Health Care

Being given a diagnosis of cancer is one of the most difficult things to overcome in life.

One of the first things that a person given a diagnosis of cancer thinks about is ask why? Why me? What could I have done to prevent it? Was there something that I didn't do? Was there something I did to cause it? The reason why cancer appears varies from person to person and it is because of this fact that there will never be one cure-all treatment for cancer.

Another thought of many diagnosed with cancer is what to do about it. Discussions with the person's medical doctors often result in the feeling that there must be an all natural approach to cancer, especially when the treatment options don't look good. They wonder what the alternative health practitioners do to treat cancer patients, thinking there must be another way. The question opens up a whole new world to the cancer patient and his or her family as they search for solutions for the cancer itself and if none are found, they opt for the compassionate thing to do - increase the person's quality of life.

An all natural approach to cancer developed by an alternative health care practitioner often includes herbs, supplements, IV's, diet changes, and stress reduction/relaxation or visualization exercises. Many alternative health care practitioners treating cancer search for the reasons why the person developed cancer in the first place.

When alternative health practitioners use a natural approach for cancer, they have three major goals:

1) boost the immune system
2) detoxify the body
3) fortify the body with nutrients from foods, nutritional supplements, and herbs.

This article will focus on the purpose of boosting the immune system and how to actually boost the immune system using all natural herbs, foods and products.

Why is Boosting the Immune System Important for Cancer Patients?

Our immune system has been very intricately designed by God. There are many cells that directly attack cancer cells and others that assist in immobilizing aggressive cancer cells. There are genes that turn on cancer and genes that turn it off. By increasing the numbers of the cells that assist in immobilizing cancer cells, you boost the body's immune system. This then prevents the body from being in a weakened state during the cancer treatment phases.

Natural killer cells are one of the most important parts of our body's white blood cell army and are known to kill cancer cells. Natural killer cells increase their activity naturally when the body has the right amount of selenium, vitamin C and germanium. In the last decade of my practice, I have seen that greater than 80% of those with cancer have low levels of selenium that shows up on a hair analysis. They also have low levels of germanium, the element that oxygenates the tissues.

While investigating an alternative clinic in Arizona for an article that appeared in Alternative Medicine magazine, I discovered that every cancer patient tested for vitamin C levels in the body had levels so low that 46 grams of vitamin C per day was needed for 2 full weeks in an IV form to reverse the deficiency! That's quite a deficiency! And it makes sense clinically because vitamin C prevents cancer from spreading to other areas in the body.

Reishi mushrooms contain chemical constituents that will also increase natural killer cell count in the body. By increasing the cell count numbers of natural killer cells using an all natural approach to cancer, positive steps toward recovery can often be seen.

Other all natural approaches to cancer include consumption of plenty of organic fruits and vegetables which supply the body with not only vitamin C and other antioxidants, but also plant phytonutrients that fill in the gaps of nutrition that every cancer patient needs. Supplying these in the form of fresh juices that do not raise the blood sugar levels is the key to making this therapy work.

In the last decade, many herbal formulas have come into the limelight to show how they can decrease chemotherapy side effects. These products help by boosting the immune system of the patient, who is usually suffering from a weakened immune system because of chemotherapy and radiation.

Recently I found out about an all natural herbal formula that contains herbs which have been shown in clinical studies to boost the immune system. These herbs include Astragalus, licorice, dong quai, reishi mushroom, tangerine, codonopsis root, psoralea fruit, poria seed, dendroblum stem, ligustrum lucidum fruit, bai-zhu-atractylodes root, rehmannia root and spatholobus stem. The combination together is what results in a boost of the immune system, restoring a healthy balanced state of the activation of T and B cells, macrophages, and natural killer cells. Clinically, this resulted in less fatigue, increased energy levels, recovery of blood cell counts, and the ability to get up out of bed and get back to work.

As more and more patients choose an all natural approach to cancer treatment, they may decide on using the best of both the medical and the alternative health world together. The idea of boosting the immune system will be integral to their success. The all natural herbal formulas that are available are there for the benefit of all.