Three different approaches to cancer treatment

I discovered three different approaches to cancer treatment. The mainstream, i.e. Western medicine, believes that cancer can happen to anyone, and the only way to cure it is to kill it. The other end of the spectrum believes that cancer is a result of your diet and lifestyle. If you could change your diet and lifestyle, you could halt and reverse the growth of cancer. However, this is not the mainstream yet. The middle-path, i.e. Chinese medicine, is less conclusive and will complement the Western treatment by boosting the Qi (气) which is the energy in the body in order to combat the disease better.

The Singapore National Cancer Centre is in the mainstream. The natural therapists are on the opposite end. I have met few natural therapists, and one of them, Dr. Willy Wang who did research in human tissues previously and who pioneered his health product known as Fit Solution, studied my most recent health screen report suggests that I need not go for chemotherapy. According to his theory, the reason why cancerous cells occur across multiple sites in the body is not because those at the primary site metastasise and grow into another location, but the weakening of the overall immune system and the need for the lymphocytes (the B-cells and T-cells that attack foreign bodies and infected cells respectively) to concentrate at one site. As our cancerous cells usually stay dormant, when the overall immune system weakens either through chemotherapy or other agents, we are giving the dormant cancerous cells a chance to become active. In another scenario, if the lymphocytes are drawn to one location, such as during a major operation when the operated site is exposed to bacteria, the other sites will have relatively less T-cells and B-cells and thus increases the likelihood of cancerous cells to become active. He suggests this is why many cancerous patients experience metastasis after chemotherapy, not before. This is the first time I heard such theory or perhaps simply an hypothesis with no supporting empirical evidence.

I also came across T. Colin Campbell's The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted, published in 2004 that documents strong correlation between animal-protein and cancer growth and other diseases. In his book, I am delighted to read that in studies done by Sir Richard Doll and Sir Richard Peto of the University of Oxford back in 1981, they concluded that 2-3% of all cancers are attributed to genes. Dr. Campbell did a wide range of research related to cancer for twenty-seven years with funding from U.S. National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research that shows conclusively diet's relationship to cancer, and his research surprisingly led him to examine studies related to heart disease, autoimmune diseases, bone, kidney, eye and brain diseases. He found that those whose blood cholesterol were below 150 mg/dL did not report any heart disease (i.e. stroke, chest pain and heart attack), while those between 150-200 mg/dL showed 35% chance of having heart disease. By switching to a diet consisting of whole grains, fruits and vegetable, patients' blood cholesterol improved and the heart disease rate dropped dramatically. Dr. Campbell did a comprehensive study with other researchers that documented Chinese diet in rural China, compared their data with typical American diet to nail down the types of diet associated with cancer and they did experiments with rats to confirm their hypothesis. As this book is heavily substantiated with empirical studies, I would suggest this to be a MUST READ for anyone who is very concerned with his/her health.

The latest research according to Dr. William Li on http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html (a 20-min presentation back in Feb 2010 and in plain language) shows that we can indeed eat to reverse cancer. All of us have cancerous cells within our bodies. Even if the cancerous cells are activated due to mutation as we age, so long as the cancerous cells are not given the environment to grow, they will stay dormant. According to Dr. Willy Wang and another natural therapist Tay Swee How, another factor that contributes to cancer growth is the body's pH level. If one's body is more acidic, it is more likely for cancerous cells to thrive. So, we have to include food that helps to alkalise our body when broken down in the body in our daily diet. Dr. Susan E. Brown's The Acid Alkaline Food Guide provides simple explanations of pH effects on body and a long list of acid/alkaline food.