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Chemotherapy Can do More Harm Than Good

  • December 02, 2008
    118033

WARNING!

This is an older article that may not reflect Dr. Mercola’s current view on this topic. Use our search engine to find Dr. Mercola’s latest position on any health topic.

patient, chemotherapyDoctors have been urged to be more cautious in offering cancer treatment to terminally-ill patients as chemotherapy can often do more harm than good, a study suggests.

The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) found that more than four in ten patients who received chemotherapy towards the end of life suffered potentially fatal effects from the drugs, and treatment was “inappropriate” in nearly a fifth of cases.

In a study of more than 600 cancer patients who died within 30 days of receiving treatment, chemotherapy probably caused or hastened death in 27 percent of cases, the inquiry found.

In only 35 percent of these cases was care judged to have been good by the inquiry’s advisors, with 49 percent having room for improvement and 8 per cent receiving less than satisfactory care.
 
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
In the conventional health paradigm, chemotherapy is the go-to treatment for cancer. People are paying up to $10,000 a month and sometimes more for these drugs, with the expectation that they will heal them from the disease.

Yet, these expensive and, by their very nature, highly toxic medications often give patients just a few more months of life, or worse end up killing them prematurely or even causing cancer down the line.

The biggest drawback to a conventional treatment like chemotherapy is it destroys healthy cells throughout your body right along with cancer cells. A typical and deadly side effect of chemo is the destruction of the rapidly multiplying and dividing cells found in your:

• Bone marrow, which produces blood
• Digestive system
• Reproductive system
• Hair follicles

In this most recent study, The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) found that more than four in 10 patients who received chemotherapy toward the end of life experienced potentially fatal effects! And after reviewing data from over 600 cancer patients who died within 30 days of receiving treatment, it was found that chemotherapy hastened or caused death in 27 percent of cases.

“The majority of the cancer patients in this country die because of chemotherapy, which does not cure breast, colon or lung cancer. This has been documented for over a decade and nevertheless doctors still utilize chemotherapy to fight these tumors,” said Dr. Allen Levin, MD, author of The Healing of Cancer.

Despite its reputation as the gold-standard cancer treatment, chemotherapy has an average 5-year survival success rate of just over 2 percent for all cancers, according to a study published in the journal Clinical Oncology in December 2004.

If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with cancer, I urge you to do the research for yourself, and make an educated decision about which course of treatment to take. A decision like this is simply too important to leave solely in the hands of your doctor.

The Best Known “Chemotherapy” Agent Ever Found

The American Cancer Society estimates that this year alone, 745,000 men and 692,000 women will be diagnosed with cancer. By 2018, this disease is projected to be the number one killer of all Americans, young and old alike.

The way to turn this around is two-fold:

1. Prevent cancer from occurring (I’ll get to that below)
2. Have a treatment for cancer that is effective and safe

This latter requirement is actually already here, and you can use it to not only prevent cancer but also to treat it.

What is it?

Vitamin D.

Calcitriol, the most potent steroid hormone in your body, and is produced in large amounts in the tissues of vitamin D-filled individuals. However, in patients with cancer, vitamin D is often in low supply.

Calcitriol has been shown to induce cell differentiation and to control cell proliferation -- in simpler terms it protects against cancer. People with a low vitamin D level are less able to make calcitriol (activated vitamin D) in an amount sufficient to exert the controls over cell proliferation that are needed to reduce cancer.

Optimized vitamin D levels will work synergistically with virtually every other cancer treatment. There are over 830 peer reviewed scientific studies showing its effectiveness in the treatment of cancer.

Not only is this approach without virtually any side effects, but the treatment is practically free.

I believe it is nearly criminal malpractice to not optimize vitamin D levels when treating someone with cancer. Levels of vitamin D should be increased to 80-90 ng/ml.

To find out your levels, and to have them monitored throughout your treatment, make sure to have the blood test done by LabCorp, if you are in the United States. 

The Essential Steps to Preventing Cancer

Normalizing your vitamin D levels will reduce your risk of cancer by over 50 percent, but there are a number of other strategies that are also important in your cancer-prevention plan.

One of the top steps is managing your emotional health. The majority of illness is caused by negative, unmanaged emotions. If you focus on pain, misery and grief, it’s likely you’ll experience and attract more of it into your life.

However, if you keep your focus on what you want to experience and put some energy into healthy lifestyle choices, your body will respond accordingly. Before you know it you will start to feel much better.

So finding a tool that will permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes is essential. One of the best approaches to processing your negative emotions is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and I highly recommend it.

Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer has also done wonderful work with his German New Medicine technique for solving emotional conflicts as the first step in healing disease.

The other top tips I recommend, in no particular order, include:

• Eating right for your nutritional type
• Exercising
• Avoiding processed foods, grains and sugars (to control and lower your insulin levels)
• Eating a significant portion of your food raw
• Normalizing your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil or fish oil and reducing your intake of most processed vegetable oils
• Getting plenty of high-quality sleep 

+ Sources and References
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