Some supplements should be avoided by anyone with multple myeloma, not just those taking Velcade.

Here’s a specific example.  Antioxidants are one of nature’s miracle compounds.  They help protect healthy cells and repair damaged ones.

A day doesn’t go by where I don’t hear about a new “miracle” antioxidant producing plant or berry–usually found deep in an amazon jungle.

While eating a few strips of bark or berries probably won’t harm your myeloma therapy, do you really think that it’s a good idea to be taking concentrated amounts of antioxidants, designed to repair injured cells?  As in injured or dying myeloma cells?

So think long and hard before deciding to take antioxidant supplements when using Velcade–or any other anti-myeloma therapy.

Until recently, I took a little of just about everything.  But now I realize I shouldn’t take even small daily doses of glucosamine, L-glutamine and alpha lipoic acid–I was taking a lot of that one.  See yesterday’s post:

Alpha Lipoic Acid not good for myeloma patients

For those of you who don’t go back and read comments following my posts, Brian wrote-in, asking for more details about why glucosomine should be contraindicated for multiple myeloma patients:

They continued my glucosamine during my stay at City of Hope & it is still listed among my meds every time I see my oncologist. Why is it to be avoided?

Here’s the link back to a post I wrote last November:

Say it ain’t so: Should multiple myeloma patients avoid using the supplement glucosamine?

Do you have specific questions about any of this? Simply type-in a topic (glucosomine, alpha lipoic acid, etc) into the long, grey query bar in the upper right hand corner of the page.  Lots of posts about most any subject should pop-up.  After all, I post about this stuff every day!

Back to the topic at hand.  If vitamin C–and a variety of other amino acid supplements–negatively effect Velcade’s performance, does that mean one shouldn’t be taking a multivitamin during Velcade therapy?  Some believe so.  But most doctors agree that the small amount of vitamin C or trace amino acids in most multivitamin pills shouldn’t make any difference.

And how about changing one’s diet?  The same rule applies here, too.  Skip the green tea and eat a healthy diet, filled with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But want to hear the good news?  The same properties that allow Velcade to be influenced negatively by what we eat and drink allow us to enhance the effectiveness of Velcade!

More about that tomorrow.  Until then, eat a handful of blueberries on your cereal.  Sprinkle some extra oregano on your chicken, along with a few fresh basil leaves.  But leave the concentrated antioxidant capsules alone.

Feel good and keep smiling!  Pat