Natural Healing for Cancer, Diabetes and Other Diseases

Oncologists or cancer doctors have a huge array of drugs that they can use to defeat cancer. For example, Alimta or Pemetrexed Disodium is used to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma, or MPM, and Tamoxifen Citrate to treat breast cancer in both sexes.

In all, there are more than 300 formulations which are used to put cancer patients in remission or reverse the course of the disease. There are also clinical trials of cancer drugs in which cancer victims allow a hospital or clinic to distribute and administer a new drug to determine its effect on the human body.

These effects can be awful, ranging from complete hair loss and uncontrollable vomiting to a damaged immune system as the drugs kill off blood cells. The drugs can also make cancer patients feel extremely tired and cause them to lose their appetites.

Of course, no one would ever suggest that modern cancer drugs are themselves lethal, but many victims look sicker after a three- or six-week regimen of intravenous drug administration than they did going in. This course of drugs, called chemotherapy (or chemo for short) can be coupled with radiation therapy – a sort of one-two punch that oncologists rely on for stubborn or fast-moving malignancies.

Patients newly diagnosed with some form of cancer are often reluctant to try a dual treatment of chemo and/or radiation, first because they are not convinced such treatments work, and second because they lack insurance (or adequate insurance) and can’t afford the $500 to $10,000 per week it costs.

Finally, older patients – or those who have had the cancer for a while – can’t always take the dual regimen mandated by stubborn or highly invasive tumors. Their bodies are simply not up to it. In that case, oncologists may offer a course of medicines aimed simply at making their patients comfortable.

This is the perfect time to try natural cures, or naturopathy, which uses the healing power of nature to defeat cancer and relieve some of the symptoms of drug and radiation therapy. Practitioners of this type of healing, called naturopaths, use Western herbal medicine or Chinese herbal remedies, or both at the same time. Some even swear by Ayurvedic medicine from India or Tibet.

The nice thing about herbal remedies is that they rarely cause the kind of sickness and diminishing quality of life found with the use of the previously mentioned pharmaceuticals. Of course, if you are also getting chemo, be sure to tell your oncologist which herbs and alternative treatments you are using; drug reactions can be debilitating or even lethal.

Naturopaths will administer a number of herbal remedies, ranging from green tea and St. John’s wort to black cohosh, ginger and echinacea, a purple flowering plant native to the northern hemisphere.

They may also recommend and/or administer complementary therapies like music, meditation, massage, ionized water therapy (also called aquatherapy), acupuncture and aromatherapy. If your naturopath is practicing traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), he or she may offer lesson in qi gong or tai chi, both movement and breathing exercises which are believed to balance qi or chi, the flow of energy through the body. In TCM, practitioners believe that many diseases are caused by a loss of balance in this energy conduit. The more we learn about the human body, the more appropriate TCM appears to be.

Your healer may also tell you to take multivitamins, or some very unique formulations containing resveratol (a powerful flavinoid), spirulina or hyaluronic acid, on the theory that a multi-faceted approach may provide faster and more comprehensive cures. Of course, if you do not feel yourself improving after a month, it’s time to seek out another  naturopath.

These natural cures can be administered in a number of ways. The naturopath or his/her assistant may give you prepared tablets or capsules, or a bag of raw herbs which you take home, boil and ingest according to directions. You may even be given a tincture, which is a mildly alcoholic solution containing the essential plant parts.

Even among those who think herbal medicine is hogwash and stick by 21^st century American medicine, the use of herbs like Astragalus can mitigate or even prevent some of the more troubling reactions to chemotherapy.

Finally, if cancer sufferers are pregnant, breastfeeding, having radiotherapy or scheduled for surgery in the near future, they should forego any medicines or supplements. Radiotherapy, or the use of powerful x-rays either inside or outside the body aimed at shrinking or obliterating tumors, is quite hard on the human body, occasionally causing lungs to lose some of their elasticity or reproductive organs to fail both short- and long-term. The same has never been attributed to herbal healing.