"Vitamin supplements complicate cancer treatments"

[Orphia Nay]

What's the harm in using "complimentary" medicine?

New research shows there can be problems for people who mix complementary vitamins and supplements with standard medical treatments.

[...]

The head of the Cancer Council of Australia, Professor Ian Olver, says some treatments can make chemotherapy either ineffective or more toxic.

"Both of those things can happen depending on whether it blocks the breakdown of the chemotherapy, which allows it to accumulate or in fact the opposite occurs," he said.

"So we see interactions at both of those situations where the actual dose of the chemo can be effectively reduced as well."

[...]

"Even simple things like high-dose vitamin C can interact with methotrexate and make the levels of methotrexate go up and increase the toxicity of the drug," he said.

"And then there are other natural things like St John's wort, which interacts with a whole range of other drugs that we give."

[...]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/21/2749582.htm?section=justin