Chemotherapy and Fish Oil; What You Should Know

Chemotherapy and Fish Oil; What You Should Know

With benefits including lowering blood pressure, easing depression and decreasing our risk of heart disease, it's easy to see why so many of us include Fish Oil in our daily supplement regime. In an article published online in February of this year, researchers reveal the amazing results of an interesting study conducted to test the efficacy of Fish Oil on NSCLC (or nonsmall cell lung cancer) patients. Here are some quotes from the article as it appears on nhiondemand.com:
Chemotherapy is the treatment of a disease with chemicals. It acts by killing cells that divide rapidly which is one of the main properties of most cancer cells. This means it also harms healthy cells resulting in side effects such as: nausea, vomiting, tiredness, pain and hair loss. After chemotherapy, healthy cells usually recover and side effects gradually go away."

Forty-six patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer were enrolled and divided into two groups (one group received standard care and the other group received fish oil containing 2.5 g EPA plus DHA daily for one year). Patients who received fish oil experienced an increase in response rate and greater clinical benefit in comparison to the standard care group. In conclusion the researchers stated that patients in the fish oil group maintained their weight and muscle mass. Also, the fish oil group experienced a reduction in adipose tissue wasting. These results along with increased chemotherapy efficacy without affecting the toxicity profile may contribute to increased survival."

 
This is not the first study of its kind. In July of 1999, research was being conducted on the relationship between fish oil and chemotherapy to see if the Fish Oil supplements were capable of increasing the effectiveness of Chemotherapy while lessening the side effects. Researches were not disappointed to find Fish oil substantially aided the terrible side effects of chemo allowing for a greater margin of safety in the treatment."
Source: Cancer – February 15th, 2011
Quoted Article:
Read Here for the full nhiondemand.com article
Related Articles:
Read Here For Charitywire.com article
Read Here For Prohealth.com article
Read Here For Scienceblog.com article
Back to blog