Cancer
Background
There are many helpful natural treatments that your physician may not know about. There is also a good amount of nonsense out there. Although too broad an issue to cover fully in this section, here is some information that could save your life.
Although most oncologists are very well-meaning and caring individuals, chemotherapy and radiation therapy is an extremely profitable area. This makes it easy to simply go to conferences and see what the esteemed (and usually on the drug company payroll) professors are saying, promoting the newest and usually most expensive chemotherapy agents. The oncologists are assured that the treatment helps the patients, and it is profitable for the physician, so why question it. Meanwhile, it is implied that anyone proposing a natural (and therefore competing) treatment for cancer must simply be trying to "rip off desperate and vulnerable patients" and therefore physicians must protect the gullible public from these charlatans. This convenient belief system allows the medical establishment to self righteously ensure that the public does not have ready access to alternative cancer therapies. Remarkably, even when simply discussing the scientific research on natural treatments for cancer, it is legally necessarily to talk about "promoting health" rather than simply discussing what the research shows. Sadly, this protects the cancer industry’s profits at your expense.
This is not to say that one should not take chemotherapy or radiation therapy for cancer. In many cases, these can be life saving. In some cases, however, these treatments offer minimal benefit at the cost of enormous toxicity and expense, and in other cases (such as blocking testosterone in early prostate cancer patients) actually may offer the patient no benefit despite causing marked toxicity.
It is hard to know what to do when your oncologist (and most are incredibly caring and well meaning) criticizes taking natural therapies while your natural doctor says it’s the chemo that’s killing you. The good news is that there is really little or no conflict between natural and medical cancer treatments — just between the people offering them. The premise of "Comprehensive Medicine," which is to use the best of natural and prescription therapies, applies brilliantly in treating cancer.
Treatments
There are a very large number of natural cancer therapies that have been proven through research to help support optimal health in those with cancer.
Most cancers will have research on natural treatments that are very promising. These include breast, prostate, and colon cancers. In addition, cancer pain is very treatable. There is hope. You can take back control of your life — even if you have cancer! Find a holistic physician or Naturopath (www.IFM.org or www.Naturopathic.org ) who specializes in cancer care to guide you.