week 36

Like a Little Prayer

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Laura

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My sister and I had just passed through security when Madonna performed her final half-time number at this year’s Super Bowl. A flight attendant made a boarding announcement: no one moved. The departure board flashed: no one looked up. All eyes were glued to a tiny TV screen, in an airport lounge outside Denver, as Madonna sang the words to ‘Like a Prayer.’ Similar scenes played out across America as millions of people clapped their hands in sync to the gospel-style choir.

One massive Madge fan, ‘Eddie’, captured the crowd’s rapture at his local bar. He wrote underneath the clip: ‘I used to pray to Madonna as a child (thinking she was the Madonna as in ‘Madonna & Child’)’

We might be embarrassed to talk about prayer but in these times of rapid change and uncertainty many of us are craving spirituality. With the papers filled with talk of financial meltdown, war in Syria and meat grown in labs – our minds get tired and our souls retreat.

‘ We see ourselves as very spiritual when in fact we’ve gone backwards,’ said Caroline Myss (Mum’s hero) at a workshop in London last weekend.

‘We’ve never been more narcissistic…we’ve never been sicker, we’ve never had more lying and deceit…People will look back and say: ‘How did people navigate through these times?’ They will wonder: ‘What were we thinking?’’

Myss encourages people, especially eternal worriers, to take up a regular prayer practice whatever their belief system. But the ‘worried well’ are not the only ones who can benefit.

Many cancer patients and their families turn to prayer following a diagnosis, and while sceptics continue to trash the concept of prayer and healing, it seems heaven is louder.

A Time/CNN poll discovered that 82% of Americans believe that prayer can cure serious illness, 73% believe that prayer for others works – and 64% want their physicians to pray with them.

And doctors aren’t afraid to ask for God’s helping hand: 99% of physicians are convinced that religious beliefs can heal, according to one Lancet report.

When Mum turned up to an appointment a little while ago – in a particularly stressed frame of mind – her practitioner asked: ‘Can we pray together for you?’ The holistic German doctor knelt beside her bed (where she was lying covered in acupuncture needles) and said something to the effect of: ‘We ask the lord to help Gemma find healing and release the stress from her body.’

This isn’t the first time someone has asked to pray for Mum. A few weeks into starting the blog I received this message from David, a distance healer living in LA:

‘Without your Mum’s permission I would not act, but I would like to …add her name to our distant healing register and request that our group of 50+ healers send her healing.’

Having a stranger take the time to send you a message, and offer to pray for you, can be as healing as any physical treatment.

Bryan Hubbard author of Time Light and publisher of the health journal What Doctor’s Don’t Tell You recently wrote a special report on prayer. It revealed that prayer, reiki and other distant healing therapies do appear to work – even if researchers are at a loss to understand why.

In a review of 350 prayer studies (double-blinded, peer reviewed and randomized) researchers found that 75% demonstrated that prayer had a positive impact; 17% found it had no impact and 7% showed a negative impact.

Bryan also referenced a study from the University of Texas, which revealed those with the highest belief in prayer experienced the most positive results.

‘It is important to know that you are being prayed for, and it’s important to believe the prayer can be effective,’ said Bryan when I spoke to him a few weeks ago. ‘Jesus often said: ‘I have not healed anybody, but his faith in me has’.’

What is Prayer?

‘Most of us will say prayer is just about putting your hands together and appealing to something greater than yourself. But there’s a deeper point to it,’ said Bryan. ‘I think fundamentally prayer is trying to demonstrate that somehow there is this unity. When you feel that sense of unity and love, the body’s immune system kick starts back into life.’

In Time Light, Bryan talks about his mother’s rapid recovery from end-stage breast cancer, and suggests that his family’s sudden outpouring of love might have helped her heal:

‘When we were first given the diagnosis everyone in the family expressed their enormous love for her. I ‘love bombed’ my mother with messages and flowers. My father, who enjoyed spending money about as much as a banker relished a zero bonus year, suddenly raided all his savings and willingly paid for all the expensive treatments [intravenous vitamin C and hydrogen peroxide]. This was the biggest expression of love my mother had ever witnessed.’

Edie, Bryan’s mother, was given three months to live; within three months she was cancer free.

Serious sickness tends towards despair, but making room for spirituality can help you navigate the dark nights. And for those who wince at the word prayer – there’s plenty of other ways to feel more at one with the world.

‘For people who are agnostic or atheist, being spiritual may mean going for a walk in the late evening and feeling the vastness of the night sky,’ writes Joshua Rosenthal founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (where Mum and I are currently studying). ‘It has been my experience that when people feel connected with the big picture, they get healthier faster.’ Integrative Nutrition: Feed Your Hunger for Health and Happiness.

My flat in London overlooks a Carmelite nunnery. At night, when the light from the stain glass windows beams into my bedroom, I often wonder what cloistered life would be like.

A few weeks ago, as I was walking past the adjoining church, I was invited in to say a prayer. I lit a candle; I felt peaceful. As I was leaving a woman handed me a small medallion hanging from a thread and told me: ‘All who wear the medallion will receive great graces.’ Apparently the medallion was created by Saint Catherine Labouré in the 1830s, after she was visited by the Virgin Mary.

Call me superstitious, but I’m not taking it off.

Some of us pray to the mother of Jesus, others pray to Madonna – the mother of pop; some of us send prayers in the form of flowers and others get spiritual kicks from walking the dog. Whatever it is there’s no doubt that getting outside our egos is good for the soul and that telling someone who’s sick you’re praying for them will boost their self worth, if not their immune system.

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week 35

Dr Leonard Coldwell

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Laura

‘I’ve read that 86% of cancers are caused by mental and emotional stress,’ said Mum.

The woman raised her eyebrows.

‘ The other 14% are caused by outside factors – like toxins, diet, lifestyle… according to Dr Coldwell,’ Mum continued.

‘Well my brother must be the other 14%,’ the woman replied. ‘He’s always been so chilled out.’

It seems almost everyone who has cancer – or knows someone who has – is convinced they’re in the ‘other 14%’.

When Mum tells people the most important thing she’s done since her diagnosis is change her mindset, awkward silence often ensues.

Why do we find it so hard to acknowledge that stress might contribute to cancer? Ancient wisdom and common sense tell us that feelings of hopelessness, anger and betrayal can destroy our immune systems and make us ill and now scientific research is showing this to be true: Stanford University recently conducted a study showing that 95% of all illness is stress related.

And yet, when it comes to cancer, we’re lead to believe that stress is irrelevant, that cancer is mostly genetic and we’re best off leaving the thinking (and treating) to the white coats.

Dr Leonard Coldwell has other ideas: ‘They [the medical profession] want your money and they don’t want you to have time to think about it,’ he says in his bestselling book The Only Answer to Cancer. ‘They operate solely on the fear factor.’

When Dr Coldwell was a young teenager growing up in Germany, he cured his Mum of terminal liver cancer by researching and experimenting with hundreds of natural therapies. Today his mother is alive and thriving – more than thirty five years after she was diagnosed as ‘incurable’. Since that time he has treated over 35,000 cancer patients and boasts a 92.3% success rate. The Berlin Health Institute came to similar conclusion about his work.

Dr C – as he likes to be called – has written a raft of best selling books, developed stress-relief programmes for US firefighters, military and police and has reached over 106 million people through his publications and seminars. So you can imagine my excitement at having the opportunity to speak with him last week. Word of warning: Dr Coldwell doesn’t pull any punches. This is what he had to say…

What do you think is the number one reason for the cancer epidemic we’re seeing today?

Dr C: ‘People need to understand that we are all born with cancer. We have mutated cells…dead cells whatever it might be, and our immune system just gets rid of them – from the very first day we are born.

Now, if this perfect functioning of our immune system stops we need to ask ourselves, ‘what changed?’ The only answer is lack of energy. And the main cause of lack of energy…is stress.

When I say mental and emotional stress I mean living with constant worries, doubts and fears, making compromises against yourself, staying in a relationship that you know is wrong, going to a job that you know is going to kill you.

Most deadly heart attacks happen Monday morning between 8-9am when people are getting ready to go to a job they cannot handle anymore: they would rather die, literally, than go one more time to that job.

So if 86% of all illness is stress related, this leaves 14% for diet and exercise, toxemia, acidosis and these kinds of things. There’s only 14% of cancer that is caused by outside forces. The main cause is vaccinations (more on that subject in Part 2 of this interview).’

What’s the biggest misconception about conventional cancer treatment?

Dr C: ‘That it helps. Chemotherapy is based on mustard gas… after the Second World War they had so much of it that they had no idea how to get rid of it. So they did the same thing they do with fluoride, they put the toxin into humans.

Radiation – causes cancer and turns your entire body into scar tissue and…surgery spreads the cancer.

Why?

Dr C: ‘A tumour is often highly toxic on the inside as it accumulates all the toxins in your body so that the poisons cannot spread into the entire body and kill you. That is the reason why biopsies and surgery …. usually leads to a very fast death. When that happens they [the doctors] just call it a fast growing, or fast spreading form of cancer not that they spread the toxins into the patient’s body and that’s what killed the patient.

The main problem in the medical profession – or in the alternative world- is to do symptom treatment. It is like if you have a splinter in your finger and you just push it deeper in. Then you take a pain pill and you don’t feel it. Then it gets infected so you take antibiotics, and then …they cut off your finger and say ‘see, you’re cured.’

You mention in The Only Answer to Cancer that ‘self pity is a destructive force within’ can you talk a little more about that?

Dr C: ‘First of all you get yourself into a state of victimhood, which means you think it’s an outside force that made you sick and there’s nothing you can do about it. That [in turn] refers the power of healing towards some kind of an outside force.

That’s why people also believe there might be a magic bullet or a cure from the medical profession – from the outside.’

Some people think that by simply repeating positive affirmations they can heal themselves. What do you think about that?

Dr C: ‘All these books that tell you, ‘you don’t need to do anything just sit there and recite positive affirmations,’ they sell so easy because all these people don’t want to take responsibility for their own lives. They don’t want to do anything – they just want some magic force to cure them.

They mess themselves up by eating to a point where they weigh 500 pounds, they drink only alcohol, they use all these kind of drugs – prescription and illegal drugs – and then all of a sudden positive thinking should cure them? How in the world does that work! That’s why one of my books has the subtitle, From positive thinking to positive action.’

Can you tell me a bit about how your Instinct Based Medicine System (IBMS™) works?

Dr C: ‘The IBMS™ helps the person to identify the root cause [of their illness] and helps the patient eliminate it.’

The IBMS™ includes three Audio CDs, which feature unique sound frequencies. Can you explain why the music is so important?

Dr C: ‘You have to have a tool to get directly into the brainwaves of the patient with the right information. I need to have you in beta waves when I want you to make a decision, I need to have you in alpha waves if I want you to be passive, I need to have you in theta or delta waves if I want you to heal – deep healing can only really happen when you’re below 7 hertz.’

You’ve had phenomenal success treating patients with a detoxification program that includes a nutritional diet, daily IBMS™ sessions and sometimes alternative treatments. Which ones worked?

Dr C: ‘If you look at Dr [Tullio] Simoncini – the great oncologist in Rome. He wrote a book called Cancer is a Fungus. He puts baking soda on the cancer and the tumour disappears while you’re watching it. Because all these [cancer] cells are held together by a fungus, and if you take the fungus away by alkalizing it, then the tumour disappears.

But you also have to understand that it will never be one single thing that cures cancer. …If you get vitamin C intravenously, once a day or three times a day your cancerous tumours are gone in twelve days in my experience – all of them. But of course they will come back if you never address the root cause: the bad marriage, the horrible job, the constantly making compromises against yourself, the lack of hope, the lack of love, the lack of self-love. These are the causes of cancer.’

If cancer comes from emotional stress then why do children get cancer?

Dr C: ‘From vaccinations or the stress their mother had during pregnancy. If the mother is very stressed it deprives the body of oxygen; it deprives the foetus of oxygen and the main cause of cancer is lack of oxygen. Otto Warburg and Max Planck both got a Nobel Prize by proving that cancer cannot exist in an alkaline, oxygen rich environment.’

You mention you’ve had your car bombed and you’ve been shot at. What do you do now to protect yourself ?

Dr C: ‘I have death threats – about twenty a day – but I do not have any fear. All my life I lived with the fear that my father is beating my sick mother to death when he was drunk, or the fear that my mother would be dead when I came back from school. All my life -when I came from school- I opened up the bedroom door to see whether my mother was still alive. And one day I made the decision that from now on I will live like this day will be my last.  I will tell all my loved ones what I feel and I will treat anybody like I would meet them the very last time today.

What is really important is that people start taking responsibility, educating themselves. I just saw on your website the Patrick Swayze story… I know tens of thousands of these kinds of stories. I have seen blooming people, healthy and perfect going into hospital – going into chemo, radiation or surgery – and two weeks later they look 25 years older and you don’t even recognise them anymore.

But the world now opens up to new information… the hunger for knowledge…I get 5-8000 emails a day and I’m getting interview requests – five or six a day! I am the keynote speaker at the Health Freedom Expo (March 2-4th in LA) it’s the largest health expo in the world – and that’s another 70,000 people who we’ll touch and educate.’

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week 34

Curing Pancreatic Cancer

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Laura

The words ‘pancreatic cancer’ are usually met with a sad shake of the head and a what-can-you-do expression. We all watched in horror as Patrick Swayze swiftly succumbed to the disease; he went from being the man we all wanted to marry to an old man (ravaged by chemo) in a matter of weeks. Steve Jobs waged a brave battle with the disease for years before leaving us last October – many cancer experts were surprised he lived so long.

In 2004 – the same year Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – Emil Brehm from Germany also found out he had the deadly disease. While Jobs opted for a liver transplant, Brehm chose homeopathy. Today, more than seven years later, Brehm is still very much alive.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Emil’s daughter, Patrizia Sergeant, last week. Here is the story of her father’s recovery in her own words..

‘In the summer of 2004 my Dad was already showing symptoms: his urine was dark brown, his skin was incredibly itchy and at night he was waking up drenched in sweat. He then developed jaundice and weeks later, in September 2004, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

The doctors decided to go ahead with something called a Whipple operation. This meant the removal of most of the pancreas together with a third of the stomach, gall bladder and duodenum. After the operation we were told that it was unsuccessful; the tumour had grown around the aorta, which made it too dangerous to remove. We were told that my father’s life expectancy was one year at the most and to enjoy every minute we had with him.

It was hard to imagine that somebody as tough and strong as my dad could die of such a horrible disease. My father had never smoked or drunk too much alcohol, and had eaten a very healthy diet his whole life.

One doctor offered a radical four-week programme of radio/chemotherapy to reduce the tumour, prior to carrying out another operation. I knew in my heart that wasn’t going to help him but I thought ‘I have to accept it’ because it’s his body and his choice.

But another doctor at the hospital in Germany said to us, ‘Careful when you’re being advised to do chemotherapy or radiotherapy because it’s for the statistics,’ he then added, ‘they can reduce the tumour – and that goes down in the statistics as a successful treatment – but how you die in the end? No one talks about that.’ He advised us to look into therapies from eastern countries.

I had heard about a successful homeopathic cancer treatment called the ‘plussing method’ developed by Dr. Ramakrishnan (see below). I finally found a top consultant who is highly regarded in Germany, Dr Uwe Friedrich, who has been practising homeopathy for 30 years.

My Dad respected him and immediately started taking the homeopathic remedies; although he remained convinced that the ‘sugar tablets’ would never cure a tumour like his.

Three months later he was due to go for a CT scan when a TV station contacted him asking if he’d be available for an interview. They were making a programme about the founder of homeopathy – Samuel Hahnemann – and had heard about Dad through his doctor.

When the film crew came to interview Dad he was in the middle of doing a loft conversion! He thought he was going to die and he wanted to complete everything that he hadn’t finished. So there he was with his pancreatic cancer and the TV host looking up at him in total shock.

The next day Dad went to have his CT scan and while he was waiting a young doctor asked him, ‘What treatment are you doing – are you doing chemo?’ and my Dad said ‘no, no I’m doing homeopathy.’ The doctor started ridiculing him and said ‘that’s never going to get rid of it’ then turned and walked away.

Then he was called for his CT scan… and the tumour was gone.

Emil Brehm now in rude health

When my Mum told me I thought she’d got it wrong. The doctors also thought they’d got it wrong; they thought the CT scanner was broken. But the tumour was gone, and it never came back.

But there was another aspect to Dad’s cancer – and his recovery.  My Dad never managed to enjoy his life and was always very tense. After his diagnosis he discovered – through doing a Brandon Bays Journey process with me - the root cause of his fears and anger… and I believe his cancer. I’m sure recognizing and releasing this trauma – which he’d held since he was two years old – has kept the cancer away.’

A Bit about Plussing

‘Plussing’ in homeopathy simply means extending a dose by adding water to the remedy. Dr. A. U. Ramakrishnan (the honorary homeopath to the president of India) presented a seminar in Berne in June 2003 where he discussed the method in detail. You can read more about it here. Dr. Ramakrishnan has treated over 7000 patients with cancer and apparently finds the remedies C30, C200 and 1M most useful.

Homeopathy in the Headlines

In 2010 homeopathy protesters in London swallowed whole bottles of pills outside Boots pharmacy in an attempt to ‘prove’ the remedies are ineffective. Two questions spring to mind:

  1. A) What motivates someone to stand outside Boots for hours (queuing inside for a few minutes is more than enough for me) in protest against something that’s not harming themselves or others?
  2. B) How many conventional physicians were amongst the protesters?

Branding homeopaths as quacks is nothing new. If you’ve watched Healing Cancer From Inside Out you’ll know that the war on homeopathy has been waged since 1900. According to Mike Adams, ‘Allopathic doctors, feeling threatened, formed the American Medical Association. It was originally formed as a doctors union to counter the growing influence of the homeopaths. The American Medical Associations’ main aim was to muscle out the competition coming from the homeopaths, by branding them as quacks in combination with slandering and harassing them as much as possible.’

Next time somebody gives you a ribbing for knocking back Ferrum Phos when you’re feeling flu-ey or for taking Ledum for a mozzie bite, you might mention this study, published in a major peer-reviewed journal. (Cancer Research Secrets by Dr Keith Scott-Mumby pg 122)

The study, published in the February 2010 issue of the International Journal of Oncology found that homeopathy works as well as an expensive breast cancer drug.

Researchers from the USA and India, found the cancer killing effects of the remedies Carcinosin 30C and Phtytolacca decandra 200C showed similar activity to Taxol the most commonly used chemotherapeutic drug for breast cancer… but without the nasty side effects of course.

Patrizia Sergeant is a UK based healer who practises Reiki, the Journey process, Bowen Technique and past life therapy.

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week 33

The Truth about Gardasil

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Laura

Would you give a healthy teen an STD vaccine containing genetically modified DNA and aluminium? That’s exactly what girls are given when they get the Gardasil shot.

I’m going off-piste this week to talk about the HPV(Human Papillomavirus) vaccine. There is so much misinformation being spread about this ‘miracle for cervical cancer’ but the truth is far more sinister.

Mum feels as passionately as I do about this subject and with the death toll from the vaccine rising we felt it was right to squeeze in a post about its dangers. We’ll be back next week with more on Mum’s Journey. But for now, here is an extended and updated version of a feature I wrote for Nature & Health Magazine.

……….

Chescia Tunley, from Sydney, was 19 when she had her second shot of Gardasil.

‘She left the surgery and almost immediately had a seizure,’ says her father, Stephen Tunley. ‘Over the next few months she had constant seizures, involuntary spasms and tachycardia. For 18 months she could barely function – she couldn’t attend college, couldn’t work, she could barely walk up the stairs. I suspect Gardasil is to blame – but as yet I can’t prove it.’

The pharmaceutical company, Merck, has made a cool $5.4 Billion from sales of Gardasil since it was launched in 2006. But evidence is mounting that Gardasil is one of the most risky vaccines in recent history.

To date, there have been over one hundred deaths and more than 22,000 adverse events reported to the USA’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). These ‘adverse events’ have included: blindness, stroke, paralysis, hemorrhage, rheumatoid arthritis, thrombosis, hair loss, enlarged liver, migraines and cardiac arrest.

It’s estimated that only 1 to 10% of the vaccine injured population report to VAERS, so the true number of Gardasil related fatalities might be ten times higher. And with news last year that the vaccine could be contaminated with genetically modified DNA, Gardasil looks to be even more of a threat to health.

So what poses the bigger risk: Gardasil or cervical cancer?

In the US, the death rate from cervical cancer (2.4/100,000 women) is lower than the rate of reported serious adverse events, including death, from Gardasil (3.34/100,000 doses distributed).

In Australia cervical cancer is the nineteenth most common cause of cancer mortality in women. Since the introduction of the national Pap smear program in 1991, the incidence of cervical cancer has dropped from around 17 per 100,000 women, to around 7 in 100,000 women today.

So if Pap smears have proven so effective at fighting cervical cancer – is Gardasil really necessary?

‘The benefit of mass HPV vaccination for cervical cancer prevention does not outweigh the risk,’ says Dr Sin Hang Lee, a pathologist at Milford hospital, Connecticut.

In one study comparing Gardasil to the meningococcal vaccination (Menactra), Gardasil was associated with at least 15 times as many stroke reports; twice as many Emergency Room visits and four times more fatalities.

Does it Work?

Research from the Victorian Cytology Service (which supports the National HPV Vaccination Program) shows there has been a 38 % decrease in the rates of pre-cancerous cervical lesions in the two years after the HPV vaccination was introduced.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see lower rates of cervical cancer.

‘Precancerous cell changes, including the (CIN) lesions, are mostly self-reversible,’ says Lee. ‘In fact, the average HPV infection lasts only about six months.’

Gardasil might be marketed as a miracle cure for cervical cancer, but the vaccine only protects against two of the 13 types of HPV that are considered ‘high risk’ for cervical cancer: HPV-16 and HPV-18. These two strains, combined, are responsible for 70% of cervical cancers. But research shows that 90% of HPV infections disappear on their own – with the help of a healthy immune system.

‘Pre-malignant changes in cervical cells, respond well to vitamin C and folic acid,’ writes nutritionist Patrick Holford, in his bestselling book Say No To Cancer (Piatkus). ‘I’d recommend taking these at maximum support levels – 10,000mg of vitamin C and 400mcg daily of folic acid.’

Interestingly, after eighteen months of abnormal pap smears I started to have Vitamin C injections – and my results are now normal.

Targeting the right age

In Australia, girls aged 12-13 are currently being offered Gardasil for free through the commonwealth-funded school vaccination program.

Kate Broun, from Cancer Council Victoria, explains why this age group is being targeted:  ‘The vaccine works best if it’s given before exposure to HPV – that is, before sexual activity commences.’

However, clinical trials have shown that Gardasil may only provide protection for four years, which means the girls immunity to HPV might have worn off before they even leave school – and inevitably start having sex.

So are older women more likely to benefit from the vaccine?

Not necessarily.

‘ I recommend that women who want to get the HPV vaccine ask their gynecologists to make sure they are not already infected with HPV 16 or HPV 18,’ cautions Lee.

‘There is some evidence that women who get the vaccine when they are infected with HPV- especially HPV-16 and HPV-18- have an increased risk of developing cervical cancer.’

Research shows that girls already infected with vaccine-relevant HPV, who then submit to Gardasil, have a 44.6% increased risk of developing precancerous lesions.

Fast-Tracked Approval

When the FDA licensed Gardasil in 2006, it had only been studied in 1,184 teenage girls. These girls, all under the age of sixteen, were only followed up for two years.

‘When the vaccine was licensed, there was very little information about the adverse event profile and of course the effectiveness,’ explains Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Centre (NVIC).

By November 2008, in girls 16 or younger, there were reports of 9 deaths, 3 blood clots, 4 cardiac arrests, 9 cases of lupus and 6 strokes after receipt of Gardasil.

There have also been unexpectedly high rates of sudden unconsciousness post Gardasil injection.

Nothing wrong with a bit of fainting you might think. But what happens when the girls drive home after having the injection?

‘ There were nine deaths from car accidents in the pre-licensure trails,’ says Fisher. While Merck maintains that these deaths were a coincidence, Fisher has another view:

‘ I wonder how much of a coincidence it is that girls crash their cars if they’re falling into unconsciousness without warning?’

Fisher questions whether the aluminium in Gardasil may have something to do with it. ‘We’re extremely concerned that we don’t have proper monitoring of this vaccine,’ she says.

It’s no secret that the vast majority of adverse event reports sent to the government are actually submitted by the manufacturer.

The Tunley family sent a report about their daughter to the Australian Drug Reactions Advisory Committee (ADRAC) – but subsequently discovered it was forwarded to Merck for follow up.

‘Having Merck investigate its own vaccine is a bit like being accused of a war crime, and then saying ‘ I’ll just go and investigate whether I committed it or not,’ says Tunley.

Informed Consent

‘Even if we had just been told the truth about possible adverse reactions, we would have made other decision, and Chris would be alive today,’ says Emily Tarsell, whose daughter Christina, died aged 21. ‘Chris died from a vaccine she did not even need which was falsely advertised to prevent cervical cancer.’

Thankfully, awareness about Gardasil is growing.

2012 is set to see the release of not one, but two major documentary films looking at the HPV vaccine. One More Girl, a play on Merck’s ‘One Less Girl’ (to get cervical cancer) advertising campaign, is set for release mid 2012 while The Greater Good is already screening at international festivals.

The idea that vaccines are safe is so ingrained in our culture that most of us submit to routine jabs, without a moment’s thought. But we owe it to ourselves, and our family, to make an informed decision.

In the near future, that might include weighing up whether your son needs Gardasil, as the vaccine has also been approved for nine-year-old boys. The Australian government’s expert panel has already recommended it for boys aged 12-13.

Thailand, on the other hand, is choosing to fight HPV related cancer with ‘vinegar and ingenuity’ according to an article in the New York Times.

The inexpensive treatment involves brushing vinegar on a woman’s cervix – making the precancerous spots turn white. The spots are then frozen with a metal probe cooled by carbon dioxide. The procedure was developed at the Johns Hopkins Medical School 15 years ago and it has recently been endorsed by WHO.

Thousands of women in Thailand have already undergone the treatment and in 11 years not a single one has gone on to develop full-blown cervical cancer. Simple, safe and effective – sounds good to me.

* Interested in hearing more about Gardasil? Jenny Thompson from the Health Sciences Institute speaks passionately about it in this video: hsionline.com/search_gardasil.htm

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week 32

The Budwig Diet

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Laura

After just a few weeks of intravenous vitamin C injections, Ozone therapy and manic supplement buying, Mum’s credit card had taken a battering.

While Mum has been lucky enough to be able to afford these things, for many people alternative cancer treatments can be financially crippling. Why? Unlike radiotherapy and chemotherapy they are seldom covered by health insurance.

So I’m happy this week to talk about a therapy that’s cheap, simple and which has paved the recovery for thousands of cancer patients.

No appointments or airfares required for this one, all you need to start the Budwig Diet is a tub of cottage cheese and a bottle of flaxseed oil.

Bill Henderson, a cancer coach who has helped over 8000 cancer patients reverse the disease, calls the Budwig protocol, ‘the cheapest health insurance you can buy.’

Bill became interested in alternative cancer treatments following his late wife Marjorie’s four-year battle with ovarian cancer. Bill maintains that Marjorie’s death was not the result of the cancer itself, but rather the endless rounds of chemotherapy she endured.

After witnessing the pain she suffered, Bill embarked on more than a decade of research into alternative therapies and eventually stumbled upon the Budwig Diet which is now the backbone of his anti-cancer programme.

So how does it work?

‘Basically, the Budwig protocol blasts the cancer cells with oxygen,’ writes Bill in his best-selling book Cancer Free. ‘…[C]ancer cells react to oxygenation the way a vampire would react to broad daylight: they shrivel up and die.’

The Facts on Flax

Flaxseed oil is packed with omega 3 fatty acids, a group of nutrients that most of us have heard of by now.

While the brain-boosting and anti-inflammatory properties of omega 3 have received a great deal of coverage in recent years, the role this vital nutrient plays in oxygenating our system is perhaps less well known.

‘Omega 3 works like a magnet on the cell membrane, attracting oxygen to the cell and also causing the oxygen to enter the cell,’ explains Bill Henderson in Cancer Free.

Since flaxseed oil can oxygenate the blood, you might then wonder why the cottage cheese is required? The answer is simple.

When you blend cottage cheese with flaxseed oil, the mixture becomes water-soluble and thanks to this water solubility the omega-3 fatty acids are effectively delivered to the cells.

But Aren’t Dairy Products Bad?

Yes – according to many experts, including Professor Jane Plant – dairy products can drive hormonal cancers. But Bill maintains that when you mix cottage cheese with flaxseed oil it ‘loses its dairy properties.’

Where ‘ Budwig’ Began

In the 1950s Dr Johanna Budwig, one of Germany’s leading biochemists – and seven time Nobel prize nominee – discovered the right combination of essential fatty acids (found in flaxseed oil) and sulphur-based proteins (present in cottage cheese) could kill off cancer cells.

After collecting and analyzing thousands of blood samples Dr Budwig discovered that the samples of the seriously ill (including cancer patients) were always deficient in one vital fatty acid – linoleic acid. She also found that the patients were often lacking albumin (a combination of linoleic acid and sulphur-based protein).

Dr Budwig hypothesized that those suffering from serious illnesses could be returned to health by eating a diet high in these essential nutrients.

Budwig tested her theory by feeding cancer patients a combination of 40 grams of flaxseed oil mixed with 100 grams of skim-milk proteins (the latest Budwig formula recommends low-fat cottage cheese in its place).

Over a period of weeks, she noticed the tumours gradually receded.

Since that time, thousands of people struggling with cancer– including those dealing with brain cancer and bone cancer – have become healthy again using this simple diet.

Dr. Budwig (who died in 2003 at the age of 95) claimed to have had over a 90% success rate with her diet and protocol with all kinds of cancer patients over a 50 -year period.

Dorothy McCord, who had liver cancer, ovarian cancer (with metastasis) and a low-grade brain tumour saw a dramatic shift in her condition after starting the Budwig Protocol.

I’ve included an excerpt from her testimonial on the Budwig Centre website below:

‘I went to have an ultrasound done on my ovaries the other day, to see if anything has changed with the cysts on my ovaries. When I went, they told me that there were no cysts left (mind you one of them was the size of a lemon). My ovaries were totally clean. Also I had a MRI on my liver again, and that was good news as well. The mass on my liver has shrank in 4 months from being 6 cm to 1.1 cm. I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am. I am almost in shock over the amount of good news I have received this week. For a while now, every time I went to the doctor, I only received bad news. I am so happy, and more determent (sic) to stay on the program as long as it takes.’

William L Fischer’s fantastic book How to Fight Cancer & Win is filled with stories from people who have benefitted from the Budwig protocol. One of the most remarkable reports is from Keith O*, a sixteen year old who faced amputation due to an osteosclerotic sarcoma (bone tumour). I have included an extract of his story below:

‘He [Keith] was immediately started on an intensive program of radiation treatments, but still no improvement was noted. This young high-school track star said he would rather face death than lose his leg. The situation appeared hopeless. Keith’s distraught parents consulted with the most eminent doctors they could locate in many areas, but all confirmed the frightening prognosis.

Only a meeting with Dr Johanna Budwig and her words of hope stopped the planned amputation in time. After just two weeks on the Budwig formula, Keith was able to completely extend his right leg…A medical examination conducted two months later revealed that the swelling of Keith’s involved leg had receded considerably and his blood count had returned to normal. Within just three months of starting on the regimen, he was back at school. The family reports that the Budwig formula remains a part of its daily diet. The entire family, including Keith, is in excellent health.’ How to Fight Cancer and Win ( pages 156-157)

the flax flower

Recent research supports Dr Budwig’s theory that flaxseed oil is like kryptonite to cancer cells. According to one Polish study the active elements in flaxseed oil kill cancer cells while bypassing healthy white blood cells.

Another recent French study found that low levels of alpha-linolenic acid (found abundantly in flaxseed oil) were a predictor of increased risk of breast cancer. The study was published in the February 2000 issue of the European Journal of Cancer.

Need to Know

Make sure the flaxseed oil you buy is cold-pressed, virgin, unrefined and raw. The valuable (anti-cancer) fats in flaxseed are removed during the refining process that most commercial oils undergo. This routine process can include heating, bleaching, deodorizing, ‘defoaming’ as well as the addition of chemical preservatives.

It’s also vital to refrigerate flaxseed oil and keep it away from sunlight since the oil oxidizes very rapidly.

Cottage Cheese

It must be low fat (less than 2%) and preferably organic.

The Mixture

The basic Budwig Diet consists of a daily dose of one or two tablespoon of flaxseed oil blended with half to one cup of low-fat cottage cheese. Seriously ill patients, including cancer patients, may need to consume higher quantities than this however I would strongly recommend that anyone considering this diet first consult a qualified practitioner and read all of the supporting literature on the subject.

The Blending Process

To produce the chemical reaction required for it to be a potent cancer fighter, the cottage cheese and flaxseed oil MUST be machine blended.

Mum uses a hand-held immersion blender (previously reserved for vodka spaghetti sauce) to ensure the oil permeates the cottage cheese completely.

She then adds a mixture of frozen berries and occasionally a teaspoon of stevia to sweeten her Budwig breakfast.

You can ‘bespoke’ your Budwig by adding fresh herbs, raw vegetables, fruits, cinnamon, raisins… the list is endless. Fisher suggests adding finely grated cucumbers and radishes with some chopped tomatoes and a crumbling of dill.

It’s important to blend the cottage cheese and flaxseed oil first  – to ensure they’re properly homogenized – before adding the other ingredients.

If you’re interested in a coaching session with Bill Henderson ( he charges $180 for the service) click here.

To read more about the Budwig Protocol go to the Budwig Centre website or scroll through the detailed report about it on the Cancer Tutor.

Finally, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the people who got in touch following the piece that appeared in The Sunday Times Style Magazine in London. The emails were so uplilfting and I’m sorry that I haven’t yet had a chance to respond to all of you – being a one man band can make it tricky.

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week 31

‘I also said no to chemo’

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Laura

While we often read stories from cancer survivors who have chosen the conventional route, those who have taken the natural path are so rarely given a voice.

But hearing from others who have taken the road less traveled and come out the other side can be just as important as any dietary change or treatment plan.

In the last few months I’ve received a steady stream of emails from people telling me about their own alternative cancer journeys. These stories have filled Mum and I with hope and joy and so we thought we’d share with you some of these uplifting tales.

Jessica Richards, 5-year breast cancer survivor

In May 2007, I was diagnosed with a 3.5cm Stage two invasive, ductal carcinoma (a large breast cancer), and was recommended a partial or full mastectomy and removal of lymph nodes, intensive chemo, radiotherapy and five years of drugs. Nearly five years on I’m extremely fit and well having had no medical treatment whatsoever.

I held off deciding on any particular treatment until I’d had a full diagnosis and seen the results of my tumour biopsy and lymph node biopsy. I then investigated each treatment I had been prescribed and the first thing I decided against was chemotherapy. I gradually became aware that what I was being offered was not necessarily my best option when weighed up against the risks from ‘side’ effects and the negligible benefits.

Ultimately my choice was a simple one:

A. If I’m going to live, could I face life with the long-term side effects of chemo and radiation, which would have impaired my health and wellbeing in the long term? The answer to that was, No.

B. If I’m going to die anyway, do I want to spend the last year or so of my life in and out of hospital wishing I were dead? The answer to that was again, No.

The alternative route seemed to offer me the best chance of recovery with no damaging side effects. I would like to make it very clear that I did not base any of my choices on belief. I simply made rational decisions based on the facts and evidence presented to me, in that I did everything I could to support my immune system (rather than destroy it) and at the same time, wreck the cancer environment within my body.

When family and friends eventually found out about my decision their reactions ranged from, ‘Wow you’re bold!’ to, ‘What!?!’

I would like to add here that I did everything under medical supervision. I have friends and colleagues in Harley Street where I’ve been based for 20 years and I found a very supportive consultant who agreed to monitor me. My book includes an interview with him and other members of my medical and health care team.

One of the most difficult aspects of choosing the alternative route was paying for all my treatments privately. I also had difficulty finding genuine clinics and practitioners from amongst the cranks and charlatans and those seeking to financially exploit cancer patients.

Many people assumed my situation wasn’t very serious because I didn’t lose my hair and wasn’t in and out of hospital. I found, as a result, that sometimes I wasn’t offered the same level of support as those taking the conventional route. It seems that many people think hair-loss, sickness and general illness are caused by cancer rather than the treatments they’ve endured.

I have little doubt that intravenous Vitamin C (which I had with Dr. Andre Young-Snell in Brighton) was the most vital treatment to my recovery. In fact, when I had ultra sound scans at the time, the radiologist said that the tumour was breaking down in exactly the same way that a tumour breaks down with chemo.

There’s no question in my mind that mental attitude is everything in cancer recovery and I have dedicated a chapter of my book to a step-by-step guide on how to develop the attitude to enable you to recover. It’s not what life presents to us which defines who we are but who we choose to be in relationship to it.

The one piece of advice I would offer anyone facing a receiving a cancer diagnosis is, unless you’ve been told it is a medical emergency, TAKE YOUR TIME. I believe this was the best decision I made at the beginning and, interestingly, this advice was echoed when I later interviewed my team members. When diagnosed with cancer, we are all in a serious situation but few are in an immediately urgent one. We need to get over the shock of the diagnosis before we can even begin to think about some of the very complex and critical decisions we have to make.

Jessica Richards is a leadership development specialist and author of The Topic of Cancer which can be purchased from Amazon or from her website: www.jessicarichards.co.uk

Jane Wallis, 6-year bladder cancer survivor

When I started getting up to go to the bathroom about four times every night, I knew that something was up and I decided to go for a check-up. The doctors initially thought I had a prolapse of the bladder, but a young trainee Chinese doctor working in the hospital knew it was more serious. She did a manual feel inside me and said she thought I had a tumour. But her diagnosis was dismissed: another doctor said to me she was ‘only a trainee’ and ‘didn’t know what she was talking about.’

Only when I started to hemorrhage lots of blood did the doctors agree that something was wrong, and after I had a camera inspection they found the cancer. It was rated T4- the most virulent type according to the specialists. They told me the only answer was to have my bladder and most probably my kidney removed as this had also stopped working due to the tumour’s location.

On the same day I received the news we called in to see our good friend Dave on the way home. Dave – who had been convinced that the chemo treatment killed his first wife and not the cancer – put some apricot kernels into my hand and said ‘here, these are what you need!’ How right he was.

My husband Nigel is a dowser and so we ‘asked’ if the apricot kernels and other dietary changes I’d researched were going to be good for me and the answer was ‘yes.’ I know many people believe that dowsing is all nonsense, but over the years I’ve found it incredibly helpful in many different areas.

I also began to take Essiac Tea, various vitamins and Chinese herbs and I started to follow The pH Miracle diet .

Within what seemed like a few days my symptoms improved.  So when the hospital contacted me to schedule my operation I told the surgeon’s PA that I had decided against it and that I was going to treat the cancer myself.

I will always remember the total silence that followed, before she put the phone down. A few minutes later she rang again to ask what I was doing before telling me she hoped I realised my cancer was really bad. I assured her that I understood but this was my decision and that I would write to the surgeon to explain.

A few days later I got a call from my local doctor asking me to come in and see him.

He tried very hard to persuade me to have the surgery. As he was talking I glimpsed a copy of the letter I sent to the surgeon on his computer and saw that he had scrawled all over it with rude comments. One remark that I remember vividly was; ‘who does this bloody women think she is’. When the doctor realised I could see it he switched the computer off very quickly.

That was the last time I went in any doctor’s surgery – over six years ago. It only took eight months for my body to be 100% cured after starting to take the apricot kernels and I’ve been well since then.

My background in alternative healing no doubt informed the path I chose. I previously trained as a spiritual healer, and my teacher always said ‘cancer is the body’s suicide note, and it will carry it out unless the person changes’. She had noticed over many years that those who got better were the people who changed what was dysfunctional in their lives.

So this really helped to give me strength to change what I knew I must. I now see my cancer as a kind of ‘temporary changing room’; somewhere where I ‘changed’ by getting rid of all the people, situations and habits that I had to ‘take off’ and leave behind.

Certain books really helped me through this transformational process. Gregg Braden’s The Divine Matrix taught me that the world is not as it seems; that it’s jam-packed with the kind of miracles that the ‘white coats’ might tell you are impossible. Other eye opening books I read included Dirty Medicine by Martin Walker and Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra.

It was inspiring authors like these who showed me that the real healing is possible but you need to know and trust, deep down, that you will get better.

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week 30

Medical Intuitives

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Laura

‘Dis-aster’ means ‘from the stars,’ indicating a long-held belief that bad things happen for reasons known by the heavens.’ Caroline Myss, Sacred Contracts

Ten months on, Mum now sees her cancer diagnosis as a much-needed ‘wake-up’ call from a life she was, in some ways, sleep-walking through:

‘I was in a bit of a bad place,’ Mum says of her previous emotional state. ‘I’d wake up each morning thinking ‘ here we go again,’ finding little pleasure in my daily routine. Although I had been given a great life, in many ways I felt stuck and powerless to make any changes.’

Caroline Myss, America’s most revered medical intuitive, believes that our ‘biography becomes our biology’; that every thought affects our tissue and that toxic memories reside in our cellular structure.

When Mum first read Myss’ seminal work, Anatomy of the Spirit something clicked. She felt that her emotional state had, at least in part, contributed to her cancer and that turning her mindset around would be vital to her recovery.

She also knew the reverse was true; that getting her body moving again would boost feel-good endorphins and elevate her mood. So, about six weeks after her hysterectomy, Mum resumed her sessions with Bogna Forbes, her pilates teacher and trusted friend.

Mum was still feeling emotionally fragile and physically weak when she arrived at Bogna’s studio, but she put on a brave face and said breezily:

‘Hi Bogna, how are you?!’

Bogna tilted her head to the side and said: ‘So how are things going?’

‘Fine, all-good!’ Mum insisted.

‘I don’t think so!’ said Bogna in her no nonsense tone.

‘ Ok, you’re right,’ Mum said, before telling Bogna what was on her mind.

Bogna Forbes

In sensing Mum’s anxiety and fear  and encouraging her to release it, Bogna could then work much more effectively on her body.

‘When we verbalize what’s going on in our head, blockages in the body disappear,’ Bogna explained, when I spoke to her recently.

These ‘blockages’ can often arise from unresolved emotions or experiences, according to Bogna.

‘For instance, if you’ve been hurt emotionally, the lining around the heart starts to tighten; you start to build an anatomical wall to stop you getting hurt again,’ said Bogna.   ‘ So people who have been hurt will often start to hunch forward as if they are literally holding everything in.’

That’s not to say that everyone with a dowager’s hump has a broken heart – years spent squinting at a laptop will also do the trick – but there’s certainly some truth in the idea that our bodies start to mirror our minds. And some people, like Bogna, can intuitively pick this up:

A few years ago Bogna was at a dinner party when an acquaintance of her husband limped up to her in the kitchen.

‘What are you carrying on your right hip?’ she asked him. ‘Are you carrying your sister?’

The man looked dumbfounded. Bogna was right, he’d spent years worrying and feeling responsible for his sister’s predicament.

‘Although I didn’t know anything about his sister, I just sensed, very strongly that his sister was the reason his hip was sore and he was limping,’ Bogna said.

‘I certainly can’t always intuit what’s happening in people’s lives – and what’s impacting their bodies- but sometimes if someone asks me a particular question, that information will come.’

While this might all sound a bit ‘woo-woo’ for some of you, anyone who’s familiar with the work of Caroline Myss, Bruce Lipton and Gregg Braden or watched ‘The Living Matrix’ ‘Medical Renaissance- The Secret Code’ or ‘ What the Bleep Do We Know’ (and I’m slightly banking on the fact that some of you have) will know that our bodies are influenced by more than the food we eat, the drugs we take or the number of downward dogs we do.

But for those of you who are sceptical of the mind’s power over the body, here is a bit of scientific theory:

‘ The newest research actually proves that when we feel stressed, the fascia – the connective tissue surrounding our muscles – becomes more dense,’ said Bogna.

While many conventional doctors merely see the fascia as ‘filling’ between our muscles, research over the last five years suggests it’s so much more than that:

‘Pioneers in fascial science – like Robert Schleip from Germany – are discovering that the fascia is more like the heart, a smooth muscle that contracts by itself and responds to emotional stimuli.’

So how does this relate to health and healing?

‘ When I put my fingers on someone’s body – whether it’s their foot, head, or knee – I can feel how a person’s energy moves through the fascia, and I can analyze very quickly what’s going on.’

Bogna’s healing skills have been a godsend for Mum.

Following her hysterectomy Mum was left with a debilitating pain in her groin. When she mentioned it at her post-op, the doctors and nurses had no idea where the pain was coming from – but Bogna did.

‘There was an imbalance in your Mum’s pelvic floor muscle,’ Bogna said. ‘ So we worked on gently strengthening that muscle.’

A few sessions later? The pain vanished.

While Bogna would never call herself a medical intuitive (although she admits to helping people heal from the age of four) there are others who have trained in the art and whose skills have been put to the test.

Edgar Cayce was the most documented medical intuitive to date, with over 9,000 health readings performed over a 40-year-period. He had no medical training but his gift of medical prophecy, while in a deep trance, helped thousands of people during his lifetime (1877-1945).

Then there is Caroline Myss.

Two decades ago, Dr Norm Shealy, a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon, and founder of the prestigious American Holistic Medical Association, conducted a scientific blind study, which revealed Myss had a 93% accuracy rate in medical intuition.

But Myss doesn’t see her Oprah-acclaimed talent as a gift; she views it as an acquired skill and now devotes much of her time to teaching others how to develop their intuitive abilities.

Last week I spoke to Kim Illig, an intuitive healer from Seattle, who trained ( for seven years) with Caroline Myss and Norm Shealy.

Rather than diagnosing disease (she leaves that to doctors) Illig helps clients identify and work through emotional patterns that might be stopping them from healing.

‘ When we get a serious diagnosis it can spark despair, fear, shame or anger and these emotions assist in tissue breakdown in the long term,’ said Illig.

Kim Illig

‘ Blame – whether that’s blaming others or blaming yourself – can also contribute to the healing process being a lot slower and it’s something that we need to clear.’

So can anyone become a medical intuitive?

‘To me, all one has to do to become a medical intuit, theoretically, is have a passion for doing it, just like someone who loves piano would spend years practising and taking lessons,’ said Illig.

‘So in the world of intuitive healing we have the Mozarts, the Beethovens and the Chopins; we have famous concert pianists and we have people who play just for their family at Christmas. Using that metaphor I would consider myself to be a concert pianist –– but I really feel that everybody has the capacity to really know themselves; to be able to take information from their five sensory experience and interpret it in another sense.’

Whether we’re in rude health, on the road to recovery or feeling overwhelmed by the affects of a chronic disease, we all have the power to learn something from our physical experiences and choose not to let them define us.

For years Caroline Myss was plagued by chronic pain and occasional bouts of depression. In Sacred Contracts she writes:

‘ These ailments did not begin to abate until I recognized that I myself had fallen prey to becoming a woundologist- someone who defines herself by the bad things that have happened to her.’

All of us, at some point, fall prey to dwelling on our past hurts – whether it’s a crap relationship or a life changing disease – but we’d do well to notice when we’re trapped in rumination and question whether it’s holding us back or helping us heal.

Caroline Myss

If you would like to know more about Kim Illig or schedule an appointment (she can conduct sessions over the phone) go to: www.kimillig.com or contact: kim@kimillig.com

If you would like to book a pilates session with Bogna Forbes, you can email her at: b_janik@tpg.com.au. Her studio address is: 4/12 Station Street, Cottesloe, Perth Western Australia.

If you live in the UK you might be interested in the work of Marie Hart, an intuitive healer, reiki master and qigong instructor: bio-identical-london.co.uk/

NEXT WEEK: Stories from other natural cancer survivors.

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week 29

Professor Ian Brighthope

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Laura

Photo from www.foodmatters.tv

‘What’s the number one thing you’re doing?’ …is a question Mum has been asked a lot in these last few months.

While dealing with unresolved emotions and stress has been essential for Mum, if she were to name one cancer treatment that’s been most critical to her recovery, it would probably be intravenous vitamin C.

Many others would agree – if the demand at Mum’s local clinic is anything to go by. In the lead up to Christmas it was particularly frenetic, with cancer patients desperate to get their IV C fix before the festivities got underway.

While some patients, like Mum, use vitamin C as a standalone therapy, many others use it in combination with conventional treatments like chemotherapy. A few weeks ago, a close friend of mine got the all-clear following a round of chemo and she’s now keen to supercharge her immune system with intravenous C. She recently asked me how it worked and I found myself getting tongue-tied.

So I thought I’d enlist the help of Australia’s leading expert in IV C – Professor Ian Brighthope.

Many of you will recognise Professor Brighthope – a medical doctor and surgeon – from the hit documentary Food Matters.

He has been treating patients with intravenous vitamin C for over 35 years, and, as the previous president of the Australian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine (ACNEM), he’s well placed to talk about how it works. Here’s what he had to say:

What are the benefits of having vitamin C therapy alongside conventional treatments?

‘Every benefit in the world,’ said Brighthope.

‘It reduces the toxic effects of chemotherapy, it accelerates the healing after chemotherapy, it reduces the inflammation caused by radiotherapy, it boosts the immune system, it suppresses the bacteria and viruses that may be implicated in causing or aggravating the growth of cancer and it stimulates white blood cells to mop up dead cancerous tissue and fight infection.’

Phew, that’s an impressive list.

So where did you learn about the benefits of high-dose Vitamin C ?

‘I had some clues from Linus Pauling in the US, but I basically taught myself,’ said Brighthope. ‘I used vitamin C experimentally in a cancer patient who was terminal – and the patient lived for another seven years.’

Where it all began

More than thirty years ago, Dr Linus Pauling and Dr Ewan Cameron conducted a number of studies, looking at the effect of vitamin C therapy in cancer patients. In 1971, 100 terminal cancer patients were given 10g (10,000 mg) of vitamin C intravenously a day, compared to a control group of 1000 patients who were treated by conventional methods only. (Just to give you some idea of how much vitamin C we’re talking – the RDI in Australia is 45mg per day).

Five years after the beginning of the study, 18 of the 100 vitamin C-treated patients were still living while all 1000 of the control patients had died (Tomorrow’s Cancer Cures TODAY, Dr Allan Spreen)

More recent research supports these findings. One Japanese study found those suffering from cancer of the uterus lived 15 times longer on vitamin C therapy (International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research, 1982) and last year, New Zealand scientists confirmed that vitamin C helped inhibit tumour growth.

But it’s not just cancer patients who benefit from high-dose vitamin C – in 2009 a New Zealand dairy farmer miraculously recovered from a severe case of swine flu after intravenous C was administered at the eleventh hour. The doctors wanted to turn off this man’s life support, but his family insisted he have the treatment. You can watch the incredible story here (thank you Marie for sharing).

…Back to Brighthope

‘ For acute problems, like an acute virus that’s going to kill somebody, it’s important to give vitamin C as an injection,’ said Brighthope.

Why?

‘You cannot achieve the extremely high physiological level that severely ill patients require by taking it orally, because the more you take orally, the less of a percentage of a dose is absorbed,’ said Brighthope.

The Mayo Clinic study (often cited by conventional doctors as evidence Vitamin C doesn’t work) is a case in point.

Shortly after Pauling and Cameron released the results from their groundbreaking vitamin C study, researchers from the Mayo clinic ran a similar trial - with one key difference.  While Pauling and Cameron administered 10g vitamin C intravenously, the Mayo participants were given the same dose orally. And -surprise, surprise- the vitamin C made no difference to survival rates.

So why don’t more people know about Vitamin C?

‘It’s very difficult …when you’ve got a very established profession that’s been dominated by the idea of diseases and drugs and surgery and radiotherapy; a profession that doesn’t know anything about health, yet is a health profession,’ explained Brighthope.

Is it illegal, in Australia, for an oncologist to recommend a patient try vitamin C therapy?

‘No. In fact it’s morally the correct thing to do for an oncologist to support whatever a patient – and or the patient’s family – wants for them. Also, the patient does have legal rights to a therapy that may be unproven.

From a legal point of view they have to practise along accepted guidelines, but the accepted guidelines for oncologists, may not be in the best interests of the patient,’ said Brighthope.

‘Put it this way, if the patient presents to the oncologist with a cancer, and the patient is malnourished and has a lack of protein; a lack of vitamins; a lack of minerals; a lack of essential fatty acids and other deficiencies of nutrients; the oncologist will take absolutely no notice … and will still go ahead with oncology – and oncological drugs – drugs that will compromise the patient’s health even further,’ said Brighthope.

But change is afoot.

‘It has been interesting to see how something [high dose vitamin c] that was regarded as absolute quackery, has become mainstream,’ said Brighthope. ‘In many respects we are at the forefront here in Australia with regard to nutritional medicine. It’s actually now recognised as a part of the GP training from the Royal Australian College of Medicine.’

Other countries are following suit. In the UK there’s pioneers like Dr Patrick Kingsley ( as well as Dr Wendy Denning and Dr Nicola Hembry) in America there’s legends like Dr Gary Gordon and in Mexico you have the likes of Dr Contreras – who have long prescribed IV C to help cancer patients achieve the all-clear.

As I’ve mentioned before the natural cancer journey is anything but clear. Alternative practitioners can be hard to come by, dietary advice can be contradictory and it can be difficult to know where to find the purest and best supplements and products.

It’s for that reason that I’ve mentioned specific brand names on this website – they are products we have both researched and Mum has tried – and we thought people might like to know about them. But I was given pause for thought last week when two subscribers questioned whether I was benefiting financially from product endorsements.

I can tell you, with hand on heart, that Mum and I make nothing from this blog ( in fact, on a few occasions, I’ve turned down paid work so that I have enough time to ensure the blog goes up). It is a labour of love, but one I do gladly, as Mum and I find the feedback, suggestions and stories from other readers profoundly life-affirming.

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week 28

LifeWave Patches

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Laura

They’ve helped fire victims in Victoria sleep at night.

They’ve boosted the performance and stamina of the US Olympic swimming team.

They’ve even aided thousands of earthquake victims in Italy. As a result they’ve now been introduced into the Italian health care system.

A few months ago, when the Adelaide Advertiser ran a story about Mum’s alternative cancer journey, a man called Bob Harding contacted us (one of the many inspiring people we’ve connected with since starting this blog).

Bob has been a distributor of LifeWave patches for the last three years, after witnessing first-hand, their amazing benefits:

‘I went along to the LifeWave meeting thinking ‘ this is probably going to be a load of crap’ but after seeing the product in action, I joined up as a member.’

A pair of LifeWave patches were placed on Bob’s neck and almost immediately, his debilitating neck pain – which had plagued him for twenty years – disappeared.

Since then, Bob has seen the patches dramatically improve the condition of those suffering from arthritis, autism, ADHD, insomnia, lethargy as well as serious illnesses like cancer – although he is at pains to mention the patches are not responsible for the cure of any disease.

Nonetheless, when you hear about the man who literally got up out of a wheelchair after being patched – or of the lady, riddled with cancer and sent home to die, who’s still alive two years after trying LifeWave – you appreciate the patches are more than a band-aid approach to healing.

Bob will say the patches have been shown to help a variety of conditions common to cancer sufferers, like pain, lack of energy and depression.

‘We’ve helped hundreds of people and we have so many stories – it’s been quite an incredible journey,’ he told me. You can read some of the inspiring testimonials on the website.

So What Are the Patches?

The LifeWave patches are the brainchild of David Schmidt, who spent three years researching ways to increase energy and stamina through using the body’s electromagnetic field.

According to David, the patches promote chemical reactions in the body by acting as a transmitter to boost your electron flow.

Last year LifeWave made the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the US – for the third consecutive year – and the company has a league of medical professionals and celebrities behind them including Dr Norm Shealy and Suzanne Sommers.

In her best-selling book Knockout (a must-read for anyone embarking on the alternative cancer journey) Sommers says:‘ I love these patches. They are nondrug and do the job perfectly. I couldn’t be without them, and David Schmidt is a genius for creating them.’

What Can The Patches Do?

Where to start? There are seven different patches and they can be used – together or alone – for a variety of different things, in sickness and in health.

Athletes will want the Energy Enhancer patches, those with a spare-tyre might use the SP6 patches to stave off hunger. Then there are the IceWave patches for pain… and for insomniacs? Silent Nights are the knights in shining armour.

One of the most heartwarming stories Bob told me was about how these patches had transformed the life of a Korean War veteran. This 90-year-old man has spent the best part of a century waking up screaming. Now, thanks to the Silent Knight patches, him (and his wife) sleep at night.

The BIG Hitters

If you’re fighting a life-threatening disease, like cancer, the Y-age Carnosine and the Y-age Glutathione patches are likely to help you the most.

As some of you may recall, Mum and I are big believers in glutathione – this vital antioxidant can neutralize free radicals, boost natural killer cells and detoxify the liver. (You can read more about it here). Sadly, most of us don’t produce enough glutathione.

In a recent study these non-transdermal patches were shown to increase levels of glutathione in the body by a whopping 454%.

In the same study, urine mercury levels spiked in some of the subjects, suggesting the increased levels of glutathione were also aiding detoxification.

‘ The patch has a massive detoxing effect, it literally draws the drugs, chemicals, mercury straight out of the body,’ said Bob.

The glutathione patches can also improve organ function:

‘ If you put the glutathione patch or the carnosine patch on an acupuncture point – say the lung meridian, or the heart meridian – you will help repair those organs and that has been clinically measured.’

In one published study (and there are many more on this page if you’re interested) the carnosine patch, worn 12 hours daily on alternative days over a period of two weeks, resulted in a ‘very significant’ improvement in the functional status of the pancreas, liver, right kidney, left and right adrenals, hypothalamus, pituitary and thyroid glands.

Not only is carnosine a powerful free radical scavenger, cell repairer and chelator – it’s also renowned for it’s anti-ageing properties.

Thus the patch’s name ‘Y-Age-Carnosine’.

Better than Crème de la Mer?

‘ All the wrinkles on my forehead have just about gone and the age spots have practically disappeared,’ said Bob.

His varicose veins have vanished too.

Mum has been using the patches for a few months now and, along with feeling more alert and energized (she can kayak all day) she’s had plenty of people tell her how well she looks.

Of course looks are of little concern when you’re dealing with cancer – or so you think until you get a compliment.

While Mum has been happy to forgo expensive face creams for organic, non-toxic alternatives since her diagnosis, she hasn’t entirely let go of her desire to hold back the years.

Could these patches be the answer?

Who knows, but there’s certainly truth in getting your beauty sleep.

More Info:

If you want to find out more about LifeWave visit lifewave.com or, if you live in Australia, feel free to contact Bob Harding directly: bob@lifewaveaus.com.au.

A packet containing 30 patches retails from US$79.95 (plus postage and tax) and can be purchased directly from a member of LifeWave or from the website.

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week 27

Frankincense & Mistletoe

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Laura

I was going to make this blog-post a light-hearted one…something about simple holiday pleasures (falling asleep while reading about Eleanor of Aquitaine) or maybe a little vignette about the deeper appreciation of Christmas, when someone you love has had cancer.

I figured – ‘who has the time, or the inclination, to read about clinical trials and cancer treatments when there’s champagne to be popped and hangovers to be nursed?’

But then… Mum came home from Ozone therapy yesterday and mentioned that one of her friends had been advised – by an American practitioner- to rub frankincense into the area where her cancer was.

So it seemed like the right time to share with you a little about how frankincense and mistletoe might help with cancer– and if you’re not in the mood, then feel free to save this for the New Year, when you’re not trying to stuff a turkey or wrap-up a skateboard.

Three Wise Men

No wonder frankincense was chosen by one of the Magi to give to baby Jesus.

Thousands of years ago it was equal in value to gold; the Ancient Egyptians, who used frankincense in many of their rituals and purification ceremonies, thought it to be the ‘sweat of the Gods’, while the Greeks and Romans used it to treat a wide variety of diseases.

Indeed, if the three wise men had arrived in Bethlehem a little earlier their gift of frankincense might have helped Mary through her childbirth: it is thought to reduce hyperventilation during labour.

Today frankincense – which comes from the resin of the Boswellia Sacra tree – is used to treat depression, gout, eczema, scarring, insomnia AND cancer.

According to medical research it’s been shown to halt the proliferation of numerous cancer cells, including leukemia cells, melanoma cells, bladder cancer cells, colon cancer cells, pancreatic cancer, and prostate cancer cells.

Mahmoud Suhail, an immunologist, has been studying the beneficial effects of frankincense for years.

He’s currently working alongside medical scientists from the University of Oklahoma to determine just how frankincense stops cancer from spreading.

‘Cancer starts when the DNA code within the cell’s nucleus becomes corrupted,’ he explained recently in a BBC interview.

‘It seems frankincense has a re-set function. It can tell the cell what the right DNA code should be.  Frankincense separates the ‘brain’ of the cancerous cell – the nucleus – from the ‘body’ – the cytoplasm, and closes down the nucleus to stop it reproducing corrupted DNA codes.’

The highest quality frankincense comes from Oman – but you needn’t cross-deserts to get hold of it – you can buy it online from Young Living Oils (be sure to order the essential frankincense oil rather than the sacred frankincense oil).

As a little aside, you might also be interested in the therapeutic benefits of the other Wise Man gift – Myrrh. It’s meant to help with sore throats, gum disorders, inflammation, digestive problems and cellulite. You can read more about it here.

Kissing Cancer Goodbye

More than just an excuse for a Christmas party smooch, Mistletoe is the most commonly used oncological drug in Germany .

Thousands of years ago, the druids of Europe also used it as a contraceptive (strange to think that an old-school prophylactic is now hung above doors to encourage wanton behaviour).

But I digress…

8 MIILLION cancer patients have benefited from Mistletoe – in conjunction with conventional therapies – over the past few decades, according to one report, from the Mapapo Institute (German – Argentine Institute for Oncologic and Immunologic Investigations).

Iscador, a specific extract of Mistletoe, has been used in controlled pilot studies in the Berlin University, Witten/Herdecke, Germany and the University of California, San Francisco, USA, for breast, colon, prostate, brain, intestine cancer, cervical dysplasia, ovary, stomach and lungs, and in metastasis processes.

One study, published in the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine in 2001, looked at the survival times of patients with cancer of the colon, rectum, stomach, breast and lung.

1668 patients were treated with Iscador while 8475 had conventional treatment only. Survival time in the Iscardor group was roughly 40% longer than in the control groups.

So How Does it Work?

Mistletoe can increase natural-killer cells and increase the cytotoxicity of macrophages (in other words, it puts the guns in the hands of the good guys).

According to Dr Keith Scott-Mumby in Cancer Research Secrets there are different forms of Mistletoe based on the tree from which it is harvested. So you have M for Malus ( apple); P for Pinus (pine); Q for Quercus (oak); and U for Ulmus (elm) with each having specific benefits for different types of cancer.

So it’s worth doing your research if you’re considering adding Mistletoe to your treatment arsenal. It’s also important to note that mistletoe can be toxic and you need to find a qualified homeopath or alternative doctor who can treat you safely.

The cancer charity Yes to Life has an extensive list of practitioners – mostly in Europe – on their website. http://www.yestolife.org.uk/treatment_display.php/15

Mince Pie Therapy

If only….

I would also like to end by saying a huge thank you for your support, stories and suggestions over the last few months. Having such lovely feedback from you has been as important to Mum as the advice from her practitioners.

May the learning and sharing continue, and may health, happiness and hope follow you all through 2012.


Merry Christmas

Xx

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