None is known to be helpful. Many result in nutritional deficiencies, a situation cancer patients should avoid at all costs. Moderation is still the best approach to diet for all medical problems. Taking excessive amounts of vitamins, minerals or "health food" substitutes may do more harm than good.
The Newest Fads Consistent with the shifts and trends that characterize unconventional cancer medicine, several products and approaches recently have attained special prominence. Among the most popular are two very different methods: efforts to harness mind-body power, and the use of shark cartilage as a cancer cure.
Advocates of the first method claim that happiness, positive attitudes, a strong will, meditation, mental imagery and other psychological or mental efforts can cause cancer to regress or disappear. These claims are groundless. Emotions do not influence cancer outcome (nor is there any evidence that they play a role in the development of cancer in the first place). Attitude, meditation and so on can enhance quality of life—an important goal in itself—but they do not cure cancer.
The shark cartilage cancer cure fad stems from a recent book with an untrue title, Sharks Don't Get Cancer. Powdered cartilage is sold in health food stores, thus avoiding the clinical proof of effectiveness and safety that proper research provides, and to get around the FDA review necessary before a product or treatment can be approved for use as medicine. There is no acceptable evidence to show that shark cartilage works.
