Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the developed world, and yet we are still in the dark ages when it comes to treating and understanding it.
The colossal failure of conventional cancer treatments reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what cancer – the “enemy” – actually is. For one, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are both intrinsically carcinogenic treatments. The only justification for their use, in fact, is that they are highly effective at damaging the DNA within cells – with the hope that the cancer cells will be more susceptible to being harmed than the healthy ones (sadly, not always true).
The reality, however, is that the “collateral damage” from treatment is inevitable; it is not a matter of “if,” but to what degree the damaging side effects will occur. As in real modern warfare, the decision to strike is often based on deciding how much collateral damage to “civilian” populations is deemed acceptable. This is not unlike the fixation in toxicological risk assessments for drugs, environmental pollutants, food additives, etc., where determining “an acceptable level of harm” (a rather horrible oxymoron) to the exposed population is the first order of business.
Chemo Agent Classified by the WHO as Carcinogenic
The DNA-damaging, or genotoxic effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, according to the prevailing wisdom, are the #1 cause of cancer initiation and promotion. This is known as the “Mutational Theory” of cancer, and has been the dominant explanation for half a century. Therefore it is absolutely disconcerting that the standard of care in cancer treatment today is still the use of genotoxic agents versus substances that are able to selectively harm the “bad” cells, leaving the “good” ones intact; which is also known as “selective cytotoxicty,” and is a property characteristic of natural anti-cancer compounds and whole plant extracts. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in the case of fruit-derived compounds, such as graviola, where cell research indicates that fruit extract may be up to 10,000 times more effective at killing certain cancer cells versus adriamycin (not so affectionately named the “red devil” for its lethal side effects) and is highly selective in which cells it kills.
Take the cancer drug tamoxifen, for example. It is classified by the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society as a human carcinogen, and has been documented to cause over two dozen health-destroying side effects, and yet it is still being used as a first line treatment for certain types of breast cancer. Does that really make sense? Even if tamoxifen was effective (which increasingly it is not), does it really matter if it “cures” breast cancer only to cause endometrial or liver cancer (which is often far more deadly than breast cancer) as a direct result of the treatment? Tamoxifen and chemotherapy resistance is increasingly a problem. In the same way that certain pathogenic bacteria become resistant to antibiotics – even becoming stronger after being challenged with them – drug resistance and multi-drug resistance to chemoagents is the canary in the coal mine, indicating the entire paradigm, hinged as it is on patented, highly toxic chemicals, is rearing to collapse.
Radiation Therapy Known To Cause Cancer & Enhance Malignancy
Similarly, radiotherapy is known to induce secondary cancers, along with a wide range of serious adverse effects. A woman whose breast is irradiated is more likely to develop lung cancer, for instance. But its effects may actually be far worse on the primary cancer it is being used to treat…
When a breast tumor is exposed to radiation, the cells within that tumor are not uniform, but have great heterogeneity. Some of the cells are fast-replicating, whereas some are slow-replicating and benign. Some cells are older, technically senescent, and by their very existence are keeping neighboring cells within the tumor and with greater potential for malignancy from breaking out into invasive growth. There are also cancer stem cells, which are technically slower-replicating and therefore less likely to be destroyed by chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and yet which are responsible for re-seeding and fueling the growth of the tumor itself with a theoretical limitless resupply of daughter cells.
Radiotherapy has been shown to increase the survival and self-renewing capacity of these breast cancer initiating cells by up to 30-fold, which means that while a radiation treatment may initially regress a tumor’s volume/mass, it may actually be selecting out the more radiation-resistant and aggressive subpopulation of tumor cells which ultimately lead to higher malignancy. This promotion of self-initiating cancer cells is also true for chemotherapy, of course. Incidentally, the low-dose radiation used to diagnose breast cancers in x-ray mammography is likely causing far more cancers in women over time than it is said to prevent. If you read the actual peer-reviewed medical literature on the subject you may be surprised to find that the low-dose ionizing radiation is actually far more carcinogenic (3-4 fold higher) than the high-dose radiation it is often compared to in radiation risk assessments. In fact, one of the most well known breast cancer associated genes, namely, BRCA1/BRCA2, confers greater susceptibility to radiation induced breast cancer in those who have it. In other words, staying away from medical radiation, diagnostic or therapeutic, may be essential to avoid the cancer it is being used to both “prevent” and “treat.”
URL: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/does-chemo-radiation-actually-make-cancer-more-malignant