Prevent

Cancer

Wasting

COMPLEMENTARY & ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

“All truth passes through three stages:

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Left untreated, nutritional depletion severely impacts all other ongoing cancer treatments.

Some doctors will admit they have no experience in nutritional therapy and that they have not reviewed the overwhelming amount of scientific literature published on nutrition and cancer wasting.

More commonly, their response is defensive: “those that oppose us, oppose rational science itself.”

Forward thinking in oncology, then, must first address the failure to recognize the importance of nutritional status in the management of cancer patients.

Review of cancer research reveals a number of treatments that are effective for various cancers. Yet, only a select few of these treatments are used in the oncologic “standard of care.”

Those treatments, not endorsed as standard of care, are summarily classified as unproven alternative therapies. To discourage patients from using alternative treatments, they are often characterized as a waste of money, ineffective, and even dangerous.

The opposition to non-standard of care therapies is due to lack of education. Cancer doctors have not been trained in nutrition. This opposition may be the primary barrier to the clinical implementation of effective non-standard of care therapies.

The continuing failure to recognize effective therapies that do not receive “standard of care” approval is one of the great tragedies of conventional cancer treatment.

A poor prognosis for many cancers is often based on treatment limited to conventional “standard of care” methods. Treatment outcomes may improve when care includes a combination of effective conventional treatment, nutritional therapy, and a comprehensive program to prevent cancer wasting.