1. The most important cancer book in my collection is Michael Gearin-Tosh’s Living Proof. In 1994, Michael, an Oxford don, was diagnosed with MM. He was 54 years old and had the skeleton of a 90 year old man. After consulting with many MM specialists, he refused to do chemotherapy, even though his doctors had given him only a few months to live. He decided to do alternative treatments instead, and lived for 11 years, beating all odds and statistics. In fact, he is known as the.005 % survivor (I have a link to his story on my homepage). He died of sepsis in July 2005 after refusing to take antibiotics for a tooth infection which became systemic. His story inspired me to pursue the path of alternative treatments.
2. One of the best cancer and nutrition books I have seen is Beating Cancer with Nutrition, by Patrick Quillin, Ph.D., RD, CNS, a well-known expert in the field of nutrition and cancer. Since reading his chapter on cancer and sugar, I have cut down on my sugar intake. Cancer cells love sugar. So do I, which makes giving it up very hard.
3. Another interesting book is The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. An excerpt from the back cover: “By any measure, America’s health is failing. We spend far more, per capita, on health care than any other society in the world, and yet two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and more than 15 million Americans have diabetes. We fall prey to heart disease as often as we did thirty years ago. The War on Cancer, launched in the 1970s, has been a miserable failure. Half of all Americans have a health problem that requires taking a prescription drug every week, and more than 100 million Americans have high cholesterol.” This book makes a connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes and cancer. You can read more about the book here: http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
Online readings: curcumin.
1. “Curcumin – Biological and Medicinal Properties,” July 24, 2006, by Bharat B. Aggarwal, Indra D. Bhatt, Haruyo Ichikawa, Kwang Seok Ahn, Gautam Sethi, Santosh K. Sandur, Chitra Natarajan, Navindra Seeram, and Shishir Shishodia. This study provides us with detailed information about curcumin, how it works, its chemical composition, anti-cancer and antioxidant properties, in vivo and in vitro studies, etc. Just before the bibliographical references, on page 348, there is a list of curcumin sources, which I hadn’t previously noticed, but could be very useful for curcumin-takers who don’t know what brands to buy. Several sections are devoted to the effects of curcumin on atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases, cholesterol, diabetes, wound healing, arthritis, muscle regeneration, and even stress. It also gives an overview of natural and synthetic analogues of curcumin. In short, it is an exhaustive study, and I would urge anyone interested in curcumin to read it: http://tinyurl.com/2po7vb
2. A 2004 study published in Current Science also gives an overview of the many biological activities of curcumin: http://tinyurl.com/2r2ubs It is here that I found out about the antifertility properties of curcumin: Curcumin also inhibits human sperm motility and has the potential for the development of a novel intravaginal contraceptive. So, if you are considering pregnancy, best to avoid curcumin.
Update! February 28, 2008 post: 1. “Foods to fight cancer,” by Richard Béliveau and Denis Gingras. Fascinating book, I must say. I haven’t studied all of it (yet), but it’s extremely well done, easy to follow, and has heaps of examples, great charts and colourful photos. First-rate job. If you have just been diagnosed with any sort of cancer, buy this book. Actually, eh, just buy this book, period! (More detailed info on this book in my post.)
In a comment to this post, my blog reader Sunshine suggests these books: “Avoiding Cancer One Dy At A Time” by MN authors: Eldridge and Borgeson c. 2007 is quite good I think. We also have “Super Foods”, “The Okinawa Diet”, and “Foods to Live By”, “Spontaneous Healing” by Andrew Weil, “Nature’s Cancer-Fighting Foods” by Verne Varona, “Reader’s Digest, Foods that Harm, Foods that Heal” (1997)
2. The second book, by the same authors, is titled “Cooking with foods that fight cancer.” I haven’t yet really examined the first part, which is an introduction to cancer, but I have tried a couple of the recipes: the broccoli soup and the tomato and apple soup. I would suggest adding less water to both recipes, unless you like watery soup. I also always add more turmeric than the amounts listed. Eh!
In a comment to this post, my blog reader Sunshine suggests the following books: “Avoiding Cancer One Dy At A Time” by MN authors: Eldridge and Borgeson c. 2007 is quite good I think. We also have “Super Foods”, “The Okinawa Diet”, and “Foods to Live By”, “Spontaneous Healing” by Andrew Weil, “Nature’s Cancer-Fighting Foods” by Verne Varona, “Reader’s Digest, Foods that Harm, Foods that Heal” (1997)
A few suggestions from my blog reader Robert: 1. Virginia Livingston-Wheeler and Edmond G. Addeo: “The Conquest of Cancer (vaccines and diet)”,1984
2. Hulda Regehr Clark: “The Cure for all Cancers”, 1993
3. James F. Balch: “Prescription for Nutritional Healing”, 1997
4. W.John Diamond and W Lee Cowden with Burton Goldberg: “An Alternativ Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer”, 1997
I will be recommending other books/articles from time to time. I also welcome any suggestions. Thank you!
November 2010: Here is an EXCELLENT article published in the “Huffington Post” and written by Mark Hyman, MD, a practicing physician. He starts off with “Conventional medicine has lost its battle with cancer” and proceeds to make so many interesting and compelling points that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now: http://tinyurl.com/3ajknwa
March 2011: Here is a fascinating article about the placebo effect: http://goo.gl/fDnEN If you don’t have the time to read the article right now, here is a brief MSNBC report on the same topic: http://goo.gl/HsK1D