Natural Products for Cancer Prevention/Management (1)

Many natural products have been used in preventing or treating different diseases.  However, is it possible to prevent or even treat cancer by natural products?  The short answer may be “Yes” but the more practical answer is “Depending on many factors, certain natural products might be helpful in cancer treatment.”  Nevertheless, please keep in mind that before any natural product can be called a drug, it must first be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

As a background of this section, let’s clarify some important points.  First, there is not a single approved drug that works on all types of cancer, not to mention a natural product.  The best one can say is that some natural products might be effective in the prevention or treatment of some cancer under certain conditions.  Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the same drug will work on the same cancer for all patients.  This is because human being is a complex organism and the same cancer in different patients could be somewhat different and the treatment may have to be modified accordingly.

Secondly, every natural product contains multiple ingredients; some are active and most are inactive.  Depending on the manufactures of the natural products, the ingredients could be significantly different.  This is different from the drugs approved by the FDA in that the active ingredient(s) are exactly the same, no matter which companies make the drug products.  Therefore, it is important to distinguish the differences between FDA approved drugs and natural products.  Keep in mind, an active ingredient in certain natural product, as a pure pharmaceutical active ingredient (API), can be developed to become a new drug.  At that time, it will be called a “new drug” and not referred to as a natural product.

Although some natural products may show anti-cancer effects in vitro, there are two important points to keep in mind:

·         Just because something shows positive anti-cancer effect in vitro (i.e., outside a living organism), it does not mean that the compound will be effective in vivo (i.e., within a living organism).

·         Even if some natural compound in certain natural product is effective against the growth of cancer cell in vivo, it may take a lot of the natural product to really show the anticancer effect in real life.

Disclaimer: This blog is written solely for informational purposes. It does not constitute the practice of any medical, nursing or other medical professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All contents posted are extracted from the book I am writing, "IS CANCER IN US", to be published in about two months.