Over the past five years or so I’ve been writing this column I reckon a little over half of the subject matter has been on medicine in one form or another. Often I’ve written on a particular condition, or what works nutritionally or simply how the consumer fares given the way medicine is being practiced today. I set out to do this very firmly from the consumer’s point of view. There are just so many good things, anomalies and bad things out there in the healthcare field, in what is one of the most complicated areas of the human experience, that it is hard for the average person to get a clear picture. I have no medical training and make no medical judgements. I write purely as a journalist from the knowledge derived from writing and researching the subject over the past 12 years. In the last five years writing this column I have covered most chronic diseases from Alzheimer’s to Zoonosis. But there is one condition I have barely touched upon, and that is cancer.
The reason for this I think is that the subject is just to vast and touches so many people that I was in a quandary where to begin. However, in the last year I have been reminded very personally of what a scourge cancer is, as various family members, friends and acquaintances battle this terrible disease. I resolved to address it and make a start by taking an overview, what we can do to avoid it and what our options are when it strikes. In other columns to come I’ll write more specifically.
At the moment cancer is the second biggest cause of death after heart disease. Deaths from heart disease are falling with new treatment, medication and lifestyle changes but very soon cancer will overtake heart disease and reign, the undisputed No.1 killer disease. Cancer is epidemic. In 2005 some 1,372,910 people are forecast to be struck down with it in the US alone, and that population ratio would more or less be reflected throughout the rest of the world. The odds of our getting cancer are now appalling. Almost one in every two men will get cancer at some stage of their lifetime and one in every three women. Smokers increase their chances by 20% over the norm.
That is a truly horrendous statistic, one we prefer to ignore. We hope we and our loved ones will be spared and that a cure for cancer will be found soon. I’m afraid the most educated opinion on that says, “Yes, it will be found - but it won’t be with us for another 25 years”. Meantime what’s being done?
Since the 1970’s huge amounts of money, a sum approaching US$300 billion has been thrown at the problem, much of it wasted on research that is known to be going nowhere. The good news is that there have been important advances in the fields of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments. What this has meant is that the medical profession has managed to increase the average time of survival by a small amount, across the board. We are talking months here. Meantime the incidence of cancer and deaths from it continue to increase. On the brighter side, so do the numbers of cancer survivors. We no longer need view cancer as an automatic death sentence. The “War on Cancer” continues, a bitterly fought contest, but at the moment the tide is still going cancer’s way.
The next question is why? One hundred years ago, cancer was way down the list of killer diseases. Why the cancer epidemic now? Many reasons contribute. We live a lot longer nowadays. Cancer strikes mostly as we age. And yet, more of us are getting cancer younger. Genetic predisposition is a big factor. Smoking is another major cause. Stress and bad diet also contribute big time. Broadly speaking, if we allow our immune system to become compromised our risk of cancer increases. Our bodies generate mutated cells every day, which can become cancerous and cancer develops if our defenses do not kill them off effectively.
More and more doctors, who take an integrative view on the prime cause of today’s cancer epidemic, are forced to the conclusion that the fundamental reason has to be environmental. It is the denatured soil and food we eat, the chemicals and pesticides that are in it, the chemicals and particularly the heavy metals we breathe and are exposed to in diet and countless ways in countless products from childhood onward, all have a cumulative effect. The result is our resistance, our hormone and enzyme levels are all depleted and increasingly we become easy prey for the opportunistic runaway cells that are cancer.
The alarming fact is that there is only so much you can do in a preventative way to avoid cancer. You can live an impeccable lifestyle and yet over time still be struck down with it, because of the kind of world we live in. It means we have to be a lot more proactive in looking after ourselves, eating organic where we can and living in clean non-toxic environments and supplementing with anti-cancer nutrients as needed. All this can be a drag, even impossible to do, and we’re certainly not encouraged in doing any of it by a “live-for-the-moment” culture and a medical profession that is deeply divided on the subject. Nonetheless, the figures do not lie and that’s what we need to look at.
In my view, however, there is one moral responsibility above all that is laid upon us that we can no longer shirk in good conscience, and that is to do whatever we can personally and to require our rulers and commercial/industrial elites to do whatever is necessary to clean up the world and stop slowly killing increasing numbers of us. It may not help too many of us, but it might just do something for our children.
One of the most stressful things there can be is facing a life-threatening illness. Anyone is such a position deserves our utmost consideration. It changes and takes over your life. Quite apart from your personal and professional life going on hold and the inevitable finanacial challenge, suddenly you are called upon to make major decisions about things you know very little. Invariably you feel you are placed under the gun timewise. You are called upon to make decisions immediately. All at once information and advise is coming at you from every quarter. Your doctor says, “surgery Now! Or I cannot answer for the consequences”. Your best friend trills “Come! see my Guru....”, a person you meet on a plane tells you about this A-Maaazing healer in Rio, another friend gives you magnets to put under your bed and says go macrobiotic, a naturopath you see recommends a whole course of expensive detox, tests and supplements. You need an instant PhD in your particular disease. That will come, if you don’t abdicate responsibility for your treatment, but right now you don’t have the time.
All to often people feel compelled to go along with a course of treatment which they may later, with greater knowledge, wish they had done differently. The medical system is a juggernaut. Once you are in the system there is a logic at work which may or may not be in your best interests. Once you are in it, it is very difficult to buck the system. It takes considerable moral courage to go against the tide and considerable discernment to know when to go along. The easiest way is to leave it to your doctors and put yourself unreservedly in their hands and hope for the best. And sometimes that is the best way to go. Often it is not.
The truth is there are many difficult decisions that only you and you family should make in possession of as much relevant data as you can gather and in consultation with a number of cancer specialists. The internet is a great source of information but very confusing as a place to start. It is very hard to get comparative information unless you already know where to go. Should you be faced with such a challenge my advise is to go first to two sources: the Life Extension Foundation’s “Disease Prevention & Treatment” (www.lef.org) and download the protocols on cancer, and Burton Goldberg’s book the “Definitive Guide to Cancer”. These two sources will give you a good idea of how to assess and get the best out of conventional and alternative treatments, while eliminating the woo-woo stuff. It is the place to start andto take an informed hand in the treatment of your illness, so you can work with your doctors in anything like an equal partnership. There are things you can do, things only you should decide and you can affect the outcome.
