Anyone heard of/tried Inositol Hexaphosphate (aka IP6)?

[ketel]

Gang,

Ketel here. Stage IIIC dx in 10/06 with nodal involvement. Right hemicolectomy 11/06.

Just wrapped up 6 months of FOLFOX+Avastin chemo. CT scans done last month were clear.

Met with primary doc to discuss "post-chemo" strategy, something my onc doc seems rather cavalier about. My cancer cell type is considered aggressive - signet cell-type adenacarcinoma. I am not that happy with just doing nothing in this post-chemo phase so I am looking into more pro-active approaches to ensure that this thing doesn't come back. Not content just looking over my shoulder the next 5 years.

My primary care doc mentioned Inositol Hexaphosphate (aka IP6) as something to take as a preventative thing. He believes it has some merit in slowing/stopping the growth of new cancer cells. Has anyone used this or heard of this?

Also, what are other post-chemo people doing besides the usual check-ups and scans. Is there anything we should be doing on a more pro-active basis to improve likelihood of there not being a recurrance??

thanks all.

Ketel

[shel28]

One of my friends that works with supplements recommended this to me. He sent me a pretty convincing article on it but I don't know what I did with it. It may be in my e-mail somewhere if you want me to send it to you. I bought some but haven't used it yet. My treatment seems to be working and I don' know if I should be taking this while I am going through surgeries and chemo.

[Hannah]

I don't know much about this (it's also called phytate), but there have been some promising animal studies that show that it can help slow tumor growth. Like many things, it's a long way from possibly restricting tumor growth in animals to definitely stopping it in humans.

Meanwhile, it doesn't seem like it has any known dangers associated with taking it. In other words, it may or may not help with anything, but it probably won't hurt you to take.

If your doctor is the one recommending you take it, just be sure to ask what information s/he is relying on to recommend this to you - especially to show that it's not harmful. I just found the American Cancer Society's page on it: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/conte ... tearea=ETO

Hannah