Weight loss in cancer patients.

[Xania]

I know of some people, husband included, who have lost weight during their illness with cancer.
Can anyone suggest a way to reverse this condition, please?

I think I saw references to remedies for cachexia, but it was a while ago, so I lost it! Thanks for any help you can give.

[Iggy Dalrymple]

Originally Posted by Xania

I know of some people, husband included, who have lost weight during their illness with cancer.
Can anyone suggest a way to reverse this condition, please?

I think I saw references to remedies for cachexia, but it was a while ago, so I lost it! Thanks for any help you can give.

In the late 1960s, physician and independent researcher Joseph Gold, M.D., had an idea about a new approach to treating cancer. He realized that most people do not die from the invasiveness of cancer tumors themselves but from the side effects of the cancer process. One of the chief side effects is a wasting process called cachexia: extreme weight loss due to the loss of lean tissue and muscle mass.

Cachexia results from a peculiarity of cancer cell metabolism. Cancer cells use glucose from the body as fuel and release lactic acid as a waste product. The body detoxifies the lactic acid in the liver and reconverts it into glucose, with a huge energy drain on the patient. This new glucose is once again taken up and used as fuel by the cancer cells, and the vicious cycle continues: the body uses up its reserves and healthy tissue turning toxic cancer wastes into new fuel for cancer cells.

Dr. Gold came upon a reference to a chemical called hydrazine sulfate, an easily synthesized substance that could block a particular liver enzyme necessary to convert lactic acid into glucose. He reasoned that this could break the cycle and inhibit the growth of cancer tumors while preserving normal tissue. He first proposed using hydrazine sulfate to combat cachexia in 1969. http://www.burtongoldberg.com/if_it_were.html

Cancer cells need glucose. A chemical known as HYDRAZINE SULFATE has been demonstrated to interrupt the glucose "feeding frenzy" characteristic of growing cancer cells. This feeding frenzy and its related metabolic disturbances in many cancer patients can cause a terrible debilitation called Cachexia.

Research on the effects of HYDRAZINE SULFATE administered on carefully structured doses has shown it to be beneficial to many cancer patients. It can be used either as an adjunct to chemotherapy or radiation therapy, or alone. Careful analysis of the evidence seems to suggest it can be an excellent aid against debilitation in weight loss, loss of appetite, pain and the subjective malaise or psychological depression so often a part of cancer and its treatments. Not only that. Read for yourself the clinical evidence and you will find that in some instances HYDRAZINE SULFATE reportedly, has inhibited tumor growth!
http://www.cancerchoices.com/hydrazine_sulfate1.htm

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[Xania]

Thanks for that Iggy. I am trying to find my way through the maze of argument about it. It is an MAOI, so there are concerns about some foods and meds. Whether that applies to everyone, or one in ten thousand, I don't know yet. Many people with advanced disease do need other meds to make life bearable, so there could be a conflict.