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Author Topic:   "Natural" (plant-based) Health Solutions
Granny Magda
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Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(4)
Message 6 of 606 (818778)
09-02-2017 3:28 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Faith
09-02-2017 11:02 AM


Alternative Medicine Kills Cancer Patients
Hi Faith,
I don't want to clutter up the cancer survivors thread but as I keep reading up on nutritional treatments for all kinds of diseases including cancers I keep wanting to talk about the information here.
I think that's probably a wise move!
I don't think I have cancer though I do have problems with my health...
You don't think you have cancer?! Have you seen a doctor? Because if you even suspect that you might have cancer, you should see a doctor. If you're suffering from things like abdominal pain, you should see a doctor. Seriously, they won't mind.
Our dear departed colleague Buzsaw serves as an illustrative example. He was always so proud of the fact that he never needed a doctor, right up until he found he had cancer. I would be saddened to see you make the same mistake. If you feel bad, see a doctor.
Anyway, sorry to hear that your under the weather, hope you feel better soon.
I mentioned my belief in the value of vegetable juices on the other thread
Yeah, fruit and vegetable juices are great. They're tasty and they're a good way of getting a bit of quick nutrition, especially if you're not eating so well. There's nothing "alternative" about this though; diet and nutrition are standard parts of any doctor's toolkit. Alt-med types like to portray their diet advice as being some amazing revelation, when in fact, much of it is utterly mainstream and uncontroversial. Mainstream practitioners promote diet-based interventions too, just ask any dietician. the difference tends to be that alt-med proponents make bigger claims for dietary interventions than is supported by the evidence.
Moose posted something on the thread about diet criticizing Dr. Mercola as some kind of fanatic,
I'm not sure that's quite what Moose meant. You'd have to ask him, but personally, I don't see Mercola as a fanatic as much as I see him as a quack and a snake-oil salesman. YMMV.
the gist of the criticism seeming to be aimed at the idea of "natural" solutions when according to the critic everything is natural when you get down to it.
It's more that people take exception to the way in which alt-med typically promotes "naturalness" as a positive quality in and of itself. This is wrong. Herpes, for instance, is natural, as are tsetse flies and yet I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they are bad things. Cars and computers on the other hand are entirely artificial but they certainly have their advantages. Aspirin provides a good specific example; in its natural form, in willow leaves, it might help with your pain, but it will play hell with your stomach lining. The synthesised modern version on the other hand, is more effective and far more user-friendly.
Naturalness cannot be taken as a synonym for goodness or usefulness. A natural remedy has no inherent advantage over an artificial one simply by dint of its being natural.
But there really is a meaning to the word in this context that isn't so easily dismissed. It generally refers to eating plant foods with the least amount of processing and pesticides, with or without animal meats. Those who incorporate meat usually emphasize a lack of artificial treatments of the animal such as hormones to increase growth, recommending natural grass-fed beef etc. Sure, hormones are "natural" too but not when they are extracted from their source and applied somewhere else to change the quality of food.
I hear what you're saying here. Modern farming can be very artificial and it's often set up so as to favour the needs of distributors and retailers, rather than being optimised to create delicious healthy food. Organic food has a role to play, for those who want it. But whilst organic farming has undoubted benefits for the environment, I am yet to see any convincing evidence that it has any specific health benefits (beyond a healty-but-non-organic diet that is).
I don't particularly follow Mercola but have found useful information at his site just as I find it at many alternative med sites.
Sure, but as I said before, that's because of the way in which alt-med co-opts uncontroversial medical advice and then acts as if this was something special and exclusive to them. I have no doubt that Mercola.com contains lots of good advice about eating a healthy diet. I'm just concerned that it's mixed in with a lot of woo and a fair amount of outright quackery. Mercola in particular has a history of promoting quack cancer cures and undermining vaccination. That's grossly irresponsible and unethical.
As for cancer cures through nutrition, carrot juice is always up there on the list. This seems to have originated with Max Gerson back in the twenties, got picked up by Jay Kordich who makes it just one of a list of juices for general health.
And it's a complete fantasy. There is no evidence in favour of Gerson Therapy and it is a form of quackery.
If you have cancer, GO TO AN ONCOLOGIST! Carrot juice will not save you. I mean, I bloody love carrot juice. Carrot, orange and beetroot juice, that's some tasty juice! But still, if I'm thirsty, I drink carrot juice. If I had cancer, I would go to an oncologist. I cannot overemphasize this! Don't place your life in the hands of your greengrocer. Go to a doctor.
Chris of Chris Beat Cancer is an interesting story because he was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer when only 26 years old. He knew nothing at all about cancer or treatments for it at the time but soon found himself deciding against conventional treatments based on a series of events that occurred.
Well that's not entirely true. Chris Wark did indeed beat cancer, and I am genuinely happy for him, but he didn't reject all treatment. He says right there in the video (I only watched a bit) that he had surgery. That's what saved him. It's that simple. They removed the cancer surgically and none of the remaining cancer cells managed to take hold. That's great, but it isn't especially amazing. Dr David Gorski of Science Based Medicine estimates that, post-surgery, Wark had a 64% chance of surviving for five years, even without chemotherapy. He lucked out! I'm happy for him, but that doesn't alter the fact that with chemotherapy as a follow-up to surgery, Wark's chances of survival would have been greatly enhanced. Gorski estimates that with suitable chemo, Wark's chances of survival (after five years) would have been more like 80%. That's a big gamble with your life on the line.
Wark's testimonial follows a familiar pattern with such survivor anecdotes. He has a shocking diagnosis, followed by surgery, and then he declines chemo. He survives and, instead of thanking his luck and his surgeon, he credits his alt-med diet. He marvels at his miraculous survival, when in actual fact, his odds really weren't that bad. He confuses and conflates chemo as primary-therapy with surgery as primary therapy, just as he confuses and conflates chemo as primary therapy with adjuvant chemo post-surgery. Gorski puts it like this;
quote:
Basically, such testimonials completely confuse the role of two different modalities (surgery and chemotherapy) in treating their malignancies. Mr. Wark’s testimonial contains the same sort of error about cancer therapy that, for example, Suzanne Somers routinely makes when she relates her breast cancer cure testimonial. That error is to confuse the use of chemotherapy for primary curative intent with the adjuvant use of chemotherapy. Many cancers, such as hematological malignancies, are treated primarily with chemotherapy, but solid tumors (i.e., tumors arising from organs) are treated primarily with surgery to extirpate the primary lesion. Most hematological malignancies, if they are going to be cured, are cured with chemotherapy and sometimes radiation therapy. Most solid tumors, on the other hand, require complete surgical extirpation to cure them.
I would urge you to read the linked article. It goes into a great deal of detail on the Wark case and I think you'll see how it isn't quite as impressive as it might first appear.
This matters. Cancer patients are facing these choices every day and the (mostly well-meaning) efforts of alternative medicine proponents are encouraging them to turn away from effective medicine in favour of the flaky fantasies of quacks. Worse, a few of them are rejecting effective mainstream medicine in favour of ineffective alternative medicine and dying as a result. There is evidence for this;
quote:
Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival
Skyler B. Johnson Henry S. Park Cary P. Gross James B. Yu
JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 110, Issue 1, 1 January 2018
Abstract
There is limited available information on patterns of utilization and efficacy of alternative medicine (AM) for patients with cancer. We identified 281 patients with nonmetastatic breast, prostate, lung, or colorectal cancer who chose AM, administered as sole anticancer treatment among patients who did not receive conventional cancer treatment (CCT), defined as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and/or hormone therapy. Independent covariates on multivariable logistic regression associated with increased likelihood of AM use included breast or lung cancer, higher socioeconomic status, Intermountain West or Pacific location, stage II or III disease, and low comorbidity score. Following 2:1 matching (CCT = 560 patients and AM = 280 patients) on Cox proportional hazards regression, AM use was independently associated with greater risk of death compared with CCT overall (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.88 to 3.27) and in subgroups with breast (HR = 5.68, 95% CI = 3.22 to 10.04), lung (HR = 2.17, 95% CI = 1.42 to 3.32), and colorectal cancer (HR = 4.57, 95% CI = 1.66 to 12.61). Although rare, AM utilization for curable cancer without any CCT is associated with greater risk of death.
I get angry at the thought of seriously ill people being led into this kind of dangerous nonsense by alt-med cheerleaders like Mercola. I don't blame folks like you, non-experts, who are just interested in the topic, but I do blame people like Mercola, who is an actual doctor and ought to know better.
So-called alternative medicine kills people by encouraging them to embrace comforting fantasies over mainstream interventions of proven efficacy. Anyone who promotes a cure or therapy has an ethical obligation to make sure that their claims are well evidenced. Alt-med fails that test. We ought not promote it.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Faith, posted 09-02-2017 11:02 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Faith, posted 09-02-2017 5:29 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 26 of 606 (818828)
09-03-2017 6:53 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
09-02-2017 5:29 PM


Re: Alternative Medicine Kills Cancer Patients
I'm being seen by a doctor,
Cool.
OK yes Chris had surgery at the very beginning. What he rejected was the regime of chemo they wanted to put him on afterward, and that's all he claimed to reject. There was a period of waiting while he was recovering from the surgery and during that time he studied up on alternative therapies and when time came for the chemo he opted out.
Exactly. He should have taken the chemo in order to prevent a recurrence. If every patient presenting with Wark's symptoms took the same rash decision that he did, more of them would die as a result. The figures I showed you are clear; accept conventional therapies and your chances of survival are enhanced, choose alt-med and your chances of death are higher.
They also die as a result of the conventional treatments, and there is evidence for that too.
Of course people die; it's cancer! Despite the best best of healers and hedge wizards alike, people die of cancer. But the stark truth is that more die with alt-med alone.
That's how the alternative med people feel about conventional med, that they are encouraging people to accept treatments that are poisonous, rarely work and put people through misery.
Rrhain has already much of what I might say about "poison", but I would just like to remind you that the dose makes the poison. Warfarin is a good example. Just the right dose can thin the blood and protect against heart attacks and thromboses. Too much and you've got rat poison. Drugs have side effects because they actually have an effect on the body, which is more than can be said for most of the potions and nostrums of alt-med.
And "rarely work"?! That is patent nonsense. Chris Wark is only alive because of his surgery. Without it, he had a 100% chance of death. Chemo would have boosted his chances even further. Every day patients see their cancers going into remission thanks to chemotherapy. Doctors are getting better all the time and survival rates for cancer are consistently improving. That's not down to juicing or coffee enemas, it's the result of medical expertise and innovation.
Cancer survival is at an all-time high! This is good news! It seems odd to me that you are dismissive of that.
It seems to me the other side deserves more of a hearing than it usually gets.
They get the same hearing as anyone else. If they can provide evidence of efficacy, their treatments will be absorbed by the mainstream. The trouble is that alt-med typically consists of treatments that have not been proven to work or have been proven not to work. This is further complicated by the refusal of alt-med advocates to accept the facts when their quack treatments are blown out of the water.
So my challenge to you is to put your money where your mouth is; provide this "evidence" you speak of. Show me robust evidence that alt-med cancer patients have a better survival rate that non-alt-med patients. Show me the clinical trials for carrot juice or Gerson Therapy. I am willing to listen. It would be brilliant if we could tackle the scourge of cancer with something as simple as fruit juice, I like the sound of that. I genuinely want this to be true... I just don't think that it is.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Faith, posted 09-02-2017 5:29 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 11:52 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 27 of 606 (818830)
09-03-2017 7:21 AM


A Cancer Survivor Anecdote; Abraham Cherrix
Alt-med proponents looooooove anecdotes, so I thought I might offer a couple of examples. Here's the story of Abraham Cherrix.
quote:
In the summer of 2006, the eyes of the world were on 16-year-old Abraham Cherrix, a lanky Eastern Shore teen who refused chemotherapy, landing his parents in court for medical neglect.
He’d endured one round of chemotherapy for Hodgkin disease, a lymphatic cancer he’d been diagnosed with the previous year, before switching to a controversial alternative therapy in Tijuana, Mexico.
In the end, the court and the family came to a compromise. He didn’t have to return to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk for chemo, but the Tijuana treatment was put on hold, too. Cherrix agreed to receive treatment from a Mississippi doctor who had stepped forward with a blend of conventional and less-traditional methods.
A lot has happened in the decade since.
Cherrix, now 27, ended up accepting chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant last year at the University of Virginia Cancer Center because tumors kept resurfacing.
Honestly, if I had not done this, I would have died, Cherrix said in a telephone interview.
Cherrix, who now lives in the southwestern Virginia town of Floyd, said he’s matured and feels humbled in his recognition of the value of scientifically based treatments.
The other treatments didn’t have any hard evidence behind them, he said. There was no concrete evidence. I know what I am doing now is founded in reality, and I know it’s the best choice for me, and it’s scientifically based."
The "treatment" that Cherrix underwent is called Hoxsey therapy, a mixture of herbs based upon the the diet of - I kid you not - a cancer surviving horse!. It's garbage. It doesn't work and it didn't work for Cherrix. His cancers continue to grow.
Last year Cherrix accepted the reality that alt-med was not working. He accepted conventional therapy and his tumours have not returned so far.
Article here; A decade after being in the spotlight, Virginia man turned to stem cells to treat cancer. They saved his life.
Discussion here; Following up on a very old case: Abraham Cherrix is alive and well because he finally rejected alternative medicine
Abraham Cherrix is damned lucky to be alive. For years he refused the treatments that could have helped him and he is extremely fortunate that his change of heart came before the disease progressed too far for him to be saved. Don't make the same mistake that Cherrix did. If you are ill, see a doctor; a real doctor not a loony snake-oil salesman.
Mutate and Survive

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 11:40 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(1)
Message 30 of 606 (818844)
09-03-2017 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by Faith
09-03-2017 11:40 AM


Re: A Cancer Survivor Anecdote; Abraham Cherrix
Nothing I've read about this recommends anything weird like the stuff Cherrix took.
Really? Then read on.
Mercola.com hosts an article promoting Hoxsey for dogs! Not weird at all!
http://healthypets.mercola.com/.../02/osteosarcoma-dogs.aspx
quote:
Many owners of dogs diagnosed with osteosarcoma choose not to pursue amputation and focus instead on giving their pets the best quality of life for the time they have left.
I follow veterinarian and naturopathic physician Dr. Steve Marsden’s protocol for my patients whose guardians choose not to pursue surgery. His protocol involves using the injectable form of vitamins A and D, bromelain, omega-3 fatty acids, and a blend of herbs called the Hoxsey Formula with boneset. I have also found using Chinese herbs in conjunction with Dr. Marsden’s protocol to be beneficial.
Selfish and cruel. Pets suffer on so that owners can congratulate themselves on their natural lifestyle.
Or here, where Mercola.com plugs the Hoxsey clinic.
http://articles.mercola.com/...ristine-horner-interview.aspx
quote:
Now there's a relatively new ultrasound that uses a color mode," Dr. Horner says. "It's called elastography. But there aren't very many centers in the United States that use it. I go to the Center of the Hoxsey Clinic, to Dr. Arturo Rodriguez at Tijuana.
Nothing says medical prestige like a quack clinic in Tijuana!
It's also worth nothing that the herbs are just one part of the regime that Cherrix followed. He was just as convinced as you seem to be that some sort of healthy diet was going to cure him. It's all the same. Stuff like Hoxsey just represents the nuttier part of the nutloaf.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 11:40 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 1:43 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(2)
Message 32 of 606 (818846)
09-03-2017 1:49 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Faith
09-03-2017 11:52 AM


Re: Alternative Medicine Kills Cancer Patients
It's all a matter of whom you believe in the end, even which supposed studies you believe.
I disagree. It's not about who you believe. It's about what the best available data shows. Even the most basic data analysis shows that chemotherapy can beat cancer. By contrast, you haven't even tried to provide any evidence that alt-med can treat cancer beyond a few vague and confused testimonials.
And why was Wark told after the surgery that he had a 60% chance of living another five years on the standard treatment? (Which he found out applied to all cancer patients, while his colon cancer in reality had a 28% chance.)
Simple; he's talking bollocks. I have no idea where he got the 28% figure for all cancers from. I can't find it anywhere. It sounds wrong to me. On his website Wark cites completely different numbers. He was probably told that he had about a 60% chance because that was the doctor's estimate of his chance! Note that this is not far off what Gorski estimates.
It is unclear whether any of this is meant to be with or without chemo since you haven't really given me a precise citation. Where is this quote exactly? Somewhere in the nearly two hours of video you posted? Could you narrow it down for me so i know exactly what I'm supposed to be responding to? Wark has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not understand the treatment he was offered. I am extremely sceptical of his version of events regarding that precise point.
I'm not objecting to surgery, just to chemotherapy which is so horrible for those who go through it, and die anyway.
If course it is. But no-one ever claimed that chemo can cure all cancer. What would be horrible would be if these people didn't have chemo, because that would lead to more deaths.
I count an aunt and a friend, and an acquaintance.
I'm sorry to hear that, but all I see are more vague anecdotes. And again, yes, some people will die of cancer. That is so obvious as to be a non point. The point is that fewer die with chemo.
Meanwhile Jay Kordich took Gerson's juice treatment for his bladder cancer as a y7oung man and lived to be 93; a local man did carrot juice and lived 25 years beyond his diagnosis of prostate cancer.
Yes, and a man I know was bitten by a skunk and he survived cancer! Another guy used to chew gum every third Wednesday and he lived to be a hundred and four!
None of this constitutes evidence of efficacy. You can't demonstrate a causal link with a few anecdotes. You need proper clinical and epidemiological studies for that. Sadly, the alt-med crowd have no appetite for reality and they don't bother to find the truth. Comforting fantasy trumps a disagreeable truth every time in alt-med land.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 11:52 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by NoNukes, posted 09-03-2017 4:22 PM Granny Magda has not replied
 Message 35 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 5:32 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 33 of 606 (818848)
09-03-2017 2:08 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Faith
09-03-2017 1:43 PM


Re: A Cancer Survivor Anecdote; Abraham Cherrix
I don't follow Mercola, why are you carrying on about him?
You cited him, that's all. All I'm trying to point out is that Hoxsey really isn't any more "weird" (your phrasing) than any other alt-med fad. Gerson, for example, is just as flaky, just as surely proven infective.
Josh Axe by the way is a chiropractor and naturopath and, as always with these people, a snake-oil pedlar, not a medical doctor.
Gerson includes some stuff I wouldn't follow myself -- enemas and colonics -- but nothing as weird as Cherrix did.
What exactly is so weird about it? Almost all alt-med quacks recommend some sort of herb or other. Why this so weird compared to some of the insane nonsense peddled on quack sites?
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 1:43 PM Faith has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 53 of 606 (818902)
09-04-2017 6:35 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by Faith
09-03-2017 5:32 PM


Re: Alternative Medicine Kills Cancer Patients
Of course you would know a lot better than he would, of course.
Please. I am no expert and Wark, despite his claims to the contrary, is clearly out of his depth on this. He gives 28% here, and makes it seem as though this is the survival rate for colon cancer. It isn't. On his website, his FAQ has the figure as 53%. He writes that;
quote:
Young adult patients (under 40) also have a 28% higher risk of cancer progressing and spreading during a one-year follow-up
Not the same thing as his claim from the video. He sounds deeply confused to me.
It was said to him before he decided against doing chemo so it was meant to be with chemo.
Well he's wrong. Even if these figures are for survival rates with chemo, (which is by no means sure, the video is by no means cleqar that this is the case) the numbers he cites are wrong. Adjuvant Online estimated the chances of surviving IIIC colon cancer as 55% (as per the previously cited article by Dr Gorski). Wark can't get his figures straight. The 60% thing is flat out wrong and he is confused about the other and is misrepresenting it. He is not someone you should be taking advice from.
And I don't appreciate your silly parody about people doing absurd things and living long lives.
Okay fine, but you must see the point I was making. You may know people who died of cancer, but no-one is disputing that people die of cancer, so that proves nothing.
You say that someone drank carrot juice and survived cancer, but that does nothing to establish that they lived because of the carrot juice. The carrot juice might be the thing that saved them... or they might have survived anyway and the carrot juice did nothing.
The point is that you can't tell the difference from an anecdote, not even from a dozen anecdotes. You need a more sophisticated study, a clinical study, with a larger sample group. So yes, I really am dismissive of vague detail-free anecdotes. They have no worth here. And if you look at clinical studies on alt-med techniques, they usually disappear under scrutiny.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Faith, posted 09-03-2017 5:32 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 6:42 AM Granny Magda has not replied
 Message 55 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 6:51 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(1)
Message 57 of 606 (818906)
09-04-2017 6:59 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Faith
09-04-2017 12:20 AM


Re: Diet for inhibiting blood supply to tumors
No, I don't think so. Li differs strongly from loons like Mercola or Axe, on several points;
- He is doing research, not just making it up as he goes along.
- His research sounds pukka, not the usual bogus studies we see from alt-med. For instance, he makes the distinction between results in a petri dish and results in a person; a distinction missed by many alt-med types.
- His Angiogenesis Foundation supports chemotherapy and the foundation seems to be using dietary interventions on top of chemo, not as a substitute.
- He actually has a plausible mechanism in his sights, not vague hand-wavy nonsense about "energy" or something.
- He is not telling you that you can cure cancer with carrot juice!
The fact that someone is interested in the therapeutic potential of foods is not crazy in and of itself. It's actually perfectly reasonable and merits proper research. The lunacy comes when people make over the top claims (carrot juice cures cancer!) or when they encourage people to refuse life-saving medication. Li doesn't appear to be doing that.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 12:20 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 3:34 PM Granny Magda has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 60 of 606 (818911)
09-04-2017 7:11 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by Faith
09-04-2017 6:51 AM


Re: Alternative Medicine Kills Cancer Patients
No, what it proves is that people die even given the best possible treatment available. That's the point.
That's a pointless point.
People die of cancer. We know. No-one said otherwise.
People who receive the best treatment still sometimes die of cancer. We know. No-one said otherwise.
No-one disputes any of this. No-one claimed that chemo would make you immortal. But what it will do is enhance your chances of survival. That's not a golden ticket to everlasting life, but it is the best we have on offer.
theoretically yes, but how many people do you know who have a diagnosis of cancer and do absolutely nothing about it live for decades beyond the diagnosis? Do you have statistics on that?
No. Do you? In fairness, that's going to be tricky data to study. People who refuse all treatment (including surgery?) aren't typically in regular touch with health professionals.
But I have already showed you clear and robust data showing that alt-med cancer patients die more often that their conventionally treated fellows. Do you really imagine that the untreated do any better?
I also can't claim my sample of people who died on standard treatment would have lived longer on vegetable juices either, or if they had done nothing at all, but I know they died in a few short years and were on standard treatment.
No. None of us can draw firm conclusions either way from such weak data.
Let's not say this "proves" anything but it certainly suggests a trend.
Well sure, but only very, very weakly. Anecdote isn't completely without value. It can be useful in pointing out areas for future study. But your dataset is way too small to draw any conclusions from it, especially conclusions that are inherently implausible, such as carrot juice curing cancer.
I'm all for research to take it out of the realm of suggestion into something more trustworthy.
Great, me too. I just think that you are jumping the gun a little in placing such faith in quacks who refuse to perform such trials.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 6:51 AM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by jar, posted 09-04-2017 7:19 AM Granny Magda has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 63 of 606 (818917)
09-04-2017 7:22 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by Faith
09-04-2017 7:02 AM


Re: You think he should have been happy with 60% chance of living five years?:
They can't "know" the juice cured the cancer, but the situation is such that the odds are enormous that they are right.
No they're not! They are absolutely not and we already know this from some of the numbers that have come up in conversation.
Say we accept Wark's "60% for all cancers" number. That still means that 40% of those who refuse chemo will survive! For some cancers, the odds are way,way higher. Cancer Research UK puts testicular cancer survival at 98% (for everyone that is). That a lot of people survive cancer is not in the least bit surprising. That many do so without chemo is still unsurprising. It is in fact exactly what we ought to expect to see.
These anecdotes are particularly useless when you don't include details. What type of cancer did they have? At what stage was it diagnosed? How old as the patient? Did they have confounding pre-existing conditions? And so on. For all we know the patients who so impressed you with their survival might have had a chance in the high nineties even without intervention. You're not even clear on whether or not the "carrot juice" patients were on chemo or not. You have no basis upon which to be talking about the "odds", as you have no hard data with which to calculate those odds. It's meaningless.
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 7:02 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 3:21 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(4)
Message 64 of 606 (818921)
09-04-2017 7:37 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by Faith
09-04-2017 12:39 AM


Re: You think he should have been happy with 60% chance of living five years?:
It seems logical that Chris Wark perhaps just doesn't give enough credit to the surgery he had when his cancer was first diagnosed,
Yeah, it does. I find this baffling. He keeps saying things like "Surgery didn't cure my cancer". Well how does he know? Because it looks an awful lot like surgery did cure his cancer. Worse, Wark not only downplays the role of lifesaving surgery, he actively spreads scare stories about surgery, promoting the moronic "surgery spreads cancer" meme on his website.
The point is that if he was cured after the surgery there would have been no need to compute the odds of his living for only five years.
Wha? Huh? But...
That's all kinds of wrong.
At the point when Wark finished his surgery they didn't know whether he was cured or not. They couldn't look into the future and tell him whether his cancer would reoccur. They are doctors, not wizards. This is why doctors cite odds of survival, based upon the performance of previous patients.
No-one is saying that Wark should be happy about his odds. Of course he shouldn't be goddamn happy. He should rage against the dying of the light and all that. But Wark's happiness or otherwise doesn't mean shit to his cancer, which will either spread or not spread, die or not die, quite regardless of how happy Wark is about any of it.
I have said it before and I will say it again; I wish that we could cure cancer with carrot juice. That would be great. No-one wants cancer. No-one thinks that it's a good thing that cancer is so hard to treat. It's just that some of us take exception to the baseless and false claims made for alt-med cancer treatments. If alt-med quacks could do what they claim they can, that would be wonderful. But they can't. I'm not happy about it, but that's just the way it is.
Mutate and Survive.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 12:39 AM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by Pressie, posted 09-04-2017 7:56 AM Granny Magda has seen this message but not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(1)
Message 75 of 606 (818965)
09-04-2017 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by Faith
09-04-2017 4:01 PM


Re: where's the moral high ground here?
I don't really have time for a fuller reply tonight, but I just want to say a couple of things.
At least five years, but obviously the flat five years given means that's the best they can offer, and anyone who does live longer is beating the statistic and has to be very rare.
No, that's wrong. PaulK has it right. The "over five years" phrase describes the chance of living at least five years. They also use 1 year and 10 year measurements. They do this because of the difficulty in pronouncing a person "cancer-free". There's no way to be sure whether any given intervention worked or not, whether the cancer will recur or not, so they describe outcomes in twrms of how many patients with similar symptoms will still be alive over one, five or ten years. It's a statistical thing, not a prognosis of five years to live.
Also, just to be clear, when someone like Wark gets a statistic like this, it's not uniquely tailored to him. They're not saying "You, Chris Wark and no-one else, have a specifically 60% of living another five years.". What they are saying is more like "A patient of your age and gender, presenting with your symptoms has approximately X% chance of surviving another five years under a given course of treatment.". They base these numbers on previous outcomes.
I've given five who died on conventional treatment within a few short years, and three who lived decades longer on alternative treatment and you are all acting as if that is big nothing.
It is a big nothing. less than nothing. Sorry, I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the case.
There were 281 patients in the sample group for the study I cited in Message 6. They form a robustly analysed data-set, where like is carefully compared to like. You have 8 cases, the details of all of which you are extremely sketchy on. We don't even know what cancers these people had. There's no reason to favour your minuscule collection of detail-free anecdotes over a large and well-analysed data-set. Well, no reason other than that it's not telling you what you want to hear.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 4:01 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 6:37 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


(1)
Message 76 of 606 (818966)
09-04-2017 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Faith
09-04-2017 3:21 PM


Re: You think he should have been happy with 60% chance of living five years?:
60% five year survival rate means 40% could survive without chemo? What? Anything lower than 60% to me means those people wouldn't even survive the five years.
Oops! You're right, I'm getting the numbers muddled up there. Thanks for the catch.
The point I was trying to make is that if we take Wark's "60% for all cancers over five years", that gives us nearly two-thirds of cancer patients surviving for at least five years! Even over ten years, Cancer Research UK puts the survival rate at 50/50 (for all cancers). Cancer is no longer necessarily a death sentence. Simply saying "X or Y beat cancer" is not that impressive. Given no other information that "they had cancer", even Wark's numbers suggest that they were reasonably likely to survive.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 3:21 PM Faith has seen this message but not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 107 of 606 (819048)
09-05-2017 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Faith
09-04-2017 6:37 PM


Re: where's the moral high ground here?
The info you ask for is right there in the abstract;
quote:
Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival
Skyler B. Johnson Henry S. Park Cary P. Gross James B. Yu
JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 110, Issue 1, 1 January 2018
Abstract
There is limited available information on patterns of utilization and efficacy of alternative medicine (AM) for patients with cancer. We identified 281 patients with nonmetastatic breast, prostate, lung, or colorectal cancer who chose AM, administered as sole anticancer treatment among patients who did not receive conventional cancer treatment (CCT), defined as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and/or hormone therapy. Independent covariates on multivariable logistic regression associated with increased likelihood of AM use included breast or lung cancer, higher socioeconomic status, Intermountain West or Pacific location, stage II or III disease, and low comorbidity score. Following 2:1 matching (CCT = 560 patients and AM = 280 patients) on Cox proportional hazards regression, AM use was independently associated with greater risk of death compared with CCT overall (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.88 to 3.27) and in subgroups with breast (HR = 5.68, 95% CI = 3.22 to 10.04), lung (HR = 2.17, 95% CI = 1.42 to 3.32), and colorectal cancer (HR = 4.57, 95% CI = 1.66 to 12.61). Although rare, AM utilization for curable cancer without any CCT is associated with greater risk of death.
281 cases Faith. And that's just the alt-med people. There are a further 560 patients in this data-set who accepted conventional therapy (they used 280 alt-med patients in their final analysis, alongside exactly twice as many conventional patients, for a 2:1 comparison). That's a total of 840 data-points, not too bad a sample size for such a difficult subject. 840 cases, all carefully controlled to compare like with like. This against a few vague anecdotes. C'mon Faith, be real. Which has more evidential weight?
Aunt colon cancer
Where in the colon? That matters. And at what stage was it discovered? That matters a lot. Take a look at the top Google result for "colon cancer survival";
quote:
Stage I cancers have a survival rate of 80-95 percent. Stage II tumors have survival rates ranging from 55 to 80 percent. A stage III colon cancer has about a 40 percent chance of cure and a patient with a stage IV tumor has only a 10 percent chance of a cure.
Big difference. If your Aunt died after being diagnosed with stage III or IV colorectal cancer...in personal terms that's tragic, but in statistical terms, it's by far the likeliest outcome. As anecdotes go, this is weak tea.
friend breast cancer
What kind of breast cancer? What type? What grade? At what stage was she diagnosed? All of this matters a great deal and the different answers make a massive difference to the potential outcomes. For all we know from your story, your poor friend could have been nigh-on doomed from the start, or extremely unlucky to have succumbed to an ostensibly treatable cancer. There's too little info here and that makes the tale valueless as evidence.
acquaintance a tumor in her leg
Faith, can you not see how incredibly vague that is? Where in the leg? In the muscle? The bone? The arteries? What grade of tumour? What stage? Etcetera...
Ask yourself; if I was making some critique of Christianity, would you accept evidence as vague and worthless as this? I have a hard time believing that you would be convinced.
I'm not even sure what lesson you think we should be taking from these stories. All you've established is that;
a) some people on conventional treatments die of cancer. And;
b) some people on alternative treatments survive cancer.
To this I say;
a) I know. And;
b) I know.
I know that. We all know that. Everybody already knew that and no-one is disputing it. But the point is not whether person A died or whether person B survived. What matters is the overall rate, because that constitutes meaningful information in a way that mere anecdotes do not.
Please do summarize that data you mention.
The summary is there in the abstract presented above. The whole thing is available at the link provided. Please let me know if there are any specifics you want to look at more closely.
As I just said, it's the overall rate that matters, and this study shows that overall, alt-med patients suffer worse outcomes.
Of course the numbers are too small to compare, but they represent 100% of the cases I personally was aware of, and all tended in the same direction.
And what makes you think that your limited personal experience is representative of the whole? It likely isn't, due to multiple confounding factors, primarily small sample size. I mean c'mon, you know this to be true. This is Statistics 101. We all know that our personal experiences are not necessarily representative of the wider reality. That's why we do statistic in the first place.
Ofr course it can't compete with careful statistics but it's too compelling to ignore IMO.
No-one's asking you to ignore it. I get that the claims made by alt-med proponents are interesting enough that people sit up and take notice. Nothing wrong with that.
What we are asking of you is that you appraise the evidence in a logical way. I'm asking you to be a little more sceptical of certain claims. I'm suggesting that you give the various bits of evidence, for and against, their proper weight, that you stop judging a case on whether or not the source "seems believable" and start judging them on the basis what evidence they can bring to bear. I don't think that's much to ask and I do think that you will gain a clearer understanding of this topic. I mean, this clearly interests you; don't you want the best data?
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Faith, posted 09-04-2017 6:37 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Faith, posted 09-05-2017 2:15 PM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 110 of 606 (819055)
09-05-2017 2:59 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Faith
09-05-2017 2:15 PM


Re: where's the moral high ground here?
I didn't need to mention any of those cases I happened to know about, and I didn't present them as some kind of scientific study.
I appreciate that you are making an effort to support your position. I'm just saying that these testimonials aren't worth what you seem to think in terms of evidence.
They are an impression I had of five people who died of cancer within a few years on standard therapy versus three I know of who survived decades on basically carrot juice treatment plus in Wark's case some other things. I find just that much highly suggestive though.
Well I am respectfully suggesting that you shouldn't.
There's not enough data there to form a meaningful opinion. There's just no meat on them bones. why pick at them?
And by the way I can't accept a study of "AM" since "AM" covers too many different kinds of treatment.
And conventional medicine doesn't?
You want to know where the tumor was in the woman's leg, I believe the muscle,
What kind of tumour was it?How large? What stage? What grade?
Without that information, not even a professional oncologist could judge how likely or unlikely this person's death or survival might have been. Not knowing that, it's just not useful information.
I mean seriously, what lesson am I to take from this? Seriously. Explain it to me.
but your study doesn't discriminate among hundreds of different kinds of "AM."
Oh thousands. But nor does it discriminate between thousands of types of conventional therapy either.
Of course if you want to be specific, you could introduce some proper data on jucing for cancer patients. I can well believe that large amounts of fruit and vegetable juice is good for cancer patients. I'm perfectly willing to believe it. I can even think of a semi-plausible mechanism; antioxidants. I don't think that it's completely crazy. I just think that it would be nice to see some evidence before trusting anyone's life to it.
Actually I can now add one person who had breast cancer about fifteen years ago on nothing but standard treatment {mastectomy plus chemo) and is alive and well today. So I have one different kind of personal example now.
Okay. I would like to point out that whilst this evidence superficially supports my argument, I still find it unconvincing either way. Anecdotes are just not useful data.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Faith, posted 09-05-2017 2:15 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 09-05-2017 3:44 PM Granny Magda has not replied

  
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