My stepfather is refusing chemotherapy. Is there an effective alternative?

This depends greatly on the form of cancer. What does he have?

@BhacSsylan both lungs. He fell out of a tree and a cat scan found a mass

I do not know much about this subject. But if I had to choose an alternative therapy it would be a 100% vegan or raw foods diet and a lot of supplements. I’d find a naturopathic physician and begin meditation. I wish him well.

AND I tried just googling stuff but I figured I’d get more specifics here and maybe a broader range in less time. Plus, I lurve you guys! Google offers no emotional support

Part of why a cure for cancer is so elusive is that there are many different sorts of cancer. If your doctors are recommending chemotherepy, chances are it’s the treatment regimen that will give your father the best chance of beating lung cancer. If it’s that serious, I strongly recommend that you get a second opinion, prefferably from a hospital or doctor with a good reputation, in another city. When my doctor in Nacogdoches told me I had about 5 years to live and that I should do radiation therepy, I got a second opinion from a renowed oncologist in Dallas. He endorsed their diagnosis and treatment, so I went ahead with it.

I’ll be praying for your step-dad… and for you.

More information is needed, especially regarding the type of cancer and whether it has metastasized. There are now clinical trials of many types of oral medications he could enroll in that are far less toxic than standard chemotherapy. There is also a novel oral anti-EGF receptor molecule called Tarceva that has, in some cases, worked miracles. I am personally aware of at least one person who has had a dramatic response to this medication, when the prognosis seemed grim.

If his cancer is inoperable (as is oftentimes with lung cancer), chemotherapy is an effective way of fighting it. Without chemotherapy, his cancer will likely spread. Obviously, it will affect his immune system but so will the cancer and I think your father is just in denial for now. No ‘alternative’ medications work, do not let him waste his money on them. There are ways to support his body through chemotherapy and boost up his immune system but there are no ways (no matter how many charlatans are out there saying there are) to fight his cancer other than chemotherapy or radiation. Either way, he needs to ask his doctor if there are alternatives he can do like radiation or oral chemo.

My mom was diagnosed with bladder cancer 30 years ago and we were told to “just make her comfortable, she only has a 50 percent chance to live.” We went to Duke University Hospital for a second opinion. They removed her bladder and she is still here, 30 years later. A second opinion is always a good way to check your resources.
She also has lung cancer. She was diagnosed with that about 5 years ago. They treated her with radiation therapy, but it was a spot, not a mass. The radiation worked, but another spot came back last year. Another round of radiation took care of that spot.

@janedelila: Remind your step-father (with a lecture and photos) what lung cancer will eventually do to his immune system.

I am in remission from microcalfications and metastasis to two axillary nodes showing breast cancer In late 1995 I had the whole enchillada; two lumpectomies, chemo and radiation. My only long-term irritations are a sensitive esophagus.

However, I combined the aleopathic treatment with yoga, meditation and other alternative modalities.

Check this out

Click on “In the News” section at top of site.

Your step-dad may just be more accepting of his situation then you or his doctor. Allow him peace and control over his own destiny.

@Aster just out of curiosity, how would not eating meat or animal products kill cancer cells? Also, by eating raw meat he would expose himself to food-borne illnesses and potentially make himself a lot sicker.

@gorillapaws To be fair, not eating meat in general can certainly lessen the risk of getting certain cancers.

@plethora Click on “In the News” section at top of site

Cancer advice from a cosmetic surgeon on Fox and Friends. Not exactly the Mayo Clinic, is it?

Every other working link is a press release, or lightly touched up version of the doctor’s press release.

Not credible.

@jaytkay : ^^Plus there is a bait-and-switch involving sending money for products.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir How does lessing the risk of getting something at all correlate to treating a problem once it’s there? Regular oil changes will help prevent your engine from breaking down, but once you’ve ruined the engine, simply changing the oil won’t fix anything.

Also, I’ve never heard that not eating meat can reduce the chance for certain cancers. Can you link any studies that show this?

@gorillapaws It doesn’t correlate (that’s not what the point of my comment was) and here and here.

[mod says] Personal attacks are not tolerated.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Thanks for the links. To be perfectly fair though, they show a connection between processed meats and certain cancers, people who ate fish and chicken had a reduced risk of these cancers. This is significantly different than advocating a vegan or raw-foods only diet.

@plethora Yes, in fact, I do seek credible treatment for my family. Feel free to explain how that is bad.

Credible people don’t give 20 links to the same press release as “News”. That’s all an intelligent person needs to know about this doctors ethics, honesty and credibility.

@gorillapaws Wait a second, was I advocating a vegan or raw-food diet on this thread? Besides, they showed a reduced risk of these cancers in comparison to the meat eaters, NOT in comparison to vegetarians/vegans

Trust in your doctor and a second opinion doctor. They certainly know more than any of us.
Good luck with your step dad.

This is the top link of about 200,000 on the relationship between cancer ( and diabetes, and heart disease ) and eating processed meats: http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/processed-meats-increase-heart-disease-diabetes/

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I interpreted your original statement to be a defense (of sorts) of @Aster who was advocating for the vegan/raw-foods position.

@gorillapaws It wasn’t. Though I am a vegan.

Red meat and cancer studies

And it is true that once someone has contracted cancer, he can no longer eat a preventive diet for said cancer. But eating more veggies, complex carbs, fruits, and and non-animal protein can help the body fight other cancers, heart and artery issues, diabetes, obesity, and the like.

@jaytkay LIke I said….your arrogance is astonishing. Take your choice of any treatment you want. It is arrogant to discourage others when you have minimal knowledge of the facts. I happen to have personal knowledge of the man and his reputation. I offered the resource (with far less authority than you chose to claim for yourself) as a possibility. You, in your all-knowing arrogance, chose to denigrate the offer.

Does your dad’s doctor say this cancer is treatable [totally removed or and/or put in remission] for years of quality life? Or is this cancer terminal/ If terninal, allow your dad to call the shots. It’s his life.

plethora It is arrogant to discourage others when you have minimal knowledge of the facts.

OK. Present some facts. I will not dispute your claims. I ban myself from this discussion. You have the floor.

As far as I know there is no alternative to chemo. I think we would have all heard of it if there were.

There is a treatment protocol I have read about that uses 4 steps to make it difficult for cancer cells to spread and eventually eradicate the cancer cells and neoplasms themselves (tumors). Cancer cells get their energy from a process called glycolysis (fermentation of glucose). This alternative treatment uses 4 steps, the first is switching to a ketogenic diet to force the body to use ketones as its main energy source instead of glucose. The next step is using hypoglycemics (antidiabetic drugs) once ketosis occurs. The next thing is to use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Once the bodies glucose level is between 35 and 60 mg/dl you can than start using a sugar analog (2-deoxy-D-glucose). According to this book the low blood glucose levels force the cancer cells to use the sugar analog which causes the cancer cells to self destruct.

I have no links about the effectivness of this treatment (I did try to find them) but I have read about several people diagnosed with various types of cancer in different stages on seperate independent and even mainstream cancer website forums claim this treatment worked very well for them but the biggest obstacle was trying to get the 2-deoxy-D-glucose itself. The website is called www.howtostopcancer.com and I would recommend the book they sell that goes into this in much more detail. I went into several details so you could decide and look up things about what I have said for yourself.

@Jabe73 how could you recommend a book for a treatment for which you couldn’t find any effectiveness information?

Also, cancer cells are just normal body cells stuck in the growth-phase, I’m curios why this treatment would be effective for “self-destructing” cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue.

@gorillapaws The sugar analog is not poisonous to the body or normal cells, the analog blocks the energy metabolism of glucose. The cancer cells are forced to use the analog because of the low blood glucose levels (the diabetic medication keeps the body from producing more glucose to feed the cancer and regulates the blood glucose levels at the same time), namely Glucovance. The cancer cells can’t use ketones as energy but the normal cells function very well on ketones.

@Jabe73 why can’t cancer cells use ketones as energy? They’re normal cells that happen to be stuck in a growth phase, I would think they could metabolize just as well as a normal cell.

@jaytkay He doesn’t want to mess with his immune system. He’s willing to consider other therapies

Note the term “willing to consider”. The OP is asking for suggestions of possible alternatives. That is exactly what I offered. I know enough about the treatment to know of specific people who have seen their, otherwise untreatable, cancer go into remission in a relatively short time without having to suffer the rigors of radiation and chemotherapy. She is not asking for medical proof of credibility. There is none and none is claimed. It is a last resort when the standard treatments have failed.

No proofs are requested and none can be given. Any alternative treatment is uncharted territory. That’s why it’s called “alternative”. It is not the standard of the medical profession. Therefore critcism that is has no credibility with intimation that it is useless is misleading.

@plethora “The OP is asking for suggestions of possible alternatives, not proofs of their effectiveness on her relative”

I would think that some degree of efficacy would be implied by the nature of the question. If efficacy isn’t at all important then I might suggest standing on one foot, blinking rapidly, repeating to yourself “die cancer, die.” Of course I would think the OP would prefer responses that have some evidence that they might actually work.

@gorillapaws See just above your post. I edited the post you commented on.

Ottoman Warburg won the Nobel Prize for discovering cancer is mainly caused by an alteration in metabolism. Cancer cells use an anaerobic process that does not need oxygen to break down glucose. Aerobic organisms (such as healthy cells) have an oxygen-based metabolism (not fermentation-based). This is why healthy cells can use ketones as energy and cancer cells cannot.

There are several links you can look up that describe each of the 4 treatments I mentioned by themselves to treat cancer but not the entire 4-step protocol itself. You can use this treatment with conventional treatment as well according to this book.

This person did ask about alternative therapies for their father so I gave the best answer I could. I remember desperately searching the net, libaries and other books reading everything I could about cancer when my father was diagnosed with it in the early stages and watched him suffer a horrible death, he wasn’t that bad until he got the surgery and chemo done. I have watched several freinds die while receiving conventional treatments for their cancer as well. Ronald Reagan even recieved an alternative treatment for his cancer after conventional methods failed him in his own country. Cancer is big business and if people want to be close minded about it that is their right I guess. I do agree many alternative treatments are scams themselves but I did alot of research on cancer and this treatment I read about seems to make the most sense.

Could you share what stage of cancer it is? Also, has it metastisized? Have you checked online for alternative treatment or perhaps an NIH near you? Good Luck! Cancer sucks!