Colorectal cancer: wheat germ supportive

A wheat-based nutriment has supportive value in the treatment of colorectal cancer.
Jakab F, Shoenfeld Y, Balogh A, et al. Br J Cancer. Aug 4 2003;89(3):465-469.

Background: Colon cancer is a relatively slow growing cancer, which is one of the main reasons that screening colonoscopies are generally recommended only every ten years in healthy people. However, one of the particularly damaging and deadly consequences of colon cancer is ability and tendency to spread or metastasize. Because the colon (large intestine) has so many blood and lymph vessels connected to it, cancer cells can quickly spread to many different places in the body.

Clinical Trial: Researchers compared the effects of an oral fermented wheat germ product on a group of 170 patients with colorectal cancer. Sixty-six patients received Avemar™ and 104 patients did not. Both groups received standard treatment for their cancer (e.g. surgery, chemotherapy, etc.). Patients taking the wheat germ product had significantly better progression-free survival (P = 0.0184) and overall survival (P = 0.0278). Likewise, the Avemar™ group had significantly fewer progression-related events, such as new recurrent disease, new metastatic lesions, or deaths. Moreover, the percentage of patients taking Avemar™ that had new metastases (7.6%) was significantly lower than those simply receiving standard care (23.1%).

Conclusion: Six months of treatment with an oral fermented wheat germ product (Avemar™) improved progression-free survival and overall survival and reduced the occurrence of metastasis in patients with colorectal cancer.