Nutrition and Chemotherapy — Drug-Nutrient Interactions Using Breast and Colon Carcinoma as Models

Abstract

Neoplastic disease grows within the confines of multicellular organisms. It comprises a new tissue which thrives at the expense of nearly every other normal tissue, with respect to space and true nutrition. In overall balance, the host withers, while the tumor flourishes. Furthermore, the host may suffer a wide variety of clinical effects from introduction of abnormal quantities of chemical substances from the tumor. These phenomena of space occupation, competition for critical nutrients, and tumor excretion underlie most of the diseases that cancers cause.¹