Authors: Connie Strasheim
Conventional Versus Alternative Medicine
Practitioner Challenges of Treating Cancer
Contact Information for Constantine Kotsanis, MD
My Personal Experience with Cancer and How It Has Affected How I Treat Patients
How Naturopathy Benefits Patients
What Cancer Is and What Causes It
Pharmaceutical-Grade Supplements
Follow-Up and Maintenance Treatments
Expected Treatment Outcomes for People with Late-Stage Cancers
Factors That Affect Treatment Outcomes
My Biggest Challenge as a Practitioner
Problems with the Conventional Medical System and Conventional Cancer Treatments
What Patients Can Do if They Can’t Afford Treatments
How Friends and Family Can Support Their Loved Ones with Cancer
CHAPTER
13: Keith Scott-Mumby, MD, PhD
Pillar of Healing #1: Nutrition
Pillar of Healing #2: Chemical Cleanup
Pillar of Healing #3: Alternative Psychology
Homotoxicology for Detoxification
Homotoxicology for Releasing Miasms
How Naturopathic Treatments Benefit Those Who Do Chemotherapy
Erasing the Harmful Effects of Vaccines
Balancing the Hormones with Herbs and Homeopathic Remedies
Considerations When Searching for a Cancer Doctor
Patient/Practitioner Challenges to Healing
How Friends and Family Can Support Their Loved Ones with Cancer
New Developments in Conventional Medicine
Contact Information for Keith Scott-Mumby, MD, MB, ChB, PhD
CHAPTER
14: Chad Aschtgen, ND, FABNO
The Benefits of Integrative Medicine
How My Training Has Affected How I Treat Cancer
What Cancer Is and What Causes It
Preventing and Minimizing the Adverse Effects of Anti-Neoplastic Therapies
Changing the Body’s Internal Terrain
Addressing Nutrient Deficiencies
Eliminating Oxidative Stress and Increasing the Body’s Antioxidant Capacity
Lifestyle Recommendations for Healing
What More Patients Should Understand When Researching Cancer Treatments
Resources for Low-Income Cancer Patients
How Family and Friends Can Support Their Loved Ones with Cancer
Dangerous/Ineffective Cancer Treatments
Contact Information for Chad Aschtgen, ND
CHAPTER
15: Finn Skøtt Andersen, MD
What Cancer Is and What Causes It
HL (High Level) Whole Body Hyperthermia
Low-Dose Metronomic Chemotherapy
The Art of Combining and Switching Cancer Therapies
Tumor Markers and CTCs (or Circulating Tumor Cell) Tests
Lifestyle Strategies for Healing
The Importance of Treating Infections and Toxicity in the Mouth
How to Contact Finn Skøtt Andersen, MD
Publisher’s Catalog (Books & DVDs on Cancer Treatment)
I wish this book had been available to me twelve years ago when I was first diagnosed with cancer. I am a medical doctor, and at that time, I was the director of a busy multi-specialty pain management program in Long Island, New York. I was also athletic, and had competed in many triathlons, swim events, and cycling/running races. Although I had never smoked in my life, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. My cancer specialist told me that the five-year survival rate for this type of cancer was 55 percent, but I subsequently found out that it was more like 25 percent. To say I was shocked was an understatement! I wondered how this could happen to me. I thought I was the healthiest person in the world and immune to this kind of problem. It was a rude awakening, but it sent me on a fervent quest to find a cure.
I spent days and nights on the Internet, searching for the latest and best treatments for my condition. I visited all of the so-called “experts,” but they all offered the same solution: chemotherapy. However, my research suggested that chemotherapy might only prolong my life for a month or two, and would leave me with a poor quality of life from the moment I began treatment. I felt there had to be a better way. I was determined to keep an open mind when I started looking at so-called “alternative” treatments, which we now more properly know as integrative medicine.
I was trained in traditional medicine at Cornell University Medical College, which is affiliated with the famous Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. While Memorial Sloan-Kettering is
known as a world-class cancer center, the doctors there could only offer me the same unsatisfactory treatments as everyone else. So I decided to look beyond mainstream medical research. After searching extensively, I began to realize that there was widespread information on effective cancer treatments in alternative, complementary and integrative medicine, but this information isn’t usually published in the mainstream medical or specialty journals that we (doctors) are all expected to read.
We must go beyond these journals and the handouts that we receive from pharmaceutical company sales representatives, but it requires real effort. We must look at small, independent studies and apply logic in evaluating them, to help us understand how these findings might help our patients. We must look for the causes of disease and deal with those, rather than focus solely on symptom management, an unfortunate reality of pharmaceutically-based medicine. We must be willing to try new approaches, as long as we believe that what we do will not harm the patient, which is the first principle of medicine. It is this quest that led me to found Linchitz Medical Wellness, in Glen Cove, New York. The doctors who work at my center treat all types of medical conditions; however, my portion of the practice is devoted exclusively to cancer patients.
As I read
Defeat Cancer
I was struck by the fact that all of the doctors demonstrated incredible courage to face disapproval, and sometimes, outright attacks from mainstream medicine. In this regard, Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, is almost in a class by himself. He has probably been the most persecuted and prosecuted doctor in the modern history of “alternative” medicine. He faced fourteen years of attacks by the FDA and conventional doctors, and spent millions of dollars before he finally prevailed. The FDA is now finally cooperating with him in his study of antineoplastons, but still prohibits him from using them as he sees fit, outside of clinical trials. Many of the doctors featured in the book still face ridicule and condemnation by conventional doctors. Try to imagine what could motivate an intelligent, well-trained doctor, who could have easily succeeded in a conventional practice, to step outside of mainstream medicine and face criticism, and even sanctions on his
work, in order to pursue a different path. What motivated him and the other doctors in this book is a passion for truth!
Mainstream medicine concentrates on what is often called “evidence-based” medicine. This term suggests that all of what is done in mainstream medicine is based upon rigorous studies. In evidence-based medicine, the “gold standard” for testing the effectiveness of different treatments is the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, which involves the participation of hundreds or thousands of patients. After a rigorous mathematical analysis of the results of a trial, researchers look for “statistically significant” evidence, which can be defined as evidence that is different from what may be expected as a result of pure chance. Thus, even small benefits that patients experience as a result of different treatments are noted as statistically significant. Therefore, those treatments become valid options for use in clinical practice, but they may not, in fact, be all that effective, as you will see in the next few paragraphs.
There are several problems with this so-called “evidence-based” medicine: