‘Cancer Salves’ – A Book About Non-Traditional Cancer Treatment Options Very Few Have Heard About

Written by Steve on 27 September 2010

I write this post for those who do not believe that the ‘traditional’ medical system holds the cure for their cancers.

Unfortunately, they may be right.

As far as I can tell, our fight against Cancer has been an almost complete failure if achieving long term ‘cures’ is used as the definition of success.

We may not kill as many with our therapies as they used to, but I do not believe that we can claim significant across-the-board cure rate improvements either.

Frankly, we have not gotten our money’s worth from the research that we have been funding.

These beliefs did not come easily. But, hard analysis of what I have known but refused to admit and what I have seen but refused to see has led me to consider all possibilities in my search for a way to extend my family member’s life.

Thus, I have found myself having to read and consider proposals and claims that are difficult to wrap my head around.

The contents of this book – ‘Cancer Salves – A Botanical Approach To Treatment’ –  is a good example of what I am talking about.

The author, Ingrid Naiman, is a rich source for information about alternative medicine’s cancer treatment techniques and the history behind them.

She details one thread of that history in this book – the history of the use of escharotic salves and pastes and tonics to treat cancers.

It is an extremely interesting book, and an amazing series of stories and information that she shares.

Although these techniques are probably most effective when used to treat non-metastatic tumors that are close to the surface, I cannot guarantee that this is the limit of their utility.

I assure you, this is information you will not find being provided to you in your doctor’s office.

She provides a historical backdrop for the reader while explaining in great detail how the salves and tonics are believed to work, and how to use them. A wealth of practical advice and information relative to the strengths and weaknesses of the various products and techniques is also woven into the book’s narrative. Additionally, there are recipes for different versions of these salves, pastes and tonics in the back of the book – information that it would be difficult for most people to track down in time.

I have exchanged several e-mails with the author. She is an amazing fountain of information – and I would encourage anyone looking for alternative paths to go to her website, read the information that is posted there, establish communications with her.

The link to one of her websites is http://www.cancersalves.com/ .

It is possible that what you are looking for is there.

The Gerson Therapy – Was Doctor Gerson A Quack?

Written by Steve on 02 August 2010

Max Gerson, M.D. was a physician who claimed to have developed a protocol that could cure cancer. He is dead now, but his legacy lives on in alternative cancer treatment centers around the world – with the most famous one being located in Mexico.

Mainstream healthcare providers frequently react with extreme skepticism and/or claims of quackery when asked their opinion of Dr Gerson’s theories and protocols.

I reacted the same way when I heard of this physician’s claims and beliefs. Some of his proposals sounded completely nutty to me.

But there is nothing like knowing that a loved one has an advanced cancer that most people die from to make you reexamine your assumptions and what you accept as fact.

You see, I know that the treatments we currently subject patients to almost always have poor outcomes if the patients’ cancers are not discovered early and cut out.

So… as part of my study of options that might be useful to extend my family member’s life… I forced myself to put aside dogma and my biases and pre-conceptions so that I wouldn’t miss something that might work.

Thus, it was inevitible that I would end up reading Dr Gerson’s book – ‘A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer’. In fact, I read it several times.

It was a difficult read. The first time I read it I had to re-read the chapters several times because it was extremely difficult to get my mind wrapped around the ideas presented by this physician. Every time I progressed to a new idea my subconscious mind told me it was nuts and I was wasting my time. It was a tortuous process.

Pharmacists are extremely conventional in their perspectives, and – as a group – we tend to have been strongly indoctrinated to the status quo. But, slowly it dawned on me that I had to interpret Dr Gerson’s writings and theories based on the state of scientific knowledge when he was practicing - to look for what I call ‘convergence’ of the data and ideas and the assumptions behind them with new knowledge that originates from other sources.

Then, the pieces started to fall into place. I won’t detail Dr Gerson’s theories in this post. If you need the information there are many books out there that will explain in much more detail than I can. But I will say this – I can point out case after case of convergence between his claims and protocols and information that is documented in journal articles that have been published in the recent past.

I do not know whether the people who are running his clinics are curing cancers or not. I have seen documentaries where patients claim they are. I do not know if Dr Gerson actually cured cancers or not, although there are many claims that he did. I do not know if Dr Gerson was a good man or not, but I have heard recordings of interviews that seem to show a physician who believed with all his heart that he was helping people.

I haven’t drug my loved one to the Gerson clinic in Mexico – things happened too fast and my learning curve limited my ability to assimilate enough data soon enough to even consider whether or not that trip should have been made. But….  as my learning has progressed I find myself implementing things into her day-to-day activities that could easily qualify as spin offs of therapies proposed by Dr Gerson.

And every day I find evidence that Dr Gerson may have been correct in many of his actions.

So, I find that I must say that I do NOT believe that Max Gerson, M.D. was a quack.

You can find more information about clinics that practice the Gerson Therapy if you’re interested in learnng more about his protocols at http://www.gerson.org/ .

Again – I’m a pharmacist, not a doctor. I’m providing information I think you might want to talk to your doctor about. Good luck.

Gerson Again – Convergence With Others’ Claims and Theories

Written by Steve on 16 August 2010

The recent post about Doctor Gerson and his theories about treating cancer has generated quite a few enquiries.

In that post I talked about what I believed to be a convergence – or coming together – of more recent claims and findings with the protocols detailed by Doctor Gerson.

People want to know more details about these convergences.

I’ll attempt to explain the most significant ones.

An oversimplified summary of Doctor Gerson’s protocol and the reasons behind the various elements of his therapies includes:

1. Increase the patient’s immune response by stimulating the person’s organs and systems to a state of increased vigilence – with an emphasis on the function of the liver and the system of organs that your food flows through from your mouth to your you-know-what. Included in this stimulation are the organs that are associated with this system. Eventually, a majority of the patient’s organs would be involved in this effort to improve immune function.

2. To achieve this stimulation of the immune system and the body’s ability to recognize and kill cancer cells various substances were delivered into the digestive system and to the liver. These substances were given by mouth and via enemas of various types.  The most famous enemas were the infamous ‘coffee’ enemas, and the primary stimulatory substance taken by mouth was castor oil.

3. Doctor Gerson also strongly believed that it was possible to increase the body’s ability to mount an immune response by changing the concentration of mineral ions in the body – most notably potassium and sodium. He believed that it was important to drive the body’s potassium level up and the sodium level down. The goal of this effort to change ion concentrations was the alteration of the voltages that exist across the membranes and structures of the body’s cells.

4. To achive these changes in the body’s potassium and sodium levels Doctor Gerson administered a solution that contained a specific combination of potassium compounds along with a regimen of fruit and vegetable greens juice. These extracts were made from fruits and greens that are known to be high in potassium.

5. To further rev up the body’s metabolic and immune systems Doctor Gerson gave patients doses of iodine and potassium iodide (Lugol’s Solution – 5%), dessicated thyroid (aka ‘Armour Thyroid’), and niacin.

6. In additon to the fruit and vegetable greens juices patients were given a raw liver drink. The purpose of this drink was the provision of nutrients to the patient – and particularly to his/her liver.

7. Without explanation – and despite a ban on ‘fats and oils’ – Doctor Gerson’s protocols called for the administration of flax seed oil every day.

Although there are many other details, the list above is pretty representative of the strategies Doctor Gerson was trying to implement to save his patients’ lives.

So, now we go forward to today.

Because of contamination problems that make it hard to get safe liver for making the liver drink the people controlling the Gerson Protocol switched to dessicated liver tablets. Then it appears that they switched from the liver tablets to Coenzyme Q10 supplements.

This switch to CoQ10 converges with current theories about CoQ10′s ability to re-energize cell’s mitochondria, especially when combined with doses of niacinamide.

Niacinamide is what niacin is converted to by patients’ livers. Another convergence.

Fruit juices and garden greens contain a multitude of vitamins and minerals. Maybe more importantly, they contain bioflavanoids. In general, flavanoids are the molecules that often give a plant’s fruit its color. They are known to frequently survive the digestive system and their trip through the liver. Most importantly, flavanoids are widely believed to be able to suppress cancer cells’ growth and metastasis. Convergence.

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that we need more iodine than we are currently getting in our diets. If you don’t have enough of the right forms of iodine your thyroid gland can’t make thyroid hormone that works right. Without thyroid hormone your body’s metabolism – and everything else – slows down. A patient’s immune response and ability to mount a counterattack can also be expected to be depressed. This has been named Type 2 Hypothyroidism by doctor Mark Starr in the recent past, and there are those who strongly believe that the administration of dessicated thyroid and iodine supplements are necessary to correct this problem and make the body’s systems work as they’re supposed to. Convergence once again.

The people who talk of iodine and thyroid supplementation explain that the goal of their supplementation is an increase of the body’s electric potentials. Integral to that discussion is the increase in potassium levels to alter the electrical gradients across cell and structure membranes. Convergence, convergence, convergence.

And, finally, it is becoming well known that the oils that one eats can have a very significant impact on your body’s metabolism and well being. One of the oils that is recommended to reduce global inflammation and promote proper immune response is flax seed oil. It is the richest source of Omega-3 fatty acids generally available as a food oil. Convergence.

So, short as this post is, I hope it helps you understand where convergences appear to be occuring with Doctor Gerson’s teachings.. Sorry for not going into even more detail, but this topic could fill a book.

If you want more info on some of the topics I touched on above feel free to click on any of the books listed on the right edge of this blog to get yourself taken to BarnesAndNoble.com to see more details.