Mistletoe Therapy for Prostate Cancer
- October 11, 2024
- Written by : Rebecca LaMarca, MSN, APN-BC, CNS
Mistletoe IVs and injections have recently been used to treat cancer and reduce the side effects of other cancer treatments. But how does mistletoe therapy factor into prostate cancer treatment? In this blog, we’ll take a look at the popular holistic prostate cancer treatment.
In 2023, a team of researchers, led by Dr. Channing Paller, the Director of Prostate Cancer Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins, released a Phase I trial of mistletoe extract in a range of advanced cancers, including prostate. The team concluded that a Phase II trial is warranted to determine “dosing and evaluate safety.”1
Paller is a relatively early adopter of mistletoe therapy, showing support for the treatment for at least a decade.
“In the past, doctors may have wondered if they were giving their patients snake oil,” Paller said of mistletoe therapy in a 2014 John Hopkins Magazine article. “But I think people are becoming a little more open-minded. We don’t treat these natural products any differently than any other immunotherapy trial that we do. Every new potential treatment, including natural products such as herbs, needs to be studied rigorously and go through all FDA-required testing before it can be given to a patient.”2
Decrease PSA with Mistletoe
Our client came to us with Stage 3 Prostate Cancer. He decided to use alternative medicine to treat it, declining any chemotherapy, radiation, or immunotherapy. After deciding on a treatment plan, he began Mistletoe Injections (no infusions). After one month of Mistletoe Injections, our client saw a decrease in his PSA levels from 47.7 down to 37.1
Other holistic prostate cancer treatments
Paller was among a team of researchers who examined the efficacy of muscadine grape skin extract as a treatment for prostate cancer.3
“These results demonstrate that [muscadine grape skin extract] inhibits prostate tumor growth and migration, and induces cell-cycle arrest by targeting Hsp40 and proteins involved in cell-cycle regulation and proliferation,” the study says. “This suggests that MSKE may also be explored either as a neo-adjuvant or therapeutic for castration resistant prostate cancer.”
The study concluded that high concentrations of MSKE are safe, which was confirmed by a Phase I clinical trial involving the use of muscadine grape skin powder.
“MSKE treatment significantly inhibited the growth of metastatic prostate tumor cells in vitro and in vivo by inducing cell-cycle arrest through the targeting of Hsp40 which is involved in cell-cycle progression and cell migration,” the study says.
REFERENCES
- Paller, C. J., Wang, L., Fu, W., Kumar, R., Durham, J. N., Azad, N. S., Laheru, D. A., Browner, I., Kachhap, S. K., Boyapati, K., Odeny, T., Armstrong, D. K., Meyer, C. F., Gaillard, S., Brahmer, J. R., Page, I., Wang, H., & Diaz, L. A. (2023). Phase I trial of intravenous mistletoe extract in advanced cancer. Cancer Research Communications, 3(2), 338–346. https://doi.org/10.1158/2767-9764.crc-23-0002
- Are mistletoe extract injections the next big thing in cancer therapy? (2014, March 10). The Hub. https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2014/spring/mistletoe-therapy-cancer/
- Ignacio, D. N., Mason, K. D., Hackett-Morton, E. C., Albanese, C., Ringer, L., Wagner, W. D., Wang, P. C., Carducci, M. A., Kachhap, S. K., Paller, C. J., Mendonca, J., Chan, L. L., Lin, B., Hartle, D. K., Green, J. E., Brown, C. A., & Hudson, T. S. (2019). Muscadine grape skin extract inhibits prostate cancer cells by inducing cell-cycle arrest, and decreasing migration through heat shock protein 40. Heliyon, 5(1), e01128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01128
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