Healing Strategies:
What to Subtract
Healing Strategies:
What to Add
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Healing Strategies: Supplemental Enzymes

  • 1.  When protein isn't completely digested it putrefies in the intestines and can
    form nitrosamines which are carcinogenic. Digestive enzymes break down
    food so it can be absorbed more efficiently by the organs and keep undigested
    byproducts from forming.

  • 2.  Several integrative cancer specialists recommend taking enzymes with
    meals as well as between meals on an empty stomach. Digestive enzymes
    are thought to "digest" the coating of cancer cells, making them more
    vulnerable to the body's immune system and less likely to metastasize. (1)

  • 3.  Enzymes also have anti-inflammatory properties which may affect the
    cancer process.

Michael Schachter, MD, and Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, recommend supplemental
enzymes for their cancer patients.  Since the body makes many kinds of enzymes
starting with the mouth and ending with the bowel, often a combination of digestive
enzymes is recommended.  The Wobenzyme and Wobe-Mugos brand of enzymes
have been used since the 1940s by practitioners but check with your health
practitioner for a brand and dosage recommendation.

Improving Absorption of Major and Micronutients

"Many people diagnosed with cancer have digestion or intestinal tract disorders as
well.  Impaired digestion will greatly hinder a nutritional approach to treating cancer, if
the nutrients can not be released from the food. ... Even raw foods, which contain
many digestive enzymes to assist in their digestion, will be more thoroughly digested
with less of the body's own resources with the use of digestive enzymes.  So, the
enzymes taken with meals do not have a direct effect upon a tumor, but assist the
body in getting all of the nutrition out of all of the food for healing and restoring the
body to normal function." (2)

Digestive Enzymes May Break Down Tumor Cell Blocking Factors

Digestive enzymes may break down blocking factors around cancer cells and allow
NK cells to enter and attack cancer cells.  According to Simon Yu, MD, pancreatic
enzymes:

    1) Expose cancer cells' antigens by removing the fibrin coating, thus making
    cancer cells an easier target for the immune system.

    2) Reduce the adhesiveness of cancer and other cells, which makes it more
    difficult for cancer cells to adhere to the cell wall.

    3) Decrease levels of circulating immune complexes that tend to weaken the
    immune system's ability to respond to cancer.

Breast Cancer Outcome Supplementing with Digestive Enzymes?

Burton Goldberg's The Definitive Guide to Cancer reports that German physician, Dr.
Max Wolf began using multi-enzyme formulas in 1949. In reviewing 107 women who
had undergone mastectomies and used Wobenzymes, their survival rate was 84%
after five years. Those using conventional therapy achieved only 43%-48% survival at
five years.

Nutrition + Digestive Enzymes Patient Study

In the 1990s, Drs. Nicholas Gonzalez and Linda Isaacs conducted a pilot study of their
patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer.  Aggressive nutritional supplements,
detox procedures, an organic diet, and large doses of digestive enzymes increased
their patients' survival time over what would normally be expected for stages 111-1V
pancreatic cancer.  25% survived for one year, and 10% survived for two years at all
stages of pancreatic cancer. (3)

Digestive Enzymes for Breast Cancer Therapy Side Effects

In a German study, breast cancer patients undergoing surgery, radiation, chemo, or
hormone therapy were broken into two groups.  One group received oral enzymes,
and the other group of patients did not receive any enzymes.  The objective was to
determine whether complementary treatment with oral enzymes can reduce typical
disease- or therapy-associated signs and symptoms, such as gastrointestinal
symptoms, mental symptoms, tumor pain, etc. Results:  For all symptoms, except
tumor pain, the improvement in symptom scores was larger in those women who
received the oral enzymes than those women who received nothing.

Thus, complementary treatment with oral enzymes improved the quality of life by
reducing signs and symptoms of the disease and the side effects of the therapies.
Also, epidemiological analysis provided evidence that the patients taking enzymes
may also gain benefit in the length of survival by prolonging the time to cancer
recurrence. (4)

CONCLUSION: "At the least, enzymes (oral enzyme supplementation) will
improve digestion and lessen the digestive burden on the body, leaving more
reserves for disease eradication. However, as the research indicates, the
effect may be much greater than that, with the potential for direct anti-tumor
activity."  --Michael Donaldson

1. Goldberg B., Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer, Alternative
Medicine.com Books 1997, p. 930
2. Donaldson M, Nutritional Cancer: A Review of the Evidence for an Anti-Cancer Diet,
Nutr J 2004.
3. Gonzalez NJ and Isaacs LL., Evaluation of Pancreatic Proteolytic Enzyme Treatment
of Adenocarcinoma of the Pancreas, with Nutritional and Detoxification
Support, Nutrition and Cancer 1999.
4.  Beuth J et al., Impact of Complementary Oral Enzyme Application on the
Postoperative Treatment Results of Breast Cancer Patients - Results of an
Epidemiological Multicentre Retrospective Cohort Study, Cancer Chemother
Pharmacol 2001.

Please consult a physician knowledgeable about the documented action of
supplements before starting or changing your current protocol.
These statements have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food & Drug
Administration.  The supplements discussed are not intended to diagnose, treat,
cure, or prevent any disease.
This website is intended as information only. The editors of this site are not medically-trained.
Please consult your licensed health care practitioner before implementing any health strategy.
The information provided on this site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that
exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her existing physician. This site accepts no
advertising. The contents of this site are copyrighted 2006 by Breast Cancer Choices, Inc.
Contact us for reprint permission. Web page updated January 7, 2008.
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