There was only one question regarding alternative treatments that, conspicuously, went unanswered in the show. Every person on the panel represented $1 million plus to the burgeoning cancer industry. That is what these "cures" cost (which went unmentioned!) The NIH and the AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY both advocate 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, reducing weight, working out and so on --because they have been PROVEN to reduce the incidence of cancer by 70%!!! But embracing that thought means that people have to become active, involved participants in their health---not passive receivers of treatment once they get sick.


I thought the program was profound in many ways--and I thought many of the discussions were aimed at empowering cancer patients with hope---yet, there was no attention to empowering people with proven ways to enhance and take charge of their health in the simplest, most cost effective ways. Since Lance and Elizabeth were eloquent when they discussed having the insurance and the money to afford the best in conventional medicine--after they were diagnosed--it might make sense to encourage active participation in one's health to minimize the risks of cancer before it starts. Why can't we have programs emphasizing this?

And why can't we have programs that are specific about the financial costs of this disease and how much money is made from it? Why is there no discussion about the $50 or $60 billion dollars (which is the number touted by a number of scientists) for research eliminate a disease that effects every family in the US--and causes many families to completely collapse financially under the burden of these outrageous costs.

Lance Armstrong said a World Trade Center attack happens every single day in this country (since cancer terrorizes everyone and kills 600,000 Americans a year) yet receives so little attention the NIH feels free to actually drop funding this year by $40 million dollars ---and no one reacts.


When is the other side going to be presented for Discovery? The one that addresses lower income people and how they survive with this disease? And alternitive treatments that can be combined with conventional treatments to enhance life.

I agree that this country needs to drive home to all of us that preventative maintenance, much like we all know how to take care of our teeth, should be one of the most pushed educational objectives of our times. If not for the sake of the "old dogs" learning new tricks than for the sake of our children who can learn to nutritionally protect their health early on in life.

Economically the disservice in this country that healthier food is in fact much more expensive. Our lower income segments of society do not have the luxury of making their food budgets about healthy but about quantity. When chips and colas are less expensive than juice and apples we have a problem.

We are not going to cure cancer or anything else by simple virtue of more money into research. Money does not equate to a cure regardless of what well meaning people want to think. There are no guarantees that if we pour $500 billion dollars into research that a cure will be found. What it is going to take is everyone working together to defeat this. That requires money, I am not saying that it doesn't. I am saying that a magical number will not guarantee a cure. All of us being smarter is a much better guarantee.

I think you can make a "greater good" argument that persuading people to change their unhealthy behavior might have a greater impact upon the incidence of cancer and the mortality rate than more research or treatment dollars. Here's a 2005 story from the Guardian, a UK newspaper, about a Harvard study that more than a third of the 7 million annual deaths from cancer worldwide could be prevented.

But even if the government decided to make such preventative lifestyle intervention a public health priority, there's still the big question: How many people would be willing to make the necessary changes that might keep them healthy? Consider this 2005 study, reported in Medical News Today. Researchers found that even among cancer survivors, who have an obvious, immediate motivation to change their lifestyles, a sizeable portion just won't do it. Only 25 to 42 percent of cancer survivors consume adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables, and 70 percent of breast and prostate cancer survivors remain overweight or obese. 30 percent of cancer survivors don't exercise regularly, and 20 percent, amazingly, continue to smoke.

I'd like to see another study that focuses upon why so many people choose to ignore advice that might save their lives.

i completely agree. I don't want to pick on any of the people in the panel discussion but two of them could have lost alot of weight and that MAY have helped them in their recovery. It seemed to signal something that was never addressed in the program but was glaringly obvious. How unhealthy these people looked even before their diagnosis. Why don't people who have life threatening illnesses take charge of the things that they can control (life style and nutrition) COMBINED with conventional medicine--instead of the passive "fix me" role? That is what I thought was missing from this program. The only person who seemed really involved in taking charge was Lance Armstrong.

I hope this isn''t coming across as cruel but it is a question that I wish we could get to the bottom of---why do some people kick in and some people just kind of let it all happen to them.

Well, habits are hard to break. Plus, you've got people being bombarded day in and out by TV commercials that urge them to buy and eat large quantities of things that aren't good for them.

Sallie, while I don't think your words are cruel I do think they are naive. There is no one eating that thinks "oh wow those Fritos might give me cancer". Let's not forget we are finding genetics is also a huge role in cancer along with many, many other factors besides nutrition.

Understand that your observation that they looked unhealthy before their diagnosis....well they were unhealthy before their diagnosis. The diagnosis only found the problem it didn't suddenly create it. For my case I was in the best physical shape of my life when I was diagnosed and my doctors feel my tumor had been growing for several years to be as large as it was. I had no symptoms at all and my cancer was found strictly by accident or fate however you want to see it. So no you could not have "looked" at me and drawn the conclusion I "looked" unhealthy.

Like I said it is very naive in my opinion to assume because people look unhealthy it has a thing to do with their cancer. It may or may not. Some of us were the picture of health and were very sick puppies.

Thank you for your reply. I understand that genetics play a part--however, it has been proven that nutrition and a healthy lifestyle play a part, also. I am really speaking about minimizing risks--and if we do get sick that the sickness not be created because of something that could be prevented. And also, if we get sick, that we see the value of alternative as well as conventional medicine. It seems that in so many healings that no one thing can be pinpointed with certainty as THE CURE. If many things are tried perhaps one component in a fruit or vegetable or herb working synergistically with another is the key. If we cover all the bases we can maybe our chances of finding that magic bullet will be increased. That is part of hope.

Unfortunately, there is more to the nutrition issue, than just consuming good foods that are known to be good for us. The agriculture arena has changed in it's way to produce food. Like all things we all do for a living,it is driven by production=money. Most food sources are now being boosted in production by chemicals. I am not a chemist,but living in the country, I watch the squirrels and birds die off every spring at planting time. Why? Well it is the chemicals that are used to chemically burn off the weeds/vegetation, that is not desireable for that field that year. If these doses of chemicals are killing off our other inhabitants of our eco system, why are we immune? We are not. My neighbor(a good guy and farmer) died from mesothelomia (sp?) attributed to the chemicals that were used on the fields. If this topic is brought up to the agriculture industry, you will be told that there is a choice to be made, lower priced food, more profits and not everyone dies of cancer. It is hard to dicuss this issue with those looking to make a living. It is hard to discuss this with someone that is not affected by cancer. It is hard to say this to a chemical company that says it's application levels are safe. It is hard to dicuss this with the wildlife that is dead.Do you want affordable food or healthy food?

otdrnut: you raise some very insightful points. I'm hopeful that the growing demand for organic fruits and vegetables will motivate more farmers to stop using synthetic pesticides and herbicides.

I do understand that we are bombarded with bad information. However, the paradigm shift that began in the 60's started to question what kept people well instead of using the old paradigm which only looked at what made people sick.

I know that the cost of good food is a real issue for low income families but none of the people on the panel the other night fit that description. When are people going to be educated to be pro active about health? When did people get so passive? There is a ton of information out there about staying healthy--if people want to read it. Can't we read a label--I mean, didn't those become clearer so everyone would be able to decipher the information? We are all bombarded with information about global warming and the damage we are doing to the outer environment--can't the same argument be made for the inner environment as well? The costs of getting sick are simply outrageous--I am not speaking here of the many people who get cancer from genetics going awry--I am only speaking of people whose cancers have been caused by PROBABLE life style factors. If those people could be educated to realize that their out of pocket health care costs will be astronomical EVEN WITH insurance if they get a disease that is linked to smoking , obesity, a high fat diet, unmanageable stress, no exercise, no fruits and vegetables. Do people believe that if, and when, they get sick that insurance pays everything? Thousands of dollars have to be paid out by the person who is sick. Sometimes many, many thousands before you reach the level where coverage is total. And those costs are only going to go up.

As I said earlier, cancer is big, big, big business. So, we have to look at many factors here ---and a big one is getting people to make their health a big priority--because they alternatives are all versions of hell.

Sallie,
One cannot simply look at someone and come to a conclusion based on their weight that they deserved to contract the disease or conclude that they are not fighting hard enough against the disease. Many treatments require the use of steroids which also cause weight gain. Unfortunately, your opinion is based on casual appearances. Cancer is an extremely complex family of diseases, many which are infamous for being difficult to detect until final stages of the disease. In fact, all cancers are genetic diseases (not to be confused with hereditary). Of all the billions of cells in the human body, it takes a single mutant progenitor cell to multiply into a massive group of renegade cells that may cause life threatening disease. No one has control over this process, so your premise that "some people just let it all happen to them" is false. However, in support of some of your points, it has been well documented that people that exercise during treatment can better tolerate the treatment and a good attitude has measurable positive effects on outcomes.

Diet, exercise, and tobacco use are all documented risk factors for some types of cancer, but not all of them. It is an untenable position to assert that someone deserved cancer because they didn't run an extra mile a week or was 30lbs overweight. As a counter example to your hypothesis, consider an toddler with lymphoma... did they have an excessive lifestyle?

I too wish for a magic bullet against cancer. The fact is that the word cancer is used to describe over 100 very different diseases. In addition each disease presents itself in various ways which cause varying complications in each patient. Therefore, it is unlikely a single solution will be found. It would be difficult if not impossible to try and find a cure by trying all the different combinations of compounds from fruits and vegitables in varying doses to try and find a cure. It seems to me a better method would be to understand the function of the cell, what has gone wrong with the cell, and why it has gone wrong. Then a targeted therapy could be designed.

I share your hope and your passion for progress against the suffering that cancer causes.

I agree Callis. I have pondered the thoughts here quite a bit and you were able to word my thoughts better than I can in fact.

What we all know is that there are plenty of people who live healthy lifestyles that get cancer and people who live decadent lifestyles that do not. I personally find no rhyme or reason actually to it. It doesn't discriminate in the least.

I believe that nutrition can help us keep our bodies physcially stronger for any fight we might have to face regarding cancer. Interesting enough I have a dear friend who survived malignant melanoma and his doctor told him in fact to gain 25 pounds because he would need the extra fat so that his body would have a reserve. I have many friends who like you are dealing with steroids and face a changing "look" or appearance almost weekly. Aren't both Mr. Sievers and Mrs. Edwards currently in treatment? While Mr. Armstrong is not. The addage that appearances can be deceiving is never more true that ones dealing with cancer in my opinion.

I agree that we need most of all to focus on the cell. Our understanding of the mutation, treatment affects and sometimes re-mutation of cells will be our key to finding the cures (and it will have to be many) to cancers. They are each different and as human beings are all different I believe they are so highly individualized that in time we will find our treatments also will have to be more so than they are even today.

Good nutrition is a help mate in keeping our bodies in a mode to be able to fight. I think what bothers me in all this is calling nutrition an "alternative" therapy. I don't see it as an alternative in the least, alternatives implies a choice of one or the other for treatment. I for one do not want to be the one trying a mix of veggies to see if it cures my cancer or not. That is just me.

Bless us one and all in this most complicated search for answers.

Speaking of which, this was a newstory today on AOL.

Updated:2007-05-10 07:24:25
Scientists Directly Target Cancer Cells
Patients Could Avoid Chemotherapy's Effects
Reuters

SYDNEY (May 10) - An Australian biotechnology firm said on Thursday it had developed a means of delivering anti-cancer drugs directly to cancer cells, which aims to avoid the debilitating toxicity associated with chemotherapy.

The method uses nanotechnology, which involves micro-machines far smaller than a human cell.

Direct targeting of chemotherapy drugs would allow dosages thousands of times lower than that in conventional chemotherapy and be more easily tolerated by patients, said the firm.

Writing in the May issue of U.S.-based Cancer Cell magazine, the biotech firm EnGeneIC said it had developed nano-cells containing chemotherapy drugs.

Via antibodies on their surface, these nano-cells target and latch on to cancer cells. Once attached, the nano-cell is engulfed and the drug is released directly inside the cancer cell.

The firm said the bacterially derived nano-cell, called EnGeneIC delivery vehicles, had proven safe in primate trials and resulted in significant cancer regression.

It hoped to carry out human trials later in 2007 if it gained approval from Australian, U.S., European and Japanese regulatory authorities.

"For the first time there is a real possibility that this technology could lead to the use of multi-drug combinations and eventual custom-made therapies in cancer patients," research scientist Jennifer MacDiarmid said in a statement.

"In terms of tumor therapy, most late-stage cancer patients carry tumor cells that exhibit various forms of drug resistance. Our technology may provide the first in-vivo (inside an organism) solution to this serious hurdle."


Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

I appreciate all the input that this has generated. I think that some of the things that I wrote have been taken out of context. I also believe and agree in a genetic component to cancer and i have stated that in previous emails. There has also been alot of research and publications regarding what keeps a cell from going awry. What helps set up a body to create cancer. There are known risk factors that, if eliminated, can reduce the percentages. I am not saying that nutrition is the only way to go--I stated in my first email that ALTERNATIVE AND CONVENTIONAL together may be more beneficial. Getting back to empowering people to take more control of their health just makes sense from a hope perspective and hedging bets. Doesn't it make sense to do everything one can to stay and be healthy---as has been stated before---there is alot of research that puts preventative power in fruit and veggetables, exercise, a low fat diet maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking. Let's just look at smoking alone. Every scientist would agree that cells going awry create cancer---isn't smoking proven to be a trigger that makes cells go awry??? Isn't asbestos? Many carcinogens have been identified. That is just one example. I am not saying--nor have I ever stated--that cancer can be totally prevented--due to genetic anomalies in the human body. But, once again, I say, that perhaps the huge financial and emotional costs of this disease can be reduced. And while treatment is being undergone it MAY be helpful to try to get the body in an optimal state to HELP combat the disease.

Maybe I am just a person who feels more in control when I can also do something to heal and get better. Not just sit back at the mercy of the medical establishment.

I'm sorry I am getting very mixed messages from reading what you have written perhaps that is me. One thing I would like to know is, do you yourself have cancer? Have you dealt with any of this regarding your own health? If you said I missed it, I am curious.

Thanks.

I think your point is well-taken: there is a lot that people can do, in terms of lifestyle modification, to reduce their cancer risk. But I don't see that as alternative medicine, since it's the conventional medical establishment that's urging people to do these things. It's just good sense.

I am dealing with a very close family member who was recently diagnosed with small cell lung cancer--and was a smoker til diagnosis. he is receiving conventional treatment as well as alternative treatment (from a trained oncologist turned nutritionist/oncologist). I have always had an interest in what keeps a person healthy and what the factors are that make a person susceptible to disease. When i was a teenager I spent alot of time in hospitals due to illness so from a very young age this has been a subject that I am passionate about. Watching the hell that my family is going thru and always thinking that this never had to happen has precipitated me into writing about this program. The nutritionist/oncologist that is being seen is obviously very much on the side of preventive health habits---now that cancer is here is he prescribing many different vitamins, mushrooms, green tea ---and other therapies. He is very much into organic foods and nutrition as well. He also believes in meditation which he has numerous documents to back up.

I myself believe and practice all of the above. I feel great. I am 60 years old. I am trying to value and take care of the health that I have been given. If I ever get cancer I will redouble my efforts on all fronts in order to get well. If I ever get sick I want to know that I did everything I could to prevent it and I will do whatever I can to cure it which would entail a mixture of modalities. That is me and that is my life experience.

Living with a loved one who probably (according to all the oncologists he has seen) would probably be well today if he hadn't introduced a carcinogen into his body that caused the DNA in his cells to run amok is a very, very tragic occurence. And very, very expensive even for those with good insurance. And infinately heartbreaking for all those that love that person so dearly.

We have to live defensively today--we don't live in a clean world--a world free of toxins. But we still have choises to inform and educate ourselves --it is not like this information is hiding somewhere. And if people have addictions to food, alcohol, tobacco, whatever--there are free programs everywhere.

Again, we have to empower ourselves with knowledge about health and the will to change whatever we have to in order to have the best lives for ourselves and the people who love us.

I, of course, do not know what the triggers are that make people sit up and listen and act. If we knew that we would live in a perfect world

I am a kidney cancer patient/survivor and I am and have been on and off throughout my life, overweight. I have been active when I could be, I eat well, I have a good knowledge of nutrition, but I also have a thyroid gland that has been awry for at least 20 years. It was discovered just 13 years ago. The thyroid affects more in the human body than I ever dreamed.

Incidentally, clear cell renal cancer, which is what I have, is resistant to chemo and radiation--we're not left with a lot more than except research and hope. Just this year a couple of new immunotherapy medications were approved by the FDA. Because most of us have just one kidney left, the use of natural remedies has to be approached in an intellectual, realistic manner. There is no regulation of the products in this market, so the strengths and concentrations can differ greatly from one brand to another, or if the remedy is home grown.

I am saddened to read the slightest hint that anyone has invited cancer into their lives. The only exception, really, would be smokers, although even they can be at the mercy of a powerful drug (nicotine).

I only hope that no one has decided I have kidney cancer because I've been overweight for much of my adult life.

Please don't judge, or even appear to judge, unless you're walking the walk. This is one instance where being close to someone with the disease is just not enough--but I sincerely hope it's all you will ever learn. No one should have to live with cancer.

Thanks for listening, and remember the power of positive thinking!

p.s. I think the reason the woman's question was left unanswered was because she represented a for-profit system of hospitals/centers; she was trying to get in some free publicity. I have had an uneventful but disturbing experience with the group.

I wrotte a book (English and Spanish versions) in exactly how to combine nutritional supplements and complementary methods with conventional cancer therapy to improve the overall results of therapy. This is an area of controversy and discussion but once an oncologist integrates all of the best of both worls in his or her patients, the results are so dramatic and powerful , that I believe there is no going back to outdated beliefs.

The quality of life and cure rates of my patients have increased dramatically while side effects have been reduced greatly thanks to the integration of both types of therapies.

Again, I wish to say that I have personally researched hundreds of nutritional products and have found only a few are effective enough for me to recommend in my books.

Take care

Victor A Marcial-Vega, MD
Board Certified Oncologist
www.marcialvegamd.com