The Topic of Cancer

Jessica Richards

 

The Topic of Cancer is one woman's personal perspective on the experience of breast cancer, her response to it, and her distillation of the insights she gained along the way.

Jessica Richards is an unusually focussed and feisty character who many might feel would be a tough act to follow, but the inspiration alone that oozes from her book makes it well worth the read, as this has the power to raise anyone's personal expectations. As a management trainer who has spent years inspiring change in her clients, she walks the talk when faced with one of the biggest challenges life can throw at us.

Above all else, Jessica entreats her readers to find their own way through, not to allow themselves to be rushed, cajoled, pressured or sweet talked into taking any steps that they have not considered fully and settled on as the best way forward. If you are going to have 'standard treatment', do it because it's the best thing for you, not because it's the easiest thing. After all, you will be the one personally reaping the consequences of that decision, not your doctor, your family or anyone else.

Jessica herself chose a very 'alternative' treatment path, but she does not allow herself to get bogged down in 'either/or' dialogues. She simply set this out as her choice and encourages her readers to make theirs.  No-one has all the answers to cancer and so the only ethical locus for decision making lies with the person with cancer. They generally have far less interest in the politics of cancer treatment than in the likely outcome.

One small reservation - Jessica's advice on important equipment such as a juicer and a blender - to just get on and buy something, and get using it - whilst I appreciate the need to avoid prevaricating, for many people, financial resources are severely limited and so some good advice on what to buy and where would be useful.

The book is very well structured and the writing style totally accessible, with each chapter broken down into clear points. This makes it easy to dip in and find the information needed at any given stage. It is quite as valuable to family and friends as it is to the person with cancer, as it quickly conveys how things look from the strange upended world their loved one now inhabits.

Full credit to Jessica for managing to pack so much practical advice and concentrated inspiration into such a slim volume - literary 'superfood'. If you or someone you know has recently had the misfortune of being diagnosed with cancer, then there's little excuse for not getting a copy.

The Cancer Journey

Dr Pam Evans, Polly Noble & Nicholas Hull-Malham


'The Cancer Journey - Positive steps to help yourself heal' is the co-creation of three people who all have personal experience of cancer. Nicholas Hull-Malham and Dr Pam Evans come from backgrounds as diverse as journalism and cancer research, whilst Polly Noble was so young at diagnosis, her experience has shaped the course of her career, and she has become a Holistic Health Coach. Writing together they have achieved a balanced perspective, without becoming impersonal, and are never dogmatic, always leaving the reader centre stage. The book is at once authoritative and accessible, written in a light and easy style. The subject of cancer is a complex one, but this book manages to present sufficient detail for readers to come away informed, but without going too far and risking losing the interest of its main target audience - those just starting out to explore the many ways in which they can take charge of their own healthcare by exercising personal choices.

Coming from people who have walked the walk, this is above all a practical book, crammed with tried and tested suggestions for everything from ways a friend could help, to recipes. This is the book the authors would have liked to have had themselves and looks into all the important aspects of the experience of cancer. Being a slim volume - which is part of its attraction - many sections are necessarily springboards for further investigation, and there is a useful Resources section to provide pointers.

There a few areas where I felt a little more information would be helpful, such as recommendations for choosing a juicer - a vital piece of equipment that is worth getting right - or about the role of excess salt in our industrialised diet in promoting chronic illness. But these do not diminish what is a really excellent manual for getting yourself firmly in the driving seat of your Cancer Journey.

Say No to Cancer

Patrick Holford. Pub:Piatkus 2010. ISBN978-0-7499-5411-6

Ten years ago, Patrick Holford’s slim volume Say No to Cancer was an excellent resource for people with cancer, opening up avenues of self help and self determination to a British public almost totally unaware of any options other than lying back and passively enduring some of the most gruelling treatments the health service has on offer. His new and totally revised edition of the same name is a huge step forward, completely rewritten and significantly expanded and reflecting the significant steps taken over the last ten years to establish the validity and effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as a means of controlling cancer.

Ten years on, the British public is still largely unaware of just how much is on offer in the field of CAM for cancer, as the fear of cancer still generates such widespread aversion to knowing anything much about cancer, even what chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatments are, let alone anything else. But as the statistics for cancer incidence continue to rise relentlessly, there are fewer and fewer of us who have the luxury of avoiding an encounter with cancer firsthand. Meanwhile the willingness to consider CAM options for health has grown considerably, particularly for chronic conditions, creating an increasingly receptive environment for this new edition.

As probably the leading British writer in his field, with this new book, Patrick is pushing the agenda forward for taking what is now termed an ’integrative’ approach - one that combines the best of both orthodox and complementary & alternative approaches. Say No to Cancer is both informative and well grounded in evidence, meeting the usual criticism levelled against CAM head on, with thirty pages of scientific references.

As it progresses, the book arms readers with an understanding of cancer itself, the factors in our lifestyle and environment that can accumulate and trigger a malignancy, and the specific roles of a wide range of nutrients in protecting against and containing the spread of cancer and in preventing a recurrence.

The later sections become very specific in giving advice on integrating CAM strategies alongside conventional treatments in order to maximise recovery, to reduce unpleasant and damaging side effects and to avoid a recurrence. A short section is dedicated to each of the main cancer types containing cancer-specific advice.

If I have one reservation, it is that the book begins with a chapter entitled ’What is Cancer’ that quickly embraces some fairly complex language and concepts, not to mention some heady diagrams, that may possibly be challenging enough to dissuade some readers from going further. This would be a sad state of affairs as the remainder of the book contains so much straightforward and enormously useful information. Many people will be content to know what to do, without wanting to know quite this much about the ’whys and hows’.

Aside from this one slight reservation, I think this is an excellent new resource, and, coming from the enormously popular Patrick Holford, it will happily have a widespread effect in raising public awareness of the choices available to people with cancer.

Life Over Cancer: The Block Center Program for Integrative Cancer Treatment

Keith Block. Pub: Bantam. ISBN-10: 0553801147

Keith Block has been at the forefront of what is now termed 'integrative' cancer care since the 1980s. In his recent book 'Life Over Cancer' he shares his wealth of experience in a very accessible manner, providing people with an enormous variety of approaches to treating themselves and augmenting their orthodox treatment. More than thirty years after Dr Block began establishing the foundations of his hugely successful Life Over Cancer programme, and the best part of a century after Max Gerson's groundbreaking nutritional work with cancer, the majority of oncologists and dietitians in the UK still tell their patients that it doesn't matter what they eat once they have cancer. In fact they generally advise them to eat piles of junk food high in calories so as not to lose weight through wasting (cachexia). Fortunately a fair proportion of the public don't believe them. It is not even common sense to say that a healthy diet can prevent cancer but has nothing to do with its treatment or preventing a recurrence. This is the direct equivalent of telling a lung cancer patient that they might as well go on smoking once they have cancer. All the evidence now shows that a poor diet directly fuels cancer growth, whereas a carefully targetted healthy diet can work to directly attack and contain malignancy.

The scope of advice is both broad and detailed, and, as well as dietary strategies, covers supplementation, exercise, stress management techniques, psycho-spiritual support and group work, amongst others.

The strength of the book lies in the authoritative nature of its contents, which are grounded in sound evidence and direct clinical experience. Extremely specific advice is offered on all the difficulties people with a range of cancers are likely to face on their journey, whether a factor of the disease or of the treatment.

The book is illustrated throughout by stories of patients that are at times inspirational, but which are also used to provide warnings regarding mistaken choices based on misunderstandings of the nature of cancer.

Life Over Cancer is not only an enormously welcome handbook to help people navigate their own path through the many and intense challenges presented by a cancer diagnosis, but also holds the potential to make an impact on the tunnel vision approach still absolutely prevalent in the UK of treating cancer solely by attacking the symptoms. The poor success rates with all major cancers and with all secondary cancers speak eloquently of the urgent need for the integrative approach outlined so authoritatively by Keith Block.

Anti Cancer - A New Way of Life
Dr David Servan-Schreiber Penguin Books

This book is exceptional. Its power lies in the credentials of its author, an ambitious young medical research scientist with little interest in the welfare of patients until he discovered, by pure chance, that he had a brain tumour. Cancer often proves a turning point in someone's life - in his case it threw into stark relief the limited view and lack of care so endemic in orthodox medicine. It opened his mind to the whole world of complementary and alternative medicine and the many methods on offer to support people with cancer physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.

The combination of sound scientific discrimination allied with a truly caring interest in any treatment that could be of help, regardless of its provenance, makes for some of the best reading on the subject. Whilst being well stocked with excellent information and advice, the personal experience of Dr Servan-Schreiber is at the heart of this book and ensures that this is anything but a ’dry’ read.

Above all, Anti Cancer inspires optimism, encourages people to look beyond the impersonal statistics of their prognosis, and, through sound scientific information, builds the confidence needed for people to regain their autonomy and start to exercise personal choice in their treatment programme. Readers with cancer are left with absolutely no doubt as to how much they can do to help themselves and to influence both the course and the outcome of their illness.

If you suspect that the spiralling cancer statistics in the western world are mainly a response to the way we live and want to know what we are doing wrong and how to change direction; if you are already a part of those dread statistics but don’t want to be a ’victim of cancer’; or if you are a ’cancer survivor’ who wants to know what you can do to minimise the chances of a relapse - then Anti Cancer is a ’must read’.

­­The Cancer Directory: A Mine of Information on the Latest Orthodox and Complementary­ Treatments
Dr Rosy Daniel. Pub: Harper Thorsons 2005. ISBN 0-262-62104-5

Rosy Daniel's new offering certainly lives up to its title! At 400+ pages, it is a hands-on practical manual for finding your way through the extremes and complexities of cancer. Considerable care has gone into the layout, which has the feel and clarity of the best computer tutorials.

The depth and breadth of Dr Daniel's 20 years of experience with cancer at the Bristol Cancer Care Centre and as a consultant is very apparent in the detailed, caring and thorough way in which she guides the reader through every step of the journey, highlighting the common pitfalls that are to be expected and those that can often be avoided.

The orthodox approach to cancer is presented by Professor Karol Sikora - one of the early NHS advocates of the integrated approach to cancer care - and Patricia Peat, an oncology nurse who runs a consultancy to assist patients in their choice of treatments, both orthodox and alternative. An opportunity is missed to give due weight to the potential of orthodox treatments, notably radiotherapy, to cause cancer, which is unfortunate as this should be a vital factor in making a balanced decision on treatment choices.

There follows an extensive exposition of all the key alternative therapies available, and, crucially, advice on choosing from the almost unlimited possible combinations and on achieving the best outcome.

Part One of the Directory concludes with the valuable contribution complementary therapies can make to the management of symptoms and side-effects, a substantial section on generating long-term health, and a valuable chapter for the often neglected carers.

Part Two, a little under half of the book, is a tour de force of resources, giving a wealth of detailed UK-centred information on treatments, practitioners, clinics, charities, suppliers, support groups etc, along with a bibliography, references and an index. The thorough and contemporary nature of The Cancer Directory renders it an indispensable reference for every cancer patient.

Evaluating Alternative Cancer Therapies: A Guide to the Science and Politics of an Emerging Medical Field

David J. Hess PhD. Pub: Rutgers University Press ISBN: 0-8135-2594-2

This book is distributed by Eurospan.  To order, click here.  Your order will bring Yes to Life a donation directly from Eurospan. Thank you.

Though now more than 10 years old, this unusual investigation of the realm of alternative cancer therapies still has much to recommend it. This is, in the main, due to the high quality of the contributors whose perspectives and opinions David Hess sought in order to assemble a book intended to be of genuine assistance to people with cancer.

The spread of contributors straddles the worlds of key clinicians, educators, campaigners, researchers, medical journalists and authors, and includes respected luminaries such as Ralph Moss, Michael Lerner, Gar Hildenbrand, Keith Block and Patrick McGrady, to mention but a few.

Hess approaches this complex and fiercely contested territory by asking each of the contributors how they go about evaluating an alternative therapy, given the lack of evidence of efficacy and safety that are par for the course in this arena. This is a genuinely useful exercise in that it gives readers who may be battling with these exact difficulties themselves an insight into the thinking of those deeply immersed in the field. It helps them to draw out common threads running through diverse approaches and to develop and strengthen their own basis for making extremely challenging choices.

Who is likely to benefit most from this book? Primarily those who seek to direct their own course of treatment from a well informed standpoint, those with a bent for digging deeply into the world of cancer and its treatment, or else those that simply have to, in the absence of any reliable source of expert advice.

Who else will want to read this? Anyone with a keen interest in this fascinating arena, regardless of their viewpoint, will not want to miss the insights that this book provides into the perspectives of so many thought leaders from the field.

Strongly recommended.

Natural Approaches to Prostate Cancer: A Personal Perspective

Christopher Garner

In this small, well presented volume, Christopher Garner shares his experience of prostate cancer and of the many important discoveries he has made along the way that have contributed to his current wellbeing, eight years after diagnosis.

This is very much, as the subtitle tells us, a personal perspective, inasmuch as none of the information or suggestions included is theoretical, but are all from the author’s direct experience. This is therefore no all encompassing, authoritative reference work, but more an outstretched hand from a fellow traveller wishing to save others from some of the many pitfalls of the journey and to signpost the byways that have led him to greater health and wellbeing. A diagnosis of cancer can turn your world upside down, often leading quickly to feelings of total disorientation and isolation, so this down to earth approach from someone who’s ’been there’, offering a raft of ways to to get yourself back in the driving seat of your life, is a valuable offering.

The author summarises his key insights into the nature of the body and of healing into four ’aces’ that he deals at appropriate points in the book. These are the hard won jewels at the heart of his message, and he calls them ’aces’ with good reason, as each of them has the power to transform your position in the ’game’. These nuggets are unlikely to come from your oncologist, and without the aid of this book you might never stumble on them, or at least might not realise how absolutely vital they could be to your future. The remainder of the book essentially supports and expands on these, and whereas many of the wide range of individual approaches included will not appeal to all readers, these four insights hold out realistic hope and direction to all.

The book is well structured under headings that enable the reader to quickly revisit say, exercise or diet, and rounds up with a useful summary of the author’s main findings. There are many helpful appendices suggesting further reading, providing contacts and resources, and expanding further on points in the book.

Christopher Garner is to be applauded for his efforts to help his fellow men, not least by providing the book free of charge courtesy of the Edinburgh Prostate Cancer Support Group. The humour and positivity that have sustained him shine through on every page.

Copies available, free of charge, from:
Maggie's Centre, The Stables, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 2XU 
Tel: 0131 537 3131  
Email: edinburgh@maggiescentres.org

How to Prevent and Treat Cancer with Natural Medicine
Dr Michael Murray et al. Pub: Riverhead Books 2002. ISBN 1-57322-343-3

Anyone wanting to avoid or take on their cancer by way of diet and supplementation would be hard pressed to find a better manual than this. Compiled by four doctors, it is easy to read without being simplistic, evidence-based and authoritative.

The book is sensibly divided into three sections - Prevention, Treatment and Coping with Side Effects of Orthodox Treatments, and gives sensible advice on precautions and interactions.

A self-assessment questionnaire enables the reader to gauge how at risk they are, and simultaneously informs them of the risk factors they are exposing themselves to, and of the mechanisms of cancer. The fundamentals of a sound cancer-preventive diet are laid out, with recommendations for additional supplementation to counter unavoidable risks and to make up for some of the shortcomings of 'modern' agriculture.

Most usefully, specific advice for prevention of particular cancers that may be a known risk for the reader is included. Many practitioners would not now support the advice given re sunlight exposure, which is founded in the era of sun avoidance - it is now considered too important a source of vital Vitamin D to be avoided, particularly in cloud-bound Britain. Sensible precautions against burning or over-exposure, however, are vital. It would have been good also to hear their take on cooking methods, particularly the use of microwaves as well as the potential of thermography as an alternative to X-ray mammography as a means of screening for breast cancer.

For the cancer patient, there is an overview of conventional treatment options and strategic advice on dealing with family, friends and specialists. The mind/body connection and the importance of exercise are highlighted for their key role in any cancer strategy. Basic dietary recommendations for all cancer patients are followed by 'The Super Eight' - eight natural products that the authors have found to score highest in a range of criteria from clinical effectiveness through to safety.

An excellent and comprehensive section outlines strategies, in detail, for coping with most of the side and after-effects of orthodox treatment; and a mine of useful information is contained in the appendices, which includes menus and meal plans, supplement plans, daily routines etc.

Finally and importantly, there is an open letter to physicians from the four authors, provided as a support to patients wishing to broaden the scope of their treatment, but also to pursue the 'best practice' of openness with their physician, who sadly may not be as supportive of these approaches as one might hope!

This is an American book, but there is very little content that does not apply equally well in the UK. Thoroughly recommended.