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Linda Elsegood: Today we're joined by Dr Akbar Khan, who works with LDN and cancer in his Medicor Cancer Centres. He has treated over 2000 patients with LDN, so we are very interested in hearing what he has to say.
Dr Akbar Khan: Thank you very much for having me on the show.
Linda Elsegood: Could you tell us when you first heard about LDN?
Dr Akbar Khan: Well, I first heard about LDN about nine years ago, and that was through some discussion on the internet, in which a patient pointed out to me there were some alternative medicine forums, and I guess people were discussing LDN and other non-traditional cancer therapies, and so a patient pointed out that there's a drug that you should look into and it's called LDN, and the patient was interested in trying it. So that's really how I got acquainted with LDN.
Linda Elsegood: And how soon after hearing about it did you start prescribing?
Dr Akbar Khan: Well, so I had to do a little bit of research on it, and then I found Dr Bihari and Dr Gluck's website, which is ldninfo.org and from there I learned about how LDN was effective in cancer treatment and autoimmune disease.
And you know, basically, because our clinic was dealing with just cancer, it was very interesting for me that there is an option for a very simple and cheap medicine that has almost no side effects, that could effectively treat cancer. So, I did do some research, and I found some publications on LDN.
Dr Berkson, for example, published case reports of pancreatic cancer, which is one of the most difficult cancers that was successfully treated with LDN. Then I found out the type of dosing that was being used, and so at that point, we started using it. It took just a few months, and then after that research was completed, we started using the drug.
Linda Elsegood: Do you use LDN as a standalone treatment or part of a protocol?
Dr Akbar Khan: So, it can actually be used as a standalone treatment. We have used it for patients who have no other treatment options, and then they start searching for other treatment options, and then they find us. In those types of situations, we use LDN as a standalone. It is actually effective, and what we find is it's more effective in patients that have lower amounts of cancer in the body; if it's an earlier stage, then it's also more effective, but it can actually be used as a standalone therapy. We have many cases of patients successfully treated like that. It can also be used as an adjunctive treatment, which is in combination with chemotherapy, for example, and there is a new publication which I know you're aware of that illustrates exactly how that can be done.
Linda Elsegood: And from the 2000 plus cases that you have treated with cancer, do you have any examples that stand out?
Dr Akbar Khan: Oh yes, for sure. We've treated well over 2000 patients with non-traditional treatments, including LDN. We use other gentle medicines as well, and the most notable example would be a case that we actually published; it's a fellow with tongue cancer.
So, I'm just going to get some of the details here for you. He was about 60 years old when we began treating him, and he had a rare type of cancer of the tongue, which is called adenoid cystic. It was probably about an inch and a half in size and had not spread at the time, but it was large enough that his doctor was concerned, and he was told to have radical surgery in an attempt to cure it.
So the standard treatment involved for this type of cancer was the removal of the entire tongue. Also, because it was close to the voice box or the larynx, the surgeon had said they wanted to remove the entire voice box and remove all the lymph nodes that were in the region. So major surgery of the mouth and of the neck, with a very significant reduction of quality of life, like, you know, he would not be able to taste, he would not be able to speak after the surgery, and so this was an attempt to cure this cancer. So, this fellow was very upset and unhappy about the proposed treatment, and he did ask for a second opinion from another specialist. I believe the other specialist also said they could do surgery, but maybe a more limited surgery, and then they did offer some chemotherapy and radiation as well.
So, none of these options was acceptable to this fellow, and he ended up finding us somehow; I believe on the internet. When he came to us, he said he wanted a treatment that had zero side effects. So, I told him, well, of course, there's no such thing as zero side effects, but probably LDN is the closest thing to that. It does have very few side effects. So, we offered him that and he was very interested. He did start LDN, and we also added some vitamin D because it has some anticancer effects as well; it does improve immune function also, and so what happened when he started LDN and vitamin D the mass stop growing, and then over a period of a few months, it actually started to reduce, and he didn't contact me for a while.
He kept up with his LDN, and then after two years he just mysteriously appeared and sent me his MRI scan report. He had just had a new scan and it said the cancer was completely gone. So naturally, you know, we were quite excited, and this fellow is now at over five years cancer-free.
His scans are clear. He just had a visit with his specialist. He inspected his entire mouth, and there's no sign of cancer and so that is, I would say, by far the most notable case in my experience with LDN.
Linda Elsegood: Wow. That's totally amazing, isn't it?
Dr Akbar Khan: It is stunning yes.
Linda Elsegood: Exactly. Have you had any other remarkable results that you've seen? Maybe not quite as stunning.
Dr Akbar Khan: Yes, we have. I mean, he's definitely one of the best, but we have other results, which are more real world, that is, I expect that cancer might reduce or it might stabilize; those are more common responses that we see. You know, we use it for almost any cancer type. Other good cases: a bladder cancer case that I used it for recently; a 65-year-old fellow with a fairly aggressive type of bladder cancer. It's called high grade, which is when they look under the microscope, they see the appearance of the cells, and they appear quite aggressive. And this fellow is treated with standard treatment, which is to remove the bladder tumour by a surgical procedure, and then to burn the area where the tumour was located, to try to kill off as many cells as possible. And so, his tumour recurred, and it was invading into the muscle wall of the bladder. At that point it gets concerning that it may be starting to spread, so he was told to have his bladder removed; complete removal of the bladder, and then a procedure to collect the urine in a loop of bowel that's inserted into a hole in the wall of the abdomen, so it collects urine into a bag from this, it's called an ileal conduit, that's the medical name for it, but basically the removal of the bladder and the urine drains into a bag that's attached to your abdomen, and he was obviously not too happy with this.
So, he came to us and said, look, do I have any other options? We chose LDN. He did have a little bit of insomnia with it, so he got a sleeping pill to go with that. He also took one course of immunotherapy called BCG, which is a bacteria that gets injected into the bladder.
With that and LDN, after four months of treatment, there was absolutely no evidence of cancer. He was cancer-free, I think, for up to about seven years. It was when we had the last contact with this fellow. So again, very, very dramatic results. In this case, it was combined with an immunotherapy called BCG, but he received only one course of BCG, which is really very limited and is not expected to be curative when you have cancer that's invading into the muscle wall of the bladder. So, I'm sure the LDN contributed to that quite significantly.
Linda Elsegood: I know people always ask these questions and it's probably not that easy to answer, but how long does it take being on LDN before you notice that it's doing something for your patients?
Dr Akbar Khan: Well, LDN, it is, as you know, a gentler drug. You cannot compare it to chemo. If you do chemotherapy for cancer, typically that's effective very quickly, within weeks, whereas for LDN, just because of the mechanism; the way that it works, we usually say, give it about three months to judge if it's effective or not for your case.
With LDN, we want to give it to a patient that has cancer where you have that kind of time. You have the luxury of some time to allow treatment to work. You know, if it's slow-growing cancer, or if they really have no other option, then that's appropriate to use LDN. So yeah, we recommend at least about three months to give it a good try.
Linda Elsegood: Okay, right. Well, we're back and I would like to ask a question first before we start taking callers. I had a message from a lady called Tracy, who asked if LDN helps with chronic leukaemia.
Dr Akbar Khan: Yes, we have used LDN for chronic leukaemia. She's probably talking about chronic lymphocytic leukaemia; that's the most common type of chronic leukaemia. We have used it for that, and yes, it is effective for that type of cancer.
Linda Elsegood: How would they go about approaching a doctor to prescribe LDN?
Dr Akbar Khan: Okay, so basically, I think what I would recommend is that they present the doctor with some published research on LDN, and probably the easiest way is to go onto the LDN research trust website, and they can find some links through there.
They could go on our website as well, where we have links to different studies on LDN, or they could even email me if they need some assistance. You can provide them Linda with my email, I'm happy to take direct emails from patients, but I think that the best approach is really to introduce LDN by presenting some published research to the physician. Otherwise, they're going to be very sceptical of the potential benefits of LDN. When you think about LDN when you know how it works, and what is normally used for, you would not connect it with cancer treatment. So, I think that the patients will encounter some resistance initially from their physicians, and so it’s really important to arm yourself with the scientific information first.
Linda Elsegood: And I have to say, you do an amazing job as one of our medical advisors, and I know you're always happy to help doctors who have questions, and want to know about cancer and LDN, and that is so kind of you to take the time to help and support people wherever they are. It's very good. Thank you very much.
Dr Akbar Khan: No problem, and it’s a pleasure to help.
Linda Elsegood: Thank you. So now we have Robyn who has got a question for you about Hodgkin's lymphoma. Would you like to ask Dr Khan your question, Robyn?
Robyn: Yes. Thank you. Yes, I'm wondering if you've had any experience with LDA and Hodgkin lymphoma specifically, there's like five kinds of Hodgkin, and four are classic, but there's a fifth one that's a bit rarer called nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin's lymphoma, which acts a little bit more like non-Hodgkin's in that it's slow-growing. I guess I'm curious what your experience has been with either non-Hodgkin's, you know for slow-growing cancers, for that specific Hodgkin's.
Dr Akbar Khan: Okay. So, we do use LDN for lymphoma. In our practice, we mainly see non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Probably because the oncologists treat the Hodgkin's cases with more of curative intent, but that's that. You can use LDN for both Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
We have used it successfully, mainly for non-Hodgkin's, as I say, but by the mechanism of action of LDN, it is considered a very broad sort of cancer treatment. It doesn't matter so much what subtype of lymphoma you have, or what subtype of leukaemia you have, you can try it, and especially for slow-growing cancer, it's considered safe to try.
Especially if there's no other treatment option at that time, then definitely it's appropriate. If there's a conventional treatment being offered, then you may want to combine it initially, but for slow-growing cancer, it's actually quite safe to try.
Robyn: Great. I appreciate it. I think it sounds like something he should try. Thank you for taking my call. Bye-bye.
Linda Elsegood: Bye-bye. Thank you. Would you like to reply to some of the emails that were sent in Akbar?
Dr Akbar Khan: Oh, for sure. Yeah. So, I'm, I have a message here from Jill, which says ‘I've been reading about theories that some cancers might actually be a form of autoimmune disease because inflammation helps feed the tumour.
Can I share any insights or explain?’
So, there is a connection between autoimmune disease and cancer, and the connection is that chronic inflammation in the body does predispose to forming cancer. So, there are many examples of that; for example, if you have a chronic infection of, let's say the liver, like chronic hepatitis, then you are more at risk of getting liver cancer.
If you have chronic acid reflux, like acid backing up from the stomach into the oesophagus, that creates inflammation. That inflammation can result in cancer of the oesophagus. If you have an immune disease, like Crohn's or Colitis, that also creates chronic inflammation and long-term inflammation of the bowels and then you have a high risk of colon cancer. So there definitely is a connection, and on that basis, LDN can be used as cancer prevention. Now we are using it in our practice for that, even though it has not been formally studied. At this point, it's more theoretical, and it makes good sense that there's solid science that supports the use of LDN as cancer prevention in the case of autoimmune disease.
However, as I said, specific research has not been done. It's a very complicated study that would have to be done. It would take about probably about 15 to 20 years to conduct such a study. So, you know, we really don't have time to wait that long for this kind of study, and the funding for that study is also not in place, so we are actually going ahead and using LDN for cancer prevention in the case of autoimmune disease,
Linda Elsegood: What would the protocol be? I mean, would it be part of several things that you would do for prevention, or would it just be purely LDN?
Dr Akbar Khan: We would probably do several things. I think you know, LDN is definitely a useful component. We also believe in using high doses of vitamin D; that's well researched now. We believe that diet can definitely play a role; physical activity, and there are other supplements that can often be useful for cancer prevention. So, we usually do a comprehensive program for our patients. It's quite simple and very, very cost-effective as well. I believe it can be quite powerful. Would you like me to go on to do further questions?
Linda Elsegood: Before you go any further; it was interesting what you said about diet. We had a program last week on diet and exercise, supplements and so on, but what would be the ultimate diet for somebody who had got cancer in the family, and was taking steps as a preventative, alongside LDN? What kind of diet would you recommend?
Dr Akbar Khan: I think there are a few things. So, I'm not the expert on diet, but, one of the most important things is a diet that's low in processed sugars, and probably low in carbohydrates in general. That has been shown to be detrimental in cancer patients because cancer actually uses glucose or sugar as the main energy source and having a diet that's high in glucose, well first of all, if you have cancer, that can be a problem, that has been studied already if you're consuming a lot of sugar then it increases your blood sugar levels and that can drive cancer growth. Whereas prevention, if you take a diet that's high in simple sugars than processed sugars, that one is it can increase your glucose levels in the blood, but then your body does combat that with insulin secretion. So, the other thing is a high insulin level can also tend to drive cancer growth, so we recommend for that reason, a diet low in carbohydrates, and especially those that raise the blood sugar.
I mean, the diet's a very complex topic and really I'm not the expert, but this is one of the key areas, and the other thing that's very important now is to look at the quality of the foods that we're getting because there are many chemicals that are added to the foods. There are genetically modified foods that we're eating and they also have the potential to cause inflammation, which can lead to cancer as well.
So I think if the listener wants a more detailed explanation, they're going to have to consult with your other experts because that's not my area of expertise, but these are some of the basic points that we emphasize to our patients.
Linda Elsegood: A friend of mine, Sammy Jo, has sent a question and she says
that it's a great show and to thank you very much. She said she has a relative with mild breast cancer who followed her advice to find an integrative oncologist to try LDN. Her question to you is, out of all the patients you've treated, how many had similar breast cancers and what was the outcomes?
Dr Akbar Khan: Yeah. So what was the type of breast cancer that you said?
Linda Elsegood: It just said mild breast cancer.
Dr Akbar Khan: Oh, okay. Yeah, so actually it’s very interesting. We just treated a lady, she's about 50 years old, and she had a very aggressive type of breast cancer, which is called triple-negative. So, it means it has no estrogen receptors, no progesterone receptors, and no, HER2 receptors. Those are proteins on the cell surface that are tested when the cancer is removed at surgery, and they help guide the treatment. So, if it's triple negative it has none of those receptors; what that means is it doesn't respond to anti-estrogen drugs like Tamoxifen, and cancer also does not respond to one of the newer targeted drugs like Herceptin.
So, it has very limited treatment options. Basically, in conventional treatment, it’s limited to chemotherapy. So, this lady had surgery done and then she did have residual cancer in the body, which we detected through the blood, and we treated it with LDN. You know, typically for this type of aggressive cancer, I would not expect LDN to really be effective, however; it reduced her cancer and kept it under control for over a year, and then it did start to grow again. I was very impressed; I totally did not expect any results with LDN in her case, but the reason we chose LDN was that she wanted a very gentle therapy that had almost no side effects, and she was scared to take other drugs at the time. So, to me, that's very impressive; to treat a triple-negative for over a year, and we could prove that cancer actually had reduced and was under control for that time. I was very impressed.
Linda Elsegood: Yes. If you could read out another question that would be great.
Dr Akbar Khan: Sure. So, we have a question from Lynn, which says, ‘for 18 months I have been treated for low-grade bladder cancer—initially resected, but it has recurred a couple of times; very small and been treated with diathermy. So, I am told if it recurs, I will need local chemo to the bladder, which I want to avoid. I take 1.5 milligrams of LDN for autoimmune disease and am feeling very well. I take vitamins under naturopath supervision. Can you offer any advice?’
So,1.5 milligrams of LDN may be effective, but it may not be enough. You know, for our patients for cancer, we usually try to get them up to at least 3, up to 4 or 4.5 milligrams of LDN every day. I think that, you know, for somebody who has bladder cancer, who is taking LDN, and despite the LDN at 1.5 milligrams per day, that the cancer is recurring, then I think the LDN dose needs to be increased. So that's the first thing I would do if this was my patient. Then the second thing is, well, she's already under the care of a naturopath, so that's very good because then they will be combining other vitamins and probably other supplements that have anti-cancer activity.
And so then the other thing is, you know, we can look at other drugs which are sometimes more powerful than LDN, drugs like maybe DCA or maybe, like in the case I mentioned before, LDN combined with an immune therapy called BCG. You know, she could definitely consider trying that, but she'd have to speak to her urologist about that, and then...what would you like me to go on to? Any further questions?
Linda Elsegood: Before you go onto another question that just occurred to me. Many people say when they have cancer, what dose should they start on? And what should they try and work up to? And you did say 3 or 4.5, but what does do you normally start the patient on?
Dr Akbar Khan: Okay, so we usually start the patient on...for adult patients we start at 2 milligrams because there is quite a variability in what their responses are going to be to LDN, and what their side effects are going to be. So, we use, this is just my preference, we use one-milligram capsules because it’s convenient.
We start them with two capsules at bedtime, and then we gradually increase up to 3 and then up to 4 and to me, you know, I know the standard dose is 4.5 between 4 and 4.5 is really not a huge difference. So, we just target 4 milligrams as the highest dose that we would use. We start at 3, and we work our way up to 4, and along the way, some people have a lot of sleep disturbance, maybe at 3 milligrams, so we'd tell them, hold the 3 and then see if that settles down, and then if they eventually start to settle down, their body gets used to the LDN, then we would probably try one more time to step it up. Then if they get a lot of side effects, then we'll go back to 3, but generally, my target dose would be 4.
Linda Elsegood: And have you noticed any other side effects other than sleep disturbance?
Dr Akbar Khan: Well, usually it's an asleep disturbance or sometimes vivid dreams. They report that they remember their dreams; they're very intense. Other than that, really nothing significant. I had a couple of patients report some strange side effects, which to me did not seem like LDN, but one patient reported some ringing in her ears and it seemed to resolve after she stopped the LDN, but to me, that didn't really seem like it was LDN. It’s probably coincidental.I don't think it was really LDN side effects, then there were other patients that report other things, but they're not consistent. So, I really don't think they're LDN side effects. So, pretty much sleep disturbance and dreams; I really don't see much else.
Linda Elsegood: And one another question that a lady asked us was when you start LDN for cancer, do you have to continue taking it?
Dr Akbar Khan: Yes, you have to continue taking it, you know unless cancer disappears. If it disappears like that tongue cancer patient, then, you know, theoretically you could try coming off it, but then you have to follow very closely because it's possible that the cancer is in remission, but there's still some microscopic disease.
In other words, there are still some cells there, and the LDN has suppressed their growth and killed a number of the cells, but there could still be a small amount of cancer that's not detectable. So generally I do recommend people continue, however, if they do achieve a full remission at some point, you know, they can consider coming off the LDN with very close monitoring to make sure that cancer does not come back.
Linda Elsegood: If you have time for another question, that'll be good.
Dr Akbar Khan: Yes. We have a question here from Carolyn, and she says, ‘I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer stage two B in October. I've taken Tramadol 50 milligrams for pain since September. My clinic wants me on LDN, so I have been slowly weaning off Tramadol using ibuprofen and CBD topical cream and oral sprays’. The CBD is a marijuana preparation for those who are not aware of that. ‘I take Tramadol, once every eight hours, and now the pain is starting to break through more often. What else can I use for pain, so that I can finish tapering off the Tramadol, with the intent to go on LDN?’
Okay. So, this is a very important question. One of the reasons that you cannot use LDN is if you're taking a pain medication which is of the morphine family, the opiate family, that includes Tramadol, morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl, and those class of drugs because LDN will interfere with those drugs.
It will either cause more pain, or it may cause a full-blown withdrawal reaction, which consists of pain, vomiting, abdominal cramps, or sweats, and it’s really very unpleasant. So, anybody taking a chronic, long-acting painkiller of the opiate family, they really should not be on LDN.
They should not try LDN. So, since she is on a short-acting opiate painkiller Tramadol, she's trying to wean off that, and now the pain is breaking through. So, basically the point is that we need to transition her over to a different type of pain medicine that's not related to a Tramadol or morphine or Codeine.
So, in the case of pancreatic cancer, there is, based on the location of the tumour, a lot of nerves in the area of the pancreas and the tumour often pinches or invades those nerves, and that creates a type of pain that can be resistant to Tramadol or other drugs in the opiate family.
What I use for this type of pain is an anti-seizure drug. There's a couple of choices. I prefer a drug called pregabalin; the trade name for that is Lyrica. There's another older drug, which is called carbamazepine; trade name Tegretol, which is also highly effective. The older drug, the Tegretol has more drug interactions, so I tend to use the newer drug called pregabalin. I find that highly effective in patients with pains related to pancreatic cancer. Since that is a non-opiate drug, it is safe to combine with LDN, and LDN will not interfere with the action of that drug. So for Carolyn, and I would say, please speak to your doctor and go over the pain, the nature of the pain, explain how it feels and where it is, and if the doctor feels that it is nerve pain, it's called neuropathic pain, then ask the doctor to consider using a drug like pregabalin or carbamazepine.
Hopefully, that will successfully allow you to come off the Tramadol completely, and then you can be prescribed LDN, and it will be completely safe.
Linda Elsegood: Thank you. And you had spoken there about medical marijuana. Do you use that in your practice? Is it something you use in Canada?
Dr Akbar Khan: Yes, actually we do. There probably has been a lot of international news about Canada legalizing marijuana, so it's coming, so it is available now, and I think that because people know the law is coming, it's already widely available, and so we actually do use it. Since I'm not an expert on the cannabis oils, I refer to naturopathic doctors who are experts, and one of our own naturopathic doctors in the office is training, and he's learning about it, so we do prescribe it. In fact, the first case that I saw that sort of made me into a believer in using cannabis oils for cancer treatment was a very interesting fellow with bladder cancer stage four. You know, multiple areas of tumour spread into his abdomen, and he was treated with cannabis oil only. He came to us for consultation, we offered some other treatments to be combined. He declined those, and he said, no, let me kind of continue on the cannabis oil, for now, I want to see if it's working. That was his remark to us. We said, okay, no problem. We can do some monitoring of your cancer; we'll get some scans done. So, in fact, we scanned him when he first came to us, and then we re-scanned him about two or three months later, and we found that tumour had actually shrunk, and so that was the first case that really prompted me to have more interest in using cannabis oil as an actual cancer treatment.
You know, we documented very clearly tumour shrinkage in this fellow with stage four cancer using just cannabis oil treatment on its own. So, based on that, I'm more interested in it. Also, there is a naturopathic doctor in the Toronto area who published the world's first case of a child with leukaemia treated with cannabis oil successfully.
He showed very clearly the reduction in the cancer cells in the blood using the cannabis oil, and so that case is now published, and that's further evidence that cannabis oil can be successfully used as a cancer therapy.
Linda Elsegood: That’s really interesting. Thank you. We'll just have another quick break, and if anybody has got any more questions, please do call in or email me linda@ldnrt.org. We'll be back in just a minute.
The LDN research trust is very proud of the LDN book, which was launched at the LDN 2016 conference in Orlando, and has been a great success, not only for the medical profession but for patients wanting to learn more about low dose naltrexone. Full details can be found on the home page of the LDN Research Trust. Discounts are available on bulk orders of the book, which is ten or more. For details, email me, linda@ldnrt.org telling me how many copies you wish and where you live. I will then be able to get Chelsea Green Publishing to contact you.
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Linda Elsegood: Okay, thank you. So, do you have any other remarkable stories you could share with us Akbar?
Dr Akbar Khan: Definitely. Yeah, sure. So, I can tell you about a patient with lymphoma. There's a lady in our practice, mid-fifties with the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And she herself is a homoeopathic practitioner; doesn't believe in taking drugs and definitely not taking chemotherapy.
The standard treatment for this type of lymphoma would be chemotherapy. She approached us and wanted to start a very gentle treatment. And so again, we thought of LDN. It's really the most gentle drug treatment that I have for cancer. So, we started her on LDN, and she worked up to about 4 milligrams a day at bedtime. In addition, our naturopathic doctor gave her some glutathione intravenously, which is a natural product, and then she did have some sleep disturbance. So, for sleep disturbance, we added a Magnolia tree extract, which contains, the natural chemical called honokiol. The trade name of this particular product is HonoPure, so it has 500 milligrams of honokiol
This natural product is actually excellent for sleep. It helps calm anxiety, and it has anti-cancer effects; multiple mechanisms of an anticancer effect that are defined by published research. So, we gave her that as a sleep aid, but also as a booster for the LDN. Her initial imaging, her ultrasound, showed extensive disease in her abdomen; deep in the abdomen where you typically see a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma which is called a retroperitoneal enlargement of lymph nodes, so that was measured and we continued the LDN, and then we repeated the ultrasound after the number of months. The largest tumour initially was about 3.4 centimetres, so, I don't know what's that, about an inch and a half, I guess for your UK listeners. Gradually it reduced to about half that size over a period of one year. The patient felt well, her appetite improved, and so she continued taking LDN, and she continued her own homoeopathic and natural regime on top of that. She actually started cutting back the LDN, I think, more through laziness, you know, but also she was taking her own supplements on top of that, but she's alive and well at this point; I think it's about four to five years. So, clearly, you know, in her case, at least at the beginning of therapy, we demonstrate that the LDN, with potentially a boost from this natural product, called honokiol was very effective for her non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Again, a very good case, you know, with minimal side effects. I think that's probably one of the most remarkable things about LDN if it happens to work for your cancer, it is truly remarkable, because of the minimal frequency of side effects, and also the trivial nature of those side effects.
It is so dramatically different than almost all traditional cancer therapies, drug therapies, I'm talking about like chemotherapy, you know, I mean, I think most people are well aware that chemotherapy has very severe side effects, including death because it can severely depress the immune system and it puts you at risk for infection.
People die every day from infection caused by chemotherapy. This is well known, and one of the accepted risks of chemotherapy, yet nobody dies from taking LDN, and we have people with cancers that shrink and stabilize and occasionally go into full remission using LDN.
So, I'm really happy to be here on the show and getting the word out because I want doctors to understand that this is a potential therapy that can be part of their arsenal against cancer, and not every patient needs to go and take a traditional toxic therapy, especially those that are risk-averse, and those that understand the risks and benefits of therapy like LDN, which is unapproved, yet still has extensive research that supports it.
Linda Elsegood: And I have another question for you. It says, would you recommend LDN for patients with a history of basal cell carcinoma and family history of melanoma?
Dr Akbar Khan: That's a very interesting one. You know, basal cell carcinoma is a type of skin cancer that is often cured by surgery, and it does not really spread through the body. It's actually quite rare for that cancer to spread, so it's non-aggressive cancer. If it's caught early it can be removed surgically, unusually it's cured, so we don't tend to get patients with basal cell carcinoma in our practice. They're usually referred to the plastic surgeon to have these removed, so I can't say that I personally have experienced treating that cancer type, however; due to the nature of that cancer it tends to be slow-growing, and it does give you the opportunity to treat with LDN. So, if there's a patient who's interested in treating that cancer with LDN, I would say speak to your doctor, and I think it is worthwhile to give it a try, especially for anybody who has recurrent basal cell carcinoma. If you have new cancers continuing to pop up, I think LDN has a role in prevention, as well as treatment, and it can reduce the need for surgery if, if it does in fact work, and I believe it will work in a percentage of cases. So, I do think it's worthwhile treating. In addition, if there's a family history of melanoma, then the LDN can be used as part of a cancer prevention program.
I do also recommend that the patient speaks to the doctor about using vitamin D. I recommend high doses ranging from 5,000 units a day, up to even 15,000 units a day with a regular blood monitoring to make sure that you're at the correct blood levels. And then also to make sure there are no side effects from the high dose vitamin D, like a high calcium level in the blood, which is a rare side effect. I do recommend speaking to the doctor about LDN, I think it's a very good choice.
Linda Elsegood: And I have a question here from Dennis for you, and I apologize, I probably won't pull out some of these words correctly. He says, ‘my wife has recently been treated for bilateral ILC stage one, grade two, lumpectomy surgery, clear margins.
BRAC therapy and two rounds of TC chemo. She stopped early due to severe neutropenia’.
Dr Akbar Khan: Okay. Yes. All right. So, that's neutropenia, which means low white cell count. This is a patient with cancer of both breasts. An ILC is, I'm assuming, that's invasive lobular carcinoma, which is one of the types of breast cancer.
The patient's having side effects from chemotherapy, which basically amounts to severe immune suppression. So, she stopped and chemotherapy, so, I think that's a good opportunity to get onto LDN for a couple of reasons. One is obviously because as we've talked about, LDN can be an effective treatment for residual microscopic disease. That is microscopic cancer that’s present in her body, and also it can be an immune modulator; it can enhance her natural immunity, and so with the low white cell count, this is probably a good time to get on the LDN to boost your immune system. This is why she should look into using vitamin D, which is probably also an important part of improving her immune function, and you never know, she may be deficient in vitamin D, which makes it even more important. So, she should have her vitamin D blood level checked by her physician and then take the appropriate dose to bring the vitamin D level up into the higher normal end of the range; that's usually our target in our practice, and we find that's quite safe. You know there's a theoretic concern of overdosing on vitamin D and causing a high blood calcium level and leeching calcium out of your bones, and I can tell this nurse that we monitor everybody with routine blood tests, and I have not seen that once yet in my practice in, I would say probably, well, first of all, in hundreds of patients treated with high dose vitamin D over a period of about, I would say now less than five years. So vitamin D supplementation is very safe, I think, very important to go along with LDN, but you have to do it correctly; you have to monitor the blood levels and make sure there are no side effects from that.
Linda Elsegood: And he did go on to say that she also has Hashimoto's disease, and had bilateral Thyroidectomy in 2014. Would the use of LDM possibly be preventative for a reoccurrence of cancer as well as helping with the Hashimoto's?
Dr Akbar Khan: Yes, so actually the LDN can prevent recurrence by controlling a microscopic residual cancer that's present in the body. You know, we've shown that, with the blood tests, in which we measure cancer cells that are floating in the blood.
This is not a standard test that most oncologists will be doing, but there are labs in the United States and in Germany that are doing these tests. We happen to use a lab in Germany, but there are other labs too. I'm sure in the UK there are labs that are doing the same type of testing. So, we measure cancer cells floating in the blood, and we can show that a treatment is effective or not effective, even though there's no obvious residual cancer showing on a scan. So, in the case of somebody with a thyroid removed for thyroid cancer, you know, you can monitor with blood cancer cell count. You can also monitor with a blood marker, which is thyroglobulin, for example, in the case of thyroid cancer, and you can make sure that these blood levels are staying in the normal range, which in the case of thyroid, it should be zero. So, these are ways to monitor that the LDN is actually effective, but the answer is yes, it can be used in the case of a patient with thyroid cancer that's been removed and she wants to prevent a recurrence.
Linda Elsegood: Now we have one last question, and I'm hoping that you'll be able to answer it. It's very controversial. You probably remember from the last three conferences I'm sure, that it's a question that came up Tramadol. Now, there are some doctors who, and pharmacists, that don't consider Tramadol as being an opiate, but say it works on, it’s a synthetic opioid, and it works on different receptors and can still be taken with LDN. I know that you just said that you get your patients off Tramadol. Do you look at Tramadol as being an opiate rather than a synthetic opioid?
Dr Akbar Khan: Well, to my knowledge, it is an opiate, but I don't happen to use a lot of Tramadol in my practice. I think if these doctors are using it and they're finding it can be used together with LDN, well that's, that's news to me.
I don't have the experience to be able to say yes or no to that. I would be very interested to know more about it, put it this way. So, as far as I know, if it's safe or not to use it with LDN, but I think maybe if you could ask one of the other consultants from the LDN Research Trust, if they have experience using LDN together with Tramadol, that would be very interesting, and I would like to know. I think the listeners would like to know. Maybe you could post it on the research trust website. I think that would be very informative.
Linda Elsegood: Okay. We have literally like three minutes left. Could you just give us another case study quickly?
Dr Akbar Khan: Absolutely. So, there's a question here from Jim.
He says, ‘I have friends with prostate cancer and have been treated. I have read LDN is effective for untreated prostate cancer. Is this correct? And in treated prostate cancer, would it be helpful in preventing metastasis?’ So, we do have experience with LDN and prostate cancer, and we find that it is effective.
It can stabilize, or it can reduce prostate cancer, and we measure that with a blood test called PSA; that's the most common way to monitor prostate cancer. Now, in addition to scans, and you know imaging of course. So, untreated prostate cancer, yes, we have patients who have come to us and don't want to take the standard hormone treatment because of all the side effects, you know, testosterone-blocking drugs are the standard treatment for prostate cancer, and there are numerous side effects from those treatments. So, I have successfully treated untreated prostate cancer; people who have not taken hormone treatment with LDN, and it does work, I can say that. That's very clear; we've documented that. In people who haven't been treated for prostate cancer with hormone treatment, and it's failed, Dr Bihari’s experience as reported on the LDN info website, is that the LDN is not effective for those cases. So, based on Dr Bihari’s experience we've avoided using LDN for hormone resistance cases of prostate cancer. So I can't really comment on those, because we tend not to use LDN for those cases, and whether it helps in preventing metastasizes in previously treated and hormone-resistant prostate cancers, based on Dr Bihari’s information, LDN probably should not be used in those cases, but I can't say firsthand, because we were going by Dr Bihari’s experience.
We don't want to waste the patients’ time in treating them and get a lot of failures. So, we really don't have experience with LDN in hormone-resistant prostate cancers.
Linda Elsegood: What cancers would you say of that 2000 plus that you have treated, is the most common cancer that you've seen?
Dr Akbar Khan: We see a lot of breast cancer. I think LDN is very good for breast cancer. We've treated many lymphoma cases, it's good for those. I think probably for melanoma, although I haven't used it as much for melanoma. I think again, that's a good one that seems to be responsive to immune-based therapies. So, LDN should be good for that. I've had a number of cases of bladder cancer; we've had good results. So, all of those cancers, and rare cancers too. I mean, f there's cancer that is quite rare, and so there's not a lot of research done on that particular type, and the oncologists are not sure what to use to treat that cancer. If it's slow-growing cancer, if there's time, to give it the opportunity for LDN to work, then I think that LDN is an excellent choice as something to start with, while the patient is looking around for different treatment options. So those are kind of the most common cancers that we've used it on, and we've seen some excellent results.
But in theory, it can be used for any cancer, and in my experience, it should preferably be used for cancers that are slower growing, not really for very rapidly growing cancers, because you don't have enough time to give the LDN adequate chance to work, and also for patients with low disease volumes, so not an extensive amount of cancer in the body.
Linda Elsegood: I'm going to have to stop you there. Thank you very much, and I'd like to invite you back next year and we'll talk about the conference.
Dr Akbar Khan: Thank you very much.
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