Selenium: the poor man’s chemotherapy

Cancer is a disease of aging. In the 18th and 19th centuries infectious disease was the main cause of death and few people lived beyond sixty years of age.

Advances in public health, sanitation and medical research reduced those causes of early death so today cancers have become the second leading cause of death worldwide, after cardiovascular/heart disease.

The leading cause of cancer is smoking tobacco. Fifty percent of all cancers are related to smoking – not just lung cancer but all cancers. The best way to avoid cancer is to quit smoking. Scientists now believe over a third of cancers are related to viral infections that damage cell’s DNA. That makes viruses the second leading cancer cause. Hepatitis virus infection causes liver cancer and papillomavirus infection can cause uterine cancer. Excess exposure to chemicals, radiation and the sun are lesser causes, and some cancers may be related to diet.

A cancer starts when DNA in one single cell is damaged. That cell loses its ability to stop splitting in half and continues to grow without stopping as it normally would. It loses its control breaks. As we age old cells die by giving birth to new cells. But when their control mechanism is damaged they cannot stop dividing and repeatedly making new cells. This gradually results in a cancerous growth. Cancer is a complex development that usually takes up to twenty years to go from a single cell turning cancerous to developing into a tumour. There are at least twenty-one separate steps from a single cell losing control of its division and turning cancerous until a full blown cancer ultimately turns deadly and spreads through the body. The body’s immune system monitors cancer growth. Often it can slow cancers down or even stop them. But cancers also have the ability to hide from and subvert the immune system. Selenium is essentially fuel for the immune system. It makes the immune system stronger and boosts its ability to detect and fight cancer. According to cancer scientists – oncologists – selenium can slow down and in some cases even reverse cancer growth at all twenty-one stages of cancer by helping repair damage to DNA and increasing the power of the immune system to detect and attack cancers with its cancer fighting “killer cells”. By significantly improving immunity, selenium supplements have been shown to be the strongest substances to help prevent cancer. My mother feared getting cancer. From the age of sixty to ninety she took one tablet of selenium every morning. She lived over ninety-one years and never developed any cancer. Numerous studies have shown that people with low levels of selenium in their bodies are several times more likely to develop cancer than those with higher levels of selenium. The 2000 Lancet medical journal article, “The importance of selenium to human health” by Margaret P. Rayman reports that in one controlled study where one group of adults took 200mcg selenium a day and the other group took a dummy pill, after a few years the group that took selenium experienced 37% fewer total cancers and 50% fewer deaths from cancer. This included 63% less prostate cancer in men, 58% less colon cancer and 46% less lung cancer. By the age of sixty-five, 60% of men have prostate cancer and by the age of eighty, 90% do. Luckily, in 95% of cases prostate cancer is the slowest progressing cancer so most men with this cancer will die of something else. However selenium appears particularly effective against this cancer. Breast cancer affects many women. It affects a higher percent of women who have never given birth. After the age of forty it is important to have an annual mammogram, if possible, to detect the possibility of this cancer early. When cancer strikes it can be treated either by surgery, chemotherapy or both. If the treatment is successful the patient can go into “remission”. But unless every single cancer cell is eliminated cancers often eventually comes back. Selenium tablets can be taken along with chemotherapy and may reduce some of the side effects of “chemo”. Once a patient is in remission selenium tablets are highly recommended to help the immune system monitor and gain the upper hand against and kill off the few remaining cancer cells. Leukemia is a cancer of the blood that results in the production of too few immune system white blood cells and immune system depression. Just as with HIV, selenium helps the body produce many more of these white cells and supplements are an excellent additional treatment for leukemia, reducing most of its symptoms.Cancer treatment can be painful and painfully expensive. Many people cannot afford it. Prevention is always better and cheaper than a cure. The two best ways to reduce your chance of getting cancer are to quit smoking tobacco and to take one selenium tablet a day. I sometimes call selenium the poor man’s chemotherapy. Cancer is usually graded in stages from one to four. To prevent cancer take one 200mcg tablet of selenium per day. As additional treatment against a first stage cancer or a cancer in remission take one or two tablets a day. For a second stage cancer take two or three tablets a day. For a third stage cancer take three or four tablets a day. And for a fourth stage cancer that has spread use four or five tablets a day. Of course selenium is not a cure for cancer. There is no absolute cure for cancer just as there is no cure for death. We all have to go sometime. But prevention of disease is always better than a cure and as a poor man’s chemotherapy with almost no side effects, selenium is better than nothing at all. Remember, there is no drug as strong as the immune system. And selenium is nothing more than the fuel that powers your immune system. Howard Armistead is an AIDS researcher and director of the Selenium Education and Research Centre (SERC) in Johannesburg, South Africa. Visit winagainsthiv.com and winagainstebola.com for more information.