Hello friends of Steemit! As you know I am a Hospital Pharmacist, I have been working in an Oncology Unit for a long time, where I had the opportunity to be the chemotherapist for cancer patients for eight years.
During that time I was able to share a lot day to day with patients, questions about medications are inevitable. First of all because generally the patient or his relatives to know that they have cancer go to the Internet to consult, sometimes wrong opinions, experiences of other people who do not know because the final outcome of his family was death. They usually say that the medicine helped their cancer get worse, etc.
When they all meet in the chemotherapy room, they begin to discuss their own experiences with alternative medicine: medicinal plants, acupuncture, among others, whenever I could research what plants they were taking. While it is true that some are totally harmless, others added the adverse effects of chemotherapy, such as nausea and other more serious, lower the components of blood and cells.
Cancer as we know, is a manifestation of increased cell proliferation, a disorderly growth of some tissues, as well as blood cells, therefore for its eradication, we should think of inhibiting the disorderly growth of these cancer cells.
Currently there are a little more than one hundred patented cancer drugs, medicines produced by scientific research, and that also go through processes or phases so that they can be placed to people with the greatest security by scientific evidence. Which either alone or in combination with others (polychemotherapy), work in different phases of the cell cycle, the phases of the cell cycle are five, it is a continuous process that always ends in the Go phase or at rest, the medications for chemotherapy act in different stages of reproduction except in the Go phase.
The mechanism of action of the different drugs will depend on which phase they act (for example M or S phase) or avoiding chromosomal multiplication, interspersed in the DNA and preventing its elongation, inhibiting the action of some enzymes such as topoisomerases I and II , etc.
In any case, the purpose is to prevent these bad cells from multiplying, killing and killing them. Doctors understand how these drugs work in each phase, can predict what kind of combinations do and that is why there are chemotherapy protocols approved worldwide based on scientific evidence. The frequency of administration of the doses based on the duration of the ce phase is also raised.
It is also important to note that cytostatic drugs are not selective on cells, they attack the same as normal cells and cancer cells, being within normal cells the most attacked are those whose growth is faster (blood cells, nail cells , hair).
Everything I have mentioned I have done for the sole purpose, that it is understood that the medicines that exist to fight cancer are not improvised, they have their scientific basis, and that we also have in the pharmaceutical market other medicines that try to look for a balance to recover normal cells that are affected during chemotherapy and the side effects that it causes.
Now, consuming so-called medicinal plants against cancer could be more harmful than cancer itself, in some cases it would invalidate chemotherapy and in others more serious cause extreme toxicity by synergism with medicines. Generally the recommendations of the plants are made in a way Empirical, from patient to patient from family to family, some plants are known and others are rare.
In studies published by the Oncologist Allan Ramos, and the Pharmacists Alvaro Viquez and Cristina Fernandez of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the San Juan de Dios Hospital (HSJD), the research was conducted in 149 cancer patients and the results appear in the Journal of Oncology Practice.
The result of these studies yielded 122 interactions between the drugs and the active principles of the plants.
In conclusion I do not want to demonize the fact that the option of medicinal plants is used to help fight cancer, but you should inform the doctor about everything that is consumed, although it is true that some plants only reduce side effects, others exacerbate them, and may increase their toxicity.
We fight cancer with all kinds of things, but we forget love. It could be the best weapon of all, "Regina Brett (American writer who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998).
"Cancer is a word, not a sentence," John Diamond (English journalist).
Thanks for reading my post.
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References and more information in:
https://www.cancer.org/es/treatment/treatments-and-effects-sector/tipos-of-treatment/chemotherapy/as-function-the-cryotherapy-medicines.html
http://www.fundaciondpt.com.ar/index.php/noticias-y-novedades/boletin-dpt/boletin-dpt-8/50-noticias/boletin-dpt/boletin-dpt-19/842-american- cancer-society-how-to-act-chemo-drugs
http://www.nacion.com/ciencia/salud/consumir-plantas-medicinales-podria-alterar-accion-de-tratamiento-contra-el-cancer/ATSJCH3ZI5HNRNZCEUGZ5U2QM4/story/