HEALTH AND WELLNESS : Cancer – Alternative Treatments; Role of Food and Nutrition

By His Grace and Blessings I write..

Cancer –  Alternative Treatments : Role of Food and Nutrition

In my previous blog on cancer, I highlighted limitations of conventional treatments. These line of treatment are largely paternalistic where Doctor-knows-best is accepted as the norm. These treatments though often denounced, remain the most common mode of treatment, especially with vulnerable patients-the frail, the poor, the elderly, and anyone else who tends to do what they are told.

Doctors offer false hopes and the dance moves. I agree to become a patient; the doctor agrees to fix me, whatever the improbability, the misery, the damage or the cost may be. The process of ODTAA-One Damn Thing After Other sets in and after a certain time the things  become very clear. Therapies give up. But I continue my journey with intense suffering and agony under this line of  treatment. A survey of patients suffering from terminal diseases has revealed that 2/3^rd of the patients are willing to undergo therapies they don’t want if that is what their loved ones want

Alternatives;

Now and then, a doctor comes across a case of a patient who against all odds has been miraculously healed of his terminal disease like cancer. This kind of healing defies all established principles of medical science.  This is called spontaneous healing, or spontaneous regression. In their 1966 book “Spontaneous Regression of Cancer”, WH Cole and T C Everson defined it (in the cases of cancer) as “ partial or complete disappearance of a malignant tumor in the absence of all treatment, or in the presence of therapy which is considered inadequate to exert significant influence on the neoplastic disease”.

In his 1985 essay entitled “The Median Isn’t the Message”, Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould shares his own experience of a deadly cancer which was incurable and which gave him only 8 months of life after its discovery in 1982. Following surgery and experimental therapy, he lived 20 more years before dying, in 2002, at the age of 60, from a lung cancer that was unrelated to his original disease.

Dr. David Servan, a neuroscientist, was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor and with a certain death in a few months. The doctor lived for 17 more years after this diagnosis.

Conventional treatments have largely overlooked such case of miraculous healing. The physical and mental principles associated with healing that get ignored .These include physically healing diets and immune systems,  and mentally healing  stress responses and identities .It is not seen that much of our  physical reality is created in our minds and perception changes our experiences, sometimes to the extent of changing our bodies. Healing our identities through our minds can thus activate our body’s healing systems.

The medical literature is full of evidences which prove that we can prevent most types of cancer by the way we live and eat. There is need to look at it in a holistic manner instead of compartmentalizing it. Our bodies are designed to fight and destroy cancer cells. There are 4 simple ways in which we can assist our bodies to fight and destroy the cancer cells..

1. Nutrition
2. Exercise
3. Stress Management
4. Avoiding Toxins

Nutrition;  Let food be thy medicine – Hippocrates

We have the power to determine whether we feed or starve cancer cells. Our nutrition today consists of fat, sugar and salt. These 3 components are embedded in all kinds of packaged foods, bakery products, soft drinks and fast foods that we consume. They may be labeled differently and marketed under different names and assurances; they all have these 3 basic components which inherently make us addictive. The fads of zero calorie or low or no sugar or no preservatives or natural etc etc are all created around these products with the aim of making us their addictive consumers. The food industry which consists likes of  Mc Donalds, Pizza Huts or KFC’s or chocolates, chocos, cokes or bakery industry , whatever their name be, actually exploit our biology  by making sugary/salty/fatty foods. They then addict us to their food through advertising. It must be remembered that this industry has at its disposal all the resources and capacity to confuse and misguide consumers by creating fake narratives around their products. The whole regulatory and approval systems are controlled by them with their mighty financial power.

Sugar and fat both cause inflammation. Chronic inflammation always favours development of growth of tumors. The reason is that inflammation compromises our immune systems and leads to birth and spread of cancerous cells in the body in the absence of this immunity to kill or destroy these malignant cells. Obese and overweight bodies which suffer from chronic inflammation are thus very prone to cancer. In India today more than 21% of the school going children, especially in urban areas are obese or overweight and they are the sitting ducks for this disease. The kind of food that is given to children in their lunch boxes or what they are fed at  school or college canteens is nothing short of a disaster for health.

Recent studies have suggested that sugar contributes to cancer in a major way. 1/3^rd of common cancers, including breast and colon cancer have something called insulin receptors on their surface. Insulin binds these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose. When we eat or drink sugar, it can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancer

Our bodies thrive on healthy foods like vegetables, fruits, unprocessed foods .These foods contain molecules and some of these molecules have a potent anti cancer properties. According to Dr Believau plant protect themselves against bacteria and virus by producing thousands and thousands of substances that kill the bacteria that try to eat them. These molecules are called Phyto-Chemicals. Out of thousands of these chemicals, a couple of thousands have anti-cancer properties. 50% of the clinical drugs that are used today to treat cancer are actually derivatives of these plants.

So if you eat plant based diets that include garlic, onion, tomato, pomegranate, broccoli, ginger, sprouts, strawberries etc, you will put in your blood stream these compounds that have known anti-cancer properties. Ginger and turmeric for example have high anti inflammatory properties. Moreover, the foods that have evolved in traditional societies have medicinal qualities.

Conclusion; Cancer is curable in many cases. we must change our dietary habits and starve the cancer cells with healthy food which includes fruits, vegetables and lots of traditional foods and not modern fads.

In my future blogs I will discuss more about these alternative therapies and throw more light on the role of exercise, a healthy environment and meditation in preventing and curing various types of cancer.

By His Grace and Blessings I write..

Dr. Seema Chaudhary