Patrick Quillin PhD RDYou are your best physician. No one knows your body better than you.
Only you can fully appreciate and interpret your symptoms. Only you can make
lifestyle changes that will improve your outcome. You are the one who will
benefit or suffer from choices regarding therapy. This book provides you
with more than a sense of empowerment regarding your treatment. This book
is your map to help guide you through the “mine field” of choices
that await the cancer patient.
In the terrifying film, “The Predator”, a chameleon-like beastfrom outer space
descends upon the sweltering jungles of Central America
to hunt humans, including Arnold Schwartzenager. If you sweated through
this film, then you have an idea of how hard it is to kill cancer. The Predator
wore a shield which allowed it to blend into the surrounding environment,
making it almost invisible. Cancer mimics the chemistry of a fetus, and
hence becomes invisible to the human immune system. Cancer also mutates
by changing its DNA composition almost weekly, which is a major reason why
many cancers develop a drug resistance that often limits the value of chemotherapy.
Cancer also weakens its host by installing its own abnormal biochemistry,
including:
- changes in the pH, or acid base balance, making the environment more
favorable for cancer growth and less favorable for host recovery n creation
of anaerobic (oxygen deprived) pockets of tissue which resist radiation
therapy like someone hunkered into a bomb shelter
- blunting the immune system, which is the primary means of fighting cancer
- elevating metabolism and calorie needs while simultaneously lowering
appetite and food intake to slowly starve the host
- ejecting by-products that create weakness, apathy, pain and
depression in the host
- siphoning nutrients out of the bloodstream like a parasite.
With its invisible, predatory and every-changing nature, cancer is truly
a tough condition to treat. Cancer is essentially an abnormal cell growth.
It is a piece of the cancer patient that was once normal, but somehow developed
altered DNA blueprints and began growing wildly. Its unchecked growth tends
to overwhelm other functions in the body until death comes from:
1. Organ failure, i.e. the kidneys shut down
2. Infection, i.e. pneumonia because the immune system has been blunted
3. Malnutrition, because the parasitic cancer shifts the host’s metabolism
into high gear through inefficient use of fuel while also inducing a loss
of appetite.
There is a basic flaw in our thinking about health care in this country.
We treat symptoms, not the underlying cause of the disease. Yet, the only
way to provide long-lasting relief in any degenerative disease, like cancer,
arthritis and heart disease, is to reverse the basic cause of the disease.
For example, let’s say that you developed a headache because your neighbor’s
teenager is playing drums too loudly. You take an aspirin to subdue the
headache, then your stomach starts churning. So you take some antacids to
ease the stomach nausea, then your blood pressure goes up. And on it goes.
We shift symptoms with medication, as if in a bizarre “shell game”,
when we really need to deal with the fundamental cause of the disease.
A more common example is heart disease. There are over 60,000 miles of blood
vessels in the average adult body. When a person develops blockage in the
arteries near the heart, open heart bypass surgery will probably be recommended.
In this procedure, a short section of vein from the leg is used to replace
the plugged up vessels near the heart. But what has been done to improve
the other 59,999 miles left that are probably equally obstructed? A Harvard
professor, Dr. E. Braunwald, investigated the records from thousands of
bypass patients in the Veteran’s Administration Hospitals and found no improvement
in lifespan after this expensive and risky surgery.1 Why? Because the underlying
cause; which could be a complex array of diet, exercise, stress, and toxins;
has not been resolved. Bypass surgery treats the symptoms of heart disease
like chemo and radiation treat the symptoms of cancer. Each provide temporary
relief, but no long term cure.
Meanwhile, Dr. Dean Ornish has spent years developing a program that both
prevents and reverses heart disease, something that drugs and surgery cannot do.
His program recently was found effective in a clinical study. When you
deal with the underlying causes of a degenerative disease, you are more
likely to get long term favorable benefits. When you allow the fundamental
causes to continue and merely treat the symptoms that surface, then the
outlook for the patient is dismal. In dozens of diseases and millions of
patients, this obvious law holds true.
The crucial missing link in most cancer therapy is stimulating the patient’s
own healing abilities. Because the best medical equipment cannot detect
one billion cancer cells. Imagine leaving behind only one billion dandelion
seeds on your lawn after you thought you got them
all. After a lifetime of battling bacteria as the root of all infectious diseases,
Pasteur claimed on his deathbed, “the terrain [host environment] is
everything.” We have developed an equally illogical “war on farm pests”,
in which we blast the food crop with lethal doses of pesticides
in an attempt to kill the bugs. Yet, the bugs adapt to the poison, while
the natural predators of these bugs die off. The net effect with both chemical
warfare on our food crop is the same as chemical warfare on the cancer patient:
we oftentimes make the situation worse.
Most experts now agree that the war on bugs can be won by using the time-tested
laws of nature: food crops develop their own pest resistance when grown on well-nourished
soil, early preventive intervention to stop problems before they become overwhelming,
rotating crops and using natural predators to eat insects. Similarly, the “war on
cancer” is an internal microscopic war that can only be won by working
within the laws of nature: stimulating the patient’s own abilities to fight cancer
while changing the abnormal conditions that allow cancer to grow. All other
therapies are doomed to disappointing results. Combined together, these
treatments of external medicine coupled with stimulating the cancer patient’s
internal healing abilities hold great promise for dramatically improving your
chances of success against cancer.
What Causes Cancer?
Most degenerative diseases, including cancer, do not
have a readily identifiable enemy. In a bacterial infection, you can attack
the “cause” of the disease with an antibiotic. Cancer seems to be
caused by a collection of lifestyle and environmental factors that accumulate
over the years. Since success against any degenerative disease requires getting
to the root of the problem, let’s examine the accepted causes of cancer.
Of the 5 million registered chemicals in the world, mankind comes in contact
with 70,000, of which at least 20,000 are known carcinogens, or cancer-causing agents.
Each year, America alone sprays 1.2 billion pounds of pesticides on our food crops,
dumps 90 billion pounds of toxic waste in our 55,000 toxic waste sites, feeds 9 million
pounds of antibiotics to our farm animals to help them gain weight faster and
generally bombards the landscape with questionable amounts of electromagnetic
radiation.
Bruce Ames, PhD of the University of California at Berkeley has estimated that
each of the 60 trillion cells in your body undergoes from 1,000 to 10,000 DNA “hits”
or potentially cancer-causing breaks every day. Yet somehow for most of us,
our DNA repair mechanisms and immune system surveillance are able to keep
this storm of genetic damage under control. Wallowing in our own high
tech effluvia is a major cause of cancer in modern society, since carcinogens
add to the fury of the continuous assault on the DNA. Noted authority, Samuel
Epstein, MD of the University of Illinois, says that a major thrust of cancer
prevention must be detoxifying our earth. Toxins not only cause DNA breakage, which
can trigger cancer, but also subdue the immune system, which then allows cancer
to become the “fox in the chicken coop”, with no controlling force.
Early research indicated that once cancer has been upregulated, or “the
lion is out of the cage”, then no amount of detoxification is going to matter.
Newer evidence says otherwise. Cancer growth can both be slowed
and even reversed under the right conditions. According to the National
Cancer Institute, there are 7 million Americans alive today who have lived 5 or
more years after their cancer diagnosis. Cancer is reversible. If toxins
caused the problem, then detoxification is the solution. Detoxification
includes expelling accumulated:
- wastes that are natural by-products of living
- toxins from our heavily polluted environment
- dead cancer cells from the battle within.
Detoxification involves accelerating the excretion of poisons out of the body
via urine, sweat, and feces, including the use of chelation, herbal purgatives,
hot baths and enemas.
Distress. It was the Canadian physician and researcher, Hans Selye,
MD, who coined the term “the stress of life” as he could document the
physiological changes that took place in lab animals when exposed to noise, bright
lights, confinement and electric shocks. The thymus gland is a pivotal organ in immune
system protection against infections and cancer. Dr. Selye noted that stress would
induce thymus gland shrinkage, increases in fats in the blood (for the beginnings
of heart disease) and erosion of the stomach lining (ulcers).
Since the 1920s, scientific evidence has been gathering that emotional
stress can depress the immune system and make that individual more vulnerable to
infections and cancer. It was Norman Cousins’ book, Anatomy of an Illness,
which thrust this mind-body principle in front of the public. After 10 years
of lecturing and researching at the University of California at Los Angeles,
Cousins’ theories held valid under scientific scrutiny.
Carl Simonton, MD, a radiation oncologist, found that his mental imagery
techniques seemed to produce better results with fewer side effects for
his cancer patients. Bernie Siegel, MD, a Yale surgeon, found that certain
mental characteristics helped his cancer patients to recover. Candace Pert, PhD, a celebrated researcher at the National Institutes of Health, discovered
endorphins in human brains and led the charge toward unravelling the chemical mysteries
of the mind. Dr. Pert says that the mind is a pharmacy and is continuously producing
potent substances that either improve or worsen health. Since the mind can
create cancer,it should seem a logical leap that the mind can help to prevent and even
subdue cancer. Many alternative therapists use a wide variety of psychological
approaches to help rid the body of cancer.
According to Dr. Arthur Janov, the anaerobic cancer may stem from the suffocating
experience of being born from a heavily sedated mother. Primal therapy coaxes
the near -death suffocation experience out of the adult patient to theoretically
eliminate the cause of cancer.2 Clearly, there is some mental link in the
development of cancer for many patients. 3 I have worked with many cancer patients whose
major hurdle was spiritual healing. While dietary changes are difficult for many people,
it is far easier to change the diet or take some nutrient pills than change the way
we think. Pulling emotional splinters are an essential and painful
experience. Not only is there a metaphysical link to cancer, but the site of
the cancer may provide clues regarding howto fix the problem. Many breast cancer
patients have experienced a recent divorce, which results in the loss of a femine organ.
One patient of mine suffered from cancer of the larynx, which began one year after his
wife left him with the thought “there’s nothing you can say that will make
me stay.” If spiritual wounds started the cancer, then spiritual healing
is an essential element for a cure.
Nutrition. The human body is built from, repaired by
and fueled by substances found in the diet. In the most literal sense, “we
are what we eat…and think, and breath, and do.” Nutrition therapy
merely tries to re-establish “metabolic balance” in the cancer patients. Medical
doctors Gerson, Moerman and Livingston have each provided their own nutrition programs to
treat cancer. Other schools of thought include macrobiotics, vegetarianism, acid
/alkaline balancing, fasting, fruit and vegetable juicing and others. I will assess
all of these therapies in more detail later. After decades of living outside the
accepted realm of cancer therapies, nutrition therapy has found a new level of
scientific acceptance with the 1990 report from the Office of Technology Assessment,
an advisory branch of Congress, whose expert scientific panel wrote in
Unconventional Cancer Treatments:“It is our collective professional
judgment that nutritional interventions are going to follow psychosocial interventions
up the ladder into clinical respectability as adjunctive and complementary approaches
to the treatment of cancer.” 4
Exercise. While one out of three Americans will eventually develop cancer,
only one out of seven active Americans will get cancer. Exercise imparts many
benefits, including oxygenation of the tissues to thwart the anaerobic
needs of cancer cells. Exercise also helps to stabilize blood glucose levels,
which can restrict the amount of fuel available for cancer cells to grow.
Exercise improves immune function, lymph flow and detoxification
systems. Exercise helps us better tolerate stressful situations. For cancer
patients who can participate, exercise improves tolerance to chemotherapy.
Some therapists use hydrogen peroxide or ozone to oxygenate the tissue. Humans
evolved as active creatures. Inactivity is an abnormal under-oxygenated metabolic
stateso is cancer.
Patient Profile
V, female, 51 years old. In July of 1990 she underwent a hysterectomy and
extensive chemotherapy after a diagnosis of uterine cancer. DV was admitted to our
facility in March of 1991 with metastases to both lungs and extensive pain in the bones
and joints. Narcotics only aggravated her constipation and did not help the bone pain.
In addition to a chemo regimen administered in fractionated dosage, DV began a
vegetarian diet while taking nutritional supplements, including a broad spectrum
vitamin and mineral product, beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, fish oil
(EPA) and Wobenzym digestive enzymes. Within 2 months, her general
condition improved markedly. Her pain diminished and her quality of life was quite
good. She renewed her interest in gardening and involvement in her daughter’s life.
As of July 1993, DV remains in very good condition.
References
1. Braunwald, E., New England Journal Medicine, vol.309, p.1181, Nov.10, 1983
2. Janov, A., THE NEW PRIMAL SCREAM, Enterprise, Wilmington, DE,1991
3. Newell, GR, Primary Care in Cancer, p.29, May 1991
4. Office of Technology Assessment, UNCONVENTIONAL CANCER TREATMENTS, p.14
Jim Strohecker
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD