Green Options

At age 5, Connah Broom faced aggressive childhood cancer called Neuroblastoma.  Tumors stretched from his neck, through his torso, and down one leg. Chemo didn’t work. The doctors, afraid to operate so near vital organs, sent him home to enjoy his final months with his father and grandparents.

That was in 2007.  Now, his grandparents claim going organic and other alternative treatments have saved Connah’s life.

The cover story of the latest Ode Magazine details Dr. David Servan-Schreiber’s battle with cancer.  In “Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy:  How Diet, Exercise, and a Positive State of Mind Can Help Prevent Cancer”, he describes the mental, emotional, and  physical trials of becoming a patient, rather than the healer.

He advocates for holistic treatment of cancer, including diet, exercise, meditation, and positive state of mind, but also touches on the lack of true scientific support for these therapies.  He does an admirable job of advocating for an ounce of prevention, but misses a terrific opportunity when addressing the economic implications of prevention and treatment.

True scientific studies require large budgets and willing participants, both of which are hard to come by for alternative therapies.  Big Pharma can fund studies on potential blockbuster drug therapies, but who would pay for a study involving the effect of meditation on cancer patients?  Doctors, for their part, are very cautious not to promote therapies that are not based on scientific studies, and since most of us trust our doctors as the most knowledgable source of information about our health, it typically takes a leap of faith or true desperation (when the cancer has eluded conventional treatments) for people to give alternative therapies a solid try.