We are focusing on three aspects of cancer research eminently applicable to CAM:
- immune surveillance
- neuroendocrine stress
- oxidative stress
Our research program focuses on gender-specific cancers, initially breast and prostate cancers. Both the prevalence of these diseases in the United States and the high use of CAM by these patients demonstrate that allopathic care is not sufficient either for prevention or treatment of these diseases, and that promising CAM modalities must be studied. As our center develops, we intend that the interventions studied will be applicable to the general cancer process.
The initial projects include studies of:
- the mechanistic assessment of the effects of neuroendocrine stress and Chinese herbs on oxidative genome damage,
- the development of a model to study the attenuation of cancer pain in a rat model through the use of herbal remedies,
- Chinese herbal interventions in men with prostate cancer, and
- a prayer-based intervention in black women with breast cancer that will examine the potentially salutary impact of an intervention to ameliorate emotional stress associated with diagnosis and treatment of attendant neuroendocrine and immune responses.
