Could beetroot juice help fight lung cancer? – a case report | 甜菜根汁可以幫助對抗肺癌嗎

Monday 08/23/2021 (jkzx.com, HealthABC.com) — A case report published by Korean doctors in August 2021 in the journal Thoracic Cancer suggests that drinking beetroot juice may help patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) fight their disease.

Small cell lung cancer is a highly lethal neuroendocrine carcinoma. If untreated, the disease can become more aggressive and the prognosis can be very poor. When treated, the disease can initially respond well to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. But eventually, the cancer comes back to kill most patients. Only 7% of patients could survive for five years.

Spontaneous remission of SCLC has been rarely reported. In the current case, an eighty-year-old man was diagnosed with the lung cancer and without any conventional treatment, he survived for fifty three months.

Initially, he visited a hospital for hemoptysis and hoarseness.   A habitual cigarettes smoker for 50 years, the man was diagnosed with SCLC with its stage identified as limited -stage SCLC.   Subsequently, his doctors performed thoracoscopic surgery and removed a subaortic lymph node.   But he refused to accept any treatment.

Fifty-two months later, he revisited the hospital as he was unable to eat and severely debilitated.  His doctors could not find SCLC anymore.  Instead, they found advanced stomach cancer.  Otherwise, the patients did not experience any neurological disorders nor abnormal neurological symptoms.

The patient said that after diagnosis, he had drunk beet juice for two years, but did not receive treatments of any sort. Considering his age, he did not take any treatment for the advanced stomach cancer. He died forty days later.

This is a remarkable case. The patient was able to survive fifty three months without any conventional treatments, but simply drinking beetroot juice.  The report did not reveal how much beetroot juice he drunk. It is possible that he might not have drunk enough.  In a larger dose, he could have had a better prognosis.

Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) contains betanin and betalains. In vitro studies have shown that Beta vulgaris extract has an anticancer property against lung cancer.

For more information regarding beetroot juice and its anticancer activity, read here  (Dr. Lu)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8020175/

甜菜根汁可以幫助對抗肺癌嗎

韓國醫生於 2021 年 8 月在胸癌雜誌上發表的一份病例報告表明，飲用甜菜根汁可能有助於小細胞肺癌 (SCLC) 患者對抗疾病。

小細胞肺癌是一種高度致命的神經內分泌癌。如果不治療，疾病會變得更具侵襲性，預後可能很差。治療後，該疾病最初對化療和放療反應良好。但最終，癌症捲土重來，殺死了大多數患者。只有 7% 的患者可以存活五年。

SCLC 的自發緩解鮮有報導。在目前的案例中，一名八十歲的老人被診斷出患有肺癌，在沒有任何常規治療的情況下，他活了五十三個月。

最初，他因咯血和聲音嘶啞到醫院就診。該男子有 50 年的習慣性吸煙史，被診斷為 SCLC，其分期被確定為局限期 SCLC。隨後，他的醫生進行了胸腔鏡手術並切除了一個主動脈下淋巴結。但他拒絕接受任何治療。

五十二個月後，他因無法進食和嚴重虛弱而再次到醫院就診。他的醫生再也找不到 SCLC 了。相反，他們發現了晚期胃癌。否則，患者沒有出現任何神經系統疾病或異常神經系統症狀。

患者說，確診後，他喝了兩年甜菜汁，但沒有接受任何治療。考慮到他的年齡，他沒有接受任何晚期胃癌的治療。四十天后他去世了。

這是一個了不起的案例。病人在沒有任何常規治療的情況下能夠存活五十三個月，只是喝了甜菜根汁。報告沒有透露他喝了多少甜菜根汁。有可能他喝得不夠多。在更大的劑量下，他本可以有更好的預後。

甜菜根（Beta vulgaris）含有甜菜鹼和甜菜鹼。體外研究表明，甜菜提取物對肺癌具有抗癌特性。