Thursday, December 9, 2010

Natural Killer Cells

I was reading an article about meditation in Natural Health magazine, and I saw another article about fighting allergies with natural killer cells. Those are the cells that roam around your body looking for intruders -- and killing them. I've heard of natural killer cells and I used to visualize them attacking my tumors.

Anyway, this article mentioned a supplement that can increase the number of natural killer cells you have in your body.  It's called AHCC (Active Hexose Correlated Compound).  It is an extract from mushrooms.  It is supposed to be good for your immune system in general. I also found some info on the web about the idea that you might be able to use AHCC to fight cancer cells.

So, on Wednesday, I asked Dr R if it would be okay for me to try taking AHCC. I felt a little silly, like I was asking if I should take shark cartilege or make chicken sacrifices. But he was supportive, as always. He said that there was no definitive evidence either way regarding whether it would be effective in the fight against the sarcoma -- but that if I wanted to try it, it would be a perfectly good idea to do so, especially since I am not getting any chemo for at least the next two months.  He suggested that I run my own informal clinical trial.

I could NOT have taken it this summer, because AHCC reduces the effectiveness of doxorubicin.

So I ordered a bottle.  Now I am waiting for it to come in.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank You for sharing! AWESOME! Love and Hugs xoxo

Luciferase Assay said...

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This is the perfect blog for anyone who wants to know about this topic. Natural killer cells are known to differentiate and mature in the bone marrow, lymph node, spleen, tonsils and thymus where they then enter into the circulation. It directly kills bacteria by disrupting their cell walls analogous to neutrophils....