I wrote an article recently about a lady in Washington who used her water ionizer to help her through her chemotherapy for breast cancer.  The high pH alkaline water, which is full of antioxidants, helped her sail through her chemo treatments with minimal side effects and without her missing a day of work.

Everyone, including Naturopathic Doctors and Medical Doctors, are always demanding “hard” evidence regarding the use of ionized water.  The following article, written by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D and submitted to this blog by our good friend Gabe at iesolutions, represents another small step in the mounting evidence for the case for alkaline ionized water.

I have included appropriate sections(to save you time) of  the article written by Dr. Hoffer below.   The article, adds to the anecdotal evidence that I have been building about the benefits of using antioxidants, in the form of ionized water, can help deal with the side effects of chemotherapy.    While the article deals with Vitamin C, as opposed to ionized water, both substances are strong antioxidants.

The following are quotes from the article “High Doses of Antioxidants Including Vitamin C Do Not Decrease the Efficacy of Chemotherapy” written by Abraham Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D. :

In Dr. Hoffer’s article, he claims that high doses of Antioxidants including Vitamin C do not decrease the efficacy (effectiveness) of chemotherapy.   Dr. Hoffer states: “The idea that the use of antioxidants decreases the efficacy of chemotherapy is being used more and more by orthodox oncologists. It is based upon their hypothesis that anything which decreases the oxidant effect of drugs will decrease the efficacy of chemotherapy. More and more I hear this from my patients after they are diagnosed and chemotherapy is discussed with them by their oncologists. This opinion is not universal, but my guess is that about 75% of oncologists hold this view.”

Dr.  Hoffer goes on to say ” Their view is that chemotherapy destroys tumor tissue because it introduces powerful oxidation products, free radicals, and that anything which decreases that must interfere with treatment. They know they are using sub-lethal amounts of toxic compounds which would never pass FDA standards in any different context. The aim is to kill all the tumor tissue without killing all the other tissues in the body. This is always a close call. Therefore, since vitamin C is a good antioxidant it must not be given with chemotherapy. One of my patients was told by his oncologist that if he took vitamin C he would not be given any chemotherapy.”

Dr. Hoffer then questions the real facts.  He states ” The first fact is that there are no clinical series which show that patients given vitamin C and chemotherapy fare worse than those not given this vitamin. On the contrary, all the published series show just the opposite. I have treated over 1,100 cases with large doses of vitamin C and most of them had chemotherapy.(1-4) I have examined the follow up data and find that the mean difference on prolongation of life was heavily in favor of the use of the vitamins. In the first series I published with Linus Pauling those patients on my program lived 10 to 20 times as long as the patients not receiving the vitamin.”   Dr. Hoffer states that the patients on his orthomolecular program live substantially longer and about 40% achieved over four year cure rates.

Dr. Hoffner points out that Kedar N. Prasad et al. (5) recently reviewed 71 scientific papers, and found no evidence that antioxidants did interfere with the therapeutic effect of chemotherapy and, on the contrary, suggest the hypothesis that it would increase the efficacy.  He is properly cautious, but anyone reading his paper knows that it is clear the probability that these antioxidants prevent the therapeutic activity of chemotherapy is very low, and the probability that they do the opposite, i.e enhance the action of these toxic drugs, is relatively high. Prasad et al. (6) concluded, “Antioxidants such as retinoids, vitamin E, vitamin C and carotenoids inhibit the growth of cancer cells. These antioxidants individually, and in combination, enhance the effects of x-irradiation, chemotherapeutic agents, and certain biological response modifiers such as hyperthermia, sodium butyrate and interferon, on cancer cells. Antioxidants individually protect normal cells against some of the toxicities produced by these therapeutic agents. Therefore, the fear of oncologists and radiation therapists that these antioxidants may protect cancer cells against free radicals that are generated by these agents is unfounded. It should be pointed out that other antioxidants such as sulfhydryl compounds will protect cancer cells at least against radiation damage. This is not true for any of the proposed antioxidant vitamins and carotenoids.”

Dr. Hoffer points out that “oncologists have no objection to using xenobiotic antioxidants during chemotherapy. This includes Amifostine which decreases the toxicity of radiation but is too toxic on its own and is not used; Mesna, a drug used around the world to protect against the toxic side effects of ifosfamide which damages the urinary system; and Cardiozane, which counters Adriamycin’s toxicity. There are over 500 papers showing the safety of the latter drug. In one clinical trial using a drug similar to Adriamycin, one-quarter of the patients suffered damage to their hearts. When given Cardiozane concurrently only 7% did. Thus it appears that only orthomolecular or natural antioxidants are potentially dangerous. Synthetic antioxidants protect against the toxic effect of drugs but do not increase their therapeutic value. In sharp contrast, natural antioxidants not only protect against the toxic effect of drugs but also increase their efficacy in destroying cancer cells.” 

Geez this guy is good!

Dr. Hoffer tells us that he has followed up my patients since 1977.  Dr. Hoffer tells us that very few of his patients that received chemotherapy but not antioxidants survived very long.  He then points out that chemotherapy is used by many oncologists who know it will not extend life, because there is nothing else that they can do and they feel they have to do something.  This is the exact same message offered by Suzanne Somers in her excellent book on cancer called “Knockout”.

If you or a family member or a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer, I strongly suggest that you read the entire article by clicking on the following link:  http://www.doctoryourself.com/chemo.html and also pick up a copy of Knockout.  In the meantime, do yourself a favor and make sure that you eat alkaline foods and drink alkaline diet.  It is better to avoid getting cancer in the first place, and it is your control.

If you have come across articles or research about the benefits of alkaline water, or if you want to share your own story, please let me know.  I can only do so much on my own, and the rest is up to the contributions of the readers.  This blog has been created to help educate other about the water, without any hidden agenda.  Please help me help others.

The information contained in this article is offered by the quoted parties and by the author himself.  This article is not intended to be offered as medical advice.  Always consult your care giver with any health issues.