Misleading Study Says CBD Oil Could Lead to Tumor Regression in Cancer Patients; Here's Why Alternative Therapies Are so Dangerous

A study published in BMJ Case Reports on Oct. 14 documents the experience of a woman in her 80s with non-small cell lung cancer whose tumor shrank without the aid of conventional cancer treatment, such as surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.

However, the report says that the woman's tumor began to shrink when, for about two and a half years, she ingested CBD oil two to three times a day as an alternative self-treatment. CBD and THC (the main psychoactive compound in cannabis) can help alleviate cancer treatment symptoms, but it cannot treat cancer itself.

The report's authors suspect there could be a valuable link between CBD oil consumption and tumor regression in cancer patients, but they say more research is needed to understand the relationship. It should be noted that there's no evidence that CBD oil contributed to the tumor regression in this patient.

How to Understand What's Actually Valid Health Information Online

Patients who rely on unproven methods outside of the conventional medical realm often end up with fatal consequences; a study released by researchers at Yale University in 2017 revealed that patients with cancer who only use alternative treatments are twice as likely to die from the disease.

How can you know whether the information you read online, especially medical information, is reliable? There are a few ways:

The National Institutes of Health recommends that, as a rule, the sites you get medical information from should be sponsored by federal government agencies. Knowing who or what sponsors and hosts the website you're reading from is important, too.

• .gov are government agencies
• .edu identifies an educational institution
• .org usually identifies nonprofit organizations
• .com identifies commercial website

Who wrote the information? Who reviewed it? When was the information written? What is the purpose of this website? These are all important questions to ask yourself when seeking out reliable medical information online; and most of the time, social media isn't the right place to look.

Alternative Therapies: Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet

After receiving a cancer diagnosis, many people will head to the web and search something along the lines of, "What is the cure for cancer?"

Dr. Westin has an important message: don't believe everything you read.

Alternative Therapies: Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet

Many answers to posed question that pop up online include what are known as "alternative therapies." This refers to treatments that people may choose in place of conventional, scientifically backed medicine. These alternative methods can range from mind-body approaches and diet and nutrition choices to supplements, healing crystals, Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine. They're touted all over the internet, and they often sound too good to be true. And that's because they probably are, Dr. Westin says.

It's for a good reason that these therapies aren't used at comprehensive cancer centers: they haven't proven themselves effective in clinical trials rigorous studies that test treatments in the population of people they're intended to treat. Clinical trials test new treatments for safety and efficacy; every drug or treatment approved for widespread use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has to have gone through multiple phases of clinical trials.

It’s also important to note that the validity of scientific data is determined by whether results can be repeated by other researchers, the sample size of the study and the academic credentials of the researchers and journal where the information is published.

Sometimes, the therapies or supplements you read about on the internet can be OK and maybe even beneficial if they're used with conventional medicine, not in its place. These options make up "complementary medicine," which, when used in tandem with conventional medicine, is called "integrative medicine."

The Difference Between Integrative Medicine and Alternative Medicine

Many doctors believe in integrative medicine, so long as they remain in the loop and give their patients the go-ahead before combining anything new with their treatment. But the majority of doctors tend to be in agreement about the fact that these options should never replace conventional treatment.

Even if you aren't planning on foregoing the treatment that your doctor prescribes as you try out something you read online, it's absolutely vital that you talk to your doctor first. They are the only ones who will be able to tell you whether that "cancer-curing" supplement is going to interact negatively with your actual treatment. It may, for instance, cause the treatment to be less effective. Or it may wind up being harmful, or cause debilitating side effects.

Spontaneous Tumor Regression

The fact that the 80-something-year-old woman's tumor shrank isn’t an unheard of thing. Spontaneous regression of cancer is a documented phenomenon.

The noted National Cancer Center researcher Dr. Steven Rosenberg tells SurvivorNet that he spent decades trying to understand the apparent disappearance of cancer in people who don't undergo traditional treatments especially after he witnessed the phenomenon in a patient of his own.

The Spontaneous Regression of Cancer The Amazing Story & a Reality Check From Experts

Kathryn Doherty tells SurvivorNet that she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Her doctor told her that she needed to have a mastectomy to survive, but her gut was telling her that surgery really wasn't the route for her. She went to a clinic in Germany for three weeks, and there she did three hypothermia treatments, infusions “of all kinds” and started juicing. And as of her last blood work, her doctor told her she was NED no evidence of disease.

Doherty says she wouldn't recommend the route she took to another person dealing with cancer, but in her case, “it just felt right.”

When speaking to SurvivorNet about exceptional responders, Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, says that while these stories about people being cured do exist, people need to pay attention to hard science.

Contributing: SurvivorNet staff

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