YOUR CANCER, YOUR LIFE – BLOOD TESTS (REFERENCE TO BLOOD TESTS)
May 12th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
You may have been wondering why I have made no reference to blood tests yet. This is because blood tests are rarely useful in making a definite diagnosis of cancer. You remember the two essential steps in diagnosing cancer don’t you?— ’seeing’ the source of the symptom and taking a specimen. Blood tests are no use for either of these unless the cancer actually starts in one of the types of blood or lymph cells. With leukaemias, some myelomas and some lymphomas, enough malignant cells travel in the bloodstream to allow a diagnosis to be made by looking at a small sample of blood under the microscope. Even so, specimens from bone marrow or lymph nodes are usually necessary as well.
You may well ask: ‘But don’t many types of cancer spread through the bloodstream?’ Indeed they do. The problem is that only a few cells at a time are released from the primary cancer and they don’t stay in the blood for long. The chances of actually seeing them in a small blood specimen are minute. It can happen but it’s very rare.
Blood tests sometimes help by giving us clues as to where to look when cancer is suspected.
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BONE METASTASES – BONE SCANS (DESCRIPTION)
May 12th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
Bone scans are a Very useful means of looking for secondaries. They can also pick up cancer deposits in bones which look normal on plain X-ray. A spot which has hardly weakened the bone at all still produces a reaction in the normal bone cells nearby. It is in these active bone cells that the radioactive substance is concentrated. Thus the bone scan can detect cancer deposits which are at an earlier stage than those visible on a plain X-ray. The problem is that the bone scan shows up all reactive bone cells regardless of the reason for the reaction. Fractures (recent or old), arthritis and infections also can show up on bone scans as ‘hot spots’. Bones which show ‘hot spots’ on scan usually have to be X-rayed to find out what is causing them. Occasionally the normal bone cells do not react to cancer cells nearby. In this case the bone scan will be falsely negative, that is, will miss the cancer spots. This happens especially with myeloma. The most reliable way of looking for bone secondaries is with a combination of bone scan and X-rays.
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ANTI-CANCER DIET: JUICES AND JUICE THERAPY
March 30th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
Freshly made juices are nourishing, living foods in liquid form, providing the body with a rich assortment of vitamins, minerals and abundant enzymes. Raw juices require minimal digestion and can be assimilated by the body very easily.
Juice therapy is a method of detoxifying and cleansing the body of unwanted chemicals, wastes and toxins and supplying beneficial nutrients needed to fight cancer. Fresh juices provide a superior vehicle by which unusually high quantities and concentrations of the food’s life force can be consumed. Fresh juices supply the body with a rich assortment of cancer-fighting vitamins and minerals.
Raw juices are not recommended as the sole form of cancer therapy. They are however natural, safe and well-tried, and have returned many people in the world back to good health. When raw juices are unlocked from plants, pure and vital liquids of great healing power are released and their infinitely gentle action can coax our bodies back to normality. Raw juices have none of the dangerous side effects associated with potent medical drugs, yet they can eliminate health problems arising from many of the deficiencies created from the hustle and bustle of today’s fast-paced world and nutrient-deficient foods. Commercial fruit juices are less therapeutic than freshly squeezed juices, as many brands contain sugar, preservatives and other undesirable ingredients.
It is advisable to try to drink anywhere from four to six wholesome juices throughout the day while fighting cancer, to maintain good blood sugar levels. Regular intake of juices after beating cancer will help to prevent the growth of tumours in the future. It is important to drink the juice within 15 minutes of making it, to ensure you utilise the full benefit of live enzymes contained within the plants, fruits and vegetables. If you plan to drink juices on a regular basis try to buy organic produce, free from fertilisers and pesticides.
Juice therapy can be used in a number of different ways. By eliminating solid foods for a few days and drinking energy packed juices for two to three days, you will give your body a chance to detoxify body wastes and direct its energy towards healing the diseased cells. If juice therapy is undertaken for a longer period, under supervision, the body is given a chance to heal more chronic conditions.
Juices should be watered down 50-50 with spring or distilled water.
Single juice fasts have been undertaken to fight certain types of cancer. One well-known juice therapy diet is the Grape Diet. This diet uses only grapes in season, juiced and drunk every day for one month. It enables the body to rid itself of more chronic conditions. This diet should only be undertaken with supervision by a health professional.
Only light gentle exercise, such as light walking, yoga, stretching, meditation or tai chi should be performed on any juice fast. Continue to drink pure natural drinking water throughout the day and drink juices regularly to maintain blood sugar levels.
Protein powders or supplements, chlorophyll powders, barley grass, wheatgrass powder, beetroot powder or other nutrient packed energy powders can be added to juices for extra energy and revitalising effects. Add one to two tablespoons of flaxseed oil to any juice to enhance the curative effects of juice therapy in cancer treatment.
The healing benefits of juices used in cancer prevention and cancer therapy should never be underestimated. Juice therapy is a powerful tool in beating and preventing cancer, and other serious illnesses.
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CANCER AND IMMUNE SYSTEM: THYMUS GLAND AND SPLEEN
March 30th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
The Thymus Gland
The thymus is the major gland or the ‘maestro’ of the immune system. It is one of the major sites for immune cell production. It lies just below the thyroid gland and above the heart. The thymus is responsible for the production of T-lymphocytes and for providing the commands to these cells regarding which enemies to attack. The thymus gland releases several hormones that are responsible for regulating many immune functions. A low level of thymic hormones in the blood is associated with depressed immunity. Thymic hormone levels are low in people with cancer. The thymus gland tends to shrink as we age and in response to nutrient deficiencies.
The spleen is roughly the size of a clenched fist. It is responsible for producing white blood cells, engulfing and destroying bacteria and cellular debris, destroying worn-out red blood cells and platelets, for coordinating the interaction between macrophages, antibodies, T-Lymphocytes and B-Lymphocytes and acting as a blood reservoir. The spleen also releases many potent immune system-enhancing compounds.
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EMOTIONS EXPERIENCED DURING CANCER TREATMENT: DENIAL, AVOIDANCE
March 30th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
Denial is usually the second and most common emotion felt by the cancer patient and sometimes by his or her own families. It is hard to believe it could happen to you. Once again a feeling of disbelief is followed by denial or avoidance of the situation. You may think such thoughts as, ‘This is not happening to me, this is impossible, someone has made a mistake.’
We often go through life thinking we are invincible, that diseases like cancer usually happen to other people, not to someone like us. Many people believe that cancer usually affects sick, aged and stressed individuals. However this is not always the case. Go into a chemotherapy room or the cancer ward in a hospital, and look at all the babies and children and teenagers and young adults, some very healthy looking, being afflicted with cancer. How could a baby experience so much stress in their short lifetime to develop cancer? Or why is the fit athlete having chemotherapy for bone cancer?
Of course, then, it is easy to go into self-denial and protest when being informed that you have cancer. Denial is a form of human self-defense. If I deny this, then it’s not true. However, at some stage you must face the fact that you have developed cancer and learn to accept your condition, to be able to encourage the healing process. Denial in its essence accompanies disbelief, which ultimately accompanies pre-determined judgments on the way things arc meant to be. By releasing your conditioned judgments, you can learn to accept the fact that no one is perfect and being a human being and living in today’s society, we all run the risk of developing some type of health condition.
At some point you will have to pick yourself up and try to accept your condition, and then look at where you may have slipped off the path. You can then make the necessary changes in your life to help place yourself back on the path to recovery and greater health and happiness. Open your heart to completely accepting your condition. This will allow you the opportunity to embrace your healing completely. If you remain in a state of self-denial and avoidance, it will be difficult to permanently heal your cancer. Full healing takes place when you accept responsibility for past actions, reactions and your own disease.
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CANCER: NATURAL TREATMENTS USED TO COUNTERACT THE SIDE EFFECTS OF CHEMOTHERAPY
March 30th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
Broken Capillaries
Diet
• Eat foods rich in bioflavonoids including berries, cherries, buckwheat, citrus fruits, lemons, plums, grapefruit, blackberries, blackcurrants, green peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and apricots.
Vitamins and Nutrients
• Bioflavonoids increase the strength of capillaries, especially the bioflavonoid, rutin. They prevent rupture of the blood vessels and maintain collagen structure. Take vitamin Ñ powder with bioflavonoids daily @ 1000 to 5000 mg of Vitamin Ñ powder containing bioflavanoids including 500 mg of rutin.
• Bromelain accelerates the healing process of the skin. Take 250 to 750 mg per day.
Herbal Teas
• Rosehip herbal tea is rich in bioflavonoids.
• An excellent astringent for capillaries and veins is witch hazel – apply externally (distilled witch hazel can be purchased from a chemist).
• Horse chestnut increases the strength and tone of veins and capillaries and is an excellent circulatory tonic.
Constipation
Diet
Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water per day.
Eat a diet rich in fibre foods including whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and brown rice. Good foods include prunes, dates, figs, pears, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, cabbage, kale, apples, endive, dandelion greens, beets and okra.
• Avoid spicy foods, full fat dairy products, fried foods, white flour products, processed foods, coffee, sugar and fats.
• A healthy breakfast cereal made from 1/2 part slippery elm, 1 part oat-bran, 1 part lecithin granules, 1 part psyllium husks, 1 part LSA mix and 1/2 part crushed pumpkin seeds mixed together is a fantastic way to begin the day.
Vitamins and Nutrients
• Take a good fibre supplement containing psyllium husks, guar gum, apple pectin or modified citrus pectin, rice-bran, soya bran or oat-bran. Lactobacillus Acidophilus or fructo-oligosaccharides helps to put friendly bacteria into the bowel.
• Essential fatty acids or flaxseed oil is needed for good digestion and stool formation. (This is essential if stools are hard and dry.)
• Vitamin Ñ (3 grams/day) and glutamine repairs intestines damaged by chemotherapy.
Herbs
• Aloe vera juice has a healing and cleansing effect on the digestive tract and aids in forming soft stools. Drink 1/2 cup in the morning and night. OR
• Mix — 1 teaspoon of senna leaves/cascara bark/fennel seeds/chamomile – infuse 1 cup or 1 tablespoon of flax seeds ground – swallow with a glass of hot water. OR
• Dandelion herbal tea is useful not only in alleviating constipation but also in enhancing kidney and liver function. OR
• Infuse 1 teaspoon of psyllium seeds in a cup of boiling water and drink twice daily. OR
• Use 1 dessertspoon of whole linseeds and boil in 600 ml of water for 25 minutes. Strain and mix with equal amounts of water and orange juice or lemon juice. OR
• Alfalfa tablets (3 to 5/day) may also prove useful.
Hydrotherapy
• Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) baths help to stimulate bowel movements.
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CANCER: ALARM BELLS
March 30th, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: CancerNo Comments
No one knows exactly why cancer cells behave the way they do. We do know however, that a number of causative factors are responsible for the growth of certain types of cancer. The causes of cancer are abundant and diverse. As mentioned in the previous chapter, every day we are exposed to thousands of different environmental, dietary, man-made and plant-made toxins. Our body’s immune system is designed to detoxify these chemicals and maintain a balance in health, preventing illness. Due to any number of factors, our body’s immune functions may become weakened or find it difficult to detoxify as normal. When our body is unable to perform these regulatory functions, disease results.
In the United States alone, one person dies from cancer every minute. Another three million people have cancer and one out of three will eventually die of some form of disease. 1 334 100 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in the year 2003 in that country. Cancer is now the second most common cause of deaths in the United States, running dangerously close to cardiovascular disease. There are more than one hundred different varieties of cancer today. Over 170 000 cancer illnesses in the United States alone are preventable.
In Australia in 1999, 82 135 new cancer cases were reported and there were 34 695 deaths due to cancer, not including non-melanoma skin cancer. Globally, cancer rates are expected to rise by at least fifty per cent to fifteen million new cases in the year 2020, according to the ‘world cancer report’.
The most common types of cancers worldwide in men are lung cancer (which is mainly due to tobacco smoking), prostate cancer and colorectal cancer. The most common cancer worldwide for women is breast cancer followed by lung cancer, colorectal cancer and uterine cancer. These statistics do not include skin cancer, which is on the rise and is extremely prevalent in countries such as Australia.
These are scary statistics, ringing strong alarm bells for all of us. Different types of cancer are more prominent in different cultures and countries. This alerts us to the fact that many factors in our environment do contribute to the development of cancer, more than genetic factors. It is necessary to become aware of these risk factors and limit our exposure to them as much as possible. Repeated exposure to carcinogens over a lengthy period increases the risk of cancer developing. It is important to be aware of contributing factors to cancer development, to prevent both ourselves and our loved ones from developing this life threatening condition.
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