RADICALLY CHANGING YOUR DIET

Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

The above is the title of Chapter 1 of the book RADICAL REMISSION (released March 2014) by Dr Kelly A. Turner, PhD, a researcher and psychotherapist who specializes in integrative oncology. In her doctoral research of over a thousand cases of Radical Remission – people who have defied a serious or even terminal cancer diagnosis – Dr Turner found very similar factors that nearly every Radical Remission survivor employed to defy the overwhelming diagnosis of cancer. The most important factor that consistently comes up over and over again is radically changing one’s diet in order to help heal cancer. What’s more, the majority of the people that Dr Turner studied all tend to make the same 4 dietary changes. They are:

Greatly reducing or eliminating sugar, meat, dairy, and refined foods.
Greatly increasing vegetables and fruit intake.
Eating organic foods.
Drinking filtered water.

Much has been researched and written about this radical change in diet and how it has benefitted cancer patients. The first major heading in this chapter is NO SWEETS, NO MEAT, NO DAIRY, and NO REFINED FOODS. This is very much in line with the recommendations of integrative oncologists/doctors like Dr Keith Block MD, Dr John Forsythe MD, Dr Russell Blaylock, MD and cancer survivors like Prof Jane Plant, Dr Anthony Sattilaro MD, Dr Lorraine Day, MD and Dr David Servan-Schreiber, MD. There are just too many to include in this short article.

For this article we shall not delve into the details of the radical diet that Dr Turner has uncovered but suffice to just mention the main points to jolt your memory again: –

Sugar just feeds the cancer,
Dairy products are cancer promoting,
Casein, the main protein in cow’s milk, makes cancer cells grow,
Scientific studies have linked regular consumption of meat to many types of cancer,
Refined foods, especially refined grains…have a very high glycemic index….this give cancer cells plenty of glucose to feed on and also creates high insulin levels in the blood… another condition strongly linked to cancer

On the other end of the spectrum, Dr Turner found that Radical Remission survivors ate a lot of vegetables and fruits…in fact; the cancer survivors who ate lots of vegetables and exercised regularly lived twice as long. Vegetables and fruits provide the human body with everything it needs: vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fiber, glucose, protein, and even healthy fats.

In the Chapter, Dr Turner shared the leading stories of Ginni and John when they were faced with breast and prostate cancer respectively by using the above 4 strategies to heal their cancer. There are many more survivors who have done it using a similar radical change in diet. Some of those are:

a) Prof Jane Plant—Breast Cancer

Link: https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2014/01/13/book-review-your-life-in-your-hands/

b) Dr Anthony Sattilaro—Prostate Cancer

Link: https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2014/01/07/book-review-recalled-by-life-the-story-of-my-recovery-from-cancer/

c) Barry Thomson—Melanoma and Colon Cancer

Link: https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2014/05/14/book-review-defeat-cancerlike-i-did-twice-with-no-chemotherapy-or-radiation/

d) Ian Gawler—Osteosarcoma

Link: https://cancercaremalaysia.com/2014/01/17/book-review-you-can-conquer-cancer-a-new-way-of-living/

e) Dr Lorraine Day—Breast Cancer

Link: www.drday.com

Concluding Remarks by Dr Kelly Turner

After researching thousands of Radical Remission cases, Dr Turner is thoroughly convinced that….”Hippocrates was absolutely right: FOOD IS MEDICINE. Eating more organic vegetables and fruits while eliminating sugar, meat, dairy and refined food products can only help your body to heal – and in fact, it may turn out to be the only medicine you need. Hippocrates believed that healthy food and water should be the first medicine given, and surgery and drugs should only be used as absolute last resorts. Two thousand years later, we have somehow managed to turn that order on its head: now we first look to medications and surgery to heal our sick bodies, instead of the powerful medicine we already take three times a day: our food.”

The above statement by Dr Turner reminds us of an ancient Chinese proverb which very aptly describe the above concluding remarks: –

“One quarter of what you eat on your plate keep you alive…the other three quarters keep the doctors alive”

Have you changed your diet radically?

FURTHER REFERENCES:

If you would like to read further on how your diet can enhance your radical remission, we recommend the following books written by medical doctors, a Professor of Nutrition and a cancer survivor.

1) ANTI-CANCER A NEW WAY OF LIFE by Dr David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD who was a clinical professor of psychiatry and co-founder of the Center for Integrative Medicine. He passed away in 2011 – after 19 years with brain tumour. Was it Radical Remission? (Read Chapter 8: The Anti-Cancer Foods…in fact, we recommend that you read the whole book)

2) LIFE OVER CANCER by Dr Keith I. Block, MD, Director of Integrative Medical Education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and Medical Director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Evanston, Illinois. (Read Chapter 4: The Anti-Cancer Diet and Chapter 5: The Life Over Cancer Core Diet Plan).

3) NATURAL STRATEGIES FOR CANCER PATIENTS by Dr Russell Blaylock, MD and a board-certified neurosurgeon and formerly the Professor of Neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi. (Read the whole book–it is all about nutrition and cancer and also valuable information on how chemotherapy is poisoning you and how radiotherapy is burning you–to death).

4) THE CHINA STUDY by Dr T. Colin Campbell, PhD, who was the Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. (Read the whole book to understand why nutrients from animal-based foods increase tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decrease tumor development.)

5) YOU CAN CONQUER CANCER, A NEW WAY OF LIVING by Dr Ian Gawler, a veterinarian and decathlon athlete before his diagnosis, is Australia’s most “notorious” cancer patient and radical remission survivor. (Read Chapters 11-14 to find out that although diet may not be the total answer to cancer, but without a good diet, there is no answer).

There are lots of other such books written by oncologists/doctors/cancer researchers/survivors, etc. However, if you choose to follow the advice of our Malaysian “apa pun boleh oncologists/doctors,” you can only dream of the possibility of a radical remission.

The choice is yours.

Regretted for not giving mom chemo for her sarcoma

The husband of one breast cancer patient from Indonesia told us that he regretted for not subjecting his mother to chemotherapy after she had undergone surgery for her sarcoma. After the surgery, the cancer recurred and she had two more surgeries before she died.

I told this man, “You should not regret for not giving her the chemo. It is most likely that chemo would not be effective anyway.”

Review of Medical Literature on Sarcoma

Sarcoma is malignant tumor that can be divided into 2 groups:

1. Bone sarcomas, arising from bone or cartilage, and

2. Soft tissue sarcomas, arising from tissues such as fat, muscle, nerves and nerve sheath, blood vessels, and other connective tissues.

Soft tissue sarcomas are the most frequently occurring sarcomas. There are more than 50 different subtypes of soft tissue sarcoma. Some examples of soft tissue sarcoma:

Angiosarcoma arises from blood vessels
Kaposi’s sarcoma arises from blood vessels
Fibrosarcoma arises from fibrous tissue
Leiomyosarcoma arises from smooth muscle
Liposarcoma arises from fat
Malignant peripheral arises from nerve sheath tumor arises from Nerve tissue
Rhabdomyosarcoma arises from skeletal muscle.

Sarcomas are more common among children, accounting for 15% of pediatric cancers, but become less frequent with age, accounting for about 1% of all adult cancers.

They can occur anywhere in the body. Around 60% of sarcomas develop in the arms or legs. The rest begin in the gastrointestinal tract (25%), the back of the abdominal cavity and its internal organs, called the retroperitoneum (15-20%), or the head and neck area (9%).

Treatment

1. Surgery

Surgery has been the preferred primary treatment for soft tissue sarcoma. The aim of surgery is to completely remove or excise the tumor. A border or margin of 2-3 cm of normal tissue around the tumor is also desirable to minimize the chance that tumor cells have been left behind.

Nonetheless, treatment with marginal surgery has been associated with local failure rates of 30 to 50 percent. Generally, small, low grade tumors can be treated with surgery alone.

2. Radiotherapy

The standard practice for the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas is radiotherapy in combination with surgical resection.

3. Chemotherapy

One of the major deterrents to adjuvant chemotherapy has been the difficulty in justifying exposure to the significant toxicities of these drugs for potentially non-responding patients.

Even in the best of circumstances, only 30 to 50 percent of patients with soft-tissue carcinomas will respond to standard chemotherapeutic regimen.

Systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy is generally not considered curative for patients with metastatic soft tissue sarcomas.

Treatment of patients with soft tissue sarcomas remains a challenge.

Recurrent Disease

There is always a possibility that a soft tissue sarcoma will recur.

Surgery may be possible if it is a limited recurrence.

It may be difficult to give additional radiation if the tumor recurs in an area that has already received maximum radiation in the past.

Chemotherapy is often offered.

Metastasis

The incidence of metastasis in high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas is 20 to 50 percent when the primary tumour diameter is greater than 5 cm.

Fifty percent of soft tissue sarcoma patients will die from distant metastasis.

One common site of metastasis (50 percent) is the lung, followed in frequency by liver, bone and to a lesser degree, skin.

Patients with retroperitoneal sarcomas had a greater tendency for local recurrence and disseminated disease throughout the abdomen.

Patients with head and neck and truncal sarcomas had a higher local recurrence rate than those with extremity sarcomas.

Prognosis

The overall relative 5-year survival rate of people with soft tissue sarcomas is around 50% according to statistics from the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The 5-year survival rates for soft tissue sarcomas have not changed much for many years. The 5-year survival rates were:

83% for localized sarcomas (56% of soft tissue sarcomas were localized when they were diagnosed)
54% for regional stage sarcomas; (19% were in this stage)
16% for sarcomas with distant spread (16% were in this stage)

References

http://sarcomaoncology.com/s_as_sarcoma.html

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/sarcoma-adultsofttissuecancer/detailedguide/sarcoma-adult-soft-tissue-cancer-survival-rates

I.J. Spiro et al. Soft tissue sarcoma (in Clinical Oncology, Ed. Philip Rubin. Health Science Asia, Elsevier Science).

A. Yasko et al. Sarcomas of soft tissue and bone (in Clinical Oncology. Ed. Raymond Lenhard, et al. Amer. Cancer Society).

Vernon Sondak & A. Chang. Clinical evaluation and treatment of soft tissue tumors (in Soft Tissue Tumours, Ed. Sharon Weiss and J. Goldblum, Heath Science Asia, Elsevier Science).

WHAT RADIATION THERAPY DOES TO THE BODY (PART 5)

Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

Continuing our journey, we summarize some points mentioned in THE HOPE OF LIVING CANCER FREE, published in 1999 andwritten by Dr Francisco Contreras, MD, the General Director of the Oasis of Hope Hospital in Baja California, Mexico.

In this book, we will learn why Dr Contreras described….radiation therapy…has proven to be another medical blunder. Why is this so?

Dr Contreras’s thoughts on the dangers of radiation therapy are summarized as follows:

Radiation therapy is the second line of attack. For a short time, total body radiation was used; however, that was stopped when many patients died from extreme toxicity.
Now radiation therapy has evolved into a localized therapy in which dosages as well as the size of the fields (areas where the radiation is beamed) have diminished significantly.
X-ray type beams are used to actually burn malignant cells. There are adverse reactions to the therapy because, even though the fields are limited, the beam will go (within the field) through benign as well as malignant cells.
Radiation therapy, in which we place so much faith a few decades ago, has proven to be another medical blunder. Motivated by the desperation of failure, radiation therapists have dreamed up new ways of applying increasingly aggressive doses to their patients. They have literally “burned” patients, leaving many permanently disabled. Plus, these patients have had to experience the temporary side effects of severe nausea, malaise, loss of appetite and the loss of other functions.
Radiation doses have to be specifically measured, and there is an air dose, skin dose and a tumour dose. The calculation has to be done by an expert, many times by the physicist. The radiation therapist does the planning to prevent the burning of the skin. The lighter the skin, the more it will be affected.
According to Dr Mario Soto, when the field of entry is large, there will be side effects. For example:
If the esophagus is touched during radiation to the chest, esophagitis, or the burning of the lining esophagus, can result.
In the case of cancer of the cervix or the uterus, proctittis, or burning of the lining of the rectum, can be caused.
In radiation to the head and neck, if radiation is given to the tongue, the salivary glands can be impacted, and the patient will be without saliva.

NB: Dr Mario Soto is the clinical oncologist at the Oasis of Hope Hospital where Dr Francisco Contreras is the Director General.

In a later book “50 CRITICAL CANCER ANSWERS” published in 2013 which Dr Contreras co-authored with Daniel E. Kennedy, M.C., both authors discussed Radiation: A New Era of Precision.

Although researchers have worked hard to hone in the radiation onto the tumours while shielding the normal cells, there are still limitations to date. These are their comments:

Despite the improvements in 3D and 4D image-guided radiotherapy, brachytherapy, and proton therapy to target tumours more precisely, exposure and injury to surrounding tissues and organs with serious and permanent side effects still limits the amount of radiation therapy that can be administered to a patient undergoing cancer treatment.
Furthermore, the state-of-the-art technology, developed to increase efficacy and reduce injury, is so complex that human and mechanical error is inevitable due to software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures, or inadequate staffing and training. The problem is compounded by how difficult radiation injuries are to identify.
Even with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), a serious complication exists. Most tumours “move with us” when we breath, or with peristalsis (the natural movement of our bowels); though this shifting is subtle, high-dose radiation still burns the normal tissue that moves into the beam.
Complications due to organ damage and radiation-induced cancers are not apparent for many years, even decades; meanwhile insufficient dosing is impossible to detect or interpreted as failure to respond to treatment.
According to the New York Times, accidents are chronically under-reported. In June 2010, a Philadelphia hospital gave the wrong radiation dose to more than 90 patients with prostate cancer, and in 2005 a Florida hospital disclosed that 77 brain cancer patients had received 50% more radiation than prescribed because one of the most powerful and supposedly precise-linear accelerators had been programmed incorrectly for nearly a year. The article’s author concluded, “ Regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur”

According to the authors, ionizing radiation damages cellular molecules in both direct and indirect ways. It splits directly hit molecules into highly reactive fragments known as free radicals. These, in turn, can attack other molecules they encounter in a continuing and damaging chain reaction.

One key damage target in irradiated cells is DNA, which acts as a crucial blueprint for cellular function. Severe damage to DNA can induce cell death, and this effect is an important mediator of lethal radiation toxicity.
Radiation can attack DNA directly, but more often DNA is damaged by hydroxyl radicals formed when radiation interacts with water molecules in the body.

CONCLUDING REMARKS:

It is also inconceivable that such conventional cancer treatments should cause so much pain, agony and money and then the patient has to suffer another form of cancer, heart disease or disorders to the bones, etc. Hence the cycle of treatment has to be repeated.

Is this why conventional cancer treatment is referred to as “the Cancer Industry?” Is this healing or is it “xxxx”?

We welcome your opinion.

Lung Cancer: Six to 12 Months to Live. Must do chemo, that’s the only way. With herbs still alive after 2 years!

CB (H894) was 74 years old when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. His daughter came to seek our help on 25 May2012.

CB’s problem started two weeks prior to his daughter’s visit. He had coughs and became breathless. He was brought to a private hospital where fluid was tapped out of his lung.

His CEA on 8 May 2012 showed 13.18 (High). Pleural fluid (fluid from the lung) showed atypical cells suggestive of small cell carcinoma.

Preliminary scanogram on 10 May 2012, showed right pneumothorax of approximately 40 percent and partial collapse of the right upper lobe and total collapse of the right lower lobe.

Bilateral small pleural effusions are seen in the bases.

According to the doctor, the only treatment available for CB is chemotherapy. There is no other option. There will be no cure, only control the cancer. At best he has 6 to 12 months to live.

Since he was already old the family decided not to do any chemo.

CB’s condition at that time:

1. Breathing difficulty.

2. Cough with white phlegm.

3. Bowel movements, 2 to 3 days once.

4. No appetite.

5. Unable to sleep.

We prescribed Capsule A, Lung 1 and Lung 2, Lung Phlegm, Cough 5, Constipation and Gastric paste.

Chris: Who asked you to come and see me?

Daughter: Alice told me about you. She was your student some years ago.

This was what I told CB’s daughter:

I can’t cure your father! It all depends on him – whether he wants to take care of himself or not.
If he does not believe in what we do, there is no point coming here. You must believe first.
If you believe your doctor, then go and see the doctor. But some people refuse medical treatment, then it will be a different story.
The herbs are bitter – not nice to the taste, awful smell, etc. Can you father stand that? Some people cannot accept that.
He has to take care of his diet. Cannot eat anything he likes. He must understand this first. Only then can he take care of himself.
There is no such thing as “magic bullet”.
I suggest that you don’t take any herbs first. Go home and discuss with your family. There is no point wasting money and time. He has to be committed. That is the important thing. Then don’t take meat, sugar, table salt, dairy products and oil.
If he cannot take care of his diet, there is nothing I can do to help him.

Up to this day, I did not get to meet CB at all. He did not come to our centre. in fact, CB’s case of out of our “radar”.

However, on 11 June 2014, i.e. two years later, I happened to “bump” into CB’s daughter when she came to collect herbs for her father.

Chris: How is your father doing.

Daughter: Okay, no problem, no complaints.

C: Amazing – it has been more than 2 years now. He can eat, can sleep and has no complaints? Cannot ask for more!

WHAT RADIATION THERAPY DOES TO THE BODY (PART 4)

Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

Our search for answers to what radiation does to your body takes us to review LIFE OVER CANCER written by an Integrative Oncologist, Dr Keith Block, MD who is the Director of Integrative Medical Education at the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine and Medical Director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Evanston, Illinois.

This is what we found in the book on the dangers of radiation therapy:

Radiation therapy delivers a powerful dose of X-rays to kill cancer cells. It is used most in the care of patients with early breast and prostate cancer. But because the intensity of this radiation is many times stronger than that of diagnostic X-rays, it can harm normal cells, too, especially in patients with advanced cancers who are receiving palliative radiotherapy to shrink recurrent tumours. In this case, immune cells (lymphocytes) in particular may become impaired, making the body more vulnerable to other diseases.
Other common side effects of radiation include fatigue, eating problems, emotional distress, nausea, vomiting, bloating, discomfort in the neck or throat, and skin changes such as itching, blistering, toughening, and darkening.

The effects of radiation depend on where it is targeted…some main points:

Radiation to the abdomen and pelvis can cause radiation enteritis, which is characterized by inflammation of the intestines with severe diarrhea.
Radiation to the chest or breast can inflame the esophagus, causing difficulty swallowing.
Radiation to the breast can result in a painful skin reaction.
Radiation to the head, neck, and mouth can cause fungal infections in the mouth in addition to the usual irritation of the muscous membranes.
Radiation to the whole-brain can leave patients with cognitive and physical deficits.
Radiation to the lungs zaps so much normal tissue (its breathing and its attendant up-and-down movement of the chest causes healthy tissue to move into the X-rays’ path) that it leads to sometimes irreversible lung damage.

Elsewhere in the book, we gained an insight as to why radiotherapy and chemotherapy may not work for cancer patients:

Radiation and many chemotherapy drugs kill malignant cells by generating lethal oxidative stress. That is, they generate an avalanche of free radicals that the cells are destroyed. The problem is that there are always some survivors. Cancer cells that are exposed long-term to free radical levels that are high, but not high enough to kill them, adapt. In a perverse case of Darwinian “survival of the fittest,” some cancer cells may mutate in a way that makes them more and more resistant to treatment. If even a few develop resistance to treatment, all of their descendents have it too.
Indeed, cancer’s ability to continually adapt is one reason why chemotherapy and radiation are not more effective against cancer: the treatments also produce free radicals that support the disease process, allowing any cells that survive the barrage of radiation or chemotherapy to thrive.

CONCLUDING REMARKS:

It is extremely tragic and incomprehensible that the medical (or cancer) establishment still uses ionizing radiation that is clearly proven and known to be carcinogenic (as established by the International Agency for Research on Cancer).It is also inconceivable that such conventional cancer treatments should cause so much pain, agony and money and then the patient has to suffer another form of cancer, heart disease or disorders to the bones, etc. Hence the cycle of treatment has to be repeated.

Is this why conventional cancer treatments is referred to as “the Cancer Industry?” Is this healing?

We welcome your opinion.

WHAT RADIATION THERAPY DOES TO THE BODY (PART 3)

by Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

Continuing our search to find answers to what radiation therapy does to the body, we re-read Chapter 4 RADIATION THERAPY: BURNING CANCER found in the best-seller “NATURAL STRATEGIES FOR CANCER PATIENTS” by Dr Russell Blaylock, MD. He was a board certified neurosurgeon and neuroscientist and was the Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi. ( http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/)

Dr Blaylock’s comments gave us further insights into the hazards of radiation therapy. Some salient points in the chapter are:

Most cancer patients, upon first learning they will face radiation treatments, have an image of lying down under a death ray. Most know that radiation is dangerous and can cause burns, nausea and vomiting, loss of hair, and even additional cancer. Their fears are not unfounded.
Authorities in the field of radiation biology do not even agree on the safety of diagnostic X-rays, which involve infinitely lower doses of radiation than radiation therapy.
Today, many doctors recommend that their cancer patients undergo radiation treatments following surgery just as a precaution. In my (Dr Blaylock’s) estimation, this is not good science. Despite the fact that we have many sophisticated ways to determine who should have post operative radiation and who shouldn’t, we are not using many of these tools with the majority of cancer patients.
X-ray particles could not only kill cancer cells, but also cause cancer. In fact, Marie Curie and her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, both died of leukemia caused by their prolonged exposure to radium.
Radiation’s harmful effects are accumulative…even when the treatments are fractionated, the damage can accumulate and produce injury to the tissues in the path of the beam. In addition, the beam continues to reflect off hard surfaces, such as bone and surgical implants, with the result being delayed damage.
Because no way existed to really concentrate the X-ray beam on the cancer, the result was often a wide zone of damage, including to the overlying skin. The effects of this damage were not always immediate.
Often, patients who undergo radiation treatments experience degeneration of tissues months or even years after their treatments end. For example, delayed radionecrosis can occur following penetration of the brain or spinal cord by X-rays.

The nervous system is not the only tissue that can be damaged by scatter radiation. Most vulnerable are the cells lining the gastrointestinal tract, as well as the cells of the bone marrow, lymph system, spleen, and hair follicles. This is because these are all rapidly dividing cells, easily damaged by radiation.

Over half of all our immune cells are found in the gastrointestinal tract. Abdominal radiation treatments, especially when combined with chemotherapy, also can kill off the bacteria in the colon, such as the acidophilus and bifidus organisms. This, in turn, can result in an overgrowth of harmful microorganisms such as Candida albicans and pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria. When such bacterial disruptions are severe, which is not uncommon, yeast and bacteria can enter the bloodstream, with significant consequences to the immune system.
The damage to the cells lining the intestine, colon, and rectum can range from defective absorption (malabsorption) to severe inflammation of the bowel wall with resulting bloody, mucus-filled stools.
The cells lining the intestine are very complex and delicate. Damage to these cells can significantly alter the body’s ability to absorb foods, vitamins, and minerals, leading to significant malnutrition, despite a healthy diet. The simple fact is that if food cannot be properly digested and absorbed, a healthy diet does little good. This is especially a problem when chemotherapy is combined with radiation.

One hazard rarely considered, even by radiation oncologists, is the danger of blood vessels injury caused by the radiation passing through blood vessels, from small arterioles to larger arteries. Major arteries course very close to a cancerous tumour, and sometimes they are encased by the tumour. This means that the blood vessels receive a large degree of the radiation dose. The artery most often damaged by the radiation was the carotid artery (the main artery supplying blood to the brain)…another most often injured is the vertebral artery, which supplies blood to the brain stem.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Is this why conventional cancer treatments have been referred to as “the Cancer Industry?” Is this healing or is it “legalized” ???? We welcome your opinion.

To conclude this article, we recommend that you read Dr Blaylock’s article which described…HOW MODERN MEDICINE KILLED MY BROTHER…at the following link: http://www.wnho.net/medicine_killed_brother.htm

Pain Gone After e-Therapy

Jane (not real name) was a 47-year old lady from South Africa. She lived with her husband and their dog in a boat that sailed around the world. The happy family had been sailing like this for the past 15 years. Sometime in mid-2013, they landed in Malaysia. Jane developed breathing difficulty and was subsequently diagnosed with lung cancer. CT scan showed a 3.2 x 4.1 x 6.7 cm mass in her lung.

Jane was asked to go for chemotherapy but she refused. She was in severe pain when she came to seek our help. One way to help Jane with her recurrent persisted pains was to put her on the e-Therapy.

Listen to what happened to her.

Day 1: After detox 1 and detox 2: She went through “hell”. She felt very tired and the pains were more severe.

Day 2: She had nausea, was very tired and the severe pains persisted! She became very irritable, did not feel like eating and it was pain, pain, pain – all the time.

Day 3: In the morning, things seemed to improve a little bit. She became less irritable and less nauseous. However, the pain remained the same.

In the evening, Jane had more of the e-Therapy (almost 2 hours). She had hot flushes, she had a lot of sweat and felt something “moving” inside. The pains did not improve.

Day 4: She awoke at 3 a.m. and felt real good! I jumped out the bed. No pain. I felt absolutely healthy. Jane had more of the e-Therapy in the morning. She walked some distance to an organic shop for lunch. Her pains started to come back.

Day 5: I felt good, rested and it was fantastic.

Day 6: Jane was better off today than she was on Day 1.

Comment

We were glad to be able to help Jane with her pains. The next day, she sailed away with her boat (picture) and we never get to see Jane again. Later we received an e-mail from her husband saying that Jane had passed away on 1 January 2014. The cancer had spread to her brain. It was indeed unfortunate that we were unable to help Jane using herbs because her “Caucasian” stomach would not tolerate them.

Pain After She Ate Chocolate

Jane was asked to go for chemotherapy but she refused. She was in severe pain when she came to seek our help. We prescribed her the lung herbs.

1. After 5 days on the herbs, the pains were gone.

2. On day 5, 6 and 7, she felt great.

3. On day 8, the pain came back! Why?

Listen to what happened to her.

Comments

Very often patients are being told that they can eat anything they like – food has nothing to do with their cancer! Unfortunately, with time such advice has now been showed to be misleading and a bad joke! Over the years, I have seen cases after cases of “disaster” after patients started to take “bad” food.

In this story, Jane learned that sugar is bad for her!

Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ: Eat anything you like!

Diet for Cancer Patient – Some Doctors’ Illogical Arguments

Refined Sugar is Toxic

The Sugar-Cancer Connection

Dr. Kelly Turner: The Hall Mark Of A Blue Blood Cancer Researcher

Dr. Turner had her first brush with cancer when she was 3 years old. Her uncle had leukemia and died in spite of undergoing chemotherapy. She wrote, “that’s when I learned that daddies could die of cancer.” Then when Kelly was 14, her 16-year old friend died of stomach cancer. “I would go to his grave site regularly to leave flowers. His death taught me that absolutely anyone could die of cancer, at any time.”

After graduating from Harvard University, Kelly became a volunteer in the pediatric wing of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “All I did was play Monopoly with some children who were receiving intravenous chemotherapy, but the depth of meaning I felt by helping them forget about their diseases for a few hours was truly life-changing. I knew I had found my calling.”

Kelly went on to do her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley. Her research passion — studying why people recover against all odds without the help of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed. She called this Radical Remission. For her research she made a trip around the world, traveling to ten different countries to interview holistic healers and cancer survivors about their healing practices and healing. She presented the gist of her research in her book, Radical Remission – surviving cancer against all odds.

I recommend all cancer patients and all those involved with cancer (medical doctors or alternative healers included) to read this no-nonsense book. You can learn many things from her extensive research.

Let me highlight some of the points Dr. Turner wrote in the Introductory chapter that resonate so very well with me (in fact not with me alone but any scientist for that matter).

1. She wrote: “I was reading Dr. Andrew Weil’s book, Spontaneuous Healing when I came across a case of what I call Radical Remission. I froze, confused and stunned. Had this actually happened? If so, why had it not been on the front page of every newspaper? Even if it had happened only once, it is still an incredible event…. Intrigued, I instantly began trying to find other cases of Radical Remission. What I found shocked me. There were over a thousand cases in print.”

2. “The more I dug into this topic, the more frustrated I became.” Doctors were not interested to know about why their patients suddenly “heal” themselves even after all medical treatments failed.

3. “The final straw for me though, was when a few of the radical survivors told me that their doctors had actually asked them not to tell any other patients …. about their amazing recoveries. The reason? So as not to raise false hope.”

4. “When I first began studying Radical Remission” I was surprised to find that two groups of people had been largely ignored…. The first group was the radical survivors themselves ….. none of the authors reported directly asking the survivors why they thought they had healed. I found this very odd, given the fact that the survivors may have done something …that helped to heal their cancer… The second ignored group … was alternative healers … I was surprised no one had studied how non-Western or alternative healers treat cancer.”

5. Nine key factors for Radical Remission are:

a. Radically changing your diet.

b. Taking control of your health.

c. Following your intuition.

d. Using herbs and supplements.

e. Releasing suppressed emotions.

f. Increasing positive emotions.

g. Embracing social support.

h. Deepening your spiritual connection.

i. Having strong reasons for living.

….these are not listed in any kind of ranking order. There is no clear “winner” among these factors.”

We started CA Care in 1995 with the following basic approach to the healing of cancer.

Indeed the various key factors that Dr. Turner found important among radical survivors reflect closely with what we have been teaching patients at CA Care for the past 18 years.

When I reflect deeply the work of Dr. Turner, I cannot help but come to the conclusion that in this world there are indeed truly blue blood scientists and there are also pseudo-scientists who believe that they know a lot of science. These pseudo-scientists would brush off anything that does not conform to their world view as hocus pocus, unproven or unscientific – all in the name of science! Such people may even say, “Don’t tell me what you do to get well. I don’t want to know.” Even worse, some (according to Dr. Kelly) did not want others to know about their patients’ unique healing experience.

Read what Dr. Turner has got to say about this, “… In my first research class at UC Berkeley, I learned that it is a researcher’s scientific obligation to examine any anomalous cases that do not fit into his or her hypothesis …. there is absolutely no scenario in which it is okay to ignore cases that do not fit into your hypothesis…. (It is) scientifically irresponsible to ignore flat-out the people who have cure their cancers using unconventional means.”

To be a blue blood researcher you must have the guts to follow and tell the world where your research data lead you to. Do things based on your love for knowledge and truth, not driven by self-interest. Perhaps many readers are not aware that there are such thing as fake research and fake data. Dr. Sydney Singer reminded us, “Researchers are like prostitutes. They work for grant money … they go to where there is money.” Dr. Samuel Epstein, professor of the University of Illinois Medical Centre told the US Senate Select Committee, “In this country you can buy the data you require to support your case.” Dr. John Braithwaite said, “Data fabrication is so widespread.”

I see the honesty and integrity of Dr. Turner’s work. She wrote, “It is not at all my intention to raise false hope by writing this book… However, keeping silent about Radical Remission cases has led to something far worse, in my opinion, than false hope…. Giving false hope means making people hopeful about something that is untrue or false. Radical Remission cases may not be explainable – at the moment – but they are true.” To Dr. Turner, we just cannot afford to ignore this phenomenon even if we cannot understand and explain why Radical Remission worked in some people and not in others. A truly blue blood researcher would take on the task of expanding boundary and not be contented to be confined to a comfort zone. Sticking out your neck against mainstream thinking has its risk but then remember only dead fish flow with the stream. This world has enough of “Yes” men and women.

Some years ago, I once asked a young man why he wanted to do a Ph.D. His answer shocked me, “I want to have a Dr. in front of my name.” It is indeed sad. Way back in 1973, when I was a Ph.D. student, my professor taught me that Ph.D. means “lover of knowledge.” Make no mistake about this, if you want to be truly a blue blood researcher or scientist, you need to have the passion, commitment and inquisitive mind like Dr. Turner. Just wanting to have a Dr in front of your name will not do.

BOOK REVIEW: RADICAL REMISSION SURVIVING CANCER AGAINST ALL ODDS

by Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

The author, Dr. Kelly A. Turner is a researcher, lecturer, and consultant in the field of integrative oncology. Her specialized research focus is the Radical Remission of cancer, which is a remission that occurs either in the absence of conventional medicine or after conventional medicine has failed. Dr. Turner has a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

While getting her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley, Dr. Turner was shocked to discover that no one was studying episodes of radical (or unexpected) remission—when people recover against all odds without the help of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed. She was so fascinated by this kind of remission that she embarked on a year-long trip around the world, travelling to ten different countries to interview fifty holistic healers and twenty radical remission cancer survivors about their healing practices and techniques. Her research continued by interviewing over 100 Radical Remission survivors and further studying another 1000 similar cases.

The results of her extensive study, which initially focused on seventy-five factors, were subsequently narrowed down to 9 key factors that Dr. Turner found common among nearly every Radical Remission survivor she has studied. She goes into much more details about these 9 key factors in the book. In fact, each factor has its own chapter, as well as stories of how patients used these factors to participate actively in their healing journey.

Below are the 9 common key factors that these patients with radical remissions employed:

1. Radically changing your diet.

2. Taking control of your health.

3. Following your intuition.

4. Using herbs and supplements.

5. Releasing suppressed emotions.

6. Increasing positive emotions.

7. Embracing social support.

8. Deepening your spiritual connection.

9. Having strong reasons for living.

Out of the above 9 key factors that were associated with cases of remission and healing, only 2 of them were physical – radical diet change, and taking herbs and supplements, but surprisingly, the other seven were mental and emotional factors such as following intuition, releasing suppressed emotions, increasing positive emotions, embracing social support received from friends and family, and having a spiritual practice.

Besides the 9 key factors, Dr Turner identified three main types of cancer patients:

Those who chose western medicine and holistic methods to treat their cancer,
Those who chose only holistic methods,
Those who chose western medicine exclusively and then later turned to holistic methods as a last resort.

The common factor in all these 3 types of patients is that all saw similar and amazing results and all experienced a dramatic shift in their healing.

Dr Kelly Turner’s book, Radical Remission shows that it is possible to triumph over cancer, even in situations that seem hopeless. Encompassing diet, stress, emotions, spirituality, and other factors that profoundly affect our health and well-being, Turner’s discussion of how our choices can cause the seemingly miraculous to happen will open your eyes to what is possible when it comes to lasting healing.

This is a book for those who are in the midst of receiving conventional cancer treatment, who are looking for other options because the present treatment has done all that it can, or who seemingly have no options left but still feel that the future holds the possibility of hope.

If you wish to read more about radical remissions or more of Dr Turner’s work, do visit her website at www.RadicalRemission.com or listen to the following YouTube videos:

1) Radical Remission Book Trailer with Dr. Kelly Turner

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX0oeUuKDjU

2) Healing Cancer Naturally: Dr. Kelly Turner on Glimpse TV

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AszzdGqSwFw

3) Radical Remission! Amazing research on how people heal cancer

LINK:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQbJfAPKOqA

4) Radical Remission from Cancer with Kelly Turner

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZuUUEpX4yE

5) Radical Remission Interview with Jeannine Walston (brain cancer)

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR2zv8xG4Kw

6) Radical Remission Survivor Interview: Chris Wark (colon cancer)

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85swYuiFSwQ

If you are interested to read more books on how the mind, body and spirit can heal the body, we recommend the following (there are lots more):

1) MIND OVER MEDICINE…Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself by Dr Lissa Rankin, MD.

2) YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE…by Louise L. Hay…book and DVD.

3) THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles by Bruce H. Lipton, PhD.

HAPPY READING!

WHAT RADIATION THERAPY DOES TO THE BODY (PART 2)

by Yeong Sek Yee & Khadijah Shaari

Essentially, it burns the body. Radiation (or radiotherapy) is designed to kill cancer cells or damage their DNA in a way that keeps them from dividing. The goal may be to destroy a tumour; to shrink the tumour prior to surgery, allowing for a less invasive procedure; or to use radiation after surgery to reach any cancer cells inadvertently left behind. In some circumstances, radiation may also be used to relieve pain, such as by shrinking a tumour exerting on the spine.

However, do the benefits outweigh the risks or side effects? To find answers to this question, we reviewed some books written by prominent medical doctors to help us understand what radiation does to our body. Hopefully with this knowledge, you will be able to make a better judgment when your doctor tells you that…” you must do radiation, you have no choice, it is the standard operating procedure, etc”

In Part 1, we reviewed “A WORLD WITHOUT CANCER” by Dr Margaret Cuomo, a board-certified radiologist at North Shore University hospital in Manhasset, New York. In Chapter 4 Cut, Poison and Burn, Dr Cuomo made some very frank revelations. Some of these are:

Research indicates that advising patients to undergo radiation is not always appropriate.
Although we have gotten much better at aiming radiation directly at a tumor, we can’t target it with the precision necessary to burn only cancer cells and leave healthy ones intact. That means that this therapy, too, is damaging.
Acute side effects caused by radiation can also include skin irritation, damage to the salivary glands, urinary problems (if the abdominal area has been treated), and sometimes nausea. While many of these eventually disappear, some can linger for a long time or become permanent.
Months or even years after radiation, chronic side effects can surface. With radiation, as with chemotherapy, the list of potential problems is lengthy.
Most troubling is the possibility that other cancers will emerge, often near the original site, long after receiving radiation therapy…children who survived cancer were 15 times more likely to die of a subsequent cancer later in life.
Though the young are most vulnerable, secondary cancers can develop as a result of radiation at any age.
Breast cancer radiation seems to carry a particularly higher risk, and may be associated with subsequent lung cancer, as well as cancers of the blood vessels, bone and connective tissues.
Women who have received radiation for ovarian cancer may be more likely to develop cancers of connective tissues, the bladder, and the pancreas, while radiation for cervical cancer raises the risk of cancers of the colon, rectum, small intestine, uterus, ovary, kidney, soft tissue, and stomach.
Men treated with radiation for prostate cancer subsequently have a higher risk of cancers of the bladder, colon, and rectum, compared with men who had surgery. Those same risks, as well as others, are evident after radiation for testicular cancer.
Radiation exposure is also associated with leukemia (including acute myelogenous, chronic myelogenous, and acute lymphoblastic leukemias}.

What all this tells us is that, once again, we have a treatment that initially works well for some people some of the time but in the long run fails to deliver a cure and carries significant side effects.

Dr Cuomo concluded the chapter by revealing the comments of Carole Baggerly, a breast cancer patient who was alarmed by the effect of her radiation treatment. Initially hesitant, Carole decided to accept her oncologist’s reassurance that the side effects would be minimal, only to develop a red, oozing burn on her chest and more redness on her back. “It was extremely painful,” she recalls. “The fact that the redness went through to my back was proof that the x-rays had scattered.”

If you would like to research further on the dangers of radiation therapy, we recommend Dr Cuomo’s hard hitting article, “WHY CANCER TREATMENT IS FATALLY FLAWED “

Link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-i-cuomo-md/cancer-prevention_b_1609446.html

In this article, Dr Cuomo revealed that Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts announced that she had been diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) — a group of conditions in which the cells in the bone marrow are damaged…just barely having “beaten breast cancer” after having completed treatment involving chemotherapy and radiation which are both risk factors for MDS. In fact, ionizing radiation, according to Dr Cuomo, increases the risk for MDS.

You can read Robin Roberts story on MDS at the following link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/robin-roberts-mds-bone-marrow_n_1586151.html

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Is this why conventional cancer treatment is referred to as “the Cancer Industry?” Is this healing or what do you want to call it?

We welcome your opinion.

Using Bad Statistics to Mislead

Dr. Ben Goldacre in Bad Science, pg. 186-187, wrote:

We can look at how these numbers and calculations … are repeatedly misused and misunderstood.
Numbers … can ruin lives.

Sensationalising

Newspapers like big numbers and eye-catching headlines (only newspapers? No, all those with vested interests love to indulge in them too! In fact this is the way they can mislead you and me!).
They need miracle cures and hidden scares… small percentage shifts … will never be enough for them to sell readers to advertisers.
To this end they pick the single most melodramatic and misleading way of describing any statistical increase …..

Example of How to Massage Data: Reporting of Relative Risk Reduction

Take a hypothetical case. Out of 100 men in their fifties with normal cholesterol, 4 will be expected to have a heart attack, whereas out of 100 men with high cholesterol, 6 will be expected to have a heart attack.

How to make a cholesterol scare?

If you put it in layman’s language (i.e. using the natural frequencies) there is no impact. Among those men with high cholesterol only an extra of 2 heart attacks per hundred. No big deal, right? Cholesterol will not scare you.

Here is how the professional of numbers or statisticians play their tricks on us.

It is equally right (mathematically speaking) to say that cholesterol increases the Relative Risk of heart attack by 50 percent!

This is how they massage the same data to make it more dramatic. Four men out of 100 will have heart attack with normal cholesterol, 6 men out of 100 if the cholesterol is high. The increase of 2 heart attacks out of 4. You can then legitimately say cholesterol increase heart attack by 50 percent!

In chapter 2 of Honest Medicine Dr. Donald Murphy wrote:

Let’s consider the aspirin … a hypothetical study. Researchers found that 10 of 1,000 volunteers who took one aspirin a day had a heart attack. They found that 20 of the 1,000 volunteers who took the placebo (sugar pill) had a heart attack.
How will the medical journals and the medial report this difference? How will the scientist and the media emphasize the importance of this finding? They will most likely report the relative risk reduction (RRR).
In this example, the RRR is an impressive 50 percent: going from 20 to 10 is a 50 percent change.
You get the impression that you can cut your risk of a heart attack in half by taking aspirin.
Take a closer look at these numbers. Only 10 out of the 1,000 volunteers taking aspirin benefit from this drug. The study also shows that 980 of the volunteers taking aspirin wouldn’t have a heart attack anyway because 980 of the volunteers taking the placebo didn’t have a heart attack. 10 of the volunteers would have a heart attack whether they took aspirin or not. The other 10 volunteers are the only ones who prevented a heart attack due to aspirin.
In this example, going from 2 percent (20 /1,000) to 1 percent (10/1,000) is only a 1 percent change. That is the likelihood that you would prevent a heart attack if you took aspirin — benefit of only 1 percent.
“Cut your risk of a heart attack by 1 percent” doesn’t have the punch of the headline as “ASPIRIN CUST RISK OF HEART ATTACK BY 50 PERCENT”.

Do you see how the benefit of 1 percent can be massaged and made to look great by “legitimately” turning into 50 percent relative risk reduction? Again let me emphasize, the stark reality is that out of the 100 people who take aspirin, only 2 people will benefit from it, in terms of preventing heart attack. Data presented in simple, raw form tells the truth more honestly!

A Word about Statistical Significance

When medical journals and the media report important findings, they refer to statistical significance. Statistics are based on probabilities, not on absolutes. A study that is statistically significant may not be clinically significant for you.

If a medical study reports that a finding is statistically significant, it means the finding is probably real and not just a matter of chance … science does not consist of only black and white facts. It is full of gray areas and can be very subjective …facts may not be so factual after all …. and health care is not black and white.

Things Get More Complicated

When prescribed medication or told to undergo chemotherapy, some patients are full of trust, taking for granted that this is best for them. But some patients are more empowered. They wanted to know the possible outcome of the treatment. The want simple straight forward answers, as below:

For example when undergoing breast cancer treatment, you may wish to ask: For all the surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy (and tamoxifen) that you have been told to go for.

• How many patients were cured?

• How many died?

• How many survived after one, two, three, five or ten years after the treatments?

• How many contracted metastases of the liver, bone, lungs, etc.?

• Is there any correlation between the treatments they received and the metastases that occurred?

These questions and their answers are pertinent to all people. You need to know the answers to these basic questions, to be able to make some kind of informed decisions. Unfortunately when you need the medical literature, you will be carried away! Lost in medical or statistical jargons! You don’t get straight answers to the questions above.

Terminology Used to Clinical Trials

Oncologists use the term endpoint to refer to an outcome they are trying to measure with a clinical trial. Understanding endpoints is absolutely critical to understanding the technical medical literature. All journal articles reporting on clinical trials will report the results in terms of the endpoints which were measured. If you don’t understand what they mean, you can’t understand the article.

For example, oncologists frequently use the term “respond” to treatment; or they say, “you are responding to the treatment.” Do you know what “respond” might mean?

Response

Response is about measuring tumor shrinkage. Response is not used where the primary tumor has been removed surgically since in that case there are no detectable tumors to measure.

There are many kinds of responses:

Complete Response (CR): This means all detectable tumor has disappeared. A complete response does not necessarily mean the patient is cured. Even when no tumor can be seen on scans, there can be residual tumor which is too small to detect, and so unfortunately, complete responses may not last. A patient who has had a complete response may be said to be “NED”. NED means “No Evidence of Disease”.
Partial Response (PR): This roughly corresponds to at least a 50% decrease in the total tumor volume but with evidence of some residual disease still remaining. Partial responses aren’t usually cures and usually aren’t a long term benefit because significant tumor remains.
Minor Response (MR): This roughly means a small amount of shrinkage. Roughly speaking, a minor response is more than 25% of total tumor volume but less than the 50% that would make it a PR. A minor response is not enough to be considered a true response.
Stable Disease (SD): Stable disease means the tumors stay the same size or “insignificant” changes. This may include either a small amount of growth (typically less than 20 or 25%) or a small amount of shrinkage. You may wish to know that some periods of stability are relatively common in some kinds of cancer even without treatment. Therefore, it is difficult to know if stable disease is the result of treatment. Claims of benefit for new treatments involving stable disease should be examined skeptically.
Progressive Disease (PD): Progressive disease means the tumor has grown significantly or that new tumors have appeared. The appearance of new tumors is always progressive disease. Progressive disease normally means the treatment has failed and in most cases is the signal that it’s time to try something else (or stop treatment altogether if no good options remain).

Objective Response (OR): Objective response means either a partial or complete response (In the literature you’ll frequently see “CR+PR” which means the same thing). When you see an objective response rate be sure to look at how many are complete responses and how many are partial since benefits from complete response tend to be greater. Often news reports and especially press releases by self-interested companies blur this and don’t reveal that the CR rate is low or non-existent. Track down the original source and find out!

“Clinical Benefit”: Clinical benefit is an informal term which usually means anything other than progressive disease. Use of this term is suspect, particularly if it is in a press release or news report. It isn’t automatically clear that patients with stable disease are benefiting from treatment since the natural history of cancer can include periods of apparent stable disease and since tumor shrinkage is not equal to clinical benefit to begin with.

Survival

Improvement in survival is generally considered to be the gold standard and is therefore a very important endpoint in cancer trials. It directly benefits patients.

Survival is an unambiguous end point that is not subject to investigator bias or interpretation. It is an end point that can be assessed easily, frequently, and without reliance on tumor measurements of any kind.

Therapies with a high treatment-related mortality might fail to show a survival benefit even if tumor control is substantially better with the new treatment.

Frequently, a big deal is made out of treatments which improve median survival by only a few weeks or months.

The common jargon used is OS, Overall Survival besides the different shades of survival.

Progression Free Survival

Progression Free Survival is the length of time you are both alive and free from any significant increase in your cancer (free from progression).

Disease Free Survival

Disease Free Survival is a special case of Progression Free Survival used as an endpoint in the clinical trials of adjuvant therapy to prevent recurrence after surgery to completely remove all visible cancer. In this case “progression” means the patient has had a recurrence.

Progression free survival and disease free survival can translate to an improvement in quality of life since symptoms from the cancer are delayed – but only if side effects of treatment aren’t worse.

Quality of Life

Quality of Life is supposed to measure how you feel and how you function. Although quality of life is certainly important in the broad sense, unfortunately, there is no unambiguous physical measurement or definable property which corresponds to your “Quality of Life”.

Quality of Life is therefore measured using a brief questionnaire in which patients rate their ability to function in various ways and enjoy life. Patients typically fill out the questionnaire several times during the course of the trial.

Quoted from: http://cancerguide.org/endpoints.html

Using Emotions of Fear or Hope to Sell Cancer Treatments

Our website, http://www.cacare.com has this opening sentences:

CANCER ! Don’t panic ! Haste is from the Devil ~ Arab saying.

Why do you visit this website? We believe you are seeking information to enable you or your loved ones to make certain decisions about his/her cancer. Our advice is: Read as much as possible. Gather information from different sources. Cast your net wider and read what others from different disciplines have to say about the same subject. Get out of the box and view your problem in a different light.

Often, in the face of fear, hopelessness and panic we forget to use our commonsense. Calm down. A decision made in haste or under pressure is never a good decision. Remember, you don’t get cancer just only yesterday.

When we go to the hospital, we go with full faith and trust. We believe that the doctors have our best interests in their hearts – after all, medicine is a noble profession! Unfortunately medicine has morphed into something else today!

The treatment of disease is not a science … but a thriving industry ~ Sir James Barr, Vice President, British Medical Association.

Physicians are called to service, to put patients’ good above our own. That’s a very spiritual calling. But with … making medicine a business, we’re … losing that sense of purpose and meaning ~ Christina Puchalski, professor of medicine, George Washington University. Reader’s Digest Sept. 2001.

People go where the money is, and you’d like to believe it’s different in medicine, but it’s really no different in medicine. When you start thinking of oncology as a business, then all these decisions make sense ~ Dr. Robert Geller, oncologist. New York Times, 12 June 2007 by Alex Beresen.

On the morning of 31 May 2014, I woke up to read the following titles in the internet! It is sad. But this is the reality of the medical industry! Please read these …

1. Cancer Ads Focus On Emotion, Not Facts: Are Consumers Being Misled About Treatment Options?

Advertisements released by U.S. cancer centers in magazines and on TV may be delivering the wrong message.
The grueling battle with cancer is one that many people undergo with little knowledge already at-hand. Popular outlets such as TV and magazines may prove unhelpful in that regard … these ads focus more on emotion than on facts.
Consumers gain little information about treatment costs, risks, or even its benefits in concrete, quantitative terms.
If the ads were anything to go by, the data suggests that patients would hope for survival rather than evaluate their chances.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/cancer-ads-focus-emotion-not-facts-are-consumers-being-misled-about-treatment-options-284828

2. Analysis Shows Advertising by Cancer Centers Frequently Evokes Hope and Fear, but Provides Little Information.

Advertisements frequently promoted cancer therapy with emotional appeals that evoked hope and fear, while rarely providing information about risks, benefits, costs, or insurance availability. The researchers suggest that the ads may lead patients to pursue care that is either unnecessary or unsupported by scientific evidence.
Pursuit of unnecessary tests or treatment may … expose patients to avoidable risks and contribute to increasing costs.

http://www.ascopost.com/ViewNews.aspx?nid=16259

3. Nine of 10 cancer center ads use emotional fluff to attract patients, with little mention of success rates, risks or cost.

Cancer centers and hospitals are competing for your business …. Many cancer charities use the same methods to raise money, which I discuss in my most popular video.

http://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/cancer-center-ads-use-emotional-appeals/

4. Cancer Center Ads Use Emotion, Promise Cure.

In their advertisements to the general public, cancer centers in the US use emotional appeals that evoke hope and fear, and rarely provide information about risks, benefits, costs … The approach may lead to unrealistic expectations and inappropriate treatments, it warns.

Emotional appeals were a cornerstone of most ads …. Most stressed survival or potential for cure rather than comfort, quality of life, or patient-centered care.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/825701

5. Study: Cancer ads tug at heartstrings, leave out caveats.

Advertisements for cancer centers are inflated with emotions, but fail to disclose the fine print….
A systematic content analysis of these ads found that the content is sharply directed at a would-be patient’s heartstrings:
85% made emotional appeals to consumers
b. 61% used language about hope, extension of life, or a cure
c. 52% touted innovative, or advanced technology or treatments
d. 30% evoked fear by mentioning death, fear, or loss.
Noticeably missing from most of the TV and magazine ads is information about the risks, scientific-supported benefits and cost:
a. 2% disclosed the risks of the cancer treatment
b. 5% mentioned cost of treatment
Emotion-based advertisement is a powerful means of persuasion and potentially harmful to the consumer.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/26/study-cancer-ads-tug-at-heartstrings-leave-out-caveats/comment-page-1/

6. Cancer Center Advertisements Focus on Emotional Appeals.

MedicalResearch: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Dr. Schenker: Cancer center advertisements are increasingly common. I think it is important for clinicians and patients to be aware of the focus on survival and potential cure in these advertisements, as well as the use of emotional appeals. I would encourage patients to seek more complete and balanced sources of information – and to talk with a trusted physician – when facing important decisions about their cancer care.

http://medicalresearch.com/cancer-_-oncology/cancer_center_advertisements_focus_on_emotional_appeals/5545/

The above comments came about as a result of research conducted by Vater et al and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 27 May 2014, What Are Cancer Centers Advertising to the Public?: A Content Analysis.

A total of 102 cancer centers placed 409 unique clinical advertisements in top media markets in 2012. They found out that the:

Advertisements promoted treatments (88%) more often than screening (18%) or supportive services (13%).
Benefits of advertised therapies were described more often than risks (27% vs. 2%) but were rarely quantified (2%).
Few advertisements mentioned coverage or costs (5%).
Emotional appeals were frequent (85%), evoking hope for survival (61%), describing cancer treatment as a fight or battle (41%), and inducing fear (30%).
Nearly one half of advertisements included patient testimonials, which were usually focused on survival, rarely included disclaimers (15%), and never described the results that a typical patient may expect.

The Journal’s editorial weighed in with more comments:

In her classic essay, Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag suggested that the negative metaphor and myths surrounding cancer increase the suffering of patients.
Vater and colleagues ….found that … benefits of advertised therapies were emphasized more often than risks, and specific data were rarely given.
Appeals were largely emotional rather informational, sometimes seemed to equate treatment with cure and most often focused on survival rather than comfort or quality of life.
The authors suggest that the focus may contribute to unrealistic expectations about treatment benefits among patients with cancer … and may even lead to inappropriate treatments.

Almost every day I have people writing or coming to me asking for help about their cancer. This is my advice, no matter who you go to – medical doctor or alternative practitioner.

If you are asked to undergo any treatment, ask the following questions first (don’t be led by the nose):

a. Can the treatment cure your cancer?

b. If the answer is “Yes”, better think a million times before you take the recommended path! My experience shows there is no such thing as a cure!

c. If you are told you have a 60 percent chance of success, make sure that you understand what this percentage means to you. Know that only 6 out of 10 patient succeed! Success may not mean anything! What is it, cure? Know that that this statistics may not apply to you at all. Six succeeded but how sure that you belong to the 6 and not the 4 who failed?

d. Patients tell me that often they get these answers when they ask about their cancer of cure: Ask God! or We shall try and see. Such answers imply that you are in the game of luck, not science anymore.

e. Another favourite answer is, No cure, but can prolong life. Ask, prolong life for how long? Some drugs only prolong life by a few days, a few weeks or a few months, rarely years!

f. Even if the treatment prolongs life, it comes with a great cost in terms of side effects and money. Decide, if the extra time of being alive (but ended up being a vegetable) is worth it?

g. Ask about the side effects of the treatment. Very often the “bad effects” are toned down! Some don’t want to even tell you about them! It is wise to visit the oncology ward of the hospital and see for yourself (and ask) those who have undergone the treatments. Check about treatment by reading what others say in the internet.

h. Ask about the total cost of the treatment. It is foolish to proceed with the treatment half way and then found later that you don’t have to enough money to complete the journey!