DOCTORS AND NUTRITION

Doctors & Nutrition

Dr. Philip Binzel in Alive and Well asks:

Is there any hope that nutritional therapy will ever be accepted by the
medical profession? In my opinion, it is not a matter of “if”, it is only a
matter of “when.” As a patient of mine said to me several years ago,
“If doctors in this country don’t start going to nutrition, the patients are
going to stop going to the doctors.” The use of nutrition in the
prevention and treatment of disease will come from the ground up,
not from the top down. People are getting more nutritionally oriented
and are going to insist that their doctors do the same.

In regard to the treatment of cancer with nutritional therapy, before
this comes about, two things are going to have to happen:

1. The medical profession is going to have to realize that they have
   been treating the wrong thing. They are going to have to realize that,
   as long as they continue to treat just the tumor alone, they are going
   to continue to get the same poor results that they have always had.
2. The medical profession is going to have to accept the fact that the
   quality and quantity of life for the cancer patient obtained through
   nutritional therapy is far superior to anything available through our
   present modalities. In simpler terms, these people on nutritional
   therapy feel better and live longer.

I, most certainly, do not want to leave the impression that everything
about nutrition that can be known is now known. The very opposite is
true. We have only just begun to scratch the surface of our
understanding of the relationship between nutrition and disease. It is
my opinion that we must first understand the defense mechanisms of
the body. Why do these defense mechanisms respond so rapidly in
some situations and so slowly in others? What systems of the body
are involved in the defense mechanisms? In what order do they
respond? Once we have the answer to these questions we can then
determine what nutritional ingredients are necessary to keep those
systems of the body functioning normally.

The fact that we do not have the answers to the above-stated
questions does not mean, however, that we should not use the
information that we do have to its fullest extent. The pure medical
scientist will not use any form of treatment until he fully understands
why it works and how it works. The good practitioner, on the other
hand, will use any form of treatment that works, even if he does not
understand exactly why and how it works.

There are many examples of good practitioners in the annals of
medical history. Dr. Semmelweis, in 1860, insisted that all doctors
wash their hands before delivering a baby because, by so doing, it
eliminated “child bed fever.” He knew it worked, but he did not know
why or how it worked. He was removed from the hospital staff and
ostracized by the medical community. It was not until about the time
that Dr. Semmelweis died in 1865 that Dr. Lister discovered bacteria.
Dr. Lister was able to prove that Dr. Semmelweis was right and why
he was right. I doubt that Dr. Fleming in 1925 knew why he could
cure pneumonia by giving his patients moldy bread. He knew it
worked, but he did not know why or how it worked. It wasn’t until
some time later that he discovered a fungus in moldy bread that could
kill certain bacteria. This fungus eventually became known as
penicillin. Dr. Fleming was ridiculed by the medical profession for his
work. It would be another fifteen years before penicillin came into
use. By then, thousands of patients had died from pneumonia.

So it is with nutritional therapy in the treatment of cancer. I hope in
this book that I have been able to present sufficient evidence to show
that it works, even though at this time we do not know exactly why
and how it works.

After all is said and done, the true measurement of a good physician
is not necessarily how much he knows. It is, instead, how willing he is
to search for, find and then use whatever forms of treatment, which in
his opinion, will give his patients the very best chance to remain…
ALIVE AND WELL.

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“Treat the Cause, Not the Symptom”

Dr. Philip Binzel in the last chapter* of his book, Alive and Well: One Doctor’s Experience with Nutrition in the Treatment of Cancer Patients (1994) :

The most logical question for anyone to ask at this point is, “If nutritional therapy is as successful as you say, why isn’t every doctor in this country using it?”

Is there politics involved with cancer therapy? I have every reason to believe that there is.

Is money a factor? For some doctors it may be. There is a lot of money to be made in surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. …simply putting a patient on a good diet, giving them some vitamins, enzymes, etc. and checking on them from time to time does not produce much revenue.

More importantly, I am convinced that most doctors in this country are dedicated individuals. They will do anything that they think will help their patients. However, the problem with most of the doctors is that they are “tumor-oriented.” They have been trained to be “lump and bump” doctors with no concept of how nutrition relates to disease.

Here’s what I mean. When a patient is found to have a tumor, the only   thing the doctor discusses with that patient is what he intends to do about the tumor. If a patient with a tumor is receiving radiation or chemotherapy, the only question that is asked is, “How is the tumor doing?” No one ever asks how the patient is doing. In my medical training, I remember well seeing patients who were getting radiation and/or chemotherapy. The tumor would get smaller and smaller, but the patient would be getting sicker and sicker. At autopsy we would hear, “Isn’t that marvelous! The tumor is gone!” Yes, it was, but so was the patient. How many millions of times are we going to have to repeat these scenarios before we realize that we are treating the wrong thing?

In primary cancer, with only a few exceptions, the tumor is neither health-endangering nor life-threatening. I am going to repeat that statement. In primary cancer, with few exceptions, the tumor is neither health-endangering nor life-threatening. What is health-endangering and life-threatening is the spread of that disease through the rest of the body.

There is nothing in surgery that will prevent the spread of cancer. There is nothing in radiation that will prevent the spread of the disease. There is nothing in chemotherapy that will prevent the spread of the disease. How do we know? Just look at the statistics! There is a statistic known as “survival time.” Survival time is defined as that interval of time between when the diagnosis of cancer is first made in a given patient and when that patient dies from his disease. In the past fifty years, tremendous progress has been made in the early diagnosis of cancer. In that period of time, tremendous progress had been made in the surgical ability to remove tumors. Tremendous progress has been made in the use of radiation and chemotherapy in their ability to shrink or destroy tumors. But, the survival time of the cancer patient today is no greater than it was fifty years ago. What does this mean? It obviously means that we are treating the wrong thing! We are treating the symptom — the tumor, and we are doing absolutely nothing to prevent the spread of the disease. The only thing known to mankind today that will prevent the spread of cancer within the body is for that body’s own defense mechanisms to once again function normally. That’s what nutritional therapy does. It treats the defense mechanism, not the tumor.

The woman with a lump in her breast is not going to die from that lump. The man with a nodule in his prostate gland is not going to die from that nodule. What may kill both of those people is the spread of that disease through the rest of their bodies. They got their disease because of a breakdown of their defense mechanisms. The only thing that is going to prevent the spread of their disease is to correct the problem in those defense mechanisms. Doesn’t it seem logical then, that we should be a lot less concerned with “What are we going to do about the tumor?” and a lot more concerned about what we are going to do about their defense mechanisms?

FAQ 6: Metabolic Therapy after Surgery and Chemo-Rad?

“I had surgery, and chemo and radiation thereafter. Can I still do natural metabolic therapy?”

Metabolic therapy is not counter-productive to orthodox therapy. As a matter of fact, I consider it a valuable adjunct to the success of chemo/rad, and even to surgery. One must understand that the tumor is not the disease – that it is just a symptom of a cancer gone malignant.  “The clinical problem in treating a cancer victim is clearing the body of accumulated toxins.” Though surgery removes the tumor, chemo/rad, which is formulated to target actively dividing cells, leaves a slew of dead cells the accumulation of which, if left unmanaged, may cause toxemia and eventual death. “Many cancer victims have had their tumors successfully treated only to die of toxic poisoning…” [Dr. Kelley One Answer to Cancer 1974, page 16)

It is the change in life-style, comprehensive nutritional supplementation, and the long and laborious period of detoxification (which can take from 3 to 12 months), that will weave its healing effects on the ravaged and weakened body.

Dr. Kelley contends that “prognosis for a cancer victim is very good when the kidney and lung functions are at least 50% of normal, and an optimistic spiritual attitude is maintained.” And that “the rate of recovery is subject to another law – that of blood supply. If the rate of blood supply to an area is great, recovery is fast. If the blood supply to an area is inadequate, recovery is very slow. Thus, we find that those with Hodgkin’s Disease respond quickly, while those with brain or bone afflictions have a much slower response” [17]

A word of caution: “Aperson who has had cancer will always be susceptible and must keep constant vigilance. If at any time the free active pancreatic enzymes in the body falls below the amount that is necessary to keep the cancer cells digested, malignancy will always re-develop. Many people make the false assumption that just because their test comes in negative, they are free from cancer for life. This mistaken attitude has shortened the life of many.”
[20-21]

Chemotherapy: ORTHODOX vs. NATURAL

Yes, Virginia. Like chemo, which is how the medically administered chemotherapy for cancer is generally known, the long-suppressed natural metabolic therapy is also a form of chemotherapy. However, the similarity ends there.

Natural Cancer Therapy: Nutritional Supplementation in a Nutshell

Natural Cancer Therapy: It’s all about Nutritional Supplementation elicited quite a few emails requesting for clarifications. I have since come to realize how one can get lost in the maze of details, busy as the post is, and have come up with this more simplified listing: