| | Nutritional Medicine: Treatments Currently Used for Cancer | |
In order to know where we are going in cancer treatment, it is important
to know where we have been and how we got where we are. This chapter looks
at both conventional and alternative cancer treatment methods to give you
a better understanding of our "roots" in cancer treatment options.
For a more thorough discussion of conventional therapies, read CANCER THERAPY
by Mallin Dollinger, MD; for alternative therapies, read CANCER THERAPY
by Ralph Moss, PhD.
Conventional Therapies
Chemotherapy is a spin-off product from the chemical warfare of World
Wars I and II and is now given to 75% of all American cancer patients. Yale
University pharmacologists who were working on a government project during
World War II to develop an antidote for mustard gas noted that bone marrow
and lymphoid tissue were heavily damaged by these poisons. That observation
led to experiments in which mustard gas was injected into mice with lymphomas
(cancer of the lymph glands) and produced remission. In 1943, researchers
found that mustard gas had a similar effect on human Hodgkins disease.1
Chemo has also become a useful agent against testicular cancer, which is
now 92% curable. Most proponents of chemo now recognize the limitations
of using chemo as sole therapy against many types of cancer.
Shortly after these initial exciting discoveries, progress on chemo cures
quickly plateaued and forced the innovative thinkers into creative combinations
of various chemo drugs, which is now the accepted practice. In the 1980s,
oncologists began using chemo by "fractionated drip infusion"
in the hospital rather than one large (bolus) injection in the doctor's
office. The fractionated method was not only more effective against the
cancer but also less toxic on the patient. Think of the difference in toxicity
between taking 2 glasses of wine with dinner each night, or guzzling all
14 glasses at one time at the end of the week. Also, fractionated drip infusion
is more likely to catch the cancer cells in their growth phase, while bolus
injections are a random guess to coincide with the growth phase of cancer.
In the next evolutionary step, borrowing from technology developed for heart
disease, oncologists began using catheters (thin tubes) that could be inserted
into an artery (called intra-arterial infusion) to deliver chemo at the
site of the tumor, once again improving response and reducing overall toxicity.
Radiation therapy is given to about 60% of all cancer patients. In
1896, a French physicist, Marie Curie discovered radium, a radioactive metal.
For her brilliance, Madam Curie was eventually awarded two Nobel prizes
and was considered one of the founders of radiation therapy and the nuclear
age. For her unprotected use of radioactive materials, she eventually died
while still young of leukemia. Cancer patients were soon being treated with
a new technique developed by the German physicist, Wilhelm Roentgen, called
radiation therapy. This technique relies on regional destruction of unwanted
tissue through ionizing radiation that disrupts the DNA of all bombarded
cells. Radiation therapy can be externally or internally originated, high
or low dose and delivered with uncanny computer-assisted precision to the
site of the tumor. Brachytherapy, or interstitial radiation therapy, places
the source of radiation directly into the tumor, as an implanted seed. New
techniques use radiation in combination with heat therapy (hyperthermia).
Surgery is the first treatment of choice for about 67% of cancer
patients. By 1600 B.C., Egyptian physicians were excising tumors using knives
or red-hot irons.2 By physically removing the obvious tumor,
physicians feel that they have the best chance for overall success. Unfortunately,
many tumors are so entwined with delicate body organs, such as brain and
liver, that the tumor cannot be resected (cut out). Another concern is that
partial removal of a cancer mass may open the once-encapsulated tumor to
spread, like opening a sack of dandelion seeds on your lawn.
Biological therapies, as with most other discoveries, were the product
of accidents being observed by a bright mind. William B. Coley, MD, a New
York cancer surgeon scoured the hospital records around 1890 looking for
some clue why only a minority of patients survived cancer surgery. He found
that a high percentage of survivors had developed an infection shortly after
the surgery to remove the cancer. This observation led Dr. Coley to inject
a wide variety of bacteria, known as Coley's cocktail, into his cancer patients,
who then underwent the feverish recovery phase, with noteworthy cancer cures
produced. Infections were found to induce the immune system into a higher
state of activity, which then helped to destroy tumors. From this crude
beginning, molecular biologists have found brilliant ways of producing injectable
amounts of the immune factors that can theoretically fight cancer.
Even amidst our polluted, overstressed and poorly nourished society, most
people do not die of cancer--due to the protection afforded by our immune
systems; which is a well-orchestrated army of specialized cells that kill
invaders, like cancer, bacteria and viruses. An over-reactive and out of
balance immune system creates auto-immune diseases, such as allergies, asthma,
Crohn's disease and arthritis. An under-reactive immune system leaves the
person open to cancer, infections and premature aging.
Biological therapies attempt to fine tune and focus the immune system into
a more vigorous attack on the cancer. Lymphokines are basically "bullets"
produced by the immune system to kill invading cells, such as cancer. Lymphokine
activated killer cells (LAK) are incubated in the laboratory in the presence
of a stimulator (interleukin-2) and then injected back into the cancer patient's
body for an improved immune response.3 In some lab tests, LAK
cells swarm on the tumor like ants on honey.
Interferon, interleukin, monoclonal antibodies and tumor necrosis factor
are among the leading contenders as biological therapies against cancer.
The downside of biological therapies is that most forms have extremely toxic
side effects, and none can be legally used even in approved experiments
unless that patient has been considered untreatable by the other three conventional
means. The National Cancer Institute is beginning to place more emphasis
on researching biological therapies.
Heat Therapy (hyperthermia). Cancer cells seem to be more vulnerable
to heat than normal healthy cells. Since the time of Hippocrates and the
Egyptian Pharoahs, heat therapy has been valued. Experts have shown that
applying heat to the patient elevates immune responses. Temperatures of
42 degrees Celsius or 107 degrees Fahrenheit will kill most cancer cells,
but can be quite stressful on the patient also. Could it be that exercise
induces regular "hyperthermia" to kill off cancer cells before
they can become a problem?
Whole body hyperthermia involves a very sophisticated hot tub device, general
anesthesia and medical supervision. Regional hyperthermia can involve either
a miniature waterbed-like device applied to the tumor or focused microwaves.
Major cancer research centers, including Stanford and Duke, have found this
therapy useful by itself, or used synergistically to improve the response
to chemo and radiation therapy.
Alternative Therapies
If you need emergency medical care, reconstructive surgery, orthopedic surgery
or critical life support, then an American hospital is where you will get
the world's best care. That's why alternative emergency care does not exist,
because our current system is working just find, thank you very much. Unfortunately,
not all areas of American medicine have such an impressive track record
of success. Many patients with cancer, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, arthritis,
AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, mental illness and muscular dystrophy
find little help from traditional medicine. When the accepted approach does
not work, the grounds are fertile for "alternative" approaches
to develop.
Among the many advantages of living in America, we are blessed with abundant
individual liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And we fight viciously to preserve these rights. The controversy of alternative
cancer treatment basically centers around the question "Which is more
important: the patient's right to choose whatever health care they want,
or the responsibility of the government to protect the unwarey consumer
from fraudulent practices?" This question is heated, polarized and
regularly doused with the emotional testimonies of someone who was cured
through alternative therapy after conventional therapy told he or she to
"go home and get your affairs in order."
Studies now show that up to 50% of all cancer patients use some form of
unconventional cancer therapy, with most of these people being of above-average
income and education.4 A newer study reported in the New England
Journal of Medicine from David Eisenberg, MD of Harvard Medical School shows
that Americans make more visits to alternative therapists than to family
physicians. Since the patient usually pays for alternative therapists while
insurance pays for most expenses in a family physician visit, these numbers
are quite astonishing. People don't keep going back and paying out of pocket
expenses unless they are getting some relief for their health problem. This
information somewhat debunks the theory that the government is protecting
poor uneducated minority consumers from predatory, dangerous and unproven
health care specialists.
While critics brand alternative cancer therapies as "unproven, questionable,
dubious, quackery and fraudulent"; proponents prefer the labels "complementary,
comprehensive, innovative, nontoxic, holistic, natural and noninvasive."
Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society has kept a list of about 100 cancer
therapies that the ACS calls "unproven". This blacklist has become
the "gatekeeper" in cancer treatment in America. Insurance companies
will not reimburse for "unproven or experimental" therapies.
Yet, are we using dual standards in judging our health care options? According
to the Office of Technology Assessment, only 10-20% of all surgical procedures
practiced in the United States have been "proven" to be effective
by controlled clinical trials.5 Much of what Americans do throughout
medicine, law, education and even business are more based on a "Grandfather
clause" or tradition, rather than being the best way to do things.
We oftentimes "pave cow paths" which are usually inefficient routes
from point A to point B, then consider these sacred and inviolable. If 50%
of cancer patients this year will seek alternative cancer care, which is
non-reimburseable, imagine the stampede toward alternative cancer treatment
if people could choose their own therapies.
Improvement in cancer treatment options may be coming soon. Retired Iowa
Congressman Berkley Bedell could only find cures for his Lyme disease, then
advanced and untreatable prostate cancer from alternative therapists. Mr.
Bedell told his powerbroker friends on Capitol Hill of his experiences.
Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the subcommittee on health issues, then
convinced his colleagues to allocate $2 million to form the Office of Alternative
Medicine as a branch of the National Institutes of Health. Many insurance
companies are awakening to the profitability of alternative cancer therapy
because: 1. the public wants it and is willing to pay for it, 2. alternative
cancer therapy costs about 10% of conventional cancer care and therefore
can be more profitable. Some pioneering insurance companies now reimburse
for alternative cancer treatment.6
The medical freedom advocates argue that a person afflicted with a terminal
disease deserves a chance at whatever therapies offer hope. Meanwhile, the
Food and Drug Administration cites examples in which premature permission
to use newly discovered therapies ended in disaster--like the Thalidomide
situation. However, lets compare the risk to benefit ratio of Thalidomide
and alternative cancer treatment:
It is unconstitutional to think that protecting the end-stage and otherwise
untreatable cancer patient from inexpensive and non-toxic therapies is a
government obligation. AIDS patients have become models of political activism
and have won this logic debate as the Food and Drug Administration now allows
many "compassionate use" variances for otherwise unapproved drugs
in AIDS therapy. Cancer patients, also, need a broader scope of treatment
options. To quote Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, 2400 years
ago: "Extreme diseases call for extreme measures." Nutrition therapy,
surely, is no more extreme than chemo, radiation therapy or surgery.
Alternative cancer therapies would best be categorized as:
It is clear that humans are a complex interplay of physical and metaphysical
forces. Many documented cases of paranormal psychology have shown that people
can alter autonomic bodily functions by entering suspended animation, walking
on hot coals without any burns, reading minds and living outside the laws
of nutrition. As humans become more spiritual or metaphysical, we tend to
transcend physical laws. Hence, the ultimate cancer cure may come from this
relatively untapped area of healing.
(Excerpted from Beating Cancer with Nutrition: Clinically Proven and Easy-To-Follow Strategies to Dramatically Improve Quality and Quantity of L ISBN: 0963837281)
 | Dr. Patrick Quillin, an internationally respected expert in the area of nutrition and cancer, has served as the Director of Nutrition for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (800-577-1255) for the past ten years.......more |
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