What Is Cancer?
Simply put, cancer is a growth in the body that’s outside of the body’s control and which operates on its own agenda. It’s unique among other tissues in that it doesn’t recognize itself as part of the body. Every normal tissue acts cooperatively with the rest of the body, but not cancer. It will grow, invade and metastasize, as it takes everything that it needs from the body to do that. And all at the body’s expense.
A number of things contribute to the development of cancer. The most well identified causes of cancer, in the scientific literature, are genetic instability and DNA damage. The cause of DNA damage has been traced most reliably to environmental toxins and radiation, but a diet void of nutrients and high in refined carbohydrates and poor quality fats, such as hydrogenated fats, also damages DNA. Trans-fatty acids, for example, have been known to alter DNA. So it’s not necessarily just about industrial toxins, but also denatured food. There’s a lot more cancer today than there was 50 years ago, as the quality of food deteriorates.
For Cancer To Occur, There Must Be Break Down
Research has shown that for cancer to occur in the body multiple normal functions must break down. Therefore multiple-agent treatments may be the only successful way to treat cancer. We used well-tolerated natural substances to assess their usefulness in combination anti-neoplastic (cancer-killing) therapy. The following has been the goal of our clinic in treating cancer patients: It is not enough to repair genetic damage or to stop angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vesicles) and neglect to reverse all other cancer-causing problems. It is also not enough to attack metastases and leave the primary tumor in a comfortable environment. In order to defeat cancer, it must be attacked at every level and with every method necessary to reverse cancer’s multiple-layered assault on the body, even if that means that some of the various treatments have redundant effects. And this all must be accomplished while maintaining the maximum possible wellbeing of the patient, and without sickening or weakening the patient.
The Seven Events That Must Occur For Cancer To Form
At least seven events must happen in the body before cancer can occur, so when formulating a treatment protocol for my patients, we take into account and address all of the ways in which cancer has attacked their bodies in order to reverse those events and thereby, their diseases.
As John Boik has described, cancer becomes possible, and has its only opportunity to arise in the body, when seven different events, such as genetic damage, angiogenesis, immune system evasion, etc. all occur,1 as listed below. Then, once established, cancer is adaptable enough to be able to thrive and grow with the continuation of just one or a few of those deviant events.
Boik describes the seven pro-cancer events as follows:
- Genetic instability or vulnerability to mutation, necessarily the first of the variety of events that lead to a tumor;
- Abnormal gene expression, in this case that produce proteins that facilitate cancer, or at least do not prevent it;
- Abnormal and autonomous cell signal transduction, which allows cancer cells to grow through self-stimulation rather than depending on growth factors from other cells;
- Abnormal cell-to-cell communication, which sets a tumor apart from its neighbouring cells metabolically, leaving the tumor in a position to ignore homeostatic mechanisms and, unlike cells throughout the rest of the body, to act in the best interests of the tumor rather than in the best interests of the organism.
- Angiogenesis, the creation of blood vessels and resultant hoarding by the tumor of disproportionately large amounts of blood-borne molecules;
- Invasion and metastasis, which not only results from the aggressive nature of the tumor, but also the low integrity and too friable nature of the surrounding normal tissue and basement membranes;
- Evasion of the immune system, which involves both camouflage functions and immune-disabling functions of cancer cells.
Once Cancer Is Established In The Body
Once established in the body, cancer seems to have the ability to thrive and reproduce despite most of the efforts against it by oncologists, and without necessarily requiring all seven of the above pro-cancer events to still be in place. Therefore, without certain knowledge of the precise mechanisms governing any one patient’s cancer, any therapy that targets fewer than those seven major disturbances leaves the body of the cancer patient potentially vulnerable to the disastrous result of allowing continued growth of existing tumors. Shortchanging the patient of a diverse range of available, effective, well-tolerated, well-targeted, compatible, complementary and feasible treatment options also would allow too many of the conditions to persist that gave rise to tumors previously and may do so again, leaving the fertile ground and pro-neoplastic conditions that produced the cancer in the first place. For this reason, successful cancer therapy should be multi-purposed and with multiple agents, many more than are now used with each patient by oncologists.
We have used natural therapies for cancer treatment, because they are well adapted for multi-agent use. Unrefined plant materials have tens of thousands or more phytochemical components, originally useful for protecting a plant from extreme or adverse conditions in its environment, and ultimately employed as described below by naturopathic physicians in adaptation to the needs of the human patient. Because of thorough medical training as licensed naturopathic physicians, having more classroom hours and more than twice the number of courses in medical school as Medical Doctors2, as well as extensive training in the use of natural agents, we are well suited to choose appropriate combinations of natural therapies for the individual cancer patient. We also take advantage of the greater compatibility among natural substances than among numerous pharmaceuticals. It seems obvious that a meal may contain many different foods without the need for conscious consideration of potential interactions among nutrients and plant molecules. In the same way, we have combined many different nutrients and plant materials in each cancer patient’s treatment protocol, with regard for the specific cancer burden in the body, the origin of the cancer, the nature of that particular patient’s cancer and any co-morbid conditions.
The Treatment
More importantly than knowing what cancer is, is how to treat it. The treatments we do at Nature Works Best cancer clinic are multi-faceted. There’s a popular delusion among oncologists and practitioners of natural medicine that cancer can be fought with one well-chosen substance. Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact this viewpoint is disastrous for most patients, for the following reasons. Many agents are needed to fight cancer, primarily because it arises after several normal mechanisms in the body have broken down. Cancer preys on the body in numerous ways simultaneously, and no single agent, whether chemotherapeutic or natural, has yet been found to have enough anti-neoplastic (cancer-killing) effects to reverse all of those abnormalities in all patients and be “the cure” for cancer.
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