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Posted on 08/30/2013 4:08:07 PM PDT by neverdem
The internet is awash with misinformation about cancer, with potentially tragic consequences for patients
There are few illnesses as terrifying in the public consciousness as cancer. With up to a third of us getting cancer at some stage in our lives, it is almost impossible to remain untouched by the disease. As an ominous reminder of our mortality, cancer scares us to the point that discussions about it are often avoided and the language we use is couched in euphemisms.
The recent Channel 4 documentary "You're killing my son" told the story of Neon Roberts, a young boy whose treatment for a brain tumour was halted by his mother Sally, who remained convinced that radiotherapy would cause long-term harm and wanted to try alternative medical treatments.
After a difficult court battle, Neon received radiotherapy, leaving his mother somewhat unimpressed. "Death by doctor is very common, but thankfully, because of the internet these days a number of us have educated ourselves," she says in the documentary. "There's so many other options that we've been deprived of, denied."
The Neon Roberts case is tragic and reveals the quagmire of misinformation that surrounds the disease, but Ms Roberts's comment should not be completely dismissed. Misguided though she might be, her point that the internet is full of information about cancer cannot be denied. Much of it is dubious and outlandish, but differentiating between fact and fiction can be difficult and a host of myths about cancer have found...
--snip--
While the internet is a potentially fantastic source for information (Cancer Research UK has some very useful patient resources), great care must be taken to avoid treating spurious information as factual. Carl Sagan's famous dictum that, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", should always be kept in mind when dealing with promises of miracle cures.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I do not care.
If someone diagnosed with caner wants to use treatments that the mainstream medical profession doesn’t approve, that is their right to self direct.
Here is what the medical profession knows about cancer “cures” “treatments” .... they do not know anything. all they do is try different ways trying to slow down the progression, even if it means killing or harming the patient with these treatments.
If they are lucky, the patient gets better and they will claim victory, if you try alternative methods and survive you were just lucky or never really had cancer.
There is no money in a cure, but plenty of money if treatment is on going. There are plenty of cures for cancer. That list by the FDA is laughable. Flax Seed Oil, Curcumin... lol.
Childhood leukemia was a virtual death sentence in the 1950s. It now has an 85% cure rate. They do know how to treat some cancers and it’s not trial and error or luck.
Really?
Pity he never took his own advice, without Sagan and his 'greenhouse effect' which he attributed to conditions on Venus, and have never been proven...we would not have suffered the years of GLOBAL WARMING bunkum served up by Al Gore, the puppet of the UN Climate body.
Most dicoveries are made by trial and error. This is very true in medicine. Who would have thought mustard gas would cure lymphoma? Somebody took a chance.
I take Curcumin every day.
Absent from the article, and from the FDA “fakes” list is:
calorie-restricted ketogenic diet (R-KD).
People are using it, even in surprisingly late stage cancers, to shrink tumors. Hyperbaric therapy may help (D’Agostino). R-KD is not a “cure”, because if you resume a typical glycemic diet, the cancer may return.
The curious thing about cancer is that tumor cells survive primarily on glucose, and to a lesser extent on glutamine (but cannot thrive on ketones). Ocologists take advantage of the glucose uptake to get tumors to show up on Xray, but they don’t allow themselves to consider using this fact to treat it (why? primarily because consensus medical views on diet and blood lipids are nearly upside down from reality, which is a whole separate scandal).
For the biologic nitty gritty, see “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease” by Seyfried (note: $120 book). Basically, damage to cell mitochondria switches the cells from normal respiration to fermentation. This is the historic Warburg theory of cancer - the consensus somatic {gene} theory is probably incorrect. And yes, rad and chemo probably have long term hazards that outweigh near-term benefits, because they cause mito damage too.
A ketogenic diet is very low carb (under 50 net grams per day, down around 20 if you’re serious), moderate protein, generally unrestricted fat.
Healthy cells in most of the body can run on glucose (from carbs, primarily) or fat or ketone bodies. Brain cells can’t use fat, but run just fine on ketone bodies metabolized from fat, but you only produce ketones when in nutritional ketosis (the Inuit diet, if you will). The “R” in R-KD is because there is as yet no direct way to control glutamine levels other than by restricting overall caloric intake.
The great thing about choosing to do R-KD is that it doesn’t require FDA approval, much less an expensive patented drug, or indeed paying anyone for anything - it’s just a change in diet.
People are experimenting with full keto diets (http://eatingacademy.com/), and borderline keto (e.g. Wheat Belly) just for the health benefits - which very likely include a substantial immunity to cancer.
Oh get off the names already!
I take Curcumin every day.
*************************************************
Great stuff, but I prefer mine in some lovely Indian food. Leave it to the FDA to demonize it by putting it on the fake “cancer cure” list.
“Anyone ever Google why doctors die differently than their patients?”
I haven’t, but I remember what my nursing instructors told me over 30 years ago about the oncologists at the hospital who’d never use any of the treatments they prescribed. My instructors knew this first hand because the oncologists had said so.
The greater point is that if someone wants to use alternative treatments, that is their right to do so.
In October 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, and in mid-2004, he announced to his employees that he had a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very poor; Jobs stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. Despite his diagnosis, Jobs resisted his doctors’ recommendations for mainstream medical intervention for nine months, instead consuming a special alternative medicine diet in an attempt to thwart the disease. According to Harvard researcher Ramzi Amri, his choice of alternative treatment “led to an unnecessarily early death.” Cancer researcher and alternative medicine critic David Gorski “disagreed with Amri’s assessment,” stating, “My best guess was that Jobs probably only modestly decreased his chances of survival, if that.” Barrie R. Cassileth, the chief of Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center’s integrative medicine department, said “Job’s faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his life.... He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer that is treatable and curable.... He essentially committed suicide.” According to Jobs’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, “for nine months he refused to undergo surgery for his pancreatic cancer – a decision he later regretted as his health declined.”
The discovery may be trial and error. The on-going treatment is established medical practice.
Sure but it’s a philosophical open question whether a parent has a right to hire a witch instead of an oncologist to treat a child.
To be fair, the prognosis on pancreatic cancer is so poor that it probably doesn’t matter to the patient whether he gets radiation/chemo or snake oil. I doubt that anything Jobs did would have made a difference.
OTOH, I absolutely hate to see snake oil salesmen get away with scamming people out of their money. I’d love to see those con men tarred, feathered, and tied to a post just outside town as a warning to other snake oil salesmen.
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