Abstract
BackgroundCancer is a major disease worldwide, and many patients use complementary and alternative treatments. The purpose of this study was to identify the herbal remedies and functional foods used as complementary medicine by prostate, breast and colorectal cancer patients at speciality care facilities in Trinidad. We also sought to determine how patients rated the efficacy of these modalities compared with conventional treatment.MethodsA descriptive, cross-sectional survey was conducted using an interviewer-administered pilot-tested de novo questionnaire during the period June to August 2012 at two speciality treatment centres on the island. Data was analysed using χ2 analyses.ResultsAmong the 150 patients who reported use of herbal remedies/functional foods, soursop (Annona muricata L.) was the most popular; with 80.7 % using the leaves, bark, fruit and seeds on a regular basis. Other common herbal remedies/functional foods included wheatgrass (Triticum aestivum L.), saffron (Crocus sativus L.) and Aloe vera (L.) Burm. f. The most commonly used functional foods were beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.), carrots (Daucus carata L.) and papaya (Carica papaya L.) used by 43.3 % of patients; and these were mostly blended as a mixture. Herbal remedies and functional foods were used on a daily basis and patients believed that this modality was equally (32.0 %) or more efficacious (14.7 %) than conventional treatment.ConclusionsThis survey identified the most common herbal remedies and functional foods used among prostate, breast and colorectal cancer patients in Trinidad. Although functional foods rarely pose a problem, herbs may interact with conventional chemotherapy and physicians need to inform patients regarding probable herb-drug interactions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12906-016-1380-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Cancer is a major disease worldwide, and many patients use complementary and alternative treatments
Fifty-five herbal remedies, supplements and functional foods were identified in the survey
The highest levels of herbal remedy and functional foods use was observed amongst patients with breast cancer; whereas prostate cancer patients had the lowest levels of use with no reported use of either carrot (Daucus carota L.) or saffron (Crocus sativus L.)
Summary
Cancer is a major disease worldwide, and many patients use complementary and alternative treatments. The purpose of this study was to identify the herbal remedies and functional foods used as complementary medicine by prostate, breast and colorectal cancer patients at speciality care facilities in Trinidad. The major ethnic groups on the islands are African and Asian Indian descendants with disproportionately higher incidences of prostate and breast cancers among African-Trinidadians [2], with poorer prognosis compared with their Asian Indian counterparts [3, 4]. It has been shown that African-Caribbean men with prostate cancer living in the Caribbean had a 3.7-fold increased risk of death compared with their African-Caribbean born counterpart living the United States [5]. It has been suggested that poor survival rates may be due to diagnosis at advanced stages and failure to use multimodality as the first course of treatment [7, 8].
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