This web page discusses ovarian cancer, which may have a different mechanism and treatment from other forms of cancer. Please see Cancer Overview for general information that is common to all forms of cancer.
Please see conventional, complementary, and alternative medical treatments for important background information regarding the different types of medical treatments discussed on this page. Naturopathic, Complementary, and Alternative treatments that may be considered include:
[Friedman2013] has presented a compelling model for the prevention and treatment of breast and prostate cancer.
An important feature of this model is observation that synthetic (non-bio-identical) estrogens and progestins actually
raise the risk of breast and prostate cancer. On the other hand, it appears
[
cancer.gov],
[Hankinson1992 🕮 ], [CDC1987 🕮 ], [Schildkraut2002 🕮 ] that synthetic estrogens do not affect
ovarian cancer, and synthetic progestins actually reduce the incidence of ovarian cancer by up to 50%.
Synthetic progestins have also been found
by some [Narod1998 🕮 ], [Antoniou2009 🕮 ], but not all [Modan2001 🕮 ],
studies to be protective against ovarian cancer in women with BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 mutations.
Dr. Weyrich notes that mifepristone (RU-486) (FDA-approved as a "morning-after" abortifacient) is antagonistic to progesterone-receptor-alpha, and has been shown to reduce levels of the tumor-promoting protein BCL2 in BRCA-1/BRCA-2 mutation-positive individuals. Dr. Weyrich speculates that a similar mechanism might be exerted by other synthetic progestins in the case of ovarian cancer. [Friedman2007 🕮 ], [Poole2006 🕮 ].
The differences between different types of cancers require further study.
[LDN_Cancer] reports that the late Dr. Bernard Bihari treated approximately 450 patients with some form of cancer, with a 60% success rate, almost all of who had failed to respond to standard treatments. In particular, 4 patients with ovarian cancer appeared to be in remission. In one case, a patient with treatment-resistant ovarian cancer appeared to be in remission after 3 months of LDN treatment, but after another 11 months, suffered a relapse and passed away four months thereafter, despite continuing the LDN. [Dr. Weyrich: LDN is not a panacea, although it may buy a patient a significant amount of "quality time". Concurrent treatment with progesterone or progestins may have extended the remission longer].
Animal studies also support the use of LDN in treating ovarian cancer [Donahue2011a 🕮 ]
Dr. Weyrich has been trained to use Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN). However, Dr. Weyrich has not treated any cases of ovarian cancer with LDN.
Please see What is Low Dose Naltrexone? for more information.
[AlHilli2023 🕮 ] presents an in-vivo study in which a ketogenic diet is found to be counter-productive (increases growth rate) of epithelial ovarian cancer in mice. The protocol in this study used a 90% fat diet consisting of Crisco, Coca butter, and Corn oil, which Dr. Weyrich considers to be an inflammatory (pro-canncer) mixture. Dr. Weyrich observes that the outcome of using a healthier fat blend rich in olive oil and omega-3 fats might give a different outcome. These researchers also noted that the mice on the ketogenic diet exhibited an increase in fat mass and a decrease in muscle mass, which is not reported a human case study of CLL that used an 80% fat diet [Bosworth2018]. Dr. Weyrich observes that the loss of muscle mass may be attributed to insufficient protein. The authors also note that "oxidative phosphorylation represents the main metabolic pathway in [epithelial ovarian cancer] (EOC)" [Matassa2016 🕮 ]. In other words, EOC violates the Warburg hypothesis that cancer cells rely on anaerobic fermentation, and therefore are succeptible to a ketogenic diet that inhibits anaerobic fermentation. [Matassa2016 🕮 ]