Cancer treatments

The most common methods for treating cancer are chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Other methods include heat therapy, immunotherapy and gene therapy. Alternative methods mostly involve homeopathic medicine that includes vegetables, fruits, other plants and different supplements and substances that come from natural sources. Although we believe that many nutrients from the plant kingdom prevent it and also help in its treatment once it has set in, cancer can rarely be "cured" or be put permanently into remission once it has actually developed. Even with the latest technology, it can usually only be put into remission for years, after which it usually returns and eventually kills the patient.

The trick to curing or healing cancer (or putting it into remission), once it has developed, is to find a way to kill the cancerous cells without damaging the tissues surrounding them. This is the great dilemma. Chemotherapy and radiation kill cancer cells, but they also kill cells of healthy tissue. Both of these treatments also have great potential for creating new cancers (by mutating normal cells' DNA) that will surface in the future. Surgery can avoid killing healthy cells, but it is difficult to remove all the cancerous cells, so even after surgery there is still a good chance that the cancer will grow again. In addition, surgery cuts through cancerous tissues and cells, meaning that the contents of cells or loose cells themselves can travel to other parts of the body and set it off again. For these reasons, we say that the only real cure is to never develop it in the first place.

Heat therapy involves raising the patient's body temperature to around 42-43˚C (107.6-109.4˚F). Whereas it occasionally provides temporary relief to some patients, it has generally not been successful. Immunotherapy boosts the body's immune system in order to recognize and kill cancer cells. Certain cells are removed from the body and mixed with tumor cells in the laboratory. They are then reintroduced into the patient's body so that they alert the T-cells (the cells that kill cancer cells and other foreign invaders) as to the location of the cancer cells. The T-cells can then attack and destroy the cancer cells. This has been shown to help stall certain cancers and is the treatment method with the most future. Gene therapy uses viruses to deliver genes to cancer cells' DNA that either turn the cells non-cancerous, make them responsive to certain cancer drugs, or make them suicidal. It has not met with much success thus far.

Standard chemotherapy assaults the entire immune system. This treatment consists of flowing chemicals throughout the body (usually introduced intravenously although pills are sometimes used) that are supposed to be more toxic to cancer cells than normal cells. However, many scientists and doctors believe that chemotherapy does more harm than good. What does all this tell you about your prospects if you do get it? In layman terms, you are in deep trouble. The best way to never have to make this difficult choice (i.e., what kind of treatment to receive for cancer) is to never get it in the first place. As we discuss throughout this book, you really can avoid it if you want to.

Although this book is not about cancer treatment, we feel it is worth mentioning that the treatment alternatives mentioned above tend to be more effective, or allow the patient to recover from them quicker, when the patient gets his or her fair share of the nutrients that we discuss in the following sections.

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