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Brian D. Lawenda, MD>>> I am often asked about the use of supplements by my cancer patients,
usually because they found out that I am an integrative oncologist, which is a sub-speciality
area that is relatively new and basically I have a pretty broad expanded knowledge of
nutrition-based supplements, use of exercise, physical activity, stress reduction techniques
in order to assist patients as they get through the journey of having cancer.
Integrative oncology is pretty unique in that we understand a lot more about supplements.
One of the questions that does typically come up is: how supplements might potentially be
useful for patients for various different types of symptoms or side effects, one of
them being potentially lymphedema?
At this time, we do not know of any supplements that have been proven to reduce the risk of
lymphedema or decrease the degree of lymphedema. So when I am counseling my patients, one of
the most important things I do tell them is actually weight reduction, is probably one
of the big one, but early detection for lymphedema is exceedingly important, so we tried to re-steer
them towards the discussion of that.