About Cancer

In spite of the advancements made by medicine over the years, the treatment of cancer remains adrift, buffeted by political tides and conflicting approaches. It is a disease that has been hijacked by a very large and powerful pharmaceutical drug industry, an industry capable of altering the historical course of medicine.

Once receiving a diagnosis of cancer, the patient wears a price tag of approximately $300,000. Cancer is BIG business.

To put this ill-conceived power in perspective, consider the words of the novelist Upton Sinclair who once said of such danger, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

In 1913 the American Cancer Society came into existence under the guise of an "emergency organization, a temporary organization, seeking in its independent Crusade to obtain enough dollars to wage an unrelenting fight against cancer."

Apparently "enough dollars" was not the suitable criteria for success after all. The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute have spent many billions of taxpayer and charity dollars promoting, for the most part, ineffective drugs while virtually ignoring strategies for prevention. For the utter lack of progress, one would question whether the cancer industry is aptly motivated to find a cure. Despite decades of false assurances, we are losing the winnable war on cancer. The fact of the matter is that we are no closer to controlling this disease. This year approximately 1,400,000 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer and 600,000 will die. If we had taken the advice of doctors several decades ago who researched and introduced natural methods for prevention and treatment of this disease, and if we had focused our attention on eliminating carcinogens from the food we eat, air we breathe, and water we drink, we would not be facing this great tragedy today. Vested interests have repeatedly blocked these strategies.

THE NATURE OF CANCER

"You cannot poison your body into health with drugs, chemo or radiation. The holistic approach treats the whole animal, ignites the body's internal healing force and stimulates the body's natural abilities to heal itself. Health can only be achieved with healthful living." T.C. Fry

First, it is important to understand the nature of cancer if we are to take control of the disease. According to Dr. George C. Pack, a cancer specialist at Cornell Medical School, almost everyone has cancer cells present at times in their bodies.

If our immune system is working properly, these cells are killed or reabsorbed by our defense system before they begin to grow and threaten our health. Our immune system is a very sophisticated system and over time has developed a "seek and destroy" method for dealing with these cancerous cells. Today, it is necessary to consider why the immune system is failing us at an alarming rate. A reasonable person would question whether our approach is completely wrong for our lack of progress. (I would hazard to guess that we have been on the right track numerous times only to be derailed by the pharmaceutical drug industry and governmental agencies in their employ.)

Cancer occurs when our bodies are exposed to a factor or combination of factors that damage normal cells and make them start dividing uncontrollably. Frequent exposure to tens of thousands of synthetic chemicals, accumulating from the very moment we are born, has a very large part to do with the cancer epidemic we are now experiencing in the U.S. and around the world. You take this increase in our overall toxic load and top it off with an immune system weakened by a modern diet and you have a state conducive to growth for these cancerous cells.

APPROACHING CANCER NATURALLY

"If I contracted cancer, I would never go to a standard cancer treatment centre. Cancer victims who live far from such centres have a chance." Professor Georges Mathé, French cancer specialist

The reality is that if you wait for the disease to manifest itself in symptoms you more than likely have had the disease for two to three years. Ultimately, there is no absolute cure for cancer, only prevention and remission. We need to interrupt the process of cancer and take steps to move away from an environment conducive to the formation of cancerous cells. Therefore, it is extremely important to find effective methods of circumventing disease onset. Perhaps the inability of the cancer industry to properly turn their attention to prevention is because a synthetic drug will never be of any use in this regard.

Interestingly enough, there are just a few fundamental concepts that can influence the internal environment, turning it away from disease and towards health. These concepts involve the alkaline/acid levels and oxygen levels in the cells. Just as we could not live without oxygen, research shows that cancer cannot exist in cells where there is enough oxygen or where the pH level is properly balanced. Unfortunately, all too often our cells are low in oxygen and therefore acidic.

Highly suspect as a trigger of this disease are carcinogens and toxins, however, these may be, in a sense, secondary causes of cancer. An underlying cause of all cancers may have been discovered over 50 years ago by the renowned scientist Otto Warburg, winner of two Nobel Prizes for discovering the clues to why cancer develops. Dr. Warburg's research supports his theory that cancer development appears to be connected to cellular oxygen levels.

Now here is where toxins come into play. One of the causes of poor oxygenation include a buildup of carcinogens and other toxins within and around cells which blocks and then damages the cellular oxygen respiration mechanism. This clumping of red blood cells ultimately slows down the bloodstream and restricts flow into capillaries which also causes poor oxygenation. The mere lack of proper building blocks for cell walls and essential fatty acids, restricts oxygen exchange.

The other aspect of dealing with cancer is supporting the immune system. After all, for most of one's life the immune system has successfully dealt with cancer cells. Usually it becomes worn out and ineffective and unable to deal with the cancer cells before cancer takes hold and thrives.

It is important to strengthen the immune system so that it can better fight cancer, especially if one is taking medical treatments that negatively affect the immune system as is the case with chemotherapy. Current cancer treatments seem to make no sense once you understand the basics of the disease. In fact, studies show that most methods of detecting and treating cancer INCREASE your overall cancer risk, including mammograms.

Copyright 2006 Paula Rothstein