Will consuming flax seed interfere with taxol and herceptin?

[Vick722]

Hello -- I have been trying to find out whether consuming flax seed would interfere with the efficacy of the taxol / herceptin treatments that I am receiving for my breast cancer.  I understand from a study done at the University of Toronto that flax seed may help to eliminate breast cancer.  However, I would not want to consume anything that would interfere with my regular medical treatment.  The cancer is in the left side of my lymph system.  It is estrogen-receptor and HER-2 positive.  It's a little peculiar that it is estrogen-receptor positive, and this is a reoccurrence of a Stage 1 breast cancer that was previously determined to be estrogen-receptor negative.  However, I understand that this does happen occasionally.  I have asked my oncologist this flax seed question, but he really doesn't know the answer.  In fact, he thought that there probably *isn't* a clear-cut answer out there right now.  I would think that some more research would be done on this question.

If you could help me with this flax seed question, I'd really appreciate it.

[PaulMD]

Hi there.

As far as I know, studies about flax seed and cancer are still in their infancy stage.  The cancer more frequently associated with this is prostate cancer.  I'm quoting this text from the american cancer society website:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1x_Flaxseed_Ginseng_Show_Promise_for_Cancer_Patients.asp

"Lead researcher Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, PhD, said previous studies of flaxseed and a low-fat diet have shown good results in prostate cancer, but researchers weren't sure if the benefits came from the diet, the flaxseed, or both.

"The [new] results showed that the men who took just flaxseed as well as those who took flaxseed combined with a low-fat diet did the best, indicating that it is the flaxseed which is making the difference," she said.

"These results demonstrate that flaxseed may well protect against prostate cancer growth," she added. "But this is just the first study. We will need to replicate these results before we can make recommendations.""

I believe that it is still best to avoid these experimental treatments while ongoing therapy with chemotherapeutic drugs due to lack of clear cut data.

Regards.

[Vick722]

Thanks so much for your reply.  I take it from your ID that you are a doctor.  I've gotten the general feeling from what you've said and from what my oncologist said that it might be better if I didn't consume the flax seed right now.  I don't think that the several days *before* I started chemo that I consumed some of it will hurt me (at least I certainly hope not).  I didn't even eat the recommended "dose" then -- I had one tablespoon per day, rather than two.

I guess that I'll have to give that flax seed to a friend -- that should be my worst problem in life!

Thanks again.