Defeat Cancer (20 page)

Finally, another problem with conventional medicine is that the treatments cost a fortune, up to tens of thousands of dollars per treatment. My treatments are a fraction of that. But because cancer is a political disease, and it’s not profitable for drug companies to promote natural medicine, most people don’t know about the wonderful benefits of this type of medicine and most insurance companies don’t pay for it. The decades-long media blackout on natural medicine also maintains the status quo. Just look at who the media’s biggest advertisers are —drug companies. A while back,
Newsweek
had a cover story entitled, “Crazy Talk: Oprah, Wacky Cures and You.” (June 8, 2009) On the cover of the magazine was an unflattering head shot of Oprah looking away from the camera. The article disparaged the natural treatments that Oprah had mentioned on one of her shows without offering any evidence for its contentions. What I found to be screamingly egregious was the fact that seven of the first twenty pages of that issue were full-page drug
ads.
Newsweek
couldn’t have made their motives and their money trail any plainer.

There are also some ineffective natural treatments, such as some of the so-called “latest, greatest” findings in medicine. Chlorine dioxide, sometimes marketed as Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS), is currently a hot treatment that’s being promoted on the Internet. We have one patient who was doing well on just our treatments, who has insisted on using MMS and it has made him sicker. Another darling of the Internet last year was Protocel, and I haven’t seen any good results from it, either. Those are the two ineffective natural treatments that come into my mind as being the “latest and greatest” fashion in cancer treatment, but for which there is no outcomes-based evidence for their effectiveness. Our IV room can sometimes become a spontaneous cancer support group, and some people thrive on talking about the latest thing that’s out there, whether ozone or hyperthermia, etc., but not all of these treatments are good.

I try to support my patients the best I can. During their initial consultations, I allow them time to “get off their chest” whatever it is they need to say. For instance, I can think of three breast cancer patients, who, when I asked them, “How does your husband feel about you doing these treatments?” all answered, “Well, he’s angry at me for getting cancer.” Can you imagine the moral and emotional immaturity of a man who acts like he’s the victim and who blames his wife for getting breast cancer? So I try to be there for patients who are in such situations, to listen to them, because they need emotional support as well as medical support when their families aren’t providing it.

My advice to the friends and family of those with cancer is for them to not act like victims when they aren’t the ones with cancer, and to not blame their loved ones for getting sick. I also tell them to not eat desserts in front of them! If people with cancer are trying to
stay away from cigarettes, I also tell friends and family members to not smoke in front of them (especially if they have lung cancer).

To anyone who has recently been diagnosed with cancer, I would say:

1. Although you have to act soon, know that you don’t have to do anything drastic this week. Take this week to examine, with a clear head, all of your available options. Decide what you want to do, and then get started.
   
2. Stay in charge of your own health care. Don’t let anyone (neither family members nor professionals) bully you into doing anything that you don’t agree with.
   
3. Many cancer patients have put themselves and their interests last. Now it’s time to put yourself first.
   

One comprehensive website that I recommend to those who want to learn more about cancer treatments is:
www.cancertutor.com
.

Dr. Colleen Huber, NMD

1250 East Baseline Road

Tempe, Arizona

Phone: 480.839.2800

www.naturopathyworks.com

Juergen Winkler, MD, is Board Certified in Family Medicine. He completed his medical training at San Bernardino County Medical Center in 1991, and subsequently spent four years in the Air Force at two different bases. At KI Sawyer Air Force Base, he was Chief of the primary care clinic, where he improved patients’ access to, and the delivery of, medical care within the hospital. Additionally, he managed its allergy and immunization clinic and also directed a headache clinic. After leaving the Air Force, Dr. Winkler went into private practice in Carlsbad, California for two years, after which time he began an eight-year career in homecare, where he made over 12,000 house calls to homebound geriatric patients in San Diego County. Since 2005, he has been working with Les Breitman, MD, in private practice at Genesis Health Systems: An Integrative Cancer and Medical Treatment Center (formerly called the Alternative Cancer Treatment Center of Southern California).

Dr. Winkler has maintained an interest in alternative and complementary medicine since medical school, and in 1996 he joined the
American College for the Advancement in Medicine. He is also a member of the American College of Osteopathic Pain Management & Sclerotherapy, Inc. He has special training in chelation therapy, Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) for cancer treatment, and Mesotherapy for pain management. His treatment approach is based on nutrition, heavy metal detoxification, and immune system enhancement. In addition, he treats hormonal conditions associated with menopause, hypothyroidism, and andropause.

While attending medical school at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, I became interested in alternative medicine, which was outside the paradigm of the conventional medicine that I was being taught at school. Consequently, there was little time for me to pursue this interest, but when I had time, I would study nutrition, and occasionally, listen to lectures at the local school of Oriental medicine. Once in residency, I learned ear reflexology, hypnosis, and other alternative treatment modalities. I also attended lectures on acupuncture whenever I could.

Learning about different types of medicine and other perspectives was helpful for breaking up the very left-brained, didactic, allopathic medical training that I was being taught. It also helped me to maintain a balanced understanding of disease and healing. Although I have received training in conventional medicine, which is vital in today’s world, I have sought to incorporate other perspectives into my training, in order to have a more balanced medical background.

After medical school, I moved to California to complete a family practice residency at San Bernardino County Medical Center. Whenever I had time, I pursued my interest in alternative medicine, while sticking to the core of learning conventional medicine, which I also really enjoyed. My residency program was a lot of fun, and I learned everything from pediatrics and obstetrics, to surgery and internal medicine. After my residency, and as mentioned in my
biography, I went into the Air Force and over the following four years, was stationed at two different bases.

During my last year in the military, doctors used to send me all of their chronically fatigued patients because they learned that I was effectively helping patients with Candida and other chronic conditions with nutritional remedies. Some of the doctors around me weren’t happy, though. They thought I was practicing witchcraft. But any medical doctor who goes beyond the perspective of conventional medicine is accustomed to their work being referred to in this way. Still, my patients liked that I could heal them, even though my colleagues got frustrated because I wasn’t practicing medicine “like I was supposed to.” After the military, I went into private practice for a couple of years, and one of my goals during this time was to build upon my knowledge in nutrition, chelation, and all of the other alternative medical therapies that I had started studying in medical school and while in the military.

There’s a strong fraternal order among doctors and it’s especially strong among oncologists. Most oncologists are very “cookbooklike” in their treatment of patients. They have a regimented way of doing things, with no in-between. They have a book that they use to look up chemotherapy treatments for their patients, called the
Guide to Chemotherapeutic Regimens
. When prescribing a regimen, they just calculate their patients’ weight and body surface area, and from those, determine what their treatments should be. That’s how conventional medicine treats patients.

I wanted to break out of the cookbook model, so in 1995, after I had already been doing chelation and nutritional therapies, I joined the American College for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM), an organization which focuses on integrative medicine (which involves combining alternative and conventional treatments, and tailoring those to the individual).

The doctors that I shared a practice with after the military didn’t agree with my approach to medicine, so in 1997, I ended up practicing
on my own, and doing homecare for eight years. I would see six to eight patients per day, so I probably made a total of about 12,000 house calls during those eight years. I also became the medical director for Call Doctor Medical Group, a mobile medical group, and got involved with helping the elderly. One of my goals with the elderly was to focus upon restoring their functionality so that they could do things like cook meals, get dressed, and bathe. The ability to function is important, not only for the elderly, but also for those with chronic diseases, especially cancer, so I carried this concept over into my treatment of the chronically ill.

My mother-in-law developed pancreatic cancer about five years ago, and her battle with disease provided me with the incentive that I finally needed to move out of homecare, and start working more with cancer patients. So in 2005, I joined another doctor in private practice, Les Breitman, MD, and we developed our own IPT model for cancer treatment, which we have used in our practice over the past five years. Our goal when we treat cancer is to keep the disease at bay and/or put patients into remission, so that the disease won’t interfere with their lifestyles.

We focus upon treating patients individually, and addressing the particular characteristics of their cancers, as well as their ability to detoxify. This includes stimulating the immune system to help it recognize cancer, and reducing blood flow to tumors (inhibiting angiogenesis). These, as well as other aspects of our treatment approach, are covered more in-depth in the following sections.

Insulin Potentiation Therapy is a simple medical procedure that uses the hormone insulin, followed by chemotherapy and glucose, to make chemotherapy drugs more effective, in smaller doses, with few to no side effects.

There are no double-blind, placebo-controlled, university-based, FDA, or pharmaceutical company-funded studies for IPT, or many of the other treatments that we do at our clinic. IPT was basically developed as a result of several doctors who better understood cancer physiology and how the body works, and who felt they could treat cancer patients with less toxic methods than what’s found in conventional medicine.

A Mexican doctor named Donato Perez Garcia, MD, was the first to notice that insulin, when combined with certain medications and nutrients, was useful for treating various health conditions. For instance, he and his son, also a doctor, found that insulin, when combined with low dosages of chemotherapy, was very effective for treating cancer patients. Their results were impressive and they presented their data to the National Health Institute (NIH) in the early 1960s. The NIH promptly shelved the information and has since made it difficult for physicians to get funding to study the effects of IPT. Since then, a growing international organization has been developed, which teaches IPT to interested physicians.

In order to understand how IPT works, it’s important to first explain cancer cell physiology and compare it to that of normal cells. Cancer cells have six times as many receptors for insulin on the surface of their membranes as normal cells, and ten times as many IGF-1 factors, or Insulin Growth Factor-1 receptors. Insulin stimulates growth and the uptake of glucose into the cells for energy. It also transports amino acids and vitamins into the cell. Cancer has a high metabolism, and must feed itself. It prefers sugar and simple carbohydrates since it doesn’t metabolize fats and proteins very well.

One reason we know that cancer cells have a higher than normal metabolism is because of PET scans, which reveal areas of increased metabolic activity in the body. These scans essentially involve injecting labeled sugar molecules into the body, which are then detected by scanners once they are inside the body. The sugar molecules go to areas of increased metabolic activity, which happen
to be where the cancer is. To further understand how this works, consider the following example: Let’s say you have a cage with a bunch of hamsters that are sleeping or crawling around, with the exception of one, which is very active, running on a wheel and burning a lot of calories. The active hamster represents a metabolically active tumor in a body of normal cells (which are the sleeping and crawling hamsters). Thus, tumor cells are more sensitive to sugar because they need more glucose for producing energy. So they pick up sugar by means of insulin, a lot faster and more aggressively than normal cells do.

When doctors drop their patients’ blood sugar levels by giving them insulin, it creates a state in the body, called a therapeutic moment, in which the body elicits the release of adrenaline (epinephrine). This causes patients to feel hot, sweaty, and drowsy. When adrenaline and insulin are mixed together in a low blood sugar state, cancer cells and other inflamed cells become much more receptive to whatever substances are introduced to them through an IV, including chemotherapy. This means that doctors can give much lower doses of chemotherapy to their patients, and their effects will be greatly enhanced, or potentiated, by the insulin. Only one-tenth of the full chemotherapy dose is needed to obtain effective results, and it can be administered in a much shorter period of time than regular chemotherapy. In order for IPT to be effective, the patient’s blood sugar levels must be dropped to 30-40 mg/dL (the normal range is 65-99 mg/dL). Despite this, the procedure is thoroughly safe. People do get a bit groggy, but after a while they get used to it, and after the procedure doctors can quickly restore their low blood sugar back to normal by giving them an infusion of glucose.