Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism (Book Excerpt)
(NewsTarget) What you are about to read may rock or even dismantle the very foundation of your beliefs about your body, health and healing. The title, Cancer Is Not a Disease, may be unsettling for many, provocative to some, but encouraging for all. This book will serve as a life-altering revelation for those who are sufficiently open-minded to consider the possibility that cancer is not an actual disease. Instead, they will begin to view cancer to be a profoundly elaborate and final attempt by the body to heal itself and stay alive for as long as circumstances permit; circumstances that, as you will discover, are most likely in your control.
It will perhaps astound you to learn that if you are afflicted with any of the root causes of cancer (which constitute the real illness) you would most likely die quickly unless your body actually grew cancer cells. In this work, I propose the understanding that cancer is a healing process that we ought to support, not suppress or fight. I provide evidence that this rather unorthodox approach to healing cancer is far more effective than the methods that involve destroying it.
I further claim that cancer - the body's final healing mechanism - will only kick in after the body's main waste removal and detoxification mechanisms have already been rendered inefficient.
In extreme circumstances, exposure to large amounts of cancer-producing agents (carcinogens) can bring about a collapse of the body's defenses within several weeks or months, which may subsequently require a rapid and aggressive growth of a cancerous tumor to deal with it. By and large, though, it takes many years, or even decades, for so-called 'malignant' tumors to form and become diagnostically noticeable.
Unfortunately, basic misconceptions or complete lack of awareness about the true reasons behind malignant tumor growth have turned misaligned cells into vicious monsters that indiscriminately attempt to kill us, perhaps in retaliation for our sins or abusing the body. However, as you are about to find out, cancer is on our side, not against us. Unless we change our perception of what cancer really is, it will most likely resist treatment, particularly the most advanced and commonly applied methods. If you have cancer, and cancer is indeed part of the body's complex survival responses and not a disease, as I claim it is, you must find answers to the following important questions:
- What reasons coerce your body into developing cancer cells?
- Once you have identified these reasons, how will you need to deal with them to allow your body to heal?
- What determines the type and severity of cancer with which you are afflicted?
- If cancer is indeed a healing mechanism, what will you need to do to avoid the body having to employ such extreme measures of self-preservation in the future?
- Since the body's original genetic design always favors the continuance of life and protection against adversities of any kind, how then could the body possibly permit a genetic change to occur that causes its own demise?
- Why do almost all cancers disappear by themselves, without medical intervention?
- Do radiation, chemotherapy and surgery actually cure cancer in some people, or do cancer patients heal themselves, in spite of these radical, side-effect-loaded treatments?
- What roles do fear, frustration, low self-worth and repressed anger play in the origination and outcome of cancer?
- Why do so many children develop brain tumors or leukemia?
To deal with and heal the root causes of cancer, you ought to find satisfying and practical answers to the above questions. If you feel the inner urge to make sense of this life-changing event (cancer, that is), you will greatly benefit from continuing to read this book. Cancer can be your greatest opportunity to help restore balance to all aspects of your life, but it can also be the harbinger of severe trauma and suffering if you perceive it as a threat to your life.
Either way, you will discover that you are always in control of your body. To live in a human body, you must have access to a certain amount of life-sustaining energy. You may either use this inherent energy for nourishing and healing the body or waste it on fighting a battle against a disease that medical theory believes is out to kill you. The choice is ultimately yours.
In case you consciously or unconsciously choose negligence of, or going into battle against, your body over loving attention and self-respect, it will likely end up having to fight for its life. Bottom line, the main issue in question is not whether you have cancer but how you perceive it and what you are going to do about it.
Cancer is but one of the many possible ways the body forces you to alter the way you see and treat yourself, including your physical body. You may either make out cancer to be something dreadful that leaves you victimized and powerless or see it as an opportunity to stand up for yourself, your values, and self-respect. This inevitably brings up the subject of spiritual health, which I believe plays at least as important a role in cancer as physical and emotional reasons do.
Cancer appears to be a highly confusing and unpredictable disorder. It seems to strike the very happy and the very sad, the rich and the poor, the smokers and the non-smokers, the very healthy and the not so healthy. And although cancer occurrence among children used to be extremely rare, it is not rare anymore.
People from all backgrounds and occupations can have cancer. However, if you dare look behind the mask of its physical symptoms, such as the type, appearance and behavior of a cancerous tumor, you will find that cancer is not as coincidental or unpredictable as it seems to be.
What makes 50% of the American population so prone to developing cancer, when the other half has no risk at all? Blaming the genes for that is but an excuse to cover up ignorance of the real causes or lure people afflicted with cancer into costly treatment and prevention programs.
Later in the book, I will discuss the most recent research done on possible genetic inheritance factors in relation to cancers of the breast, lungs, and many others. You will be astounded to find out that genes have little, if anything, to do when members from several generations of the same family develop the same types of cancer. In fact, top genetic researchers now affirm that gene-behavior is ultimately determined by the way we eat, think, emote and live our lives. Genes don't just accidentally malfunction one day and cause cancer in everyone related to them (family members).
Cancer has always been an extremely rare illness, except in industrialized nations during the past 50-60 years. However, human genes have not significantly changed for thousands of years. Why would they change so drastically now, and suddenly decide to attack and destroy the bodies of nearly half of the population? The answer to this question, which I will further elaborate on in this book, is amazingly simple: Although genes may be undergoing mutation for reasons discussed later, even if they became damaged or faulty, they still would not be able to kill anyone.
It is important to know that cancer rarely causes someone to die, although it undeniable that many people afflicted with cancer also die. Nonetheless, unless a tumor causes a major mechanical obstruction in a vital organ or severely impedes the blood flow to it, or the lymph drainage from it, a cancer patient is much more likely to die from the reasons that lead to cell mutation and tumor growth than from the cancer itself.
Every cancer therapy should be focused on the root causes of cancer, yet most oncologists typically ignore them. For example, a diet consisting of junk foods that are typically deprived of any nutritional value and real energy causes chaotic, traumatic conditions in the body that are identical to those experienced during physical starvation. In this book, I will elaborate on how such a process of self-destruction is bound to require a major healing response on behalf of the body.
It is becoming increasingly evident that almost all cancers are preceded by some kind of traumatic event in the past, such as a divorce, the death of a loved one, an accident, the loss of a job or possessions, or an ongoing conflict with a boss or relative. The body has no other choice than to respond to such profound stress factors with predictable biological survival or coping mechanisms that may involve temporary abnormal cell growth. That most doctors agree with the theory that the resulting tumor is a disease, not a healing mechanism, doesn't mean it is true.
Cancerous tumors are merely symptoms of disease that are caused by something else that may not be obvious at first. It is clear, though; they don't just pop up for no reason. For one thing, constant emotional conflicts, resentment, guilt and shame can easily suppress the body's immune system, digestive functions and basic metabolic processes, and thereby create the conditions for the occurrence of a cancerous tumor.
Fortunately, the psychological stress/cancer-connection no longer lingers in the realm of fiction and uncertainty. Supported by ample scientific evidence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) make this important statement on their web site: "Intensive and prolonged stress can lead to a variety of short- and long-term negative health effects. It can disrupt early brain development and compromise functioning of the nervous and immune systems. In addition, childhood stress can lead to health problems later in life including alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases."
In spite of the undeniable evidence that backs up the CDC's claims, most medical doctors rarely acknowledge or attempt to treat these root causes of disease but instead focus on eradicating its symptoms. Perhaps, this crucial, potentially fatal, flaw permeating almost the entire medical field is rooted in the complete absence of the stress/disease connection; the mind/body relationship is certainly not taught at medical schools.
After having seen thousands of cancer patients over a period of three decades, I began to recognize a certain pattern of thinking, believing and feeling that was common to most of them. To be more specific, I have yet to meet a cancer patient who does not feel burdened by some poor self-image, unresolved conflict and worries, or past emotional conflict/trauma that still lingers in his subconscious mind and cellular memories. I believe that cancer, the physical disease, cannot occur unless there is a strong undercurrent of emotional uneasiness and deep-seated frustration.
Cancer patients typically suffer from lack of self-respect or worthiness, and often have what I call an unfinished business in their life. Cancer can actually be a way of revealing the source of such an unresolved, inner conflict. Furthermore, cancer can help them come to terms with such a conflict, and even heal it altogether. The way to take out weeds is to pull them out along with their roots. This is how we ought to treat cancer; otherwise, it may recur eventually.
I often hear the argument that the emotional stress/cancer connection may apply to adults but certainly cannot apply to young children who have fallen ill with leukemia or brain cancer. I tend to disagree, and the CDC's position in this matter confirms my understanding. Childhood stress can lead to cancer, according to the CDC. And, "human beings experience stress early, even before they are born," say the CDC on their web site.
It is a scientific fact that some of the most powerful influences that a child a can experience occur while it is still in the mother's womb. It has been clearly demonstrated that what a mother goes through emotionally and physically has a strong impact on the emotional and physical health of her child. My book Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation describes in greater detail how strongly fetuses react to ultrasounds and that this can lead to developmental problems later on.
There is further evidence that not having a normal childbirth but being born by Cesarean section can have traumatic effects on babies. In addition, not breastfeeding a baby and keeping a baby in a separate room from the mother can cause a biological separation conflict which can even cause crib death. Not sensing and feeling the heartbeat of the mother turns out to be anxiety-provoking for an infant. Prematurely born babies are particularly traumatized by separation anxiety.
Furthermore, vaccinations cause biological shocks, similar to mini strokes, besides exposing the baby to numerous carcinogenic toxins contained in vaccines. The pain of the injection and the resulting healing response may also have trauma-evoking consequences.
Absence of breastfeeding is well known to cause psychological, emotional, and developmental problems to a young child.
Direct exposure to the radiation emanated by cell phones while in the womb and thereafter can profoundly affect the health of children, according to recent research.
An inadequate diet that includes sugar, cow's milk, animal proteins, and fried foods, and other junk foods, greatly affects children, too. And if mothers drink alcohol, eat junk food or take medication during pregnancy, or were vaccinated themselves, this also has a detrimental effect on the baby's health.
Babies treated for infection with antibiotics is severely damaging to their growing immune systems.
It has been shown recently that babies have as many as 250 chemicals in their blood, many of which are highly carcinogenic. Mothers, who are not in good health and still breastfeed their babies, actually contaminate them. In series of studies, the poison fluoride, added to the municipal drink water in the United States and other countries, has been clearly linked to causing cancer of the bone (osteosarcoma), and other types of cancer. The good news is that after having endorsed fluoride in drinking water for decades, in January 2011, the CDC issued an urgent warning that the current levels of fluoride in drinking water can cause serious harm to children.
Clamping the umbilical cord too early, instead of the required 40-60 minutes after birth, can reduce the oxygenation of the blood in the baby by over 40%, and prevent filtering toxins out of the blood through the placenta. This relatively new practice is found to have severely negative effect on the growth of children. Whatever affects a child physically, also affects it emotionally and psychologically. In other words, one doesn't need to be a grown up to be gripped by emotional trauma.
Research findings also demonstrate that childhood stress can impact adult health. One of the largest studies of its kind, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, demonstrates a link between specific 1) violence-related stress, including child abuse, neglect, and repeated exposure to intimate partner violence, and 2) risky behaviors and health problems in adulthood.
The ACE Study, a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente's Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego, covered over 17,000 adults participating in the research from 1995 to 1997. It collected and analyzed detailed information on the participants' past history of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction as well as their current behaviors and health status.
The ACE Study findings have been published in more than 30 scientific articles. They revealed that childhood abuse, neglect, and exposure to other adverse experiences are common. Almost two-thirds of study participants reported at least one ACE, and more than one in five reported three or more. The ACE Study findings suggest that certain experiences are major risk factors for the main causes of illness and death, as well as poor quality of life in the United States.
Remember, prolonged emotional stress can compromise the immune system and thereby render the body susceptible to virtually every type of illness, including cancer. I will return to his important subject later.
The first chapter of this book provides you with profound insights into what cancer really is and stands for, seen from a physical perspective. It is an understanding of cancer you may never have come across before. This new and yet timeless comprehension of cancer allows for new approaches targeted at actually healing the causes of cancer instead of merely fixing its symptomatic manifestations.
You will also learn about the astonishing discoveries made by leading cancer researchers that prove cancer is not caused by cell mutation alone but requires the support and participation of the entire organism. Furthermore, check out the new findings that show why so many diagnosed cancerous tumors are actually completely harmless and disappear on their own.
Chapters Two and Three deal with the physical and emotional/spiritual causes, respectively. For clarity sake, I have tried to separate these categories, although I am very much aware that such a division is arbitrary and non-existent. I have done this for one purpose only: to emphasize that healing the causes of cancer must include restoring one's physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Leaving out just one of these factors would undermine the chances of full recovery and eventually lead to the recurrence of cancer (most medically treated cancers reoccur). At least, such an incomplete approach would seriously affect one's mental and physical health and, foremost of all, one's state of happiness and self-worth.
The following statement, which runs like a red thread through the entire book, is very important in the consideration of cancer: "Cancer does not cause a person to be sick; it is the sickness of the person that causes the cancer." And I will add to this statement that "Once a cancer has occurred, its main purpose is to return the sick person to a balanced condition of mind, body and spirit."
This is so contradictory to what conventional medicine and the media want you to believe, that it may sound outrageous to you. Yet whether cancer heals you or leads to your demise has actually more to do with what is going in your personal life than with the cancer itself, that is, how aggressive it is, or how early it is being detected.
Take David, for example. At age 58, he was diagnosed with lung cancer during a routine health checkup. Although, he never felt bad before the diagnosis, his health declined rapidly during the following two weeks. He lost his appetite, he couldn't sleep anymore, his breathing became very shallow and he suffered severe panic attacks and chest pain. He died 20 days after the diagnosis. The death certificate said he died from lung cancer, but it is clear that without the cancer diagnosis, none of these overwhelming stress-induced effects would have occurred.
There is no doubt (anymore) that emotional stress can shut down your immune system and not only prevent your body from healing, but actually make you very ill. There is medical evidence to show that during severe stress, people can die from a massive heart attack without any prior heart condition or clogged arteries.
Your ability to recover your health requires you to become and feel whole again on all levels of body, mind and spirit. Once the cancer causes and other impediments to feeling whole have been properly identified, it will become apparent what needs to be done to achieve complete recovery. This is the subject matter of Chapter Four.
It is a medical fact that every person has millions of cancer cells in the body at all times in his life. This is not an indication that there is something wrong with us. On the contrary, as we shall see, this forms an essential part of maintaining the body's healthy equilibrium.
These millions of cancer cells remain undetectable through standard tests. However, they show up as tumors once they have multiplied to several billion. When doctors announce to their cancer patients that the treatments they prescribed had successfully eliminated all cancer cells, they merely refer to tests that are able to identify the detectable size of cancer tumors.
Standard cancer treatments may lower the number of cancer cells to an undetectable level, but this certainly cannot eradicate all cancer cells. As long as the causes of tumor growth remain intact, cancer may redevelop at any time, in any part of the body, and at any speed.
Curing cancer has little to do with getting rid of a group of detectable cancer cells. Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation are certainly capable of poisoning or burning many cancer cells, but they also destroy healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, etc., which often leads to permanent irreparable damage of entire organs and systems in the body.
The toxic chemicals contained in chemotherapy drugs alone can cause such severe inflammation in every cell of the body that even the hair follicles can no longer hold on to the strands of hair.
A real cure of cancer does not come at the expense of destroying other vital parts of the body. It is achievable only when the causes of excessive growth of cancer cells have been addressed and the body is being properly supported through its healing process. Cancer is the healing process that the body may choose to reestablish homeostasis. Not recognizing cancer as a healing mechanism can turn out to be fatal, and it often is.
This book is dedicated to dealing with the causes of cancer, not with its symptoms. Treating cancer as if it were a disease is a trap that millions of people have fallen into and they have paid a high price for not attending to its root causes.
While I strongly believe that cancer is a final healing phase, not a disease, I am fully aware that most people consider cancer to be a dreaded disease. I make no claims that my understanding of cancer is the only correct one, but I propose it is one of many correct ones.
The old saying, "Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness," reveals 'truth' to be a subjective projection of the mind, conscious or subconscious. In other words, if you insist that cancer is a terrible disease that may take your life, this death-fright belief of yours is likely going to fulfill your dreaded expectation. Remember, emotional trauma suppresses the immune system and prevents healing. Likewise, if you perceive cancer to be a healing phase that deals with an underlying imbalance, your truth is also going to help you achieve a positive outcome of your uplifting expectation.
It is unfortunate that the medical profession has by and large discouraged patients to participate in, or affect, their own cures. Patients are rarely included in the process of healing. Instead, medical treatments are now propagated to be the sole remedy for today's ills. In truth, whether a person heals or doesn't is largely controlled by the state of the body, mind and spirit of the person. Accepting this as fact can have enormous self-empowering effects which I consider essential for healing to occur and be effective.
Power in the Word
Cancer is the second leading cause of death for Americans. According to the American Cancer Society, a total of 1,529,560 new cancer cases and 569,490 deaths from cancer were estimated to have occurred in the United States in 2010. Among men, the top three cancer diagnoses are prostate cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer. The leading types of cancer among women are breast cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer.
In addition, there are tens of thousands of underprivileged people who have cancer, but will not even receive a diagnosis because they cannot afford health insurance or a visit to the doctor.
Cancer is not just a word, but also a statement that refers to abnormal or unusual behavior of the body's cells. However, in quite a different context, cancer is referred to as a star sign. When someone says you are a 'cancer,' are you going tremble with fear of dying? Such a reaction is unlikely, because your interpretation of being of the cancer sign does not imply that you have cancer, the illness. But if your doctor called you into his office and told you that you had cancer, you would most likely feel shocked, paralyzed, numb, terrified, hopeless, or all of the above. The word 'cancer' has the potential to play a very disturbing and precarious role in your life, one that is capable of delivering a death sentence, and as you will discover in this book, actually execute it.
Although being a cancer patient seems to start with the diagnosis of cancer, its causes may have been present for many years prior to the patient feeling ill. Yet within a brief moment, the word 'cancer' can turn someone's entire world upside down.
Who or what in this world has bestowed this simple word or statement with such great power that it can preside over life and death? Or does it really possess this power? Could our collective, social conviction that cancer is a killer disease, along with the trauma-generating, aggressive treatments that follow diagnosis, actually be mainly responsible for the current dramatic escalation of cancer in the Western hemisphere? Such a thought is too far-fetched, you might reply! In this book, however, I will make the convincing point that cancer can have no power or control over you, unless the beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, thoughts, and feelings you have, allow it.
Would you be as afraid of cancer if you knew what caused it or at least understood what its underlying purpose was? Unlikely so! If the truth were told, you would probably do everything you could to remove the causes of the cancer and thereby lay the ground for the body to heal itself.
A little knowledge, which I also call ignorance, is in fact, a dangerous thing. Almost everyone, at least in the industrialized world, knows that drinking water from a filthy pond or polluted lake can cause life-threatening diarrhea. Yet, relatively few people realize that holding on to resentment, anger, and fear, avoiding exposure to the sun which causes vitamin D deficiency, not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, holding a cell phone to your head for an hour each day, being regularly exposed to X-rays, mammograms or CATS scans, or eating junk foods, chemical additives, and artificial sweeteners is no less dangerous than drinking polluted water. These habits of life may just take a little longer to kill a person than poison or tiny amoeba do, but there is no more doubt that they can.
Mistaken Judgment
We all know that if the foundation of a house is strong, the house can easily withstand external sources of stress, such as a violent storm or even an earthquake. As we shall see, cancer is merely an indication that something has been missing in our body and in our life. Cancer reveals that some aspect of our physical, mental and spiritual life stands on shaky ground and is quite fragile, to say the least.
It would be foolish for a gardener to water the withering leaves of a tree when he knows so well that the real problem is not where it appears to be, namely, on the level of those withered leaves. The dehydration of the leaves is merely a symptom of lacking water in the less apparent part of the plant - its root system. By watering the roots of the plant, the gardener naturally attends to the causative level, and consequently, the whole plant becomes revived and resumes its normal growth. To the trained eye of a gardener, the symptom of withering leaves is not a dreadful disease. He recognizes that the dehydrated state of these leaves is but a direct consequence of withdrawn nourishment that they need to sustain themselves and the rest of the plant.
Although this example from nature may appear to be a simplistic analogy, it nevertheless offers a basic understanding of some very complex disease processes in the human body. It accurately describes one of the most powerful and fundamental principles controlling all life forms on the planet. However skilled we may have become at manipulating the functions of our body through the tools of allopathic medicine, this basic law of nature cannot be suppressed or violated without paying the hefty price of suffering ill-health on the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels.
I fervently challenge the statement that cancer is a killer disease. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that cancer is not a disease at all. Many people who received a 'terminal' cancer sentence actually defied the prognosis and experienced complete remission.
The Search for Answers
There is no cancer that has not been survived by someone, regardless of how far advanced it was. If even one person has succeeded in healing his cancer, there must be a mechanism for it, just as there is a mechanism for creating cancer. Every person on the planet has the capacity to do both.
If you have been diagnosed with cancer, you may not be able to change the diagnosis, but it is certainly in your power to alter the destructive consequences that it (the diagnosis) may have on you, just as George did. The way you perceive the cancer and the steps you choose to take following the diagnosis are some of the most powerful determinants of your future wellness, or the lack of it. (Please also see Chapter Three, 'Demystifying Cancer.)
The indiscriminate reference to cancer as a killer disease by professionals and lay people alike has turned cancer into a disorder with tragic consequences for the majority of cancer patients and their families. Cancer has become synonymous with extraordinary fear, suffering, and death. This perception continues despite the fact that up to 90-95 percent of all cancers can appear and disappear of their own accord.
Not a day passes without the body making millions of cancer cells. Some people, under severe temporary stress, make more cancer cells than usual. These cancer cells cluster together as tumors that will disappear again once the stress impact has subsided and after a healing response (as indicated by symptoms of illness) has been completed. I will elaborate on the exact, predictable way this occurs in Chapter Three.
I wish to mention at this point that according to medical research, secretions of the DNA's powerful anticancer hormone, Interleukin II, drop under physical and mental duress and increase again when the person becomes relaxed and joyful. Low secretions of Interleukin II increase the incidence of cancer in the body, and normal secretions of this hormone keeps cancer at bay.
However, people are generally not under severe stress all the time. Since the incidence of cancer rises and falls with the experience of severe stress, many cancers vanish without any form of medical intervention and without causing any real harm. Accordingly, right at this moment, millions of people are walking around with cancers in their body without having a clue that they have them. Likewise, millions of people heal their cancers without even knowing it. Overall, there are many more spontaneous remissions of cancer than there are diagnosed and treated cancers.
The New York Times published an article in its October 2009 issue, page D5, that certainly raised some eye-opening questions in view of facts that have become highly inconvenient for advocates of the cancer business. The article, written by Gina Kolata, is entitled "Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How?"
In the article, Kolata points out that the arrow of cancer was supposed to point in one direction, like the arrow of time, that is, to grow and worsen. In October 2009, a paper published in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted that "data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question."
More sophisticated screening technologies find many small tumors that would not cause a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. These tumors are as dormant and harmless as small scars on the skin. As the paper concedes, these tumors were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear.
"The old view is that cancer is a linear process," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)."A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously."
Until recently, cancer researchers and doctors alike have falsely assumed (and projected their assumption as scientific fact), that cancer results from cell mutation (alteration of the genetic makeup of the cell), which then takes on a life of its own. However, the leading edge of cancer research points toward the discovery that uncontrolled and senseless cancer cell division does not take place all.
As Dr. Kramer points out, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers require more than mutations to progress. They need the cooperation of surrounding cells and even, he said, "the whole organism, the person, whose immune system or hormone levels, for example, can squelch or fuel a tumor."
This makes cancer, Dr. Kramer said, "a dynamic process." His statement obviously raises an important question. Why would the entire body, including the brain, nervous system, immune system and endocrine system, as well as the personality and all the cells surrounding a cancer, support its growth? The answer is both fascinating and encouraging.
As the title of this book proposes, cancer is not a disease at all, it rather is a healing mechanism. The entire body supports the growth of a cancer so long it is in its best interest. Once the cancer no longer serves a purpose and the healing is complete, it either disappears or moves into a dormant, harmless state.
The new view that cancer does not take a predictable path, i.e., from mutation to disease, was difficult for some cancer doctors and researchers to accept. But apparently, more and more of the skeptics are now shifting gear and acknowledge that, contrary as it seems to everything they had thought, cancers can in fact disappear on their own.
One of the converts is Dr. Robert M. Kaplan, the chairman of the department of health services at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. "At the end of the day, I am not sure how certain I am about this, but I do believe it," said Dr. Kaplan. He added, "The weight of the evidence suggests that there is reason to believe."
Still another cancer specialist, Dr. Jonathan Epstein at Johns Hopkins University, says that disappearing tumors are well known in testicular cancer. According to Dr. Epstein, during an operation on a man's testicle, a surgeon may just find scar tissue in place of a large diagnosed tumor.
The growing evidence that cancers can go backward or stop is now undeniable, and researchers are left with no other choice than to reassess their notions of what cancer really is and how it develops. Still, in my opinion, unless they recognize that cancer is a healing mechanism orchestrated by the entire organism to correct an underlying imbalance, they will continue to search for ways to fight cancer instead of supporting it through the healing process. This, however, requires trust in the body's wisdom, not suspicion that the body is faulty or broken.
The newly made discovery that cell mutation alone cannot cause cancer but must be supported by surrounding cells and the entire organism, speaks for itself. I have always viewed cancer as a friend of the body who assists it during turbulent times. Certainly the body seems to treat cancer as a friend, not an enemy. I believe that we should do the same.
In her article, Kolata writes about a fascinating statement made by Thea Tlsty, a professor of pathology at the University of California, San Francisco, and one of the world's most distinguished cancer researchers. Dr. Tlsty says that cancer cells and precancerous cells are so common that nearly everyone by middle age or old age is riddled with them. That was discovered in autopsy studies of people who died of other causes, with no idea that they had cancer cells or precancerous cells. They did not have large tumors or symptoms of cancer. "The really interesting question," Dr. Tlsty said, "is not so much why do we get cancer as why don't we get cancer?"
In the same context, I want to put forward this most intriguing question:"Why do some people feel sick when they have cancer while others who also have cancer live completely normal, healthy lives?" I will elucidate this crucial topic throughout the book.
Kolata raises yet another curious point: "The earlier a cell is in its path toward an aggressive cancer, researchers say, the more likely it is to reverse course. So, for example, cells that are early precursors of cervical cancer are likely to revert. One study found that 60 percent of precancerous cervical cells, found with Pap tests, revert to normal within a year; 90 percent revert within three years. Doesn't this show a different trend than previous proposed by cancer theorists?"
Of course, this prompts the question whether it is in fact better to leave many cancers untreated, so that they may either go into dormancy and become harmless, or disappear on their own. For many decades, doctors and health agencies have been pushing the agenda of early detection on the general population with claims that it is vitally important to catch cancers at an early stage. They argue, this allows for better and more successful treatment. However, once again, their assumptions may have been wrong all along.
Kolata further explains that "the dynamic process of cancer development appears to be the reason that screening for breast cancer or prostate cancer finds huge numbers of early cancers without a corresponding decline in late stage cancers."
In other words, discovering so many extra cancers through new and better screening methods has not reduced the incidence of advanced cancers. This clearly contradicts the assumption which asserts that early detection, which normally leads to early treatment, has any overall preventative or cancer incidence-reducing benefits. It also implies that many cancers are better left alone. This prompts the hypothesis that many early cancers go nowhere. With regard to breast cancer, there is indirect evidence that some actually disappear. Screening for breast and prostate cancers has clearly failed to reduce occurrence.
For good reason, Johns Hopkins now offers men with small prostate tumors an option of an "active surveillance," instead of having their prostates removed or destroyed. In the rare case that the cancer grows bigger, they can still have it removed. However, the frightening diagnosis of having prostate cancer discourages most men from going this route of wait and see. "Most men want it out," Johns Hopkins' Dr. Epstein said. I credit the decades of senseless fear-mongering by medical professionals and the quick-fix obsession among patients for this unfortunate situation.
I will add to this that the high doses of ionizing radiation emitted by cancer screening devices, such as Computed Tomography (CT) and mammography, etc., have actually contributed to the incidence of various types of cancer. Cancers associated with such radiation exposure include leukemia, multiple myeloma, breast cancer, lung cancer, and skin cancer. (For more details, see Ionizing Radiation in Chapter 5.)
In a Canadian study, researchers looked at the behavior of small kidney cancers (renal-cell carcinomas) which are among the cancers that are reported to regress occasionally, even when far advanced. The double blind control study, led by Dr. Martin Gleave, Department of Urologic Sciences at Vancouver General Hospital [N Engl J Med 1998; 338:1265-1271, April 30, 1998], compared an immunomodulating drug treatment, interferon gamma-1b, with a placebo in people with kidney cancer that had spread throughout their bodies.
Despite the lack of placebo-controlled trials, interleukin-2 and interferon have become the central component of most immunotherapeutic strategies for metastatic renal-cell carcinoma. The new study was supposed to show that these immunomodulators could control or reverse these kidney cancers, which are very resistant to chemotherapy.
Six percent of subjects in both groups had tumors that shrank or remained stable, which led the researchers to conclude that the treatment did not improve outcomes. The big question is, does treating cancer have any significant effect on clearing up cancers, or is it up to the body to determine that? At least in this study, the 6 percent of participants who benefited somewhat showed that whether they received medical treatment or not made no difference, except that those in the placebo group lived on average 3.5 months longer than those who received the drug treatment.
Dr. Gleave says that these days more patients are having ultrasound or CT scans for other reasons and learning that there is a small lump on one of their kidneys. In the United States, the accepted practice is to surgically remove those tumors. But, based on his findings, he asks, "Is that always necessary?"
According to the NY Times piece, Dr. Gleave's university is now participating in a countrywide study of people with small kidney tumors, asking what happens when those tumors are routinely examined, with scans, to see if they grow. Apparently, about 80 percent do not change or actually regress over the next three years.
The conclusion I draw from this important piece of research is that we are barking up the wrong tree if we believe we can outsmart the body. The body regresses or stops the growth of a tumor when it deems it necessary, not otherwise. If we poison, burn or cut out a tumor, the body may need to grow another one in order to continue or complete its healing activity.
The main flaw in the medical cancer theory lies in the assumption that cancer needs to be subdued in order to save a cancer patient's life. Until recently, nearly all scientists shared the opinion that unless a cancer is treated and stopped, it is destined to grow, spread and eventually kill the person. This is obviously not the case. Millions of people live with all kinds of cancer without a problem, and even without being aware of it, according to the work of Dr. Tlsty and many other top scientists.
The truth is, relatively few cancers actually become 'terminal.' A vast number of cancers clearly remain undiagnosed and are not found until autopsy.
Usually, these people don't die from cancer, but from something else, such as an accident. They don't even have symptoms that could prompt the doctor to prescribe any of the standard cancer-detecting tests. Doesn't it astonish you that 30 - 40 times as many cases of thyroid, pancreatic and prostate cancers are found in autopsy than are detected by doctors? So is cancer really the dangerous disease we were being told it is?
In 1993, the British medical journal Lancet published a study that showed early screening often leads to unnecessary treatment. The reason for that? For example, although 33 percent of autopsies in men reveal prostate cancer, only about 1 percent die from it.
After age 75, half of males may have prostate cancer, but mortality rates only range from 0.1-2.4 percent. More specifically, the overall 5-year relative prostate cancer survival rate for 1995-2002 was 99 percent. The 5-year relative prostate cancer survival rates by race were 99.9 percent for white men and 97.6 percent for black men, regardless whether they had few or no signs or symptoms of prostate cancer, were free of disease, or had treatment.
New government recommendations (as of August 2008) call for oncologists to no longer treat men with prostate cancer past the age of 75 years because the treatments do more harm than good and offer no advantages over no treatment at all.
It must be noted that these low mortality rates especially apply to those who have neither been diagnosed with cancer nor received any treatment for cancer. Since according the government's own admission, mortality rates increase when cancers are being treated, it evidently shows what does the killing.
Once diagnosed and treated, the vast majority of cancers are never given a chance to disappear on their own. They are promptly targeted with an arsenal of deadly weapons such as chemotherapy drugs, radiation, and the surgical knife. Dormant tumors that would never really cause any harm to the body, may instead be aroused into powerful defensive reactions and become aggressive, not unlike relatively harmless bacteria that turn into dangerous super-bugs when attacked by antibiotic medication. It makes absolutely no sense that at a time you need to strengthen the body's most important healing system, the 'immune system,' you would subject yourself to radical treatments that actually weaken or destroy the immune system.
The problem with cancer patients today is that, terrified by the diagnosis, they submit their bodies to these cutting/burning/poisoning procedures that, more likely than not, will lead them more rapidly to the day of reckoning. The final sentencing may sound like this: "We have to tell you with our deepest regret that there is nothing more that can be done to help you."
The most important question a cancer patient may need to ask is not, "How advanced or dangerous is my cancer?" but, "What am I doing or not doing that puts my body into a situation of having to fight for its life?" Why do some people go through cancer as if it were the flu? Are they just lucky, or is there a mechanism at work that heals them and restores their health? On the contrary, what is the hidden element that prevents the body from healing cancer naturally, that makes cancer so dangerous, if indeed it is dangerous at all?
The answers to all these queries lie with the person who has the cancer, and does not depend on the degree of a particular cancer's 'viciousness' or the advanced stage to which it appears to have progressed. Do you believe that cancer is a disease? You will most likely answer, "Yes," given the 'informed' opinion that the medical industry and mass media have fed to the masses for many decades. Yet, the more important but rarely asked question remains, "Why do you think cancer is a disease?" You may answer, "Because I know cancer kills people every day." I would then question you further, "How do you know that it is the cancer that kills people?" You would probably argue that many people who have cancer die, so obviously it must be the cancer that kills them. Besides, you may reason, all the expert doctors tell us so.
Let me ask you another question, a rather strange one: "How do you know for sure that you are the daughter/son of your father and not of another man?" Is it because your mother told you so? What makes you think that your mother told you the truth? Probably because you believe her; and you have no reason not to. After all, she is your mother, and mothers do not lie about these things. Or do they? Unless you have your father do a paternity DNA test, or you look like him, you will never really know with absolute certainty that the person you believe to be your father is, in fact, your father. Nevertheless, your subjective belief has turned into something that you 'know' to be an irrefutable truth.
Although no scientific proof exists to show that cancer is a disease (versus a healing process), most people will insist that it is a disease because this is what they have been told to believe. Yet this belief is only hearsay based on other people's opinions. Finally, the infallible doctrine that cancer is a disease can be traced to some doctors who expressed their subjective feelings or beliefs about what they had observed and published them in some review articles or medical reports. Other doctors agreed with their opinion, and before long, it became a 'well-established fact' that cancer is a dangerous disease that somehow gets hold of people in order to kill them. However, the truth of the matter may actually be quite different and more rational and scientific than that.
Wisdom of Cancer Cells
Cancer cells are not part of a malicious disease process. When cancer cells spread (metastasize) throughout the body, it is not their purpose or goal to disrupt the body's vitals functions, infect healthy cells and obliterate their host (the body). Self-destruction is not the theme of any cell unless, of course, it is old and worn-out and ready to be turned-over and replaced. Cancer cells, like all other cells, know that if the body dies, they will die as well. Just because some people assume that cancer cells are there to destroy the body does not mean cancer cells have such a purpose or ability.
A cancerous tumor is neither the cause of progressive destruction nor does it actually lead to the death of the body. There is nothing in a cancer cell that has even remotely the ability to kill anything. What eventually leads to the demise of an organ or the entire body is the wasting away of cell tissue resulting from continued deprivation of nutrients and life force. The drastic reduction or shutdown of vital nutrient supplies to the cells of an organ is not primarily a consequence of a cancerous tumor, but actually its biggest cause.
By definition, a cancer cell is a normal, healthy cell that has undergone genetic mutation to the point that it can live in an anaerobic surrounding (an environment where oxygen is not available). In other words, if you deprive a group of cells of vital oxygen (their primary source of energy), some of them will die, but others will manage to alter their genetic software program and mutate in a most ingenious way: the cells will be able to live without oxygen and derive some of their energy needs from such things as cellular metabolic waste products.
It may be easier to understand the cancer cells phenomenon when comparing it with the behavior of common microorganisms. Bacteria, for example, are divided into two main groups, aerobic and anaerobic, meaning, those that need to use oxygen and those that can live without it. This is important to understand since we have more bacteria in our body than we have cells. Aerobic bacteria thrive in an oxygenated environment. They are responsible for helping us with the digestion of food and manufacturing of important nutrients, such as B-vitamins. Anaerobic bacteria, on the other hand, can appear and thrive in an environment where oxygen does not reach. They break down waste materials, toxic deposits and dead, worn-out cells.
The body sees the cancer as being such an important defense mechanism that it even causes the growth of new blood vessels to guarantee the much-needed supply of glucose and, therefore, survival and spreading of the cancer cells. It knows that cancer cells do not cause but, prevent death; at least for a while, until the wasting away of an organ leads to the demise of the entire organism. If the trigger mechanisms for cancer (causal factors) are properly taken care of, such an outcome can be avoided.
It is commonly believed that our immune system protects us against cancer. However, this is only partially true. On the one hand, the immune system readily destroys the millions of cancer cells that a healthy human body produces as part of the daily turnover of 30 billion cells. On the other hand, the immune system takes no action to eradicate cancer cells that develop in response to a build up of toxins, congestion and emotional stress.
Cancers and all other tissues in the body are larded with cancer-killing white cells, such as T-cells. In the case of kidney cancer and melanomas, for example, white cells make up 50 per cent of the mass of the cancers. Since these T-cells easily recognize foreign or mutated cell tissue such as cancer cells, you would expect these immune cells to attack cancer cells right away. However, the immune system allows cancer cells to recruit it to actually increase and spread the cancer to other parts of the body. Cancer cells produce specific proteins that tell the immune cells to leave them alone and help them to grow.
Why would the immune system want to collaborate with cancer cells to make more or larger tumors? Because cancer is a survival mechanism, not a disease. The body uses the cancer to keep deadly carcinogenic substances and caustic metabolic waste matter away from the lymph and blood and, therefore, from the heart, brain and other vital organs. Killing off cancer cells would in fact jeopardize its survival. Cleansing the body of accumulated toxins and waste products through the various cleansing methods advocated in my book Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation (www.ener-chi.com) removes the need for cancer.
Cancer is not a disease; it is the final and most desperate survival mechanism the body has at its disposal. It only takes control of the body when all other measures of self-preservation have failed. To truly heal cancer and what it represents in a person's life we must come to the understanding that the reason the body allows some of its cells to grow in abnormal ways is in its best interest and not an indication that it is about to destroy itself. Cancer is a healing attempt by the body for the body. Blocking this healing attempt can destroy the body. Supporting the body in its healing efforts can save it.
Andreas Moritz's book, Cancer is not a Disease - It's a Survival Mechanism, explains the root causes of cancer and how to eliminate them for good. Available through www.amazon.com or www.ener-chi.com.
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