Table of Contents

ABCs of Battling
Cancer

Attack the Cancer

Boost the Immune
System

Create an Environment
Detrimental to Cancer

Prevention

 


 

Cancer Articles

Alternative Cancer Therapies

Breast Cancer

Cancer Centers

Colon Cancer

Nutrition - A Cancer
Battle Plan

Prostate Cancer

 

Articles TOC

 

 

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The ABCs of Battling Cancer

 

It is said that there are millions of cancerous cells growing within everyone of daily, but our immune system attacks and destroys them. When the immune system is compromised, cancer takes off. Cancer is the result of an immune system dysfunction.

After many years of research into battling and preventing cancer (since 1982), we can tell you right up front that to heal from cancer, because it is a baffling dis-ease (no single therapy works in all individuals), you must follow three seemingly simple rules:

    • Get deeply involved in your own healing process.
    • Learn your options.
    • Work your program.

There are no miracle cures, but there are many miracles. There will probably never be discovered one ultimate cure for this disease. Cancer cases vary from person to person; it is as individual as the individual her or himself. If blessed with cancer, you must find your own path and follow it the rest of your life. If you have a problem with the idea of being blessed with cancer, then you do not understand the basic principle behind the so called "spontaneous remission" thousands of cancer patients have undergone. You see, when faced with a cancer diagnosis, many feel that it is a death sentence, while some feel that it is a very unsubtle message informing them to change their lives. Guess which group lives longer. People in the first group put their dis-ease in the hands of a physician, a physician who knows less about the healing process than you really want to know. If it is not taught in medical school, it doesn't exist. Many in the first group will The Survivorbeat the odds. However, many more in the second group will live a full and productive life, no matter how many years they have left. Death is an inevitability and no matter what some people try, death wins. Empowering one's self, taking command of one's life and one's health is the key to living fully. Just ask someone who has been blessed with cancer.

The picture is dedicated to my friends with cancer. The tree in the center of the picture was hit by a tornado, ravaged and torn to shreds. Yet the next year, a branch grew out of the top, and today, as you can see, this single branch is full of fine healthy leaves. It is a survivor. It will probably not live as long as the trees around it, but it is alive and surviving. You too are survivors. Never quit!

(Update on the Survivor Tree: It finally died, exactly four and a half years after the tornado. Four and a half years is the average life span of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer.)

 

The ABCs of Conquering Cancer

SARed.GIF (1303 bytes) ttack the cancer.
SBRed.GIF (1327 bytes) oost (balance) the immune system.
SCRed.GIF (1291 bytes) reate an environment detrimental to cancer.

Obviously these are not mutually exclusive; there is some overlap. For example, if you create an environment detrimental to cancer, you could also be boosting your immune system and indirectly attacking the cancer. Additionally, these are not the only ways to classify cancer therapies. Some classify cancer therapies into two groups: tumor oriented, and host oriented. The last two on our list (B and C) are host oriented, while the first is tumor oriented. The greatest drawback to tumor oriented therapies is the simple fact that the patient and the patient’s needs are often overlooked and quality of life is sacrificed. Conversely, focusing on the latter two paths (B and C), quality of life in the patient is a foremost consideration. Since not all battles against cancer end successfully, if the patient has a limited time left in this life, shouldn’t that life be lived to the fullest? Top

We should never ignore conventional medicine, for there are a host of therapies developed and being developed by conventional medicine that extend life, though far too many conventional chemotherapies today produce massive collateral damage. We recommend you read Questioning Chemotherapy by Ralph Moss. However, all of our research concludes that conventional medicine works best when combined with the alternatives to produce a higher quality of life. Simply put, we are complex organisms fighting a complex disease. We cannot afford to place all our eggs into one basket, nor is it wise to place one's dis-ease entirely into the hands of a physician (it's really not her/his problem). The secret to a successful battle is the holistic approach.

No single therapy does the trick if you ignore the needs of your entire body, mind, and spirit. Any part of the puzzle is just that, a single piece. Top

Attack the cancer. This is what the "big three" do. Radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy attack the cancer. In the world of alternatives, growing daily, both in and out of the established medical community, are variations of these. There are cancer centers using a combination of these three along with alternative methods. There are centers that use alternative types and dosages of chemotherapies—some employing microdoses along with various other therapies, others who perform a stem cell assay (they biopsy the tumor, clone it, and experiment with various chemotoxic chemicals to discover which works best against your particular cancer) thus allowing them to use less of the drug, while still others are employing alternative oncotoxic (toxic to cancer) chemicals not yet accepted by the established medical community. Just to mention a few alternative methods of attacking a cancer we have hyperthermia and injections (directly into the tumor) of Lactobacillus Acidophilus or urea—all effective with few side effects.

Surgery can remove a tumor, though sometimes not all of it. Surgery is immunosupressive and can lead to metastases (the spread of cancer). Radiation too has been touted to shrink tumors, but tests of the helper T-cells before and after radiation show a significant reduction in their number following radiation.

A tumor can be attacked indirectly, though this would fall under the third path, creating an environment detrimental to cancer. Some of these we will discuss below. Top

Boost (balance) the immune system. This can be done two ways: naturally and artificially. Artificial methods of boosting the immune system have an intriguing history, with some of them being discovered quite by accident. Historically, there have been noted remissions of cancers following a bout with a fever producing disease, such as measles. Apparently, the body builds up its defenses to battle a specific condition, and ends up battling the cancer. These artificial methods used to "wake up" the immune system include Coley’s toxins (an admixture of various bacterium to produce a fever), BCG tuberculin bacillus, Rhus Tox (poison ivy), and various autologous vaccines (vaccines derived from tissues and substances in one's own body). However, most of these therapies tend to produce unreliable results, sometimes promoting growth in the tumor, sometimes producing a reduction, depending on how compromised the patient’s immune system was prior to treatment.

"The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it." Moses Maimonides.

Another artificial method of immunotherapy currently being tested involves administering substances innate to a healthy immune system, though in greater than usual dosages. These are lymphokines, interferons, interleukins, tumor necrosis factor, thymosin and others. We can categorize these natural products of our immune system as artificial because they are introduced into the body rather than built up from within. These therapies have shown to reduce tumors and their spread and induce helper T-cell activity (and natural killer cells), but the testing has been limited, and side effects and other complications have not yet been successfully managed. Finally, their effectiveness is less than the placebo effect (usually 25% to 30%).

Natural methods of boosting the immune system involve the "unproven" therapies. Please note that unproven does not mean disproven. Unproven simply means that because they are not profitable and because they are not patentable, they will never see the inside of the FDA laboratories to be proved—money talks and health care walks. These methods include detoxification (detoxication), vitamin and supplement therapies, nutrition, botanicals (herbs), faith healing (psychic healing; spiritual healing), meditation, affirmations, acupuncture, and medicine’s latest field: psychoneuroimmunotherapy (a big word for boosting the immune system by focusing on behavioral changes). Some of these methods of boosting the immune system are discussed on this web site, and it would not be a waste of time to review them, for the immune system is a complex piece of machinery about which we really should sometimes use the term balance rather than boost. Top

Creating an environment detrimental to the cancer. This path overlaps the first two. If you change your diet (do this slowly) avoiding those foods that cancer loves, you will indirectly attack through starvation. At the same time, while placing proper nutrition into your body, you will boost your immune system. We must warn you that radically changing your diet can make you feel sicker. Read the article called "Cleaning House" for the proper way to detoxicate your system prior to a dietary change. (The Cleaning House article originally took 4 years of research to write, there was so much to go through. We still update it with new programs, as we discover them, and we found the Master Cleanse in Chinese Medicine 3 years before Oprah and South Park found them.)

Use of nutritional therapies, traditionally attacked by the establishment (even in 1978 the AMA's stand was still: "Nutrition has nothing to do with disease."), has grown recently to facilitate healing cancer. The more it grows, the more it is attacked.

Raw organic food diets are recommended by many, because raw foods contain the building blocks of life; witness the following quotation: "There is an association between the cooking and processing of food and the incidence of cancer. Conversely, it is a fact that cancer patients make the best recoveries on completely raw vegetarian food. This shows that when vital organs are at their lowest state of function, only raw foods make it possible for them to provide the body chemistry to maintain health. it follows then, that if raw food permits an otherwise ruined body to restore itself to health, so must raw food provide the maximum benefit to anybody—sick or well." (Gittleman, Beyond Pritikin)

In China, where cancer rates are much lower than here, fasting is the first method employed in fighting cancer: taking away the cancer's food supply stops its growth immediately. Because cancer has a very high rate of metabolism, starving it is a logical first step.

Another means of creating an environment detrimental to the cancer are through the oxygen therapies. In the 1930's, Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery that cancer metabolizes anaerobically (without oxygen) in a process very similar to fermentation. Knowing this, if we oxygenate the cancer site (and cut off its supply of sugars) we witness a dramatic change in its growth rate for more often than not, tumors begin to shrink. The oxygenating therapies involve supplements, exercise and rest, magnetic therapy, ozone and hydrogen peroxide therapies. Hyperthermia techniques, sometimes used to attack the actual tumor, can also attack the blood vessels feeding the tumor thus starving the cancer. Starving the cancer can also be accomplished by battling cachexia, the wasting syndrome that actually kills most cancer patients. Hydrazine Sulfate is used to stop cachexia. Some other methods of starving the cancer employ shark cartilage, bovine cartilage, and other substances that halt or slow angiogenesis (the growth of new blood vessels). Top

 

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Finally, we would be remiss in not making the obvious statement: the best way to fight cancer is to not get it in the first place. Prevention is the first step we must each take. Strengthening our immune system and the attainment of peace of mind should be our goal, since this is the place of perfect health.

If you do not have cancer, you might want to view cancer as a metaphor, for recent discoveries show that nearly all of our greatest killers and terribly degenerative diseases of the 20th century are the product of a compromised immune system. Arthritis, multiple sclerosis, candida, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), and AIDS, just to name a few, can be battled with many of the same weapons we have in our anti-cancer arsenal, at least until something better comes along.

The final determination of what will work and what will not is in your hands. The better informed you are, the better your choices, the better your chances. There are no quick fixes or magic bullets. Patient participation does not imply a do-it-yourself program; get a physician or professional health care provider, and always keep in mind that you have the right to choose your own physician (or professional health care provider), and that choice should be guided by the words of the medieval physician Moses Maimonides who wrote: "The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it." Healing a chronic degenerative disease means you will form a partnership with your physician (therapist/counselor, naturopath, etc.) and your God. It means changing your life for ever; changing your life for the better. It means you have been blessed. Top

 

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The National Cancer Institute estimates that more than 150,000 cancer deaths a year are related to diet. (1996)

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