To ask if you believe radical remission is possible?

[Edenspirits73]

I’ve just read this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-Remission-Surviving-Cancer-Against/dp/0062268740

It’s written by an American researcher, lecturer and oncologist and charts her experiences of gathering cases of radical remission from all over the world. It’s presented in quite a scientific way & she charts the 9 things that all the people who went into radical remission & had in common. It’s fascinating too.

Ironically it was recommended to me when my dad was dying of bowel cancer - end stage for him.

It’s a real book of hope (but not false hope) as it charts a largely unreported area of health - and an idea that people survive and thrive even end stage 4 cancer.

So am I being unreasonable to believe? Obviously these are real case studies too as she felt it was a totally unreported area of medicine but it feels like believing that you can heal from cancer is not a mainstream belief at all - it’s almost contraversial and held up as false hope I think.

Intererested in thoughts!

I work in oncology. The harm I've seen and heard of when people wholesale believe this sort of thing, regardless of how it's been packaged. I really dislike this sort of thing.

I’m NOT promoting anything. I read a book that I found really interesting as it gave a different perspective and I was reading stuff after my Dad died of bloody cancer.

And everyone is screaming at me as a result.

Well I like the idea that it does, but also dislike the thought that if you didn’t try hard enough you die aspect… however.. I had stage 4 cancer, was given 6 months max. This was 10 years ago, I did a lot of those things. Totally reduced stress from work, radically changed my diet, tried supplements, had intense counselling, dropped toxic relationships, upped my exercise, started journaling, started to just be more positive, just a snippet really. I wasn’t hugely unhealthy prior but my job was a lot, I had a small child, just got divorced, you name it it happened. It was never my total intention that I would “cure” myself but I just wanted to live for as long as possible as my dad died when I was a child and the hurt was so bad I couldn’t bear my DD to have to feel like I did as a child. I do think more people could do more to help themselves for sure.

Read the intro- she makes no claims at all
https://books.google.co.uk/books?gboemv=1&hl=en&id=gm8pAgAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PT3&redir_esc=y&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

OMG yes, I did read the introduction which told me diddlysquat.

I then read the couple of pages of chapter 1 on 'radically change your diet' and she is just one of the ten a penny 'give up sugar' charlatans making the lives of cancer patients miserable.

I've seen far too many patients who should be eating protein, fat and carbs who are emaciated because they have decided to eat a diet of organic vegetables instead.

This sort of advice is cruel.

Thanks, I’ve read it, hence my question. How does she account for people experiencing spontaneous remission who don’t do any of the nine things she outlines?

To be clear, I fully agree with her argument that positive thinking, lifestyle chances etc can be useful alongside conventional medical treatment. But the section of the book you shared heavily implies that ‘the establishment’ are somehow suppressing research into alternative cures for cancer, which is a) not true and b) a tell tale red flag for a snake oil salesman.

If she’s serious about attracting more scientific research to this area (which I agree is a good cause), her book is going to hinder rather than help in terms of the field being taken seriously. I hope she moves into supporting proper scientific research into this area.

And she’s very clear of her intentions in the book in the intro and there is literally nothing offensive in there- she just wants to report her findings in the hope it might help find a cure for cancer.

The comments on this thread are because what she is reporting in her book is not scientific research and so is irrelevant.

I think there were 75 things in her studies - she just reports on the 9 that were most prevalent.

She talks about how she hopes her research will attract more scientific studies.

she’s not ‘reporting findings’ - she is making assertions based on anecdote. Which is interesting from a sociological point of view, but shouldn’t be marketed as a cure for cancer (which she is absolutely doing via her website, even if not in so many words.)

Well I skimmed through it and I froze, stunned and confused ()

What it does say is that she has personal experience of a relative and a friend dying of cancer, which gave her a real fear of the disease at a young age. I think this makes it less likely that she is a cold hearted grifter, and more likely that she is seeking reassurance that cancer can be avoided or beaten if you "do the right things".

People are understandably very sensitive about this topic! I know it's hard to hear but sometimes people are partly responsible for their health problems. Sometimes a person with cancer didn't do enough! It's okay to be honest.

If drinking alcohol can vastly increase your risk of cancer, then it's not a huge leap to wonder if stopping drinking might weaken or remove cancer. Living somewhere healthy, away from whatever the next asbestos will be, might have a positive effect. Eating more fresh, unpackaged food might have a positive effect.

I don't really understand why the general population is so accepting that half of us will get cancer and refuse to believe something might help. Maybe if you behave like the average unhealthy Brit, but we actually have choices and plenty of research to learn from. We can choose not to drink alcohol, not to smoke, not to eat meat, to be careful in the sun, to eat healthy food a lot of the time. But if you don't want to, that's your choice.

Welsh politician Jeff Cuthbert was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer (I think it was stage 4 anyway) decades ago and is still alive now. I suppose it happens in rare cases.

I find the suggestion that my husband died of cancer because he didn't try hard enough to live offensive.

Yes, but you're talking about prevention more than cure surely?

I’m so sorry about your dad.

I suspect people are reacting strongly because many have either had cancer or lost relatives to it, and the implication that this might be in some way ‘their fault’ is upsetting. I’m sure you can appreciate that, as someone who has lost a relative in that way. People have strong feelings about this.

An ex work colleague spent a fair amount of time in the public eye speaking on tv and radio interviews about how she cured her cancer by changing her diet and lifestyle. She wrote books, had blogs and YouTube channels. And sadly died.

I don't know. I'm talking about the possibility of lifestyle changes "treating" cancer really, as a logical theory. I don't know if it's been researched much.

@Edenspirits73 What do you think about the boxes she is selling? The coaching? It isn’t just the book, is it?

You clearly stated in your OP that she is an oncologist. That is why people are pushing back on that statement as it is not true at all.

I haven’t seen any of it. I had literally just read the book.

Thanks. I’m going to leave the thread now.
I really was just wanting a conversation about a book I found interesting and instead got a massive pile on. It’s actually a bit upsetting so time to go - thanks for being kind though xx

My pretty basic understanding is that your immune system is constantly finding and destroying pre cancerous, abnormal and cancerous cells. Sometimes this process is overwhelmed and a cancer develops. Perhaps sometimes that system then starts working again. That's how I think these spontaneous remissions occur.
I know that new immunotherapy for cancer tries to highlight the cancer cells to the immune system for it to destroy

I think the thing is that when you have cancer, particularly stage 4 like me you get used to hearing all sorts of theories about why you might have cancer & what alternative treatments there are. I have bowel cancer & through a support group met other young women all of whom had lived healthy lifestyles prior to developing bowel cancer. I know there are many that don’t but I have always been very proactive in terms of looking after my health. If anything I believed too much in the power of lifestyle factors to prevent cancer. Sometimes it’s just random unfortunately.

@OCDmama how did you unearth the field of the author’s PhD?

From her coyness I knew it would be miles from medicine or biology. But she is not stupid: her UG degree is from Harvard and her PhD is from Berkeley.

OP although the author irritates me, I think from what I’ve seen that she is pandering to the human tendency to read too much in to a scenario rather than blatantly lying. I do see a role for complementary medicine in cancer treatment, regardless of whatever I would think about Dr Turner’s particular practices

However the person I know currently experiencing No Evidence of Disease after Stage 4 cancer is DF. He had lung metastases for over 10 years, controlled with periodic radiation. They would shrink snd grow but were always present.

Suddenly they have vanished. He is 80 years old and not doing any of the 9 steps, except that he has always had a good attitude to life.