Just eat your veggies?….Not exactly
On my travels this week I met a charming young man who prided himself on eating all the right foods. He is into power drinks that are filled with protein, veggies and fruits. He has one of those blenders that can mulch just about anything, with the end result being the best, most powerful smoothie ever created.
Listening to him talk the talk about healthy eating, it became clear this was almost like a religion to him: one that took him to the promised land of being one of the healthiest guys on the planet.
There wasn’t anything wrong with what he was saying. Blending kale and spinach and hemp wrapped around carrot juice and fresh strawberries in the morning didn’t sound that bad.
Then he told me his friend used this diet to cure his cancer.
That’s when I stopped being a believer.
We got into a debate about the word “cure” and I asked if he really thought buying a $400 dollar blender and adding fruits and veggies and carrot juice would really cure cancer and if it did, wouldn’t that word get out around the world so the rest of us could use that simple remedy too?
He explained that his friend had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and instead of going the chemotherapy route, he found a book that explained the benefit of boosting the immune system and how it would do the very same thing as the chemo, so he opted for that remedy path instead.
This cancer friend is doing well, obviously in remission and swears he has found the cure for his cancer.
Not wanting to quash the euphoria of his friends success, I simply said how happy I was to hear he was doing so well, but to hold off a little on the “finding a cure” theory.
Eating well and boosting the immune system is part of the dietary plan in cancer world, but unless I missed the headline, the word “cure” hasn’t been coupled with a power smoothie just yet.
March 9, 2014 @ 12:36 pm
Personally, I find it very hard to accept that food alone can change the course of cancer. While the cure sounds very simple, unfortunately cancer is a very complex disease. This post reminds me of the “peach pit cure” in Mexico that lured many individuals, including Coretta Scott King.
March 8, 2014 @ 11:19 am
I hope that his friend continues his strong relationship with NED. Maybe the smoothie worked a miracle, then again, maybe not. Too early to tell. As we know, cancer can cause us logical, rational humans to latch onto “Hope” sometimes masquerading as a smoothie because it enables us to function in the scary cancer world. I believe in what he is doing ’cause it is a healthy regime and should help his body fight the disease. I took spirulina for many years (pond algae) to try to help my immune system. Didn’t seem to make any difference in my recurrences. I would caution him to not use the word “cure” in large groups of cancer patients/caregivers. Too many charlatans try to capitalize for their monetary gain or perhaps ego gain on the backs of those in the fight. I do wish him well and let’s see a year from now how it is going for him.
PS….not that I’m a skeptic but it might be more convincing if there is a biopsy report that confirms cancer.
March 7, 2014 @ 5:43 pm
My thought is that this is probably a spontaneous remission, and not the result of the diet-as-cure, though dietary changes generally are a good thing. Doctors do not understand spontaneous remission but it does happen and it has been documented. I read a book by a woman from India who experienced an extraordinary spontaneous remission of her cancer. She attributed it to a huge lifestyle change; her doctors simply could not explain it.