Alternatives to Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy
More and more of you are looking for alternatives to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This is a very legitimate question: given the growing number of cancers across the world, more and more people are asking themselves the question of their choice of treatment.
Unfortunately, when you think of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the first thing that comes to mind is the abundant negative side effects: nausea, hair loss and digestive problems. Also, we visualize burns when we think of radiotherapy. All of this stems from the fact that these treatments are not selective. They kill all cells that divide quickly. So, of course, they kill cancer cells, but also rapidly dividing “good cells,” like those in the intestinal wall, which are essential for our immunity. Likewise, the hair follicles are destroyed.
Are There Alternative Solutions?
Faced with these serious side effects, patients ask if there are other solutions. And there are other solutions. Even conventional medicine now offers alternatives to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. For example, immunotherapy: this new technique works by modifying our own immune system to make it develop defenses against cancer cells. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, unfortunately, it does not work.
Playing a sorcerer’s apprentice with our immune system can have catastrophic consequences. So patients keep looking, and this is where they come to wonder about the existence of natural solutions less aggressive than chemotherapy or radiation. For the record, chemotherapy and radiotherapy have their origins in the development of weapons of war. Mustard gas caused so much havoc during World War I that it was banned in 1925. To hijack the ban, the US War Department, in partnership with Yale University, came up with the idea of adding an atom of nitrogen to the formula of mustard gas. Slightly different, this new nitrogen gas could thus escape the official ban. It was used during World War II, with such destructive power that military medics thought they would use this power to eradicate cancer. The same goes for research on radiation, which unfortunately culminated in the atomic bomb. Historically, these are military investments which after the war have been “recovered” for curative projects. Nevertheless, philosophically, they are devices of destruction. And I believe that the world has a need, a very important appetite for something that is philosophically positive, which comes from nature, from the gush of life.
