Frankly, I find the idea of "natural health", when pitched to cancer patients, offensive. Sure, I am willing to believe that eating more organic, raw, and otherwise non-processed food seriously reduces the risk of cancer. But prevention is not a treatment. You can't raw food your way to a cure to cancer. It just doesn't work. People die because they become so deluded. Indiscriminate as it may be, chemotherapy works.

You suggest that naturopathic medicine is opposed to mainstream cancer treatment, but you don't suggest alternatives. What is an effective alternative to chemotherapy?

Can you cite the studies that show that changing lifestyle (organics + supplementation) doesn't influence cancer outcome?

Frankly, I find your know-it-all arrogance shocking, and all that is wrong with the medicine. 90% of doctors I have worked with have the same mentality. If it's not studied, how can you come to a conclusion?

Here's one little extract to whet your appetite.

[edit: btw I am in no way advocating naturopathy, homeopathy or other well debunked shams]

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Men with early stage prostate cancer who make intensive changes in diet and lifestyle may stop or perhaps even reverse the progression of their illness, according to a new study.

The research is the first randomised, controlled trial showing that lifestyle changes may affect the progression of any type of cancer.

The research team behind the American study looked at 93 men with biopsy-proven prostate cancer who had elected not to undergo conventional treatment for reasons unrelated to this study. The participants were randomly divided into either a group who were asked to make comprehensive changes in diet and lifestyle or a comparison group who were not asked to do so.

Participants in the lifestyle-change group were placed on a vegan diet consisting primarily of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes supplemented with soy, vitamins and minerals. They participated in moderate aerobic exercise, yoga/meditation, and a weekly support group session. A registered dietitian was available for consultation, and a nurse case manager contacted the participants regularly.

The burden of proof is not on me here. I am certainly in favor of more medical studies about alternative approaches to cancer treatment. More science is a wonderful thing.

Absolutely. The trouble is mainly research funding, and then publishing and marketing the research that's already happened (there's more scientific research on alternative treatments than is commonly known.)

Pharmaceutical companies aren't likely to invest millions studying turmeric, spirulina, chlorella, sunlight, etc. There are credible studies if you intentionally go looking for them, though.

You made a claim that changing your lifestyle cannot possibly cure cancer. Surely the burden of proof is on the claimant? How do you reconcile the growing body of evidence to the contrar?

My intended claim, which I admit could benefit from more precise wording, is that lifestyle changes are not more effective than conventional treatment.

Shouldn't you have to back up a bold claim like that with proof though? Conventional treatment is often marginally better than placebo.

No, I don't have to back up it up. That's the whole point.

Explain?

Decades of the scientific method have established the status quo. You, as the outsider of convention, have the burden of proof. You intuitively know this -- if there was such compelling proof, you would be able to convince a lot of people of the potential, rather than saying "no, I don't have to prove it, you need to prove science." Science is already proven. I'm not denying the potential of alternative treatments, but for now, I expect you and I both would take the chemotherapy over making ourselves guinea pigs.

Saying that something is better than something else would surely merit a single clinical trial, showing large effect low p outcomes in favor of chemo vs lifestlye? Can you point to a single study since it is already proven? :)

Here are a few that may change your mind: http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/137/1/233S http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/lifchancline.html http://bastyrcenter.org/content/view/913/

Surely you must admit that your claim that lifestyle change cannot reduce mortality rate is premature. It's only recently being studied, and with the great early results we will see many more such papers investigating the effects.

My money would be on a combination: Lifestyle change + aggressive supplementation + chemo.

I've said that all along -- supplementation + diet change + chemo is better, and certainly no worse, than chemo alone.

Agreed, but read your post again: ...But prevention is not a treatment. You can't raw food your way to a cure to cancer. It just doesn't work. People die because they become so deluded....

"It just doesn't work" is a statement of fact. I showed you some research that refutes this (lifestyle change alone can cure in certain cases). What more do you need to change your opinion?

Relax -- it's not like I'm suggesting faith healing. :) Alternatives and choice are needed. Chemotherapy "works" by causing enough DNA damage that the body is better able to identify cancerous cells and destroy them. Hardly an elegant solution. It's important to note that even with chemotherapy, it's still the body itself actually dismantling the tumors.

In any case, it sounds like the dad already made his decision, and I can understand that. Chemotherapy takes a tremendous toll of suffering, to the point that if the only alternatives were chemo and death, it's still not always an easy choice.

In general, the natural health approach is to support the body's healthiness in every way possible, such that it can do its job. Our bodies dismantle plenty of cancers each day on their own. That may seem simple, but it deserves more investigation than a cavalier dismissal for the sake of the child^h^h^h^h^h cancer patients.

So, to be clear, the alternative I'm suggesting is: Be willing to greatly change your died and lifestyle, and find a naturopathic doctor/clinic and work with them. http://www.naturopathic.org/

Get away from here, hippie. Cancer patients need real medicine, not platitudes from morons.