The formula could also contain tangerine, dong quai, Chinese licorice, dendrobium, ligustrum lucidum, spatholobus, codonopsis, psoralea, polygonaturm, poria seed, lycium fruit, and rehmannia.

When all natural herbs are combined together, their effect on the body is often greater than the effect seen by each individual herb. Herbs augment each other, resulting in greater results for the person taking them. This is the case of some anti-chemotherapy side effects formulas which have been found to boost energy levels, thereby eliminating the chemotherapy fatigue and lack of energy, boost production of antibodies and interferon, and also boost the levels of the white and red blood cells.

These formulas can be taken before chemotherapy starts, during chemotherapy and even afterwards. They are considered by many to be a blessing to those taking it because the all natural herbs allow them to finish their course of chemotherapy with minimal side effects. They receive the best of both worlds - medical and the all natural herb world, two opposing viewpoints that are blended together to result in a better quality of life.

It's Dr. Donna's passion to bring herbal info to those who are suffering from side effects of chemotherapy when there is a solution. She is a master herbalist and holds other degrees (http://www.drdonna.info) For more info on herbs that help decrease chemotherapy side effects, see http://www.immuneenhance.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Donna_Schwontkowski

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If you want to share the message of love and hope to all people suffering from the dreaded cancer disease, you may want to make a very small investment in a cancer bracelet. These pieces have become quite helpful in providing aid and support to many cancer causes throughout the country and the world. Find out more how you can increase awareness and concern.

How It All Began

Lance Armstrong was a superb athlete known for his excellent cycling skills and competitive nature. He used to suffer from cancer himself and began spreading the message of hope and love by wearing a symbolic bracelet as he was going for another win at the Tour-de-France. People started wondering and asking what the appealing piece was for. Armstrong happily spread the news that he wanted people to become more aware and concerned about cancer since he experienced firsthand the intricacies and hardships that affected individuals have to live with.

What Happens If You Wear a Cancer Bracelet?

By wearing a cancer bracelet, you are showing your support in the worldwide collaborative effort in spreading information as well as providing emotional support to all cancer patients. Financially, you are also helping cancer groups and agencies in their research and development to possibly find a cure for the disease. Several sources and manufacturers of the bracelets allocate a portion of all sales to fund cancer programs, projects and treatment courses.

Bracelet Styles

Affordable and simple cancer bracelets are made of rubber which is elastic to easily fit the hand through. There are a variety of colors as well which specifically represents the type of cancer you're most concerned with. For example, pink cancer bracelets have been a very popular choice among women since the color represents breast cancer awareness. These pieces have been very useful as women encourage one another to regularly undergo diagnostic procedures as well as provide moral support and relief to those diagnosed with the condition.

There are more sophisticated handcrafted designs made with sterling silver, Swarovski crystals, beads, charms and clasps. These are great jewelry choices and can be worn at formal events. The crystals or beads also take the color of the cancer type you want to represent. Overall, you get to be fashionable and at the same time helpful to the cancer cause.

Who Wears the Bracelet?

The cancer bracelet can be worn by anyone who wants to educate others about the risks of cancer development. You can wear these virtually anywhere and in that sense encourage others to start checking themselves for possible signs of the disease. Cancer patients will also know that you are supporting them in your own little way by sporting the bracelet. There are survivor cancer bracelets for people who have lived through the disease. You may want to give these as a gift for someone you know who is struggling or has successfully overcome cancer. The survival pieces are still represented by unique colors. You may also want to add a symbolic charm or stone that stands for hope, faith and love.

How Much?

A rubber cancer bracelet can be bought for as low as $2 to $5 apiece. Handcrafted designs using sterling silver and other metals and precious stones and beads tend to be more expensive at around $40 to $150 depending on the design and materials used.

Susan Barcelon is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Just-Bracelets.com. She provides more resources on topics such as cancer bracelet, magnetic wrap bracelet and copper magnetic bracelets that you can research on her website even while lounging in your living room.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susan_Barcelon

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By Nicole Cutler

Toxic substances surround us every day, in our food, water, medications, and especially the air we breathe. These toxins are extremely detrimental to the health of your liver, and your choice of liver support supplements can drastically affect this very important organ. Milk thistle has long been known for its liver supportive and protective qualities, and is the number one herbal supplement prescribed for most liver ailments. It has proven in various clinical studies to have a profound effect on the progression of fibrosis, and has been quite effective in slowing the rate of advancement of liver damage.

Most people are aware of the stages of liver disease: inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver failure. If not treated in the early stages, liver cancer (Hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC) can develop. Milk thistle has been proven to help protect liver cells against further damage from harmful toxins, which speed up the progression of the above stages of liver disease. Supplementing with milk thistle in the early stages can keep the disease from quickly advancing towards liver cancer. In addition to keeping liver cells healthy, milk thistle can also help this vital organ regenerate new liver cells, in an effort to prevent any additional scar tissue from developing.

Milk thistle, or silymarin, is made up of three main components - and silybin is the most beneficial to the liver. This highly concentrated part of milk thistle has the most therapeutic effects on the liver. Research shows that not only is milk thistle anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory, but it has potent antioxidants and can block toxins from invading the liver.

Because it is an herbal supplement, the FDA has not approved milk thistle as a treatment for any condition or disease, including liver cancer. However, the clinical research offers hope that milk thistle's proven ability to help fight liver disease makes it a viable liver cancer preventive method. Anyone with advancing liver disease can benefit from this therapeutic supplement that has no known contraindications or interactions.

Learn more about the health benefits of milk thistle.

Visit LiverSupport.com to learn more about liver health and liver support products. Sign up for LiverSupport Health News, and learn even more about supporting liver health for you and your family.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_Cutler

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Obesity and aversion to exercise have become hallmarks of modern society – and a new study suggests that a blood protein linked to these lifestyle factors may be an indicator for an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Researchers from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute report their findings in the August 15 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

In a study of 144 patients with pancreatic cancer and 429 people without the disease, a subset of patients with low blood levels of a protein called IGFBP-1 were at approximately twice the risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Low blood levels of this protein have previously been linked to excess weight and lack of physical activity. Their data originated from tens of thousands of men and women enrolled in four large-scale cohort studies – the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, the Nurses’ Health Study, the Physicians’ Health Study and the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study – all of which followed the health of participants over numerous years.

"The prognosis for many patients with pancreatic cancer remains poor, so it is vitally important that we indentify and better understand risk factors for the disease, particularly risk factors that are modifiable" said lead study author, Brian M. Wolpin, M.D., attending physician at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. "In addition to cigarette smoking, exercise and weight control appear to be important modifiable risk factors for this difficult disease."

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in America – over 33,000 Americans will likely die from the disease in 2007, according to projections from the American Cancer Society. Studies indicate that smoking is responsible for about 25 percent of pancreatic cancer cases, and obesity and lack of exercise may account for a similar amount, Dr. Wolpin said.

According to Dr. Wolpin, previous research has linked IGFBP-1 (insulin-like growth factor binding protein one) with increased risk of colorectal and endometrial cancer. Like its name suggests, IGFBP-1 is a molecule that binds with insulin-like growth factor (IGF), a hormone normally associated with growth and development. In the laboratory, IGF has been noted to increase the growth of pancreatic cancer cells. Since one role of IGFBP-1 is to sequester IGF,

Dr. Wolpin and his colleagues were interested as to whether people who developed pancreatic cancer had lower blood levels of the IGFBP-1 protein.

To study the relationship between IGFBP-1 and pancreatic cancer, Dr. Wolpin and his colleagues chose pancreatic cancer patients enrolled in one of the four cohort studies and with blood drawn four or more years before developing cancer. The blood levels of IGFBP-1 from these patients were compared to those taken from 429 cancer-free people also enrolled in one of the cohort studies. According to their findings, patients with low blood levels of IGFBP-1 were nearly twice as likely to develop pancreatic cancer.
"We still have much to learn about the mechanisms by which obesity and sedentary lifestyle may contribute to the risk of pancreatic cancer," Dr. Wolpin said. "While it is too early to discuss IGFBP-1 as a suitable blood marker for pancreatic cancer, it is never too early to address the lifestyle issues that may contribute to low levels of IGFBP-1 and to an elevated risk of this difficult disease."

###

The study was supported by The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research and the National Cancer Institute.

The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes nearly 26,000 basic, translational, and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 70 other countries. AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 17,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special Confere! nces throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. AACR publishes five major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Its most recent publication, CR, is a magazine for cancer survivors, patient advocates, their families, physicians, and scientists. It provides a forum for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research, survivorship, and advocacy.

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New research findings show that extra body fat doesn't just weigh you down. Scientists now have evidence that too many fat cells prompt ongoing reactions in the body that may increase cancer risk.

A recent study in the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University found excess fat may alter the body's basic functioning in ways that raise risk for cancer and other diseases.

Research had already shown that obesity boosts levels of hormones such as estrogen, for example, which increase risk for breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Too much body fat, especially in the abdomen, also increases insulin resistance, priming the body for diabetes.

Now, recent findings suggest that fat deposits especially around the waist, may influence the body's inflammatory response so that risk for colon cancer is higher.

Inflammation is the body's first response to infection or injury. It's essential to healing, but it can go the other way. Researchers now suspect that chronic low-level inflammation of body tissues underlies a lot of disease processes. How does this happen?

There are substances called cytokines that are part of the body's inflammation response to help with fighting infection and healing wounds. Cytokines are made by white blood cells, but fat cells can make cytokines too.

These substances also help with wound repair by stimulating tissue growth. Research suggests that when the body has an oversupply of fat cells, those cells release too many cytokines. This boosts the body's inflammatory response and causes damage to cells and their DNA."

Where there is genetic damage plus stimulation for cells to grow, the chance of cells growing out of control and becoming cancer is increased. We all have cancer in our body at all times. The role of the immune system is to fight those cancer cells. However, when the immune system is working overtime dealing with the cleaning out of the fat in the system, it doesn’t have enough resources to fight the cancer cells.

A previous study showed that people who were obese, 30% over their normal body weight had a higher risk of colon cancer. People who were diabetic had increased risk.

Some cancers are known to be associated with persistent inflammation that's related to chronic infection. For example, people infected with one of the viruses that cause hepatitis are more susceptible to liver cancer. People with inflammatory bowel disease have above-average rates of colon cancer.

The idea that fat cells could be actively involved in promoting inflammation is a relatively new one. "There is more to being fat than carrying around excess weight. People should begin thinking of excess body fat as actively harmful to their health." When you study the human body, even as remotely as the way it is taught in schools, it stands to reason that excess fat is not a natural condition for the body. Excess fat will strain all the systems, being digestive, respiratory, the skeleton, etc.

The good news is that excess weight can be managed. Even walking every day as little as outside of the house and around the block, is a great starting point to healing, by sending a message of health to the brain and the body.

About the Author:

Dr Laurence Magne Publisher, Author Cancer Free For Life Email : lmagne@yahoo.com Website : http://cancer-free-for-life.com

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Prostate cancer is still one of the leading cancers among men, and it is projected that roughly one in every six American men will be diagnosed with this type of cancer within their lifetime.

Add to that the fact that these statistics may not account for those that have not been diagnosed, and you have a full fledged "epidemic", if you look at it from a percentage of population standpoint. In fact, many people reading this probably know someone that has been diagnosed with this cancer, or may have even had a brush with it themselves.

Aside from the fact that it is a leading cancer form in men, it also is considered in males to be a second leading cause of death. It's no wonder that prostate cancer is at the forefront of men's health and prevention in medical research when it comes to prevention, detection and treatment.

Researchers have been hard at work to come up with alternative testing to the still most popular form of testing, the PSA test. PSA stands for Prostate Specific Antigen, which is an enzyme that is released by this male-specific gland, which tends to be released in much higher amounts when the gland is inflamed or enlarged, or is fighting cancer.

It is a test combined with a digital rectal exam, that many men find uncomfortable for obvious reasons, and may want to naturally avoid after they reach the age of fifty years old. This is the age when doctors recommend their male patients start getting this test, since after fifty years old the risk of getting this cancer increases significantly.

The PSA test itself is actually a simple blood test, and has been criticized for sometimes being unreliable and creating false positives and false negatives, hence the search for better screening methods. The screening method that is being worked on currently is one that may be more spot-on than the current mode of detection via rectal exam combined with the PSA test.

It is the new buzzword in the scientific community for a variety of diseases and cancer in the world of detection : genetic testing. Genetic testing has proven to be a very promising method of finding cancer markers in individuals because it can be more detailed in it's individual assessment, and finding genes responsible for cancers and other diseases is pretty much a fool proof method of detecting likelihood of cancer or actual cancer itself.

While genetic testing can definitely help either to rule out prostate cancer or to give the doctor and patient a pretty good idea if further prevention or treatment should take place, it cannot as of yet be used in and of itself as a test, but instead is a stepping stone to determining the validity of PSA screenings and digital rectal exams.

It's basically giving a more complete answer as to whether tests that are done are actually an accurate predictor of whether a patient has it, and whether treatment should be commenced. Many doctors and patients feel that with a more complete and definitive answer in testing, they feel more comfortable with diagnosis and prevention testing, and more confident that they are getting the correct results. This renewed confidence could lead more men to take part in prevention and detection screening.

Currently the largest studies in genetic testing for prostate cancer are being carried out in Sweden, and are looking promising, but as of yet they are not conclusive and the method needs more defining and sharpening.

One thing is for sure, that genetic testing is proving to be an up and coming tool in the definitive and more accurate detection of many different kinds of cancers, including breast cancer in women. With continued research and refining, genetic testing may prove to be of great benefit for men in the prevention of prostate cancer advancement.

Danna Schneider has contributed to and edits the popular male sexual health website http://www.maleenhancementmagazine.com/prosolution-pill-review/ dedicated to natural male enhancement. She also manages the online herbal male enhancement news magazine and alternative health portal called http://www.maleenhancementmagazine.com .

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

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