Curing Cancer From The Inside Out

[beforewisdom]

Mike Anderson, who created the really slick documentary "Eating" -- the RAVE diet has made another film: Curing Cancer From The Inside Out.

 

Aside from giving up smoking, I think going vegan is the single most powerful a thing a single person can do for reducing their risk for cancer.

 

This preview clip goes much further, claiming that chemotherapy is only effective as a placebo

 

What do people think of this?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvOCWB9RPGQ

[Veganluv]

I think it's very interesting. I saw the documentary Healing Cancer from the inside out, I thought it was good, people need to know about alternative therapies Like Gerson Therapy. Benefits of detoxing & juicing & eating a low fat vegan diet.

 

I truly believe in Gerson Therapy it is working miracles

 

Another great documentary is:

The Beautiful Truth

 

Another one is The Gerson Miracle:

 

 

Gerson Institute / Cancer Curing Society Is located in San Diego & one in Mexico

http://www.gerson.org/

[Fallen_Horse]

I think diet is extremely underrated when people are discussing ways to cure cancer, but I also firmly believe that chemotherapy has a valid and necessary part to play in many cancer treatments...

[medman]

Wow, that first video contains a ing (weird, if I write it as a single word it automatically makes it into an emoticon) perversion of data. DO NOT believe the numbers or the analysis they are presenting you with.

 

Like when they said the 49% reduction seen with tamoxifen was "really just 1.5%", they're just abusing the difference between relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction. The researchers are talking about half of all breast cancer patients, not half of all the people in the United States.

 

As for other wildly inaccurate statements like "chemotherapy is less effective than a placebo" - that is a criminally inaccurate thing to be saying. Also, to claim that untreated cancer patients live longer than treated ones...there are so many things wrong with these statements that I don't even know where to begin. As a starting point, "cancer" includes a dizzying array of subtypes, some of which respond extremely well to chemotherapy, and some of which do not. Some have a 99% cure rate with surgery alone (such as early-stage malignant melanoma), and some are incurable, with radiation and chemo offered as palliative treatments to slow progression.

 

The manipulation of information in this short clip alone makes me sick to my stomach. For example, if they're speaking of an endpoint of "cure" - that the cancer goes away and never returns - then they can get away with saying things like "chemotherapy doesn't help much", because it rarely truly "cures". However, when used in appropriate cases (i.e. cancers of a cell type known to be chemotherapy-sensitive, at a stage at which there is data showing benefit of chemo), it can give people years they wouldn't have had.

 

Chemo is but one part of our currently available cancer treatments, and it is used in cases for which it has been demonstrated to help.

 

As for any alternative cancer treatments: the burden of proof lies on the shoulders of its proponents. RCTs are the gold standard of research (randomized control trials). Show that the treatment significantly benefits patients, and the oncology community will embrace it.

Edited January 25, 2010 by medman

[Vegan Joe]

Pro-active lifestyle in reducing carcinogens is about all you can do.

There are no guarantees.

It's still only a crap shoot.

http://thebardsband.com/images/215_halloween-hokus_pokus.gif

[VeganEssentials]

I was looking into Gerson therapy originally regarding my eye condition, but I think that once I read about their strong belief in coffee ground colonics, I kind of lost my interest in pursuing it any further

[beforewisdom]

Medman, thank you for your opinion.

 

I have two friends who will likely die of cancer. Both vegan healthnuts. Both of them kept alive through surgery and chemotherapy.

 

A new vegan made friends with me on my facebook page. A nice enough guy and intelligent -- but he is a new vegan the way many people are new Christians. He saw this documentary and swallowed it whole.

 

I explained the situation with my friends. I also tried to change his perspective. I asked him if a worldwide farce had been maintained for 60 years doesn't it seem likely that someone other than Mike Anderson would have said something sooner?

 

He and his friends brushed it all off as the human fear of change, even if that change is for the better.

 

I have a copy of Mike Anderson's earlier video promoting a low fat vegan diet. Anderson is a talented film maker, but the film always smelled slightly flim-flam to me. The quotes in the preview above for this second film seemed to show blatant signs of distortion to me and I have felt frustrated that so many people are so blind to it.

 

I don't think that blindness has anything to do with a lack of an education in the sciences. I think it is a lack of street smarts to a small degree. A lack of independent thinking too, but mostly I think it is a narcissistic desire for magical thinking. I think we all have a bit of that, but you see more of it in alternative health fans and related groups.

 

It makes me very frustrated to hear and see this bullshit with two friends dying, who have done all of the steps of the "magic". Both wonderful people. One who has been vegetarian all her life and health food nut, exercise nut, vegan, for most of her adult life. She is only in her mid twenties, a stunningly beautiful young woman and I hear her punctuate her conversations with a matter of fact "if I live that long" statements about events only 2-3 years away.

 

Straight forward con people selling blessed urine from raw food gurus born in the Himalayas bother me enough, but at least there is an honesty about them. They know they are full of shit and are trying to take people's money.

 

I find it much harder to take the self imposed mind fuck ordinary people do to themselves and try to inflict on other people to join their food religion so that their faith feels stronger

 

Ugh.

[beforewisdom]

I was looking into Gerson therapy originally regarding my eye condition, but I think that once I read about their strong belief in coffee ground colonics, I kind of lost my interest in pursuing it any further

 

I'm a tea drinker myself, but I think I would much rather take the coffee in through the front end .

[medman]

Beforewisdom,

 

I understand where you are coming from completely. As a med student, I work incredibly hard to learn all that I can about health, disease, diagnosis, and treatment. It makes it so hard for me to see good people say things like "I don't want those vaccinations for my child. They cause autism." Not to downplay the link between heavy metal exposure and autism, or the link between diet and cancer. But people can be whipped into such a frenzy by those who think they know what they're talking about - I like to call it "Fox News syndrome". Exaggerating cause-effect links, misrepresenting data, and doing it with such conviction that people see it and think "Wow - this must be the real deal. Nobody could be this confident about something that isn't true."

 

It saddens me to see that some people believe doctors would willingly pump chemotherapy into people in order to make money off them, and not because it has any therapeutic value.

[beforewisdom]

It saddens me to see that some people believe doctors would willingly pump chemotherapy into people in order to make money off them, and not because it has any therapeutic value.

 

It is so maddening, in part, because you don't need medical knowledge to see through it. Just common sense, like President Lincoln's famous quote

 

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

 

Not every doctor, all around the world, for 60 years is going to be cheating his/her patients to make extra money. Not every doctor, not every researcher, all around the world, for 60 years is going to accept false beliefs delivered to them via their education, without question, without looking at things for themselves, without thinking about things for themselves. Not every employee, of every big pharaceutical, around the globe, for 60 years, even if they are in for a piece of the pie, is going to keep their mouth shut about ineffective drugs for *sixty* years.

 

Things just don't work like that with people.

 

It seems like these people who believe big statements after reading just one book or seeing just one video project their gullibility onto thousands of people across generations, as if nobody but themselves has had an inquisitive mind up until they were born and read that book.

 

Medman, sorry for ranting, I know you agree and I know you know why I'm angry, I just got to get it out.

 

Even beyond magic cures and diets I see so much of this crap around these days. Non-stupid people being gullible to their detriment and the world as if they were morons when they are not.

 

It is like these people's parents never taught them to count their change.

[medman]

It seems like these people who believe big statements after reading just one or seeing just one video project their gullibility onto thousands of people across generations, as if nobody but themselves has had an inquisitive mind.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's probably a combination of assuming everyone else is as gullible as they are, together with wanting to feel special. Who wouldn't want to think, "I am one of the few people to see through the lies"?

 

The projected gullibility/ignorance issue is probably the biggest. Even on this board, I have been told things like, "You just accept what you've read in a textbook," or "You need to stop believing everything the pharmaceutical companies tell you," as though they are certain that I, "like all doctors", blindly accept whatever I am told so long as it comes from an authoritative-looking source. In reality, they are the ones who are actually doing so...in med school these days, we're specifically taught to value "evidence-based medicine" above all else. That means that, if a doctor tells you "I like to use _____ treatment in this kind of patient", you essentially ask him, "What studies have been done to back up that decision?" We're taught to recognize how well-conducted a study is, (i.e. whether we can trust it or not), and to let the data do the talking. That way, you ideally never end up in a situation where you're using a treatment whose efficacy you aren't sure of.

[VeganEssentials]

I agree to a great extent about it being sad that people turn away from legitimate medical treatments for the wrong reasons. But, to some extent, I do understand the desire to want to know more beyond the usual scope.

 

When I was told that for lack of a better word, my vision was basically screwed, I sought out anything and everything I could find for alternative treatments. Most of it came off as total crap after researching it a bit, but some things do have an appeal for wanting to try them out at some point (with the exception of those coffee ground enemas ) Fact stands, chemo works for some people, but doesn't work for others, and can be VERY difficult to fight through the devastation it takes on the body. People with cancer are already terrified - what if chemo doesn't work? How can someone already feeling ill cope with feeling considerably worse for prolonged periods after going through chemo treatments? You can see the allure in wanting to try something different, but writing off the traditional methods is a terrible thing for people to do. As I've said in past discussions for things like this, I think it's best to use EVERY method available, both traditional medicine and perhaps some alternative therapies that have a glimmer of promise, but to never expect miracles from anything on either end of the spectrum.

 

It's too bad when people fall for alternative therapies hook, line and sinker while dismissing things that have worked - it makes me think of being at Barnes & Noble last night and watching a woman scour over the New Age section for a half hour, grabbing every book she could find on how to "think yourself rich" (without having to do anything to make money). Sometimes, the answers are staring you in the face, but people want something different no matter how apparent the true answers are and they'll take a trillion-to-one longshot over something with much better chances of success (in the case of the woman above, not throwing away money on crap and actually working harder to make some damned money!) All we can do is offer than a few words of wisdom, be there to help if they want advice beyond that, and then they're on their own.

[beforewisdom]

The projected gullibility/ignorance issue is probably the biggest. Even on this board, I have been told things like, "You just accept what you've read in a textbook,"

 

while conveniently forgetting that they are just accepting what they read from a popular book ( likely just one ).

[Veganluv]

Dont be frightened ! I love coffee enemas!

Really... I think they helped me with dealing with my cancer.

 

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/isisisrael/coffee.jpg

 

 

The therapeutic action of the coffee enema is to improve the abilities of the liver and gallbladder to remove toxins and cancerous metabolic byproducts by stimulating the flow of bile and increasing the enzymatic action of the liver.

Increased blood supply to the intestinal tract improves muscle tone and digestion, as well as the elimination processes. Additionally, given that all of our blood passes through the liver every three minutes, the 12-to-15-minute coffee retention enema increases blood flow through the liver, resulting in a form of dialysis and a uniquely effective detoxification.

[Vegan Joe]

Dont be frightened ! I love coffee enemas!

Really... I think they helped me with dealing with my cancer.

 

 

The therapeutic action of the coffee enema is to improve the abilities of the liver and gallbladder to remove toxins and cancerous metabolic byproducts by stimulating the flow of bile and increasing the enzymatic action of the liver.

Increased blood supply to the intestinal tract improves muscle tone and digestion, as well as the elimination processes. Additionally, given that all of our blood passes through the liver every three minutes, the 12-to-15-minute coffee retention enema increases blood flow through the liver, resulting in a form of dialysis and a uniquely effective detoxification.

I know you have everyone's attention now.

I'm sending you my faith, hope, and love, in the battle you wage. It's all I can do at the moment to help. Fight the fight!

[Veganluv]

Hey thank you ...but no worries , Im cancer free now.

I did detoxing & juicing for months & months! (Gerson therapy)... years ago.

[Vegan Joe]

Hey thank you ...but no worries , Im cancer free now.

I did detoxing & juicing for months & months! (Gerson therapy)... years ago.

Well great, and now I do know that you have everyones attention. (in a good way )

[VeganEssentials]

The therapeutic action of the coffee enema is to improve the abilities of the liver and gallbladder to remove toxins and cancerous metabolic byproducts by stimulating the flow of bile and increasing the enzymatic action of the liver.

Increased blood supply to the intestinal tract improves muscle tone and digestion, as well as the elimination processes. Additionally, given that all of our blood passes through the liver every three minutes, the 12-to-15-minute coffee retention enema increases blood flow through the liver, resulting in a form of dialysis and a uniquely effective detoxification.

 

Ah, at least that explains things a bit better than the Gerson general literature

 

Basically, I gave up on it when it was realized that, until stem cell therapies become much more common as far as regeneration of damaged cells, there's nothing that I can do to get any better. I'm certainly glad that it helped you in your battle - if I was diagnosed with cancer, I'm sure that I'd try something such as Gerson therapy in addition to chemo to do a double-whammy on it and use more than one approach, because while I know there's not a massive amount of "proof" in some alternative therapies, the successes from those who have overcome terrible health issues via their methods do speak that they can't be completely dismissed.

[xjohanx]

I haven't read everything in this thread but I agree 100% with medmans first post. This is just sort of a short rambling comment on the OP. I saw this documentary like 2 years ago and I don't remember it all but I do remember it was kinda filled with bullshit. Diet and lifestyle does affect our risk of developing diseases and among those diseases are cancer, this is clearly shown in immigrant and adoptive studies. However we do not know for sure what diet best prevents cancer. I don't think just any vegan diet is healthy and I don't think a vegan diet is healthier than one that includes certain amounts of animal foods.

[medman]

The therapeutic action of the coffee enema is to improve the abilities of the liver and gallbladder to remove toxins and cancerous metabolic byproducts by stimulating the flow of bile and increasing the enzymatic action of the liver.

Increased blood supply to the intestinal tract improves muscle tone and digestion, as well as the elimination processes. Additionally, given that all of our blood passes through the liver every three minutes, the 12-to-15-minute coffee retention enema increases blood flow through the liver, resulting in a form of dialysis and a uniquely effective detoxification.

 

Veganluv,

 

I'm really glad to hear you've won your battle with cancer.

 

I'd like to delve a bit deeper into this description of the coffee enema out of interest. Do they ever explain how bile flow is stimulated by the enema? Most of the triggers for bile flow are in the earlier segments of the small intestine, which wouldn't be reached by an enema. As for increasing the enzymatic action of the liver - the cytochrome P450 system can be induced, but only via substances absorbed into the blood, so there should be no difference in the effect of coffee going up one end or down the other in that case.

 

Caffeine and theophylline, the vasoactive drugs in coffee, could increase muscle tone as in the description, but they should constrict blood vessels and decrease blood flow slightly rather than dilate them. Finally, as for increasing portal blood flow (blood flow through the liver from the intestines), as for blood vessels in the intestines, there aren't any vasodilators in coffee - caffeine and theophylline are potentiators of epinephrine/norepinephrine, which actually decrease blood flow through the GI system.

 

That's not to say the enema itself might not help - I won't dismiss something without seeing data on it. I just don't see anything in that description that explains on a physiological level how it might help.

[Rob PMFF]

Caffeine and theophylline, the vasoactive drugs in coffee, could increase muscle tone as in the description, but they should constrict blood vessels and decrease blood flow slightly rather than dilate them. Finally, as for increasing portal blood flow (blood flow through the liver from the intestines), as for blood vessels in the intestines, there aren't any vasodilators in coffee - caffeine and theophylline are potentiators of epinephrine/norepinephrine, which actually decrease blood flow through the GI system.

 

+1. I was about to post the same thing.

[Veganluv]

I Just know it worked for me & a few others I personally know. I had a freind detox mecury poison with them as well.

 

 

I found this......Maybe Gerson Insitute would have some more?

 

Dr. Max Gerson used this clinically as part of a general detoxification regimen, first for tuberculosis, then cancer. Caffeine, he postulated, will travel up the hemorrhoidal to the portal vein and thence to the liver itself. Gerson noted some remarkable effects of this procedure. For instance, patients could dispense with all pain-killers once on the enemas. Many people have noted the paradoxical calming effect of coffee enemas. And while coffee enemas can relieve constipation, Gerson cautioned:

 

"Patients have to know that the coffee enemas are not given for the function of the intestines but for the stimulation of the liver."

 

Coffee enemas were an established part of medical practice when Dr. Max Gerson introduced them into cancer therapy in the 1930s. Basing himself on German laboratory work, Gerson believed that caffeine could stimulate the liver and gall bladder to discharge bile. He felt this process could contribute to the health of the cancer patient.

 

Although the coffee enema has been heaped with scorn, there has been some independent scientific work that gives credence to this concept. In 1981, for instance, Dr. Lee Wattenberg and his colleagues were able to show that substances found in coffee—kahweol and cafestol palmitate—promote the activity of a key enzyme system, glutathione S-transferase, above the norm. This system detoxifies a vast array of electrophiles from the bloodstream and, according to Gar Hildenbrand of the Gerson Institute, "must be regarded as an important mechanism for carcinogen detoxification." This enzyme group is responsible for neutralizing free radicals, harmful chemicals now commonly implicated in the initiation of cancer. In mice, for example, these systems are enhanced 600 percent in the liver and 700 percent in the bowel when coffee beans are added to the mice's diet.

 

Dr. Peter Lechner, who is investigating the Gerson method at the Landeskrankenhaus of Graz, Austria, has reported that "coffee enemas have a definite effect on the colon which can be observed with an endoscope." F.W. Cope (1977) has postulated the existence of a "tissue damage syndrome." When cells are challenged by poison, oxygen deprivation, malnutrition or a physical trauma they lose potassium, take on sodium and chloride, and swell up with excess water.

 

Another scientist (Ling) has suggested that water in a normal cell is contained in an "ice-like" structure. Being alive requires not just the right chemicals but the right chemical structure. Cells normally have a preference for potassium over sodium but when a cell is damaged it begins to prefer sodium. This craving results in a damaged ability of cells to repair themselves and to utilize energy. Further, damaged cells produce toxins; around tumors are zones of "wounded" but still non-malignant tissue, swollen with salt and water.

 

Gerson believed it axiomatic that cancer could not exist in normal metabolism. He pointed to the fact that scientists often had to damage an animal's thyroid and adrenals just to get a transplanted tumor to "take." He directed his efforts toward creating normal metabolism in the tissue surrounding a tumor.

 

It is the liver and small bowel which neutralize the most common tissue toxins: polyamines, ammonia, toxic-bound nitrogen, and electrophiles. These detoxification systems are probably enhanced by the coffee enema. Physiological Chemistry and Physics has stated that "caffeine enemas cause dilation of bile ducts, which facilitates excretion of toxic cancer breakdown products by the liver and dialysis of toxic products across the colonic wall."

 

In addition, theophylline and theobromine (two other chemicals in coffee) dilate blood vessels and counter inflammation of the gut; the palmitates enhance the enzyme system responsible for the removal of toxic free radicals from the serum; and the fluid of the enema then stimulates the visceral nervous system to promote peristalsis and the transit of diluted toxic bile from the duodenum and out the rectum.

 

Since the enema is generally held for 15 minutes, and all the blood in the body passes through the liver every three minutes, "these enemas represent a form of dialysis of blood across the gut wall" (Healing Newsletter, #13, May-June, 1986).

[medman]

There are many parts of that description I find highly suspect...not the least of which is that there isn't any part of that explanation that would seem to necessitate a coffee enema...they believe the compounds in the coffee are beneficial for the liver and intestines, and that the mechanical effects of the enema aid as well...so why not drink coffee and use a "plain" enema?

 

In any case, all I can say is that, given what I know about gastroenterology, oncology, and pharmacology - I don't see anything to explain why this might have any real positive impact. If their theories were correct, most of the benefit would simply be from absorbing the coffee - which many people accomplish orally on a regular basis - and epidemiology doesn't show coffee consumption to be protective for cancer. What little scientific research that description mentions was done on mice, and the coffee was taken orally (as most people do).

 

In a quick search for journal articles on the subject, I found case reports of deaths and colitis induced by coffee enemas, and no reports of success in treating cancer with them. I just can't find any reason (either data-wise, or in their description of the proposed mechanism by which it works) to believe that this could help.

[beforewisdom]

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/isisisrael/coffee.jpg

 

Love this cartoon!