Pancreatic Enzymes
What are pancreatic enzymes?
Source: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
Pancreatic enzymes help break down fats, proteins and carbohydrates. A normally functioning pancreas secretes about 8 cups of pancreatic juice into the duodenum, daily. This fluid contains pancreatic enzymes to help with digestion and bicarbonate to neutralize stomach acid as it enters the small intestine.
Reasons to Take Pancreatic Enzymes
Pancreatic insufficiency is the inability of the pancreas to secrete the enzymes needed for digestion. Having an insufficient amount of pancreatic enzymes is very common among people with pancreatic cancer…continue reading at Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
Pancreatic Enzyme Therapy
Source: Life Extension Foundation
Pancreatic cancer creates a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes (termed pancreatic insufficiency), bicarbonate, and bile salt, resulting in poor absorption of nutrients from food, profound weight loss, and severe malnutrition. Fortunately pancreatic enzyme supplementation can prevent this occurrence and greatly improve quality of life in these patients (Imrie 2010). To avoid malnutrition-related morbidity and mortality and to improve patients’ weight and nutritional status, pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy with oral pancreatic enzymes (enteric-coated minimicrospheres) at meal-times, (aiming at providing the duodenal lumen with a sufficient amount of active lipase at the time of gastric emptying of nutrients) can greatly improve quality of life (Domínguez-Muñoz 2011; Imrie 2010).
Clinical Studies with Pancreatic Enzymes. In a randomized, double-blind trial of twenty-one patients with unresectable cancer of the pancreatic head region (with suspected pancreatic duct obstruction), eight weeks of high dose enteric coated pancreatic enzyme supplementation and dietary counseling prevented weight loss. Patients on pancreatic enzymes gained 1.2% (0.7 kg) body weight whereas patients on placebo lost 3.7% (2.2 kg). Fat absorption and daily total energy intake in patients on pancreatic enzymes improved whereas in placebo patients it worsened (Bruno 1995). Aggressive pancreatic enzyme replacement is important to optimize bowel function and prevent malnutrition in pancreatic cancer patients (Armstrong 2007).
Patient LR: A 15-year survivor
The following Pancreatic Cancer Case Report is published on Dr Gonzalez website:
Patient LR, like so many of my patients, has an unusual background, with a graduate degree, study abroad, and expertise in art. Before we first met, he had worked successfully in business for many years. His very devoted wife had a Ph.D. and had, before retirement, worked as a college professor.
He had been in good health when in July of 1991, at age 70, a routine chest x-ray at the time of his yearly physical revealed a small right lung nodule suspicious for possible malignancy. A repeat x-ray in August 1991 again demonstrated “a parenchymal nodule in the right mid lung.” CT scan studies of the chest in late August 1991 confirmed a “6 millimeter nodule in peripheral lateral aspect of right upper lobe. It is consistent with bronchogenic carcinoma, metastatic lesion or granuloma.” In addition, the radiologist noted “an enlarged lymph node posterior to the ascending thoracic aorta.”
A CT scan of the brain in early September was clear, but a CT scan of the abdomen revealed extensive disease throughout:
There are about 4 lesions in the upper right lobe of the liver… An ultrasound examination is recommended for further evaluation…
There is a round enlargement of the right adrenal gland up to 2 cm in diameter. There is also what appears to be diffuse enlargement of the left adrenal… Both these findings are suspicious for metastatic disease. There is a mass in what may be the cephalad portion of the head of the pancreas or it is a mass or adenopathy just adjacent to the head. The mass measures about 4.5 cm in its greater diameter.
A bone scan the same day demonstrated:
Abnormal activity of the right hip and right shoulder suggesting metastatic disease.
Though the situation appeared dismal, the patient’s doctors still needed a biopsy specimen to confirm not only cancer, but also the most likely primary site. After reviewing the scans, they decided the lung lesion to be most accessible for tissue sampling, so in late September LR was admitted to his local hospital for mediastinoscopy and a limited right thoracotomy. In his admission note, the surgeon reports his belief that the situation was most consistent with metastatic pancreatic cancer, not lung cancer that had spread into the abdomen:
At some point, I suspect he will require oncology and radiation medicine consultation for what is most likely a pancreatic carcinoma with multiple metastatic lesions.
The lung nodule proved to be adenocarcinoma, as the pathology report describes:
Right upper lobe lung nodule, biopsy: Infiltrative moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma.
After surgery, an ultrasound revealed the liver lesions most likely represented metastatic cancer:
Areas consistent with metastatic involvement of the liver, the largest of which is approximately 3.4 to 4 cm in maximal dimension near the hilus. The second is just under 2 cm in the right lobe and possibly a third smaller one in the right lobe.
With the testing done, LR was told he had metastatic pancreatic cancer, perhaps two months to live, and that neither chemotherapy nor radiation would be of benefit. But, instead of giving up and getting his affairs in order as the doctors suggested, he and his wife decided to take the situation into their own hands. They both began reading voraciously about cancer, nutrition, and alternatives. He began ingesting large numbers of supplements, including vitamin C, vitamin E, even pancreatic enzymes after reading an article discussing our work. He switched his eating habits to a largely plant based, raw diet, and began juicing intensively, with his devoted wife’s help. When he felt sufficiently recovered from surgery, he decided to consult with me.
I first saw LR in December 1991. Despite his prognosis, he seemed determined to fight his disease, and talked as if he had absolute faith that he could get well on my therapy. He subsequently proved to be a very compliant patient, and the results, though gradual in coming, were gratifying. Within a year, his general health had improved substantially, and a CT scan of the abdomen in February 1993 – some 15 months after his initial diagnosis – showed no change in any of the lesions. Technically, the cancer hadn’t improved, but it hadn’t advanced, and he was still alive.
After that set of scans LR told me he wanted no more testing. Since he had already long outlived his doctors’ dismal predictions, he figured he didn’t care what the scans might show and wouldn’t change his treatment anyway. So he continued his therapy and enjoyed with his wife the retirement for which they had long planned.
In 1997, after he had followed his nutritional protocol for five years, he agreed – with some pleading from me – to allow radiographic studies. A CT of the abdomen in March 1997 showed two mildly enlarged adrenal glands and a single, very small, less than 1 cm mass in the dome of the liver. The other large liver lesions were gone. The radiologist in his report described the pancreas as normal – the previously documented large tumor had simply disappeared:
The liver demonstrated a single small hypodense area in the dome of the liver which has the appearance of a cyst, measuring well less than 1 cm. A metastatic lesion is still a possibility especially in view of the patient’s history of lung cancer and adrenal mass… The adrenal glands are both abnormal… The pancreas, the spleen and the kidneys are within normal limits. There is no evidence of periaortic lymphadenopathy.
Then sixteen months later, in July of 1998, nearly seven years after his diagnosis, LR agreed to undergo repeat scanning. The radiologist reports:
Reading the report from the 1993 study it sounded like the patient had obvious metastatic disease and the largest structure being a large porta hepatis and peripancreatic mass. No such masses are seen today. There is no adenopathy. The adrenals are prominent and there are two very small liver lesions that cannot be characterized because of their small size.
Thereafter, LR continued his program and continued doing well until he was in an automobile accident in 2004. Unfortunately, he required lengthy rehabilitation, followed by life in an assisted care facility. His wife, three years older, no longer able to care for herself at 87 years old, also entered an assisted care facility, where she recently died. But LR at age 85 years old is still alive, now more than 15 years since his diagnosis of terminal metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
His case does not require much discussion. He was diagnosed appropriately with terminal cancer and given two months to live. He did his program, the tumors went away, and he survived.
Here is a source of Pancreatic Enzyme Supplements Formulated by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez M.D: Nutricology.com
(cancerireland.ie is in no way affiliated to this or any other business)
Learn more at Dr-Gonzalez.com
Page updated 2024