Selenium Helps Kids on Chemo

Of all the misinformation in modern medicine, the most tragic of all is the ubiquitous advice that you can’t take antioxidants while you are on chemo. Contrary to what all cancer patients are told, antioxidants reduce the side effects of chemo, do not interfere with its effectiveness and can actually make it work better. For a comprehensive discussion of this, see The Natural Path‘s “The Cruelest Lie Ever Told” in volume 17.2. 

Now a new study has added to the already massive and undeniable evidence. Significantly, this study shows that the people who can feel better are children suffering from the effects of chemo and cancer. This study tried giving kids the antioxidant mineral selenium. . . .

The children were eighteen or less and were undergoing chemo for leukemia, lymphoma or solid tumour cancers. They were given either a placebo or 27mcg-100mcg of seleium a day depending on their age.

In the kids with leukemia or lymphoma, taking selenium for a year improved their nausea and fatigue. In kids with solid tumours, appetite loss improved in both the placebo and selenium groups, and nausea and fatigue improved in the selenium group.

Taking selenium also defended against the chemo’s effect on their livers. The liver enzyme AST decreased significantly in the kids who took selenium. ALT also decreased noticeably, but not statistically significantly. In the group of kids who were on chemo for leukemia or lymphoma, the number whose liver enzymes were elevated above normal dropped from 31.6% to 15.8% for AST and from 52.6% to 23.6% for AST when they supplemented selenium.

This study offers hope that, for children suffering through chemo for cancer, simply supplementing selenium can diminish some of the horrible side effects and make them feel better.

Though this study is especially promising because the people suffering the side effects of chemo were chidren, it is not the first study to show that selenium can offset the adverse effects of chemo.

When women undergoing chemo for ovarian cancer were given selenium, there was significant improvement in hair loss, loss of appetite, abnominal pain, flatulence and weakness (Gynecol Oncol 2004;93:320-7). And adding selenium to the common chemo drug cisplatin has been shown to significantly increase white blood cell count, decrease the need for blood transfusions and significantly lower cisplatin’s kidney toxicity (Biological Trace Element Res 1992).

J Med Food 2015;18:109-117