Phytotherapy in Advanced Cancer Cases

Phytotherapy Specialist Dr. Şenol Şensoy pointed out that medical treatments may be insufficient in advanced cancer cases, and even in this case, good results can be obtained with phytotherapy.

According to official figures, we lose one out of every two cancer patients diagnosed in Turkey. Unfortunately, the picture is much worse in advanced cancer cases. Well, can we benefit from phytotherapy in end-stage cancer patients? To answer briefly, yes, but the patient needs to continue to be fed.

At Which Stage of Cancer Should We Apply to Phytotherapy?

Unfortunately, phytotherapy is a practice that started a little late in our country. In 2014, with the regulation of the Ministry of Health, medical doctors stepped in and started phytotherapy practices. But we want phytotherapy, so that as soon as the disease is diagnosed, we can put it into practice together with other treatment methods, that is, with classical medical treatment methods, so that we can get the result we want. From this point of view, phytotherapy has features that increase the effectiveness of methods such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy applied today. Again, we encounter very serious side effects of chemotherapy. In the majority of patients, sometimes intolerable side effects occur against chemotherapy. When we support this with medicinal plants, we are likely to reduce the side effects to a very low level. In advanced stages, we may sometimes not be able to apply conventional medical treatments. If the patient has no resistance to remove these treatments, then we cannot give chemotherapy and other treatments. We can use phytotherapy even in what we call the last stage terminal period. As long as the patient can take food orally, we have the opportunity to give medicinal plants to the patient and benefit from their effects.

How Does Cancer Occur?

Cancer is a disease that occurs as a result of DNA damage. What causes DNA damage? A number of wastes arise in our body. There are mechanisms to dispose of these wastes. But sometimes the elimination mechanisms are weakened and the wastes dominate there and cause damage to the cell. In this case, if DNA is damaged, the cell either loses its functionality, loses its vitality, or passes into the stage of cancerization, which we call mutagen. Every day, approximately 1 million cancer cells are formed in our body in this way. Our immune system also destroys them. In case our immune system is weakened, the cancer of that organ emerges in whichever organ the cancer formation becomes dominant. As treatment approaches, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are aimed at killing cancer cells. But while these treatments kill the cancer cell, unfortunately they also damage our normal healthy cells. Phytotherapy has features that support the modern techniques we use here. Cancer cells sometimes develop resistance to chemotherapy. The treatment is successful for a certain period of time, and the reason for the relapses and recurrences is based on this. But when we move forward with phytotherapy, medicinal plants inhibit these resistance development mechanisms of cancer cells.

Effect of Medicinal Plant Extracts on Cancer

Medicinal plants have lethal (cytotoxic) properties on cancer cells. But while they kill cancer cells, they do not harm our healthy cells and even support their functions. On the other hand, there are ways of spreading cancer. For example, our liver cells cannot wake up and say, I am very bored here, let me sit in the stomach and work there, the body will not allow such a situation. However, if the cancer cell is in the liver, it can infect our other organs through blood, lymphatic drainage or neighborhood, and it continues its tumoral activities by multiplying there again. The modern treatments used do not have anti-metastasis properties. Medicinal plants also have anti-metastasis properties. Again, cancer cells have self-nourishing properties. There is a mechanism of angiogenesis. They form a vein network on their ground. They increase the blood supply of that area and thus they grow and multiply faster. Medicinal plants also abolish this angiogenesis mechanism. It prevents the formation of veins in the place where the cancerous tissue is located and contributes to the death of the cancerous tissue by weakening its nutrition. In this way, phytotherapy is a treatment method that is effective in all pathways of cancer.

Even when we cannot use chemotherapy, we see that phytotherapy has very serious effects when we use it.