K-9 Immunity™ is an immune system modulator used for dogs fighting serious illness such as cancer.  It is made from the same pharmaceutical grade immuno-modulating compounds as Aloha Medicinals' human grade Immune-Assist Critical Care Formula™, but it is formulated especially for dogs.  K-9 Immunity™ was developed from Aloha Medicinals human cancer research, and was first used in treating cancer in Seeing Eye dogs.  It is now available as an over the counter supplement for your dog.  K-9 Immunity™ has been used in thousands of dogs with cancer, and for more than seven years in human patients.

Understanding the Treatments - Immuno-Modulation in Dog Cancer

For hundreds of years, the best treatment medicine had to offer was blood-letting and leeches. In many respects, cancer treatment in the USA is still at the leech stage.  It's not that the doctors don't want to do better, but just that under our current regulatory guidelines in America, changes in medicine are slow to take place.

Today there is a better approach used to treat cancer throughout the rest of the world. One that offers greater hope of a successful outcome than any previous therapy.  The treatment of choice for most cancers consists of a two-pronged approach: 1) Reduce the tumors in whatever way is appropriate for the patient, (surgery, chemo and radiation) while 2) addressing the underlying cause, which is a failure of the body to recognize the cancer cells as invaders and destroy them.  This failure of the recognition response is what allows the cancer to grow, and is an immune system dysfunction.  The hope of K9 Immunity is to trigger the dog’s immune recognition response. When this recognition response is triggered, the animal is able to address the cancer as it would any other wound, and heal it, leaving behind scar tissue.  This two pronged approach to cancer treatment is termed Immuno-Modulation therapy, and is the way cancer is being treated throughout the civilized world today.

Of the many countries keeping cancer statistics today, the United States has the very worst remission rates of all.  So don’t let anyone tell you we are doing it correctly in this country, and that the Germans, French, English and everyone else has it wrong. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation cannot cure cancer, since they only address one half of the problem.  These methods are certainly valuable in treatment, and they definitely do work to reduce the tumors, but they do nothing to address the underlying cause that allowed the proliferation of the cancer cells in the first place.  Ultimately, the immune system must be taught to recognize the cancer and fight it for a successful treatment outcome.

First, it helps to understand just what cancer is.

Cancer is the result of the body’s failure to recognize and destroy cells that do not replicate normally.  The key to successful cancer treatment is to trigger  immune recognition and response in the dog.  When this happens, the dog's own body will usually destroy the cancer and leave behind only scar tissue.  Why would a dog's immune system fail to recognize the cancer cells as invaders?  In healthy dogs around 100 million cells replicate every day.  Just by the shear number of cells replicating, some of them are bound to replicate with errors.  One of the main functions of the Immune System is to identify and destroy these aberrant cells before they have the chance to pass that error along.  It is only when the immune system fails to recognizes these 'bad' cells that they become cancer.  What this means is that cancer is first and foremost an immune dysfunction disease.  Because if the Immune System were working properly there would have been no chance for the cancer to begin in the first place.  It would have been destroyed on a cell-by-cell basis as it happened.  This is actually a process that occurs in all animals from the moment of birth onwards.

For cancer to occur, there are three things that must take place: 

Some cells must have errors in replication for the process to begin.  There are a number of things that can cause an increase in replication errors, like toxins, radiation, congenital defects and most importantly age.  It is age that can cause the greatest errors in cellular replication.  That is why cancer is much more common in older dogs than in pups.

The 2nd thing that must happen is the dog’s Immune system must fail to recognize the aberrant cells when they are formed.  At the point of the initial error it is quite easy for the Immune System to overcome the single bad cell.  However, if that cell escapes detection and divides again, the third step can and often does follow.

The third thing that can happen is that the Immune System remains in a non-responsive state for some period of time as the tumor continues replicating.  Most of the time, the body will overcome the tumor in the first few days/weeks/month of its growth and spontaneous remission will occur.  Occasionally the tumor continues to evade detection and keeps growing until it becomes large enough for the veterinarian to detect.

Reaching the stage at which a tumor is large enough to detect can take a long time, perhaps even years.  Unfortunately, by the time the tumor is big enough to detect, it is already quite large and hundreds of millions of cells in size.  By this point it is very difficult for the dog’s own immune system to mount an effective defense against the invader (the tumor) without some assistance.

The American concept of cancer treatment is to cut, burn or poison in an attempt to kill off the bad cells (cancer cells).  Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are the methods of choice, and up until recently the best we have had to offer.  While these may remain the only treatment options available in America, in most of the world another component is added to human cancer treatment.  It is called Adjunctive Immune Support.  This is also proving to be one of the most promising frontiers in treating dogs with cancer.  Immune support, along with conventional therapy, increases the effectiveness and results in higher remission rates.

The largest class of anti-cancer drugs being used in the world today is a class called heteropolysaccharide immunomodulators.  These are compounds that trigger enhanced Immune Function, and hopefully, the patients 'Cancer Recognition Response.'  These polysaccharide compounds bind to surface receptors on the various Immune cells and activate them.  This means they either turn the cell on, trigger the production of more of that type of cell, or trigger the release of certain chemicals (cytokines) such as a substance called Tumor Necrosis Factor.  The very name itself tells exactly what it does.  'Tumor Necrosis Factor' means 'A Substance Which Kills Tumors.'  The reason this Immune System adjunct therapy is being used along with conventional therapy is because it works.

Some might say it is easy to get rid of cancer.  You can simply take a knife and cut it out.  Unfortunately, in doing so you have not removed the cause of the cancer, which is the immune dysfunction that allowed the cancer to proliferate in the first place. Nor have you addressed the cause when you kill the tumor off with chemotherapy, or burn it out with radiation.  All these methods are useful in that they directly kill off the tumor cells, but ultimately they will fail and the cancer will return unless adequate steps are taken to trigger an effective and appropriate Immune Response.  Without the adjunctive immune modulation treatment, the recurrence rate is so high vets in America are hesitant to even use the word "Cure."  They use the term "In Remission" instead because we they know that the cancer is almost certain to return. Why?   Because the same cause that allowed the cancer to start the first time is still present.  After all the chemo, and the radiation, and the surgery are over and done with, the underlying cause is still there.  Wouldn't it be better to attempt triggering the immune recognition response along with the conventional therapy?

The most important thing you can do to help your dog through this trial is to provide him or her with whatever you can to help optimize their Immune Function.  There are several good immunomodulating products on the market for people, but not many serious options for dogs.  K-9 Immunity™ from Aloha Medicinals is the best that science has yet come up with for use as an adjunct in canine cancer therapy.
There are many aspects of the immune system which work together to trigger an effective anti-cancer response.  While the main mechanism seems to be the polysaccharide induced immune modulation, there are secondary mechanisms which are also involved.  There are small protein molecules present in the blood which act as immune identifier molecules, called Transfer Factors.  On there own, these transfer factors do not seem to have any effect in cancer treatment.  But Aloha's observation has been that they do add significantly to the effectiveness of K-9 Immunity™. Transfer Factor Plus by 4Life Research is a good product, and the one Aloha usually recommends for use along with the K-9 Immunity™.  Other brands of transfer factor may work also.  The combination of Transfer Factor Plus and K-9 Immunity™ seems to have the most powerful effect in turning cancer around, as well as being very quick acting.  Most dogs on this combination experience dramatic improvements within the first ten days of use.  Once you see it for yourself, there will be little question of whether it is working or not.

Transfer Factor Facts and Frequently Asked Questions

There are unfortunately some websites that would have you believe that a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement will somehow bring about a cure of your dog’s cancer.  Some sites even go so far as to claim "you have nothing to fear from cancer." Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Cancer is a very serious issue.  While multi-vitamin supplements can be an important addition, cancer is a diabolical disease, and it simply does not respond to vitamin therapy.  These vitamin/mineral supplements are not seriously regarded in the medical and veterinary community as treatment options for cancer.  Nor is there much in the way of third-party research available to back up these claims.  With polysaccharide immune modulation adjunct therapy, this is not the case.

There are more than 10,000 independent research papers available on polysaccharide immune modulators and their use in cancer treatment.  These are research papers from the National Institute of Health, Harvard University, Japanese Cancer Society and all of the other major, mainstream research organizations.  When someone says, "Why aren’t these methods being more widely used in cancer treatment?"  We can only point out that these are naturally occurring compounds and therefore they are difficult to patent.  It is unfortunate that money rules medicine, but there are many cases where this is true.  Until these immunomodulator compounds are synthesized and patented, the large U.S. Pharmaceutical companies (who are also the ones manufacturing the veterinary medicines and funding the veterinary schools) will not bring them to market.  When they do bring them to market, you can bet they will cost more than they do now.  Fortunately, there are companies like Aloha Medicinals which are on the cutting edge and producing these new compounds now. Take charge of your dog’s disease.  Help your "fur-baby" to get better.  Improve her Quality Of Life.

NOTE ON DIET: When a dog is fighting cancer, his or her diet is one of the MOST IMPORTANT considerations.  The dog will likely be building a lot of new tissue, and adequate protein and cell membrane compounds (omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids) are required.  If insufficient protein is supplied with the diet, the body tends to rob it from other places, like the kidneys and liver.  This most likely will lead to kidney and liver compromise, which is something your poor dog does not need on top of the cancer.  These complications can usually be avoided by watching the diet.  There is an excellent article on dog cancer diet by the University of Florida Veterinary Professor, Dr.R.M. Clemmons, DVM, PhD.  You can access this page at Dog Cancer Diet.  Please pay attention to the diet.  It is the one thing you can easily control which often times makes all the difference for a successful treatment outcome.  STAY AWAY FROM GRAINS!  Dogs did not evolve as grain eaters.  Many of our commercial dog foods are based upon rice, wheat or corn.  Yet left to their own, dogs will not graze in the wheat field.  They evolved for the past million years to eat meat.  Make sure the first ingredient on the dog food label is some type of meat.  If you supplement the dogs food with table scraps (good idea), please limit the amount of rice.  Feel free to add canned sardines (best), cottage cheese, eggs and meat such as hamburger or ground turkey.  High fat content is good.  Also add fish oil capsules for the Omega 3-6-9 fatty acids.  Costco stores have a good fish oil capsule that is cheap and stinky and tastes like fish.  It's like candy for dogs.  Most love it.  Just snip open the capsule and squeeze some out so the dog can smell it the first time, and after that you should have no problem with the dog taking the capsules.  A good dose is  3 or 4 a day for an average 40-70 lb dog.

For an excellent article on immune effect in cancer treatment, please see Dr. Riordan’s article [PDF]. Note: some of the compounds in K-9 Immunity™ act as the co-stimulator molecules mentioned in Dr. Riordan’s article.

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NOTE ON DIET: When a dog is fighting cancer, his or her diet is one of the MOST IMPORTANT considerations. 

High levels of protein and low levels of carbohydrates are beneficial to cancer patients. If you buy commercial dog food it should contain 18-28% protein, 3-13% carbohydrates, and 55-60% fat. We personally like Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul. We use the dry food in combination with the canned.  Ask your veterinarian for more suggestions. On any food you buy, READ THE INGREDIENT  LABEL and make sure the first ingredient is some type of meat.  If the first ingredient is corn meal, or rice, or wheat, choose another brand. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT!

Many canine cancer patients will do well on a commercial dog food supplemented with the addition of particular nutrients required by their condition.  Home cooking  or the RAW diet is highly recommended by pet lovers.