My Alternative Cancer Diary : cancer diet

Becoming a Practitioner

Sue Insole — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:48:00 GMT

My decision to become a nutritionist was directly related to my own experiences using nutrition to cure my breast cancer.

The dietary changes I made following my diagnosis arguably saved my life, and my decision not to have surgery was perhaps the most important I ever made. I wanted to get the message out about how much I was helped by nutritional therapy. While combatting my own cancer I had learnt a lot about nutrition and the limitations of conventional medicine, and I wanted to use my knowledge to help other people.

In November 2006 I passed my examination for nutritional therapy with over 80 per cent, which I was really pleased with. After Christmas I took the first steps towards starting my own practice – I put leaflets and business cards in the local health shops, and gained a few clients as a result. The practice has been gradually building since.

In February I started my website, Natural Health Benefits, to help me get the message out. I dedicated it to my daughter, who was my key reason for setting it up. If just one family didn’t have to suffer as we had after following medical advice, it would be worthwhile.

The trouble with doctors and cancer treatment is that they see cancer as a localised malignant disease – and so they set out to “fix” it by reducing the tumour using drugs, surgery and radiotherapy. Unfortunately none of these methods can distinguish between what is healthy tissue and what is cancerous tissue.

Meanwhile, alternative therapy sees the whole body operating as a system and a tumour as a sign that something has gone wrong with that system. Alternative medicine sees the person as the total of body, mind, emotions and spirit. Treatment is aimed at the whole person: the approach is holistic and helps the body to heal itself by stimulating the body’s own immune system.

Unfortunately, modern medicine’s approach to cancer is at loggerheads with the alternative approach, which I think is really sad. Surely ANY possible cure should be looked at – no matter where it comes from?

My Healthy Life

Sue Insole — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:20:00 GMT

We had put our house on the market earlier in the year and at the end of November 2005 we sold up in Cardiff and moved 45 miles away to Swansea. It was a very stressful time as most moves are, especially as we had booked up a holiday to go away for Christmas again to Fuerteventura, and the time of the completion was likely to clash with it. However it all went ahead OK in the end – but not without mishaps and delays and we didn’t have time to sort out the house we had moved to a great deal so had it all to face when we got back in January.

When we got back, I caught a really bad flu type virus, which seemed to hang around for ages. I think it was a combination of the stress of moving, the hard work we were putting in and coming back from a warm climate to the wet and cold – which left me feeling low. I have learned since then to get rid of viruses by taking vitamin C every couple of hours. Any virus that I’ve picked up since then has lasted just 1-2 days.

As I was ill, I had to cancel my scan in January and went at the end of February 2006 instead. I remember that there was snow on the ground the day we went and it was freezing cold. This scan was not quite as good as the last one: the nipple area difference was now 2.9 degrees and the blood test PK had gone up to 37.00. However, when I explained that I had been ill with a viral infection for 3 weeks, had moved within the last few months and had been overdoing things a bit, he said that my immune system being lowered was probably the reason and I was not absorbing the vitamins as much.

I went back on to the apricot kernels four to five times a day, and got plenty of rest. It was a good summer and we used to go to the beach quite a bit to take advantage of the weather. We carried on doing the work in the house, but at not such a frantic pace. By June it was more or less finished, so we took a short holiday to Turkey where the gloriously hot weather really lifted my spirits. The food was great there too and it was really easy to eat healthily. I was eating salads a lot as it was so hot and I tried my first ever Turkish bath and massage which was great, as it really got the toxins out and made me feel fantastic. All in all we had a really relaxing time.

This post is part of a weekly series in which Sue Insole describes her health journey. Click here to read her earlier posts.

Click here to get an email update when Sue writes her next post.

SUSAN INSOLE, BSYA (N Th.) is a former NHS nurse and is now a nutritional therapist in the field of natural health. She worked in a health care setting for 16 years, firstly in the field of rehabilitation and then as a welfare officer and secretary within a hospital setting. She was also an advisor for weight loss in 2001 - 2003. She achieved a diploma in 2006 for nutritional therapy. She is the author of a downloadable eBook, What Works in Health. Her website is: www.naturalhealthbenefits.com.

My Cancer-Beating Diet

Sue Insole — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:38:00 GMT

The blood tests I was told to have every six months to monitor my progress measured two main things, or tumour markers:

1. The level of telomerase. Telomerase is an enzyme that helps a cell to self-replicate. If an increased number of cells have active telomerase, it means that there is some destruction of transformed cells – the kind you would find in a cancerous tumour.
2. Pyruvate kinase level. Abnormal cells have an increased level of this enzyme in the blood. High levels are associated with the presence of a cancerous tumour with an increased risk of spread (metastasis potential). The normal reading in the blood should be 15 or below.

My first blood test showed the first tumour marker to have 1,500 cells per ul, and the second marker to have 21.00.

The doctos was encouraged by this result, and said the all important second tumour marker was just borderline abnormal (six points above the norm).

I was advised to continue with my new diet. By this time I had completely transformed my diet, incorporating these changes:

Vegetable juices three times a day
Increased levels of vitamins A, E and C
25 apricot kernels a day for vitamin B17
Two vitamin B17 tablets twice a day
Other supplements, including EPA and flaxseed oil
More oily fish
Limited meat
Plenty of fruit and vegetables
No sweet foods

The doctor had told me that I could drink a few glasses of red wine each day if I wanted – until this point, I had been completely abstaining from alcohol.

This post is part of a weekly series in which Sue Insole describes her health journey. Click here to read her earlier posts.

Click here to get an email update when Sue writes her next post.