But there's other news, too. Cancer devastates many families. Friends and coworkers suffer as they helplessly watch the illness progress. In my circle of friends, family and acquaintances, I've counted more than enough sad events where people suffered with cancer; some died, despite giving the illness their best fight. Within my therapy practice, I often hear of the emotional toll that cancer brings to patients and families as they try to find a pathway out of pain to health.
In a recent Huffington Post article, How Diet Affects Cancer, medical doctor Keith Block questioned some of the common instructions that Western medicine gives to patients, including directions to eat "well," including many fats and meats. He notes, instead, that:
- Diets high in fat and refined carbohydrates make you more likely to become overweight, which in turn increases your risk of tumor recurrences. Obese men are at significantly greater risk of developing more aggressive prostate cancer.
- Dietary fats can impair the body's anti-cancer defenses by depressing the activity of natural killer (NK) cells, while a low-fat diet markedly increases NK activity. Natural killer cells play a key role in preventing metastasis.
- Obese breast cancer patients are two to four times more likely to experience a recurrence than women of normal weight.
, by another medical doctor David Servan-Schreiber -- who experienced cancer not once but twice -- discusses the standard American diet -- with its meats, fats, oils and processed foods -- that appears to stimulate and feed cancer cells. He also provides thoughts about how psychotherapy, especially experiential therapies, offers another dimension of healing.Mercedes Dzindzeleta, a local massage therapist and health educator, has been researching cancer and legitmate health care alternaties for some time; an earlier blog listed two attractive cookbooks that she found useful. Today we bring more research, including what appears to be the well known "FOCC" dish, which blends flaxseed oil and cottage cheese. The two ingredients appear to make the the mixture more powerful and more able to be metabolized in the body.
Here is a video which shows how this simple recipe is constructed:
FOCC comes from what is known as the Budwig Protocol, which is based on studies from Dr. Johanna Budwig, a German biochemist and expert on fats and oils. Dr. Budwig, who died in 2003, held a Ph.D. in Natural Science and was schooled in pharmaceutical science, physics, medicine, botany and biology. She is best known for her research on the benefits of flaxseed oil combined with sulphurated proteins in the diet, and published several books on the subject, including "Cancer--A Fat Problem," "The Death of the Tumor," and "True Health Against Arteriosclerosis, Heart Infarction & Cancer."
Dr. Budwig had a 90 percent-plus success rate with this protocol with cancer patients during a 50-year period. A vegetarian, she continued to work with patients in Germany from the 1950s through 2002, while in her nineties. She was healthy and mentally sharp, writing and lecturing. One letter from a patient who met with her in October 2000, commented on her energy and vitality, saying she looked and seemed much younger than her age.
The Budwig diet is a health supplement that is best incorporated in a general diet plan. Flaxseed oil should be purchased from the refrigerated section of a health food store, never in capsule form and never from the shelves. Since degradation begins as soon as the container is opened, the oil should be kept refrigerated and used within the recommended time of eight weeks.
Her ideas are discused in detail on the Cancer Cure Foundation's website and on her own site here. There's also a Yahoo discussion list, an online support group, where posters share experiences and questions. Proponents say her diet -- which involves more than just the cottage cheese mixture -- also helps with arthritis, multiple sclerosis and other serious ailments.
Here are other sites which may be helpful:
The Budwig Diet Protocol: The Healing of Cancer and Other Diseases
Transition diet to the Budwig Protocol
The Budwig Diet For Cancer Treatment
Books include:
