More than 60,000 Americans were diagnosed with some form of lymphoma in 2004, and more than 20,000 died from their disease. Lymphomas are linked to a variety of risk factors, including diet, medical history, environmental exposure to chemicals, and infections. To date, conventional medical treatment for lymphoma has been based on combinations of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and stem cell therapy. However, new treatments for lymphoma now add to these traditional therapies the use of substances that can specifically target the delivery of radiotherapy to lymphoma cells (radioimmunotherapy) or activate the immune system to kill lymphoma cells (chemoimmunotherapy).

Nutritional supplements with demonstrated activity against lymphoma cells include curcumin, genistein from soy extract, vitamins A, C, D, and E, green tea, resveratrol, ginger, fish oil, and garlic. These supplements can be used to complement conventional drugs, and they can be closely monitored for effectiveness with a range of blood tests and diagnostic procedures described in this protocol.

What Is Lymphoma?

The lymphatic system consists of organs such as the lymph nodes, the thymus gland, the spleen, and bone marrow, which participate in the production and storage of infection-fighting white blood cells (lymphocytes), as well as in the network of vessels that carry these white blood cells around the body. Lymphomas are cancers of the white blood cells (lymphocytes) within the lymphatic system.

There are two types of lymphoma (Hansmann ML et al 1996):

• Hodgkin’s lymphoma, also known as Hodgkin’s disease (HD)
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).

The diagnosis, staging (Lister TA et al 1989), and general symptoms (Jose BO et al 2005) of lymphoma are summarized in Table 1.

Hodgkin's lymphoma begins in the lymph nodes and is characterized by the presence of Reed-Sternberg cells, which are large, cancerous cells that increase in number with disease progression (Harris NL 1999; Kuppers R et al 2002). Evidence suggests that B lymphocytes (B-cells), the infection- and tumor-fighting cells that produce antibodies, produce Reed-Sternberg cells (Brauninger A et al 1999; Harris NL 1999; Kuppers R et al 2002). However, T lymphocytes (T-cells) have also been implicated in rare cases (Kuppers R et al 2002).

Although it can affect any lymph tissue, HD most commonly affects the supraclavicular, high-cervical, or mediastinal lymph nodes (Jose BO et al 2005). There are five different types of Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma describes all lymphoma types without Reed-Sternberg cells (Coffey J et al 2003; Jimenez-Zepeda VH et al 1998). NHL develops as a result of malignant B and T lymphocytes (white blood cells). B-cell lymphomas are more common and account for over 85 percent of NHL cases (Coffey J et al 2003). There are at least 29 different types of NHL; the main types, which can be further classified into subtypes, are summarized in Table 2.