Nephrotoxicity dietary supplements

Moreover, it has recently been postulated that dietary supplementation with food antioxidants may provide a safe and effective means of enhancing response to cancer chemotherapy (Conklin, 2000). Much more research is needed to validate this claim however, the stimulation of oxygen radical formation by antitumor drugs is a known cause of side effects of chemotherapy like cardio- or nephrotoxicity. The approved chemoprotectants used clinically to date are not neutral to the organism either. In contrast, certain antioxidative food components, in doses that are without adverse effects, could improve the quality of life of patients by ameliorating chemotherapy-induced side effects and also enhance activity of antitumor drugs by different mechanisms (e.g., inhibition of topoisomerase II). 

Torras J, Valles J, Sanchez J, Sabate I, Seron D, Carrera M, Castelao AM, Herrero I, Puig-Parellada P, Alsina J, Grino JM. Prevention of experimental cyclosporine nephrotoxicity by dietary supplementation with LSI 90202, a lysine salt of eicosapentaenoic acid. Role of thromboxane and prostacyclin in renal tissue. Nephron 1994 67 66-72. 

Humes HD, Sastrasinh M, Weinberg JM, Calcium is a competitive inhibitor of gentamicin-renal membrane binding interactions and dietary calcium supplementation protects against gentamicin nephrotoxicity, J Clin Invest, 1982, 73 134-47. 

AndohTF, Gardner MP, Bennett WM. Protective effects of dietary L-arginine supplementation on chronic cyclosporine nephrotoxicity.Transplantation 1997 64 1236-1240. 

Pere AK, Lindgren UTuomainen P, Krogerus L, Rauhala P, Laakso J, Karppanen H, Vapaatalo H, Ahonen J, Mervaala EM. Dietary potassium and magnesium supplementation in cyclosporine-induced hypertension and nephrotoxicity. Kidney Int 2000 58 2462-2472. 

Chemotherapy is a common method of treatment for many types of cancer. The side effects of chemotherapy come about in part because cancer cells are not the only dividing cells in the body. Chemotherapeutic agents cause increased production of free radicals that can be harmful for normal cells, and these free radicals can be bound by antioxidant vitamins and supplements, including lycopene. A large number of studies have reported the beneficial effects of a variety of antioxidants in antineoplastic agents-induced nephrotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, ototoxicity, and peripheral neuropathy [218, 219]. Chemoprotective activities of lycopene [219, 220], and other dietary components that scavenge free radicals induced by exposure to antineoplastic agents [218, 220] have been well documented (Table 129.2). 

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