Boob is a Weekend Word

Post Cancer Discoveries

January 21st, 2012

Since I have finished my treatment for cancer in early December, I have made significant changes in my life. They have been gradual. I firmly believe drastic life changes have a way of falling to the way side because they are out of balance. Much like someone (me) learning yoga, if you put too much weight on your body in the wrong place when you aren’t strong enough to handle that weight, you will literally fall to the way side. Learning to apply pressure and weight on your mind, body and spirit in manageable doses make your practice much stronger and sustainable.

Strangely my curiosity in learning to live a healthier life did not come from cancer at all. It came from my brother-in-law, Wes Sharp, who I actually DO listen to sometimes. He asked me and Buck to watch a documentary – Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It was available through our netflix subscription, so, with skepticism, we finally sat down to watch it. I was stunned. I had heard about “juicing” but I always thought it was just a diet that was comprised of drinking large quantities of juices you buy at the supermarket. I was way off base. Juicing is actually extracting the juice out of fresh, and hopefully organic, vegetables and fruits. There are three different kinds of juicers – Masticating, Triturating and Centrifugal.

Masticating juicers compress the fruit or vegetable and breaks down cell walls to release the juice and supercharged nutrients. Usually with a masticating juicers there is a second step where you press the juice out of the broken down pulp – literally squeezing the juice out of the pulp. Triturating juicers also compress the fruit or vegetable but it has a gear that rolls the fruit or vegetable through rollers using tremendous force to release the juice. Finally centrifugal juicers literally spin the juice out of fruits or vegetables.

People new to juicing tend to use the Centrifugal juicer because it is more affordable and easier to clean and use. One of the more popular and best rated juicers is the Breville Ikon Multi-Speed Juice Fountain. It actually does get juice from leafy greens like spinach and Kale, from celery and even broccoli. It can of course handle any other fruit or vegetable you can imagine.

My research did not end here and I myself haven’t even bought a juicer yet. Like I said, I’m slow on the uptake of new behaviors because when I finally commit I want it to stick. I have consumed quite a bit of juice from the Breville because just about every one of my family members have bought one for juicing.

Wes also suggested we watch a documentary called “The Gerson Miracle” about the discovery by Max Gerson of an organic cure for cancer – mostly because of the bout with cancer I just had. If you are someone that wants to consider alternative therapy or are at a late stage of cancer and have been told there is nothing more that can be done I encourage you to watch this film. I did not follow this regimen of treatment. I didn’t even know about it until after I had a simple radical mastectomy, finished 8 rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments. I don’t know that I would have done anything differently in my particular case of cancer but I was not late stage.

Once you are stage IV all care offered to you through the traditional medical therapies are simply palliative. Following the Gerson Regime is not dangerous, causes no pain or side effects, and will dramatically increase your quality of life even if it DOES NOT cure your cancer! If you have been told certain death is the only outcome to expect, and no further treatment can be offered, why not opt for something that won’t kill you but might make you feel better with the time you have left? The bonus? You might just be one of the thousands of patients with late stage cancer or other incurable diseases that have been cured and have gone on to live normal healthy lives. You can watch the documentary online at Snag Films.

So last night I was browsing Netflix recommendations based on these recent viewings and came across another documentary that was shocking. Burzynski.  There is a cure for some cancers, and if not a cure, a dramatically extended normal life of quality, available to us. It comes in the form of antineoplastons – a group of chemical compounds that are found normally in urine and blood. They are made up mostly of amino acids (the building blocks of protein) and peptides (compounds made of two or more amino acids).

Our government, in the form of the Food and Drug Administration, does not want anyone to know about it. Why? Because they wanted to patent the knowledge and technology before Burzynksi did. And guess what? They did patent it, while simultaneously, and unsuccessfully I might add, try to discredit the man that made the discovery and demonstrated its effectiveness in a safe and legal manner according to the state of Texas and the National Cancer Institute.

They spent over $60 million dollars of tax payer money and over 14 years trying to keep his technology from the public eye. In the 1990’s the FDA convened at least five federal grand juries in an effort to place Burzynski in prison for the rest of his life—all of these grand juries ended in no finding of fault on his behalf. All the while,  they were seeking “Copycat” patents of his technology.

One doesn’t have to think long to figure out why the FDA would want to keep a “cure” for cancer from being made public. It’s very simple. Chemotherapy and Radiation, the two most often used treatments in cancer, are a boon to pharmaceutical companies.

Additionally, the FDA is paid “user fees” by pharmaceutical companies to approve new drug treatments. The total fee revenue paid to the FDA by PhRMA in 2010 is $569,207,000. For most cancer drugs submitted to the FDA, PhRMA now pays them $1.4 million per application. It’s important to understand that the FDA did NOT request this new fee structure to occur — instead PhRMA went to Congress and imposed these new fees onto the FDA to gain control over it’s drug evaluation department. It stands to reason that if the FDA had made it as easy for Burzynski to conduct his clinical trials as they did for the other large drug companies, and his clinical trials proved successful, there would be a huge decrease in the amount of chemotherapy drug applications received each year because focus would be directed towards more organic compound cures such as Dr. Burzynski. In addition, it appears that this shift of FDA power handed to the pharmaceutical industry has also prevented competing cancer therapies like antineoplastons from being allowed to fairly go through the FDA-approval process— as giving antineoplastons a fair review process would directly compete with the current $90 billion annual consumer billing (in America alone) PhRMA now has a monopolistic share in.

While the FDA currently approves new cancer drugs produced by big PhRMA within 3 to 4 months, Dr. Burzynski, his patients, and other supporting scientists have made every conceivable effort to get the FDA and the government to cooperate in the research, review and approval of antineoplastons since 1977. THE FDA finally approved clinical trials for antineoplastins after receiving extreme pressure from scientists, congress and patients, and the embarassingly failed attempts at prosecuting Burzynski, and Phase III trials are now underway.

Visit the Burzynski web site if you want to see all of the evidence in great detail.

Lastly I have discovered a new love. Bikram Yoga. Athens has been blessed with a wonderful studio on Foundry Street called Bikram Yoga Athens. It is a practice consisting of 26 poses over 90 minutes in a room that is heated to 105.4 degrees. I have never worked so hard or sweat so much in my life, and love every second of the pain and the mental control it takes to complete the practice each time. It is so challenging that new students are told the goal of their first class is to stay in the room the entire 90 minutes. Trying the poses is going the extra mile. I tried them all my first time, and I was quite nauseous. It was absolutely miserable. The second class was even worse. But I knew there was something to it because I felt a “high” afterwards that I had never felt before. So I talked myself into going to a third class…and it just clicked. I can not do all of the positions correctly or completely yet but I push myself harder each time, and gain more confidence and mental balance after each practice. My sense of self has improved, my approach to problems and conflicts have stabilized mostly, and I feel a sense of peace that I have never known. I look forward to that 90 minutes at least three times a week. And i’ve even talked about 6 friends into it as well and they share my sentiments. Give it three chances if you need balance and happiness in your life.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope you found something beneficial in all of my notes and comments.