More than 1,500 people die of cancer every day, but there are more than 10 million walking around right now living with it. These days alternative treatments are playing an even bigger role.
With the growing popularity of naturopathic alternatives more doctors are incorporating it into their treatment plans, but it's also growing in popularity online.
We introduce you to a leading expert in Seattle who's combining the old and the new while fighting the fakes.
“I don't look back. I've learned to look forward,” says Therese Billings.
She is a survivor several times over. In 13 years: Therese Billings has been diagnosed with breast cancer 7 times.
“Anytime you hear the word cancer that's scary!” she says.
The first few years she did surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, but each time it came back. That’s when she started to look at less conventional answers and she says it opened up a new world of hope.
“It may have been someone who told me about it, a friend, and so I decided to look into it,” she says.
4 years ago she found Dr. Dan Labriola who runs Northwest Natural Health in Ballard and is the Medical Director of Naturopathic Services at the Swedish Cancer Institute.
“There is a tremendous increase in interest. Many very large institutions are looking increasingly at naturopathic treatments,” says Labriola.
At Swedish, Labriola recommends conventional treatments with natural ones, but there is a new concern: claims to cure cancer online that are unapproved and often dangerous.
“And there's just so much information on the Internet that's just bogus,” says Labriola.
Therese says she avoids the risky stuff, but her best friend did not.
“She tried a whole bunch of crazy things and that scared me, but she was desperate, afraid and desperate, and I completely understand that.”
This summer the FDA sent out dozens of warning letters to companies marketing those so-called “all-natural” cancer cures. It’s a trend Dr. Labriola is trying to crack.
“A significant part of what I do in practice is protecting patients from self-treatments that could either interfere with conventional treatment or create new harm on their own and in some cases make some cancer worse.”
Labriola says his supplements are thoroughly checked and FDA approved. His focus is getting cancer survivors strong and as healthy, treating other problems, and sharing every bit of information, every step of the way to make sure his natural treatments don’t interfere with western ones.
Therese now works as a navigation manager for chronic disease at the YMCA for Greater Seattle. So, she is helping others while learning there is still so much life for her to live.
“If nothing else, for what ever time I have left, I want to have the best possible life that I can live.”
Web Extra: Cancer Alternatives: The Good & The Bad
Dr. Dan Labriola says for some people it can help, but for breast cancer patients for example, where tumors are sensitive to estrogen:
“There is actually increasingly good evidence to support the fact that they can accelerate the disease,” he says.
Then there's anti-oxidants that are helpful in suppressing cancer, but potentially harmful by interfering with radiation and some chemotherapy treatments.
“These are good things, and we should really consider them in the overall cancer plan because they have great potential benefit, but timing is everything.”
Also, specific anti-oxidants can be a bad idea before surgery.
“The use of specific anti-oxidants like vitamin E, using plant substances like garlic they all thin your blood.”
Saint John's Wart and ginger in a lesser way, also can thin the blood. So, Dr. Labriola's best advice:
“Almost every study that's been done shows that patients do not fess up about the natural medicine things that they are doing. Make certain that everyone knows what everyone else is doing. No secrets.”
Links & Helpful Information
Swedish Medical Center: Natural Health
<http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=110&oTopID=19>
<http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=126>
<http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=109&oTopID=19>
<http://www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=1768>
Northwest Natural Health Clinic:
http://www.nwnaturalhealth.com
Bastyr University: Natural Health
http://www.bastyr.edu/