Treating Cancer -- With Herbs

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Treating Cancer -- With Herbs

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
March 20 2008 | 171,276 views

Many of the chemotherapies used to fight cancer in modern medicine were developed from natural substances.

For instance:

Taxanes used to treat prostate and breast cancer came from yew trees.
Vinca alkaloids, which are used to treat malignant lymphomas, are made from periwinkle plants.
The anti-cancer drugs topotecan and irinotecan come from a component of the Chinese Happy Tree.

Scientists are increasingly focusing on plants used in traditional medicine in their search for new compounds. About three-quarters of the pharmaceutical compounds used today came from plants used in traditional medicine.

Professor Dr. Thomas Efferth from Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum in Heidelberg, for example, has begun analyzing 76 Chinese medicinal plants that are believed to treat malignant tumors and other growths. Extracts from 18 of the plants were found to significantly suppress the growth of cancer cells.

“With this success rate of about 24 percent, we are way above the results that could be expected from searching through large chemical substance libraries,” Efferth said.

Sources:

Molecular Cancer Therapeutics January 1, 2008, 7, 152-161

Eurekalert March 4, 2008

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Most pharmaceuticals that are derived from plants are typically from one “active” component of the plant that is then isolated and synthetically replicated. In contrast, most traditional medicine remedies use whole plants in their natural state, which is a far cry from the lab-produced cancer treatments used in modern medicine.

While herbal remedies can indeed be powerful, they are typically far safer than most medications. Still, I do not widely support using them as your primary healing approach as they rarely address the primary cause. Like drugs, herbs and other plants are frequently used as band-aids that fail to address the root cause.

However, when used wisely by someone trained in this science they can be enormously beneficial adjuncts to the healing process, and I believe that it is wise to use them. Just be careful to continue to search for the reasons that you initially acquired the health challenge.

Cancer Treatments: Chemo or Natural?

While I don’t normally focus on the details of cancer treatments, it’s worth pointing out that it is very rare for cancer to only have one cause. Rather than simply being caused by a malfunction in your DNA, or a faulty gene you “inherited” from your grandmother, cancer is more typically triggered by a combination of the following:

Nutritional deficiencies
Toxins in your environment
Emotional conflicts
Hormonal imbalances

Often, cancer can actually be treated, and reversed, by addressing these variables through dietary changes, purifying your environment, and addressing your emotional state.

Chemotherapy is rarely the best option for cancer treatment, as it usually doesn't cure cancer or extend life, and it really does not improve the quality of your life either. Dr. Ralph Moss, who is the author of eight books on cancer treatment, has reviewed thousands of studies as part of the research for his books -- and he has not found one single good study that shows chemo cures cancer or extends life.

What chemo does do, however, is expose your body to toxins that kill all cells that multiply and divide rapidly. This includes not only cancer cells, but also other rapidly multiplying and dividing cells, such as bone marrow, reproductive system cells and hair follicles.

These are powerful drugs that present an assault on your system -- one that your body must then overcome along with the cancer. And the effects do not end right after the treatment. One UCLA study found that chemotherapy can actually change the blood flow and metabolism of your brain in ways that can linger for 10 years or more after treatment.

Preventing Cancer: 12 Tips to Live By

No one wants to battle cancer, and there is good news because I believe you can VIRTUALLY ELIMINATE your risk of cancer and chronic disease, and radically improve your chances of recovering from cancer if you currently have it, by following these relatively simple risk reduction strategies.

   1. Reduce or eliminate your processed food, sugar and grain carbohydrate intake. Yes, this is even true for whole unprocessed organic grains, as they tend to rapidly break down and drive your insulin and leptin levels up, which is the last thing you need to have happening if you are seeking to resolve a cancer.

   2. Control your fasting insulin and leptin levels. This is the end result, and can be easily monitored with the use of simple and relatively inexpensive blood tests.

   3. Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil and reducing your intake of most processed vegetable oils.

   4. Get regular exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.

   5. Normalize your vitamin D levels by getting plenty of sunlight exposure and consider careful supplementation when this is not possible. If you take oral vitamin D and have a cancer, it would be very prudent to monitor your vitamin D blood levels regularly.

   6. Get regular, good sleep.

   7. Eat according to your nutritional type. The potent anti-cancer effects of this principle are very much underappreciated. When we treat cancer patients in our clinic this is one of the most powerful anti-cancer strategies we have.

   8. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.

   9. Limit your exposure and provide protection for yourself from information-carrying radio waves produced by cell phone towers, base stations, phones and WiFi stations.

10. Avoid frying or charbroiling your food. Boil, poach or steam your foods instead.

11. Have a tool to permanently reprogram the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. Energy psychology seems to be one of the best approaches and my particular favorite tool, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). German New Medicine is another powerful tool.

12. Eat at least one-third of your food raw. Personally my goal is 85% raw and I am usually able to achieve that.