(This is Part 1 of a 2-part article.)
There are several interesting notions to keep in mind when talking about cancer. These are my conclusions from successful experience with assisting others in this area, including some labeled "terminal," and after studying and pondering health and nutrition for many years:
1) We all have cancer all the time. For example, approximately twice a day the earth is bombarded from random areas of the universe by a blast of gamma rays lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Cancer cells are created in all of us as the gamma rays pass through certain cells and alter their DNA.
And of course many other causes exist. Continual irritants to the body, such as toxic chemicals or metals or too much radiation can result in cancerous cells, or any part of the body that takes unusual or extended irritation of some kind can eventually emerge as cancerous.
Too, the toxins taken in from the environment and in our diet, along with the natural waste products of metabolism in the body, can also pollute the body to such an extent that the bodily network succumbs to cancer.
Normally, the body is superbly equipped to deal with cancer cells. It has very formidable means for identifying, killing and excreting them, and on a more or less continuous basis already does so. But the immune and excretory systems, which conduct this process, can get overwhelmed if the amount of toxins and/or irritants is too great for too long.
2) Most generally, cancer is a disease of toxification. Long before cancer is diagnosed, most future cancer patients have experienced years of fatigue or colds or allergies or dark circles under the eyes or whatever—signs of their body becoming toxified. You know when you're becoming toxified, because after awhile you can actually taste it in your mouth. It's a vague internal sense that the mouth doesn't feel clean, particularly the tongue.
Among practitioners and theorists of the Natural Hygiene movement, cancer is not normally considered irreversible until the last stage, chachexia, is reached. "Chachexia" is where someone is literally wasting away. At that point, the process of systemic poisoning has usually gone too far and some bodily systems are beginning to shut down. Before then—especially if the person has not undergone conventional medical treatments—they are considered potentially reversible.
The conventional medical treatments of chemotherapy and radiation impose severe damages on the immune system—the very system which must deal with cancerous cells. So even if short-term progress seems to be made with such methods, down the road such a person will tend to become more susceptible to cancer, not less.
In other words, rather than focusing on the symptoms (tumors), the fundamental cause of the cancer—the systematic irritation and general toxifying of the body—needs to be addressed.
3) No "magic bullets" need be involved in reversing cancer. It does not take special food, herbs or commercial preparations. Rather, the body is prepared to do it all; in fact, only the body can truly reverse cancer on a long-term basis, because only the body has the power and ability to identify cancer cells, cleanse and detoxify itself of them and its other pollutants, and re-organize itself.
Basically, what's involved is allowing the body to detoxify by giving it the conditions to do so. This means removing sources of irritants and stress, of course, and allowing the body to rest as much as possible, but most of all it means going on a series of fasts interspersed with a natural raw cleansing diet.
When we do this, we allow the body to kick its natural cleansing and detoxifying processes into high gear, which is what is needed for the immune system to gain the upper hand in dealing with cancerous growths. If given a chance, the immune system will autolyze (literally, "eat") the cancer growths, gradually reducing them and excreting their contents, along with other toxins, pollutants and poisons in the body.
When we stop eating and just take water or juices for awhile, the body's main energy burden—digestion and assimilation—is suddenly removed from it. The process of digestion and assimilation takes more energy by far than any other process in the body; it's the basic cost of doing business.
So when the body doesn't have to expend all that energy on digestion and assimilation, it's now freed up to expend energy in other needed directions, such as cleansing and re-organizing itself.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 1.12.03 for 3.17.03
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