Carrots & Cancer: Evidence & Implausibility

[Routaran]

My parents recently attended some kind of a lecture and one of the speakers was apparently and MD. He claimed that carrots could cure cancer and said that he had patients that had responded positively. This just sounded like rubbish to me so when i tried to look up information on it, the only thing i found was a study done on rats that suggested that raw carrots delayed the growth of the tumors in them but nothing with regards to the effect it may have on tumors in humans.

Does anyone else here have more information on this? Any evidence to support this idea? It sounds very implausable to me.

 

[Xnn]

Carrots are an excellent vegetable due to a number of health benefits.


http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=21

Carrots are by far one of the richest source of carotenoids-just one cup provides 16,679 IUs of beta-carotene and 3,432 REs (retinol equivalents), or roughly 686.3% the RDA for vitamin A. High carotenoid intake has been linked with a 20% decrease in postmenopausal breast cancer and an up to 50% decrease in the incidence of cancers of the bladder, cervix, prostate, colon, larynx, and esophagus. Extensive human studies suggest that a diet including as little as one carrot per day could conceivably cut the rate of lung cancer in half.

 

[Routaran]

thank you very much for this information.

 

[Moonbear]

Carrots are an excellent vegetable due to a number of health benefits.


http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=21

That would suggest they can help prevent disease (as do many other reasonable diets), but doesn't address being a "cure" for cancer.

It's hard to really know what to say, since the OP is reporting second-hand what someone else told him was said at a seminar. Was the speaker making ridiculous claims? Did his parents misunderstand? Was something oversimplified for the sake of a non-scientific audience?

I would doubt any M.D. who claims anything is a "cure" for cancer. People generally don't talk about curing cancer, they talk about treating it and sending it into remission. And, was it just raw carrots, or some compound extracted in raw carrots and given in doses far exceeding what one could consume if they were actually eating whole carrots?

Also hard to know what is meant by "patients who responded positively." Does that mean slowing of tumor growth, reduction in tumor size, eradication of the tumors? Or does it mean patients who are receiving chemotherapy are doing better if they eat carrots, maybe they help supplement a nutrient that helps them tolerate chemotherapy better?

See, there is just too much open to interpretation when the information comes from second-hand sources. I have similar difficulties with my family members explaining what they've been told by physicians. It often takes considerable questioning to figure out what they were really told versus what they heard, which raises a plethora of other issues with regard to things like informed consent in clinical trials when your patients are poorly educated, and patient compliance with following medical advice when they don't understand what they've been told.

 

[Routaran]

I double checked with my mom on more specifics. she didnt remember very much detail but what stuck in her head was that the speaker said drinking 2-3 kg's worth of carrots juiced everyday. It just seemed overly excessive to me for any reason.

i definitely agree with a healthy balanced diet having the ability to improve the body's ability to prevent problems from occurring and resolving minor issues (deficiences and such) but a serious problem like cancer? i have a hard time accepting that even though its from an MD without more support for the claim

 

[Evo]

Here are some articles on it.

Article on the first study

Carrot Compound Shows Promise for Slowing Cancer

According to a report published in the February issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, after 18 weeks the rats that received falcarinol (either from carrots or feed additives), were one third less likely to develop full-scale cancerous tumors than were rats in the control group.

Falcarinol can be toxic in large amounts, but it would take 400 kilograms of carrots to reach a lethal dose.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carrot-compound-shows-pro[/quote] The follow up study says to boil them whole so that the falcarinol that the body can utilize is increased over eating raw carrots.

Scientists found carrots that were boiled before cut contained 25% more of the anti-cancer compound falcarinol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8101403.stm

 

[Routaran]

thank you all for the references and education on this subject

 

[shobee]

If it diagnose early so many of chances are there for good recovery. Thanks for the information

 

[ralph90015]

I just saw these posts while I was looking for material to show an acquaintance who has ovarian cancer that I am not the only one telling people that carrots can cure cancer.
In March 2005 I found a lump beginning to emerge from the left side of my neck. I went to the free clinic and they referred me to L.A. County hospital. The lump and another on the right side of my neck were biopsied and found positive for squamous cell cancer. A friend that was camped in my living room told Aldo Vidali, a mutual friend of ours that has hosted Al Gore and Dennis Kucinich fundraisers in Santa Cruz and makes video documentaries, that I had cancer. Vidali said that a relative of his had cured herself of ovarian cancer in the early 1990s after going to the Gerson Clinic in Baja for a week and learning the Gerson Therapy protocol consisting of vegetable juices and coffee enemas.
I couldn't afford to go to the Gerson Clinic but started juicing vegetables every day, mainly carrots. I also did apples and oranges for awhile but quit because I heard that they could negate the carrots. I juiced and drank about 2 to 3 pounds of carrots a day, which becomes 2 to 3 cups of carrot juice. After about 4 months my tumors were about the same size as when I started. The radiologist that was preparing to give me radiation treatments said that the tumors might have been smaller on the second MRI than the first. I used that to persuade him that maybe I could skip the surgery and radiation. He persuaded me that since my cancer was already metastacized, I better at least keep the radiation and chemo. He argued with the medical staff to allow me to skip the surgery in closed session. Apparently this was very distressing to the surgeon and the rest of the staff because they were in there over an hour. When they came out he said that although they thought it was a bad idea, they finally approved it.
Instead of the usually prescribed 6 weeks of radiation with 3 rounds of platinum-compound chemo, I allowed them to put me into a national study where one group, my group, got one-third extra radiation and one-third fewer rounds of chemo. The extra radiation was a big mistake because the last week the radiation sizzled my epiglotis and I could no longer swallow liquids, not even saliva, without choking, and the doctor went out of town and his replacement said I should continue and I was afraid to stop the sessions myself. Seven years later I still have trouble swallowing. At that point I had to have a nose tube because I couldn't swallow liquids without choking and had to learn to put it in myself so I could leave the hospital. At first they wouldn't give me the tube and I had to go back in through emergency which took all night, just so I could get the nose tube so I could drink. They kept me in the hospital on IV for a week before they gave me the nose tube and let me leave.
Anyway, I still had the lumps on my neck, so when I got out I kept juicing. The lumps shrank and disappeared between August and December 2005. I thought I was cured so I stopped juicing in December.
The Chemo technician had warned me during a round that recurrences were the rule, not the exception, and that I should come in as soon as I found anything. About February I noticed a tiny protrusion above my heart. I had hated the radiation treatments, not only because they put your head in a cage and attach it to a table so you can't move for half an hour at a time, but also, and mainly, because every time they give you injections that is supposed to make the radiation work better but make you throw up when you get them and leave you feeling sick and unable to eat much of the rest of the time.
Anyway, I didn't go back to the hospital. I was not sure whether the lumps that they had irradiated had gone away because of the radiation or because I continued the carrot juice. In any case, I soon had 10 tiny lumps in two rows about a half-inch apart on my upper chest. I started juicing carrots (only carrots this time) irregularly, but new lumps kept appearing. I finally got serious and started juicing every day again, and no more lumps appeared; however, they didn't shrink, either. I kept juicing 2-3 lbs. a day over the next two months and experimented by trying to cook them with a heating pad after reading that tumors were temperature sensitive and could be treated with infrared radiation. After two months with the pad I had noticed no change in the lumps. I then was getting worried since I had given up on all the supplements I had been taking before (prior to my radiation rounds), and although I was convinced that the carrot juice stopped the growth of the lumps on my chest, I had pretty much given up on it doing more than that. But then, I had never tried going beyond 2-3 cups of carrot juice per day.
One Sunday at church about April 2006 (I go to L.A. First Unitarian), I showed a friend of mine that is a nurse at Kaiser who had had cancer herself the lumps and asked if she had any suggestions. She said I should go back in and get them biopsied immediately. Well, my Medi-Cal had expired and I couldn't afford it, and anyway I had almost died from the radiation damage to my epiglotis and salivary glands and neck muscles and from wrenching my guts out because of and even in anticipation of the injections before my daily doses of radiation.
Although I was not too worried about them spreading, I was worried that other things were going on I couldn't detect. I went home and juiced a five-pound bag of carrots that afternoon, and did the same thing the next two days. By Wednesday I was sure that the ten lumps had each gotten a little smaller. I kept juicing and drinking 5 pounds of carrots (about 5 cups of carrot juice) and when I saw my RN friend at church again after two weeks and showed her the lumps again her response was "Wow! What'd you do?" At that point they were about half the size they had been the two weeks before, and had been the two months before that. I kept up the 5 pounds a day (my body weight was about 165 at the time) and all the lumps except the biggest disappeared in 6 weeks. That one disappeared about two weeks after the others. I juiced another month or so and then quit. Then I realized that I should have gotten the last bump biopsied before it disappeared to confirm it was cancerous. I apologize that I did not. Anyway, it's been about 6 years and there have been no recurrences.
I now juice occasionally mainly because it helps my skin. I noticed this three years ago when I was bitten by a friends bulldog in the face and couldn't get rid of the infections. Although the carrot juice didn't get rid of the flare ups entirely, my skin seemed to clear up for awhile after a good dose (5 cups) of carrot juice. I recently saw something that suggested that carrots might chelate buildups in the liver or kidneys, making them work better. I don't know, but it seems like something like that happens.
I saw the Denmark study about faricarinol a couple of years ago and found it interesting and plausible. It appeared to have been responsibly done. I really don't know why carrots work, but over the year that I was alternatively juicing and not juicing while observing the affect on my tumors, my confidence in carrots grew while my confidence in everything else wained. I am pretty confident now that if I ever get cancer again I know what to do about it. I would also mention that I just watched three films about Gerson Therapy on Youtube that their maker has apparently given away to the public. I met Charlotte Gerson and heard her speak in Long Beach and Studio City late in 2006 I believe. At ninety, she is amazing. Although I never went to her clinic, I think she saved my life via my friend Aldo's relative's experience. One of the films on Youtube says that her father cured her of tuberculosis when she was twelve. Another interviews doctors at an independent Gerson Therapy hospital in Japan. I disagree with the Gerson Clinic about the need for vegetables to be organic. I got results without either organic vegetables, or coffee enemas, or the much high frequency (juices served hourly) and amount of juice per day (13 cups), or the variety of vegetables they prescribe. But then, I had the benefit(?) of the radiation and chemo when my cancer was at the worst. I did lose about 45 pounds prior to and during my 6 weeks of radiation, although I don't know whether the disease or the treatment and consequent loss of ability to eat was more to blame.
I really didn't intend to say more than a few words, but with so many people, including personal acquaintances as well as the famous people we all love, dying from the Big C, I feel like screaming constantly, and had to do my best in case it might make a difference for somebody. But of course, the louder you scream, the less people hear. In all these years I'm not sure I have changed a single mind. When I try to walk away from the problem I feel guilty. I hope this helps someone. As for my new young friend with ovarian cancer, I am not optimistic that I will be able to persuade her.
About a year after I got well, one of my customers and sometime video assistant told me that her brother had throat cancer like I had had. We went to his house to juice for him, but he barely touched it. We watched him as he endured the surgery and the suffering, to no avail. He died within a year. He was a college professor.
I wasn't much smarter. I had a personal friend give me all the information I should have needed but still was afraid to rely only on juice and say no to the chemo and radiation as well as the surgery. We are so susceptible to what the doctors tell us. But the doctors are apparently taught nothing in med school that will hurt their employability. This is understandable. What isn't understandable is that the government permits this conflict of interest and does nothing to counter it.
If I can be of help to anyone, please call me in L.A. at (213) 747-6345. I am really bad about emails, but if you want to try one, send it to ralph90015@yahoo.com.
Thank you to whoever let this get posted.
Ralph Cole
January 29,2012

 

[gravenewworld]

Amazing what would happen if people just started to eat correctly and stayed away from almost any processed food that came in a package.