Truth: Cancer Treatments
In the United States today, more than 1,500 people die from cancer each day, accounting for the second largest cause of death, second only to heart disease. Despite years of research and millions of dollars in funding, medical scientists have yet to discover a way to cure cancer completely. The number of individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer and in need treatment have grown so much over the past few decades, that cancer has now become a multi-billion dollar industry. Today there are hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, lawyers; the list goes on who are making a living (a very comfortable and luxurious one) from this disease called cancer.
Today there are hundreds of drugs and therapies all claiming to help in curing the disease, yet none does anything different from the other. It seems that every type of cancer can only be treated with one particular drug.
Are we to believe that the various cancers are so different from each other that at least two of them cannot be treated with the same drug?
Are we ever going to hear of a drug that can cure cancer?
Are scientists and medical researchers actually trying to find a cure for cancer?
It's ironic that today we are capable of creating the most impressive technological inventions and yet we are unable to find a cure cancer. When we speak of a cure, we're not talking about medication, which would require us to spend thousands of dollars in just treating the symptoms, while the disease remains in remission. We speak of a treatment that would totally eradicate the disease from our bodies and yet not affect us with other illnesses worse than the one we've treated.
Today what are the strategies used to treat cancer?
Today cancer is treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy or a combination of therapies. The two most common methods of treating cancer are radiation and chemotherapy. But let’s think about it for a few minutes, are these treatment what you really want? Are they proven to be effective in treating cancer?
Treating cancer with surgery
Surgery is cutting away tissue from your body and is one of the main treatments for cancer. In some cases it is the only treatment you need if 
the cancer is completely contained in one area of your body and has not spread. Surgery is a local treatment in that it only treats the part of the body operated on and gives best results if the cancer has not spread. But what if the cancer has already spread to other parts of your body ? What would be the next step when chemotherapy proves unreliable as it does in many instances?
It would now require the removal of an organ or the amputation of a body part. How would you like spending the rest of your life with one breast or none if you’re a woman? Perhaps you may have to live the rest of you life with one limb. The sad fact is that in many cases the cancer returns and affects another part of the body which would also require surgery or amputation. Now would you call that a cure, when there are other alternative methods which would yield much greater results? Click here to learn about a natural alternative to treating cancer.
Chemotherapy
There are more than 90 different chemotherapy drugs approved for use in the US to treat cancer. Some are given alone or in combination, but
these drugs damage the reproductive ability of both malignant and normal cells. The drugs used in chemotherapy tend to vary depending on the cancer treatment. Chemotherapy does not cure cancer; it only prevents the spread of certain types of cancer and begins remission.
The effects of chemotherapy vary with the type of drug or combination of drug used, dose, rate of excretion, duration of treatment and individual tolerance. The effects of chemotherapy are more numerous than that of both radiation and surgery. Common side effects include:
- anorexia
- fatigue
- nausea and vomiting
- taste alterations or aversions
- sore mouth or throat
- diarrhea
- constipation
- death
In many instances where individuals die from the chemotherapy treatment, the doctors only claim that they succumbed to the cancer. I have witnessed this case myself, when my youngest brother was diagnosed with leukemia and was admitted to the hospital. A man who was in his fifties was also diagnosed with cancer and was being prepared for chemotherapy treatment. Before the treatment he was very active and alive as he talked and laughed with the other patients. After one or two treatments, this man was confined to his bed side and died within three weeks, never recovering from the treatment. Am I supposed to believe that it was the cancer which developed so quickly, costing the man his life in so short a time?
Radiation
Radiation causes cell death by using high energy radioactive waves to destroy or injure cancerous cells. Radiation treatment is usually administered in small amounts, targeting the specific area of the tumor. Although radiation injures all rapidly dividing cancer cells, it also destroys normal healthy cells, but they seem to recover more quickly than cancerous cells do.
Here is the punch line: both normal cells and cancer cells recover from radiation. If they both recover, why am I supposed to call this a treatment for cancer?
If healthy cell are also destroyed by the treatment, how will my immune system combat other diseases and pathogens entering my body during this time?
Here are a few side effects of radiation:
- Difficulty swallowing and chewing
- Loss of teeth and taste
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Nausea
-
Chronic blood loss from intestine and bladder
What is the point of undergoing radiation if I’m only expecting to have cancer again at some point in my life and experience those same side effects? Would anyone consider that a cure?
The sad truth is that many natural alternatives used to treat cancer cannot be called a cure because the FDA claims that only drugs can cure diseases.
Have we ever heard of a drug which has cured a disease, even the common cold?
Sources:
Dudek, Susan G. Nutrition essentials for nursing practice. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2007.