What Are the Natural Breast Cancer Treatment Available?
Heading into October, World Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it’s hard not to notice the daunting figures that illustrate how this form of cancer is having a devastating impact around the world.
However, according to breastcancer.org, the rate of deaths related to breast cancer has been on the decline since 1989. And even though there is still a reasonable mortality rate associated with the illness, better medical intervention and care is resulting in fewer women succumbing to the disease.
Perhaps the most talked-about breast cancer prevention medical choice was by actress Angelina Jolie, who underwent a preventive double mastectomy because she has a mutation in her BRCA1 gene that increases her risk of breast and ovarian cancer. In Jolie’s case, she had an 87% chance of breast cancer because she inherited the mutated gene. BRCA1 and BRCA2 help the body’s DNA stay stable and restrict the body’s cells from overgrowth.
However, when they mutate, they put you at higher risk of breast cancer.
As the battle for cancer wears on, medical experts are coming up with less invasive procedures like a nipple-sparing mastectomy. This procedure entails the removal of the breast tissue, but the surgeon spares the nipple, areola, and skin of the breast for cosmetic surgery immediately afterward.
And of course, there is dreaded chemotherapy where your boy is pumped full of chemicals and radiation in the hope of destroying the cancer cells and preventing them from spreading.
But are there other ways to fight breast cancer away from drug cocktails and surgery?
Plants and herbs are not the only options forming the basis for alternative natural treatments for breast cancer. Here are four alternatives to conventional breast cancer treatments.
1. Gerson therapy
Gerson therapy utilizes a strict diet, enemas, and dietary supplements to treat breast cancer. It relies on enzymes, minerals, and additional nutritional factors to fight the cancer cells. In this treatment, you’ll be on a strict diet of organic fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains which will provide the body with essential nutrients like minerals and vitamins. You’ll also detoxify using enemas to remove waste and toxins from the body.
Finally, you have to take supplements that correct the cell’s metabolism.
This treatment is used for patients with cancer because of the idea that cancer develops due to changes in the cell’s metabolism, causing a buildup of toxic substances in your body. According to Dr. Gerson, who invented the treatment, the progression of cancer increases more toxins in the body overworking the liver.
He also believed that cancer patients have too much sodium and too little potassium in their bodies. The imbalance of these two nutrients results in weak organs and tissue damage.
The dietary approach to treatment ensures that toxins are eliminated and the cell metabolism is corrected. The end result is a better immune system and repair to the damaged tissue cells.
The treatment gained so much popularity that a movie was made surrounding its theory called “The beautiful truth.”
2. Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is also known as biology therapy. It’s a treatment that boosts the body’s natural immunity to fight off cancer. The treatment uses substances made in a laboratory or by the body to restore the defenses of the compromised immune system. There are five types of immunotherapy.
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- Cancer vaccines
- Oncolytic virus therapy
- T-cell therapy
- Monoclonal antibodies and tumor-agnostic therapies
- Non-specific immunotherapies
Cancer vaccines
Immunotherapy introduces an antigen to the immune system in the hope that the system will recognize and destroy the antigen using antibodies. Currently, there are preventative and treatment vaccines.
Oncolytic virus therapy
Oncolytic virus therapy uses genetically modified viruses to fight cancer cells. The doctor injects the virus into the tumor, and it finds its way into the cancerous cells. Here it replicates itself, causing the cell to burst, effectively killing it. When a cell dies, it releases antigens which trigger the patient’s immune system to start attacking similar antigens in the body.
T-cell therapy
T-cells are the body’s natural cells that fight infection. They are usually harvested from the patient’s blood and modified in a laboratory to have proteins called receptors. The work of the receptors in the new T-cells is to identify the cancer cells and destroy them.
Monoclonal antibodies and tumor agnostic therapies
Monoclonal antibodies are created in the lab, and they attach themselves to the proteins in cancer cells flagging them so that the immune system can destroy them. As the immune system finds and destroys these cancer cells, the growth and spread of the cancer is prevented.
Non-specific immunotherapies
There are two non-specific immunotherapies: interferons and interleukins. Interferons can slow the growth of cancer cells while interleukins destroy them. These treatments are usually used alongside other cancer treatments, but some are used as the primary treatment option.
3. Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy
The approach used in hyperbaric oxygen therapy is to increase the amount of oxygen in cancer cells and then find them and kill them off with radiation or chemotherapy. The patient breathes in pure oxygen while inside a pressurized room which contains up to three times the amount of oxygen found in normal air.
An addition to Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy is the use of photodynamic therapy to destroy cancer cells. In this treatment, the photodynamic drug activated by light and injected into the patient’s body to kill off the cancer cells. The procedure must be done in a Hyperbaric Oxygen chamber because the drug depends on the oxygen used to target the cancer cells.
4. High doses of Vitamin C
Vitamin C has been found to slow down the progression of cancer in some studies. It induces death to the cancerous cells resulting in slowed growth and spread of the cells. Usually, the vitamin is given intravenously to have the expected effect. This vitamin has been proven to better the quality of life for the cancer patient and also prolong their life.
The best quote that captures how we should look at cancer is by Greg Anderson, who says that …
“…breast cancer opens many doors, one of which is your heart.”
Perhaps a less interesting addition to the quote can be,
“…and maybe it can also open your mind to try an alternative route of treatment and not only chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.”
Either way, keep fighting the fight. You’ve got this.