Читать книгу Fight Cancer - Чарльз Спендер - Страница 1

This booklet describes many methods for cancer treatment, all of them free of charge and based on lifestyle changes. Three of these methods are scientifically proven well but are not used by conventional medicine and are not recommended officially for cancer treatment: turmeric, physical exercise, and vitamin D. The amount of scientific evidence about the anticancer properties of these approaches is overwhelming: close to a thousand scientific papers in total [link, link]. Turmeric and its active ingredient curcumin are at the top: over 600 scientific papers. The possible reason why these methods/products are not officially recommended for cancer treatment: they cannot bring profits to the healthcare industry and therefore nobody is lobbying healthcare authorities about these treatments. Another possible reason is that clinical trials testing a single method are not available for each of the above, also because of the absence of a profit motive. Therapeutic use of temporary hyperthermia (increased core body temperature or local heating) is supported by hundreds of scientific studies and is being gradually incorporated into oncological clinical practice. As explained later, the best approach to testing these modalities is simultaneous because they are a part of the hypothesis that cancer is caused by a suboptimal lifestyle in combination with genetic predisposition. It would be silly to try to identify a single active ingredient of a healthy lifestyle. Those who wish to test this hypothesis on the basis of good scientific evidence, may consider the following comprehensive lifestyle intervention: a balanced diverse diet free of vitamin and mineral supplements (the diet should not primarily consist of junk food and should contain normal proportions of protein, fat, and carbs), brief cardio exercise every day (twofold pulse acceleration), a tablespoon of a turmeric powder daily, a tablespoon of canned cod liver daily (vitamin D), brief sun-bathing or UV-tanning sessions (1 minute on four sides, as another source of vitamin D and hormesis), moderate hyperthermia (40°C core body temperature) once every 2 weeks in a hot bath, and daily adapted cold showers (moderate cooling is hormesis too, is proven to reduce fatigue, and widely known to reduce pain), plus inclusion of soy and raw broccoli into the diet [a lot of scientific papers about anticancer effectiveness of soy and sulforaphane, link]. Forget about killing cancer cells, the goal is to normalize metabolism and the immune system, which are expected to take care of the cancer and related health problems.

This booklet also offers three experimental anticancer treatments; there is no scientific proof, but there is a good and easy-to-understand scientific rationale. One of the experimental methods is already mentioned above and is designed to enhance the antitumor immune response [link] and to improve quality of life: “adapted cold shower.” The moderate repeated cooling can allow you to undertake more rounds of chemo-, radiotherapy, or surgical treatment because cooling reduces many side effects of those methods. (Note: This manual does not recommend cytotoxic chemotherapy.) This approach should improve the chances of survival. Cold showers can have rare side effects and may not be appropriate for patients with some leukemias and lymphomas.

Although the evidence of effectiveness of cold showers is currently scarce, there is plenty of indirect evidence from laboratory animals and studies on human subjects. According to a study on laboratory rats [link], repeated cooling should be effective against sarcomas and some carcinomas, but the most suitable types of tumor in humans are currently unknown. The treatment is free and safe, so it would be reasonable to try it, especially if all other options are exhausted.

In addition, the current state of science and technology allows us to safely consume raw meat, i.e., to kill virtually all bacteria and parasites while keeping the meat raw or almost raw. One of the chapters describes several benefits of safe raw meat and 100% raw diet for cancer patients. The third experimental treatment is a lifestyle that contains numerous types of hormesis.

The scientific hypothesis behind all these methods is that cancer is caused by an unnatural lifestyle, for example, by an unusual diet (putting the wrong kind of fuel into the gas tank), or by a lack of various mild and not-so-mild stressors that animals encounter in the wild: changes of temperature, abundant physical activity, etc. Accordingly, changing the lifestyle should normalize the patient’s metabolism and immune system and help to overcome cancer even at an advanced stage. There is some published scientific evidence that the human body can normalize cancer cells (without killing them) by means of special chemicals and peptides called antineoplastons. In addition, there are some scientific data suggesting that big changes in a lifestyle can cure cancer even at an advanced stage [link].

Radiotherapy, surgical treatment, and targeted chemotherapy may help too, but strength of evidence behind these methods is much smaller than you think (see below). This manual advises skepticism regarding cytotoxic chemotherapy (the type of chemotherapy indiscriminately killing rapidly dividing cells) because of various unethical activities and undue influence of the pharmaceutical industry. A small number of types of cancer are an exception because cytotoxic chemotherapy shows extraordinary effectiveness there (which would be difficult to fake). In most cancers, cytotoxic chemotherapy shows only modest, clinically insignificant [link, link] effectiveness, which is probably unreal anyway because of various biases (for example, most of the authors receive payments from the industry, i.e., have conflicts of interest). None of the scientific evidence regarding chemotherapy should be trusted blindly (including targeted chemotherapy).

At present, the way science is organized makes it easy to manipulate science by funding. To be precise, research articles usually show the results that the sponsors of the study want to see (often false results). And I don’t mean little abuses here and there: we are talking about gigantic distortions. Big sponsors can create a desired scientific consensus by sponsoring thousands of misleading studies. To give another example, the type of clinical trial that is widely believed to be the gold standard of accuracy and scientific rigor (the technical term is "double-blind randomized controlled trial") is no longer trustworthy because of numerous loopholes, which have been exploited for decades but came to light only recently. The official treatment guidelines based on this bad information are still in place.

The vast majority of surgical methods have not been proven to be beneficial. For regulatory approval, prescription drugs are tested by those who produce and sell them or by people with major conflicts of interest (such as contract research organizations). Ridiculous but true. Scientific medical journals receive lots of money for reprints and advertising from the healthcare industry. Members of editorial boards of the most prestigious medical journals receive huge payments from the healthcare industry. Seventy to 90% of scientific articles contain bad irreproducible results because of fraud, bad methodology, or both. Virtually all scientists have an unacknowledged conflict of interest related to renewal of research grants; this conflict of interest is probably the biggest source of scientific fraud outside the private industry. Reporting of scientific fraud is discouraged not encouraged under the present system. Private corporations such as pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers face no punishment for publishing fraudulent results in scientific journals (this activity is not monitored or regulated by the government). Many official treatment guidelines are based on bad corrupted data, such as scientific studies showing a tiny beneficial effect where the authors have conflicts of interest (such small effects are likely to be the result of the financial bias).

Modern medicine is among the leading causes of death (third place by some estimates) because of unnecessary surgical interventions, medical errors, and adverse effects of prescription drugs taken correctly. You should be skeptical about both conventional medicine and alternative medicine (and don’t believe blindly anything related to medicine in Wikipedia).

When choosing a medical procedure for any illness (not necessarily cancer), you need to ask yourself 1) Does the author of the procedure or healthcare provider want my money? Can I perform the treatment myself without paying a penny to this healthcare professional or to the inventor? 2) Does the procedure make sense or address the real ultimate cause of the illness that I can understand and verify myself? 3) Will this practitioner turn me into a permanent client of the healthcare industry because the procedure will temporarily relieve the symptoms, while causing new health problems? 4) Is the procedure dangerous: will it do more harm than good? 5) Is it likely that the scientific evidence was corrupted by those trying to sell this method? 6) Do I really have a disease that needs to be treated? 7) Is it possible that I am healthy, but the health problem was invented to sell various healthcare products? 8) If the method in question is often called “quackery,” is it possible that it works but is being trashed by powerful competitors? 9) If the treatment method in question is called useless, unproven, or “pseudoscience” in a Wikipedia article, then the method is probably safe, proven, and effective: you need to do so some research in the literature.

To learn more about imperfections of science, see the section “Interpreting evidence from studies on human subjects,” Chapter One, in my other book “How to Become Smarter.” Furthermore, cytotoxic chemotherapy does not make biological sense because it impairs the immune system, and such drugs are often carcinogens themselves. A normally functioning immune system is necessary for defeating and preventing cancer.

Most likely, there is no rigorous scientific proof that the anticancer spices/herbs and physical exercise can cure your specific type of cancer. But, a big but, the three standard cancer treatments (surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy) are not supported by rigorous proof either, as mentioned above. Surgical methods are used out of force of habit (in most cases, there is no proof that they cause more good than harm), whereas chemotherapy and radiation therapy are supported predominantly by biased evidence (i.e., proof provided by those who sell these treatments and/or by researchers with conflicts of interest). This problem is compounded by the fact the authors of scientific articles about profitable medical treatments often fail to show their conflicts of interest (or do not show all of them), and readers will have to spend some time to search for this information on their own.

Government agencies tasked with combating cancer routinely manipulate statistics to make themselves look good. With some creative use of statistical methods, a 5-year 90% death rate can be presented as a 5-year 90% relative survival rate. In reality, if you go the conventional route, your prognosis is as dismal today as it was decades ago, with rare exceptions. Physicians have to follow official guidelines (which were installed with the help of the healthcare industry) or else they damage their career. There are many decent oncologists who care about patients and do their best to help them.

Of course, you can combine conventional and the proposed unconventional treatments if they make sense to you. Consult a healthcare professional about this combination. Among conventional treatments, minor surgical interventions (those that do not require general anesthesia), radiotherapy, and targeted chemotherapy are fairly safe and make sense. Systemic (i.e., cytotoxic) chemotherapy is not only useless but harmful in most cases. A major surgical operation is highly dangerous, harmful to your health, and does not address the cause of cancer (the tumor is not the cause of cancer). Can a big tumor shrink or stay relatively harmless for years without surgical removal? Not always, but it can. Do your own research, don’t trust anyone on this topic. The healthcare industry and those physicians that have been bribed by this industry often employ scare tactics as a marketing ploy. If you enhance your immune system, then a large tumor is unlikely to metastasize and will gradually shrink. Haste makes waste. If you want to get rid of cancer overnight, then you may die on the operating table or become a cripple for life, e.g., lose an important organ or body part. You should never hurry with a major operation if you have cancer, especially if you feel well. You need to carefully weigh all the pros and cons. If you feel sick, at least try to achieve a good general state of health and become stronger (as described in this booklet) before you go under the knife if you believe that you must excise your tumor.

If you are wondering about my credentials on this topic, I have a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular oncology and am an author or coauthor of 16 scientific publications.

The text below doesn’t contain literary citations because they make it difficult to use the text-to-speech function of various eReader devices. Studies for each chapter are listed in the Literature section.