Defeat Cancer (46 page)

While I saw many people with cancer, I never analyzed specifically what percentage of my overall practice consisted of cancer patients, because I didn’t gather statistics based on the types of disease that my patients had. I did, however, keep statistics based on the results of different treatments, and those were remarkably consistent. About 50 percent of the people that I saw were cured and able to stop their treatments, including my cancer patients. Another 25 percent were much better off as a result of their treatments. Only for a remaining 25 percent did none of my treatments seem to greatly impact their symptoms.

People with cancer should seek out doctors who understand the power of nutrition, and who give it its proper place at the top of the list in importance for treating cancer. They should also look for qualified physicians who can administer nutritional IVs, because IVs are a faster and more direct way to deliver nutrition to the body. When taken orally, nutrients are notorious for not being effectively absorbed by the body and the problem of absorption is eliminated with an IV. Also, finding a practitioner who understands homeopathy is a good idea, because homeopathy is a whole different philosophy about disease which really works. It’s not just another alternative practice. Those that really understand homeopathy know how to drive disease out of the body. Cancer isn’t an alien entity that drops into people from outer space; it’s a part of them that has “gone wrong,” and if they nurture and treat it properly, it will go back into being a “friendly” part of them. This approach is better than treating cancer as if it were the enemy, and blasting it to death with substances.

Ultimately, people need to decide for themselves what treatments they need. They shouldn’t be terrorized into a choice. In general, I think it’s wise to avoid chemotherapy. Ample evidence demonstrates that the results of chemotherapy aren’t as good as what people are led to believe. There are safer alternatives now, anyway. I recommend that people give those a chance, even though some oncologists would prefer to scare their patients, and say things like, “You have to do this (therapy) now, or you will die!”—which isn’t true. If they follow an alternative treatment course, it will give them time to think through their options, because at the very least, natural treatments will slow down the progression of their diseases. I always advise people with cancer to make their own decisions, but if they were to say to me, “I want you to tell me what you think is best,” I would always tell them to go the alternative route, even if they are in the later stages of cancer. I can’t tell you the number of people that I know of who have practically come back from the
grave by using only natural treatments. It’s not true that the more aggressive and serious the cancer, the more heroic the solution needs to be. I used to get patients who were at death’s door, and often, just one homeopathic remedy would turn their situations around. Just because people have dangerous, severe, stage four cancers, doesn’t mean that their cures won’t be simple and straightforward. Often, the gentler the treatment, the better it is. Doctors need to be gentle with really sick patients if those patients are to heal.

If you, the patient, entrust your life to a doctor, you should do what that doctor says. If you can’t afford good help, don’t take a fatalistic view about your disease. Instead, do something at home to treat it, starting with your diet. But if you do find reliable help, follow that doctor’s advice to the letter. People who don’t have much money to see doctors can do many important things on their own which will help them to heal. Following a good diet costs very little. Anyone can afford a twenty-dollar book on diet. There’s a book on the Gerson approach that costs less than that. Nobody needs to die from cancer just because they don’t have enough money to treat it. People can make juices and fresh food, and they can get rid of the chemicals in their homes. Even being able to cry on a friend’s shoulder can make a difference. Homeopathy is cheap; the remedies cost three to five dollars.

Although lack of money shouldn’t be a reason for people to not effectively treat their cancers, some people don’t know which therapy is best for them, and will agonize over treatment decisions. It isn’t possible to try every treatment. That’s why, in my practice, I established three treatment pillars, because I considered these to be the most important aspects of cancer treatment. Outside of these pillars, I would leave it up to my patients to decide, through their feelings, intuition, or research, what types of treatments they most needed.

I don’t like laetrile, which is also known as amygdalin and Vitamin B-17. This is a substance found naturally in some fruits and vegetables, particularly apricot pits and bitter almonds. The active anticancer ingredient in laetrile is cyanide, but I don’t accept the evidence for its effectiveness. I think people are fooling themselves with this remedy.

One of the problems with alternative medicine is that people go on a program that has many components, along with laetrile, and they think that it’s the laetrile that worked for them, when they really don’t know. I want to ask those who boast of its benefits whether they have ever taken it by itself. Most likely, they did a bunch of other treatments too, and it was probably their diet and other therapies which helped them more than the laetrile. The clinical trials on it just didn’t produce great results. No researcher has done a good enough trial on laetrile to convince me of its effectiveness.

The greatest challenge of treating cancer in the United States is the legal hassles that doctors face in this country. They can go to jail for practicing natural medicine. In Europe, doctors don’t have to deal with this nonsense. For me, the single biggest challenge that I faced in treating cancer patients in the UK was family and friends interfering with my patients’ choice of treatment. People would often come to my office, motivated and with sincere intentions to follow a protocol, but they wouldn’t have any emotional support from their families. For instance, a wife might have refused to cook new, healthier foods which her husband needed to overcome his cancer. This lack of support was the single most important barrier to my patients’ healing. If everyone in the family is on the “same page,” and is emotionally supportive of the person with cancer, that person’s cancer often becomes very treatable.

Friends and family can best support their loved ones with cancer by keeping their emotions to themselves. When they constantly wring their hands and weep, this doesn’t help the sick person. Also, joining in on some of the treatment protocols is one of the best things that they can do. Sometimes, couples go through a similar type of emotional cathartic healing when they do this; when they get on the same diet program as the person with cancer, for example. It’s the best kind of sympathy and support that they could offer them.

Conventional therapy is getting better and smarter. Developments are being made with “smart bomb” cancer treatments. These are cancer drugs which selectively burrow into tumors and detonate lethal doses of anti-cancer toxins, while leaving healthy cells unscathed. These drugs work for some types of cancer. Ultraviolet light is another type of anti-cancer treatment that has recently been developed, which involves shining UV light directly upon the tumor. The light serves to activate the chemotherapy treatments inside the tumor. Yet another method uses nano-particle balls that heat up and shine infrared heat upon the tumor. There are many clever tricks like this which conventional medicine is developing, but so far, there are only four or five types of cancers for which the survival rate has increased dramatically as a result of their use.

Increasingly, conventional medicine is coming up with strategies that target the chemotherapy to the tumor, and which don’t damage other cells in the body as much. There’s also a prostate cancer vaccine that it has had good results with. This vaccine creates antibodies to a specific cancer antigen, so it attacks only the antigen, and consequently, only the tumor itself. This is exciting. Any treatment that works via the immune system is harnessing nature’s own healing processes. I support such treatments and am pleased that conventional medicine is developing them.

Still, there are many cancers that conventional medicine hasn’t been able to improve the statistics for, such as colon and breast cancer. Furthermore, in medicine, there’s a lot of “statistics massaging” to get people to believe that the success rate of conventional treatments is higher than what it is really is. And the truth is that, overall, the story still isn’t improving for many kinds of cancers.

Cancer is a wake-up call but it’s not a death knell. It’s a message to people: “Your health is in ruins, so you must change some things in your life, but you don’t have to die.” It’s a signal for them to change, which they must pay attention to. If they do this, they can obtain favorable outcomes with their healing. I have had patients who have made positive changes in their lives. They have pulled themselves out of a rut, and ended up in a wonderful place. So in this regard, cancer can be a blessing.

While I’m no longer actively practicing medicine, I do consultations, and can coach people about the treatments and doctors that they should see. Such consultations can be done through the following website:
www.alternative-doctor.com/consult
.

www.alternative-doctor.com

www.cancerconfidential.com

E-mail:
[email protected]

Chad Aschtgen, ND, FABNO, is Board Certified in naturopathic oncology and specializes in integrative cancer care. He received his Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington in 2005, and subsequently completed a two-year, hospital-based naturopathic medical residency at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), near Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Aschtgen returned to the Pacific Northwest in 2008 and has been providing integrative oncology services since then at the Institute of Complementary Medicine in Seattle and at Providence Western Washington Oncology in Olympia.

Dr. Aschtgen provides expert naturopathic care for people with cancer or to those who want to prevent cancer or who have a family history of cancer. His primary role is to provide supportive treatments to patients who are also receiving conventional oncology treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. He utilizes nutrition and lifestyle counseling, herbal medicines, vitamin and mineral therapies, as well as other modalities to support optimal
wellness in his patients before, during, and after they receive treatments with their oncologists. Whether newly diagnosed, undergoing conventional treatments, or long-term survivors of cancer, those facing the difficulties of cancer have a great resource in Dr. Aschtgen.

Dr. Aschtgen works closely with his patients to create unique, customized, integrative, and holistic treatment plans that take into consideration all aspects of their health and medical care. His patients receive safe and effective natural therapies that are specifically designed to improve overall health and well-being, decrease symptoms, and aid in fighting disease. Committed to patient-centered care, Dr. Aschtgen is available to communicate and coordinate treatments with other members of his patients’ care team, including their families, medical and/or radiation oncologists, surgeons, cancer care managers, and other practitioners.

Dr. Aschtgen is an active member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians (OncANP), Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO), and the Washington Association of Naturopathic Physicians (WANP).

Conventional oncology focuses on eradicating the body’s tumor burden. Surgery is very successful at removing gross disease, while radiation and chemotherapy are variably effective at destroying and/or controlling macro and microscopic disease. However, none of these modalities focus on changing the underlying factors that caused the cancer to develop in the first place, nor do they discourage ongoing tumor cell activity.

Integrative cancer care, which may involve naturopathic, complementary, allopathic, and other types of medicine, focuses upon altering the underlying processes that lead to cancer development and progression. There are some people, such as those with inherited
genetic mutations, for whom some of these underlying processes can’t be altered. Fortunately, only a minority of patients fall into this category. The majority of people within the scientific and medical community contend that most cancer is caused by environmental factors, or exposures that are external to the body, and will therefore respond to treatments.

FABNO is an acronym for Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology. Naturopathic physicians who have successfully completed advanced post-graduate training with an accredited integrative oncology residency program, and have passed a rigorous evaluation, are eligible for board certification in Naturopathic Oncology. According to the Oncology Association of Naturopathic Physicians, “These physicians meet the highest standard of the profession as specialists in naturopathic oncology... and have demonstrated competence in both naturopathic and conventional medical oncology.” Furthermore, the organization states, “Naturopathic oncology is the application of the art and science of naturopathic medicine to the field of cancer care and treatment. Naturopathic oncologists work both in hospital oncology settings and in private practices, bringing their wisdom, perspective and experience to aid oncology treatment teams that seek the best positive outcomes for their patients.” Board certified naturopaths take into account the best current medical evidence when making decisions about how to optimally care for their patients. This is a complex balancing act in which they must consider the scientific research literature, established practice guidelines, their clinical experience, and individual patient needs and desires when establishing a treatment protocol.