The Truth about The Truth About Cancer - An Opinion
The other day a colleague of mine mentioned that he was watching a documentary series for a class he was taking at university. He described it as eye-opening. He said I’d find out things I never knew about the medical community. Interest piqued, I made a mental note to remember the name - The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest. I found it online (https://go.thetruthaboutcancer.com) and listened to the first episode as I drove home. It’s a series of interviews so watching isn’t necessary in my opinion. I was late joining the party so only episodes 1, 2, and 9 were available at the time so that will be a caveat of this piece. There may be things they clarified in the middle that I missed, and I’m not about to pay to view the remainder of it.
I once heard a joke about a hacker watching Hackers. I imagine it’s quite a bit like a biologist watching Dren or Lucy. This film evoked those same feelings. They raise completely valid points exposing how rapacious and hypocritical the medical community can be. I also appreciate the fact that they take the time to try to simplify some very complex topics for the lay community using excessive amounts of smilies. However, the information presented ended up being skewed. Generally, the producers of this film are in favor of forgoing chemotherapy, radiation, and other conventional therapies in favor of natural remedies including but not limited to essential oils, dietary changes (elimination of sugar, pesticides, preservatives, etc), herbs, and avoiding stress.
Not to be a huge Debbie Downer, I thought I’d add a few notes on what this documentary did right.
Immunity is the key to combatting cancer! Normally our bodies clear out cancer cells on its own. The key to treating cancers may be supporting normal cancer surveillance and elimination processes. It’s quite the hot topic in research currently. Google it.
Proper nutrition and anti-inflammatory supplements help prevent cancer! Particularly the role of sugar in promoting tumorgeneis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3267662/). I’ve recently been making efforts to reduce my own intake of sugar (but I still like Frosted Flakes way too much), preservatives, pesticides, artificial coloring/flavors, etc. Multiple doctors being interviewed admitted they didn’t learn much about nutrition in medical school, and that the curriculum needs to change. I agree, but while we’re at it can we add more sociology, psychology, medical ethics, epidemiology, and geriatrics too? Time in medical school probably needs to expand with our expanding knowledge of modern biomedicine, but I digress.
Epigenetics; another topic I’m glad this series touched on, but the copious smilies annoyed the sh*t out of me. ‘Think of your body as a computer, your DNA is the hardware, and your epigenetics is the software,’ … Seriously? Ugh! A better comparison would be thinking of your DNA as compact or floppy disc (that’s the thing on the save button for those raised in the era of cloud storage). It has information stored on it. The cellular machinery used to read this information would be the CD player. So, epigenetics are more like a volume switch or scratches on the CD really. The expressively of genes can be modulated by the molecules attached to them. You can change your epigenetics somewhat based on your lifestyle choices. Mutations that have completely nullified a gene are like corrupted files.
I’m not sure how to phrase this one to not be inflammatory myself… get it? The corruption? no… evils? no… of some of the big players in academic, pharmaceutical, and medicine industries. I did not previously know any of the following…
–> Corporations like Rockefeller had a heavy hand setting the current standard medical school curriculums. They placed pharmaceutical company employees on the boards of medical schools to ensure the doctors were being taught the virtues of prescribing their drugs. Allopathy was thrust into the limelight and became accepted over more naturalist approaches. Many non-allopathic medical schools went out of business as a result. Maybe it needs to be longer than 4 years since our (aka “the scientific community’s”) knowledge of biomedicine has expanded so much, but I’ll save that for another post.
—> IG Farber, now Bayer, BASF, Sanofi, and AGFA, was the defendant in Nuremberg trial 6. Of the 24 defendants, 9 were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity including enslavement (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007077). The documentary purports that they slaughter the slaves. These pharmaceutical companies whose products many of us use daily had a hand in funding/setting up the first European concentration camp. It’s surprisingly difficult to find information on this trial. Suspicious…
Okay, now for the parts that I think they got wrong!
One of the commentators said something akin to ‘diagnosis is the first step on the road to death.’ As was pointed out repeatedly, chemotherapeutic drugs, radiation, etc are poison! Yes, chemotherapeutic drugs that act by inducing mitotic crash in highly proliferative cells and ionizing radiation do indeed cause cancer (http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/medicaltreatments/secondcancerscausedbycancertreatment/second-cancers-caused-by-cancer-treatment-toc), BUT we have other carcinogenic treatments for those too! … Want some graft versus host disease with that? Seriously though, if your current state is affecting your quality of life, and there is a treatment that can improve and/or extend life it could be worth the risk of a secondary tumor, but that’s a personal choice. Yes, reduction of tumor mass with conventional therapies, does not destroy cancer stem cells (CSCs) which have all kinds of interesting mechanisms to avoid and eject the drugs (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7366/full/477512b.html), BUT therapies targeting CSCs specifically are being developed. Google it. (Aside: I was very happy they touched on CSCs.) Yes, having surgery can increase the motility of cells causing metastasis, BUT the chances are slim (http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/myths). Furthermore, the surgery myth tends to be popular in underserved communities where health literacy is low (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3724400/).
Breast cancer screening was spoken about at length. Beyond the obvious fact that mammograms irradiate the breast tissue, it was pointed out that mammograms detect benign tumors which may be misidentified as malignant and that women may be aggressively treated after a false positive diagnosis.They made it seem like people were having next/same day radical mastectomies after a positive biopsy. What happened to second opinions? Furthermore one must weigh the risk of declining screening exams with later detection of disease. While, I wholeheartedly agree that physicians should be more sensitive to their patient’s emotional status and provide them the space and time (situation allowing) to contemplate and find the path that is correct for their value system since the gold standard is never a one-sze fits all (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/being-mortal/dr-atul-gawande-hope-is-not-a-plan-when-doctors-patients-talk-death/), but the gold standard does exist for a reason. It’s called evidence based medicine, people. Also, I found it funny that they interviewed a man whose late father invented a machine he thinks will be able to detect cancer based on heat emission as a result of metabolic changes in cancerous cells.
A commentator pointed out that only ~8% of breast cancers are caused by mutation of the BRCA genes and many other factors determine whether we develop cancer - diet, obesity, bioaccumulation of industrial chemicals, etc. I agree that the media does focus too heavily on the BRCA genes and the highly commercialized pink ribbon (which apparently should be peach - http://www.bcaction.org/2014/06/24/in-memoriam-charlotte-haley-creator-of-the-first-peach-breast-cancer-ribbon/) movement. However, for those women who do have the tumor supressor mutation, ~60% go on to develop cancer (http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics/brca-fact-sheet#q2) whereas, 1 in 8 women of the general population will have breast cancer in her lifetime. The documentary seems to downplay the role of genetics in the development of cancer. They make it seem as if no matter what your DNA says, you can change your alter your epigenetics and prevent cancer from developing.
I’m sure I’d have many more grievances to air had I seen the other episodes or even taken notes on the ones I did see, but that’s all for now folks!
Finally, please note, these are just all my opinions (except where I’ve inserted links to articles showing I’m not just pulling these things out of thin air). I in no way intend to influence the treatment path anyone chooses. How anyone deals with their diseases are personal choices (as long as it’s not a public health issue). My take away message from all of this - eat right, exercise, and be your own advocate while seeking health care. Now if only Everyman was health literate enough to do all of that…
