HEALTH AND WELLNESS : Cancer – The biggest lifestyle disease, treatments and an alternative approach

By His Grace and Blessings I write….

Cancer : The biggest lifestyle disease, treatments and an alternative approach

The following situations would sound familiar to all of us. A grandparent becoming paralytic, completely bed ridden and dependent after undergoing a surgery for brain tumor, a relative with incurable liver cancer who died in a hospital on an experimental treatment, a friend/brother /sister in law with a terminal breast / prostate cancer who endured endless cycles of chemotherapy, pain and anguish without any benefits and a friend who lost all his life savings to a treatment that cut him down every day and couldn’t save him in the end….

This is Cancer and we are on the throes of a cancer epidemic. 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women are expected to develop cancer over the course of their lifetime. The figures are frightening when one considers that in 2017 alone, cancer accounted for nearly around 12 million deaths worldwide. There is a strong evidence of epidemiologic transition and cancer will become the biggest killer in a few decades soon overtaking cardio vascular diseases (already it is biggest killer in many developed countries).

According to a WHO study, 1 in 15 Indians will die of cancer.  In 2018, 1.16 million new cancer cases and 7.84 lakh cancer deaths occurred In India. Six most prevalent cancer types in India are Breast, Oral, Cervical, lung, Stomach and Colorectal. India accounts for 1/5^th of the global burden of cervical cancer and there is a very rapid growth in colorectal and breast cancer in many better off states of the country. Cancer now runs across both the low and high income households without any discrimination.

People have a fundamental question. Did I do something to bring this disease in my life? The answers may be many. This blog is an attempt to understand as to what causes cancer, what can be possible alternative remedies available, how we can prevent the occurrence of this dreadful disease in our lives and how to deal with it when it becomes terminal. I will adopt a holistic approach which will be integrative, informative, interpretive and empathetic. It will not be an authoritative approach where we verbatim follow the orders of a specialist or a doctor who is himself most of the times is in the dark about the disease or its remedies.

What is Cancer?

This is a question many of us want an answer to but the dread of disease is such that we don’t discuss.  The word Cancer is like a taboo about which we don’t want to speak, hear and would never want to face in our lifetimes. But ignorance is not bliss in this case and so we need to talk about it. It will be insignificant whether anyone suffers from cancer or not. So Cancer is a group of over 200 different diseases in which abnormal cells multiply uncontrollably, destroying body tissues and functions. For a normal cell to become cancerous, a series of gene mutations are required. There are various mechanisms through which these gene mutations can take place like direct damage to DNA (radiation from the environment), chronic inflammation (caused due to smoking or oily/fatty/sugary foods) etc. The problem is not of mutation (cell division), but it is the inability of the cell to destroy itself once it has a faulty mutation. The cell then becomes malignant and starts spreading and affecting the mutation in the other healthy cells. In this manner it spreads to different parts of the body. The body’s immune system will then determine how speedily these malignant cells affect other healthy cells and become life threatening. Cancer of different body parts behave differently. Every cancer is different on a molecular level, so 2 people even with same type and stage of cancer could have cancers that respond to treatments in very different ways. Cancer thus can be termed as a group of diseases not amenable to a single kind of treatment.

Every one of us has cancer cells in our bodies from the age of 15-16 and it will take decades for this single mutated cell to give rise to clinically expressed cancer. So the problem is not that cells mutate but it is that how they become clinically expressed cancer. Cancer thus doesn’t strike suddenly.  It is a long drawn process whereby our lifestyles, eating habits and our environments matter the most in its clinical manifestation from the single mutated cells. It is estimated that 70% of all cancer deaths can be prevented by a simple changes in lifestyle. So cancer can rightly be called a lifestyle disease of an industrial age.

A study by scientists at Manchester University has revealed that cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by the environmental factors such as pollution and diet. According to this study there is nothing in our natural environment that can cause cancer. Dr Richard Believeau , who maintains the largest bank of human tumors in North America and who has been doing research on Cancer for last 30 years cites example of a country like Japan to validate the above hypothesis. Japanese population started westernizing in its food and lifestyle somewhere around 1980’s. In 2005 i.e. within 25 years, Japan had reached from lowest to highest rates of colorectal cancer in the world.

Treatments :

There is no single treatment for cancer. Since it is a group of diseases it requires various approaches depending upon the degree/ intensity/type and immunity of the patient. However, treatments can broadly be divided into conventional approach and non-conventional approaches. While the conventional approaches are widely prevalent and promoted, the non-conventional ones are not so popular and either not much is known or they are not taken seriously. There is very low level of information available on non conventional treatments to cure cancers. I will briefly gloss over the conventional treatments and then I will devote myself to discussion over the non conventional treatments.

Conventional Approach :

Radiation Therapy, Surgery, Chemotherapy, Targeted therapies, Hormonal therapies etc can be together classified under this category. These are the treatments usually prescribed to a patient when he/she is suffering from cancer. A multi- trillion dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lotteries has been erected around this line of treatment. Getting completely cured is like winning a lottery in this approach. The players of this line of treatment are the big pharma MNC’s, five star and specialty hospitals mostly in the private sector, a whole nexus of intelligent doctors and the financial corporate. They do help in saving some lives but there is a huge cost to it.

Conventional approach is entirely based around the disease and its cure. It doesn’t take into account the patient and improving his immune systems at all. The approach is also not about prevention and doesn’t offer means to prevent cancer from occurring. All tests, diagnosis and solutions offered are in fact around killing the cancer cells rather than helping the body to develop capacity to resist cancer itself.

The conventional approach is actually into the business of hope. The patients and doctors don’t want to face the reality of death. They offer one treatment after another either on their own volition or on the prayers of the desperate patient and his relatives. The doctors know that many of their treatments don’t work but they cash on the disease. In fact, in 2017, of the 12 drugs approved by FDA, only 1 has been found to increase lifespan by 2 months. At present, there is no scientific basis to choose a drug for cancer. The drugs get changed after 3 months if they are not found effective. In a study, more than 40%of the oncologists admitted offering treatments that they believed are unlikely to work.

The conventional treatments are extremely painful, full of anguish and hopelessness. They inflict extreme pain, cause immense suffering and damage to body. They are very expensive and most of the times financially ruin the patient and his family. The probability of the patient relapsing is the highest under this line of treatments. These treatments lack a holistic approach and their objective is to generate maximum profits for the players involved rather than treatment per se.

The other approach is non conventional and has been found to be highly effective. It is simple and cost effective. It causes very less agony and pain to the patient and his family and is also financially viable. However, this approach has to face a stiff resistance from the governments, the big pharma, big hospitals, doctors and the big financial and insurance corporate that thrive on the business of cancer and are interested in the status quo. In my next blog I will discuss on this non-conventional line of treatment.

Conclusion : Cancer is a man-made disease and it requires a holistic treatment. The conventional lines of treatments have not yielded very positive results and have caused more harm than relief. Time is ripe that we think and search for out of box solutions in the face of a looming cancer epidemic.

By His Grace and Blessings I write….

Dr. Seema Chaudhary