“Medicine is not only a science; it is also an art. It does not consist of compounding pills and plasters; it deals with the very processes of life, which must be understood before they may be guided.” Paracelsus
We offer scientifically-based and compelling protocols that are supported with strong evidence, that are generally safe, efficient, cost-efficient, eco-community enhancing and often fun. By definition these characteristics define what good medicine is.
In particular, we emphasize safe and efficient protocols that help in enhancing a healthy microbiota diversity, that holistically modulate the immune system and that can assist in clearing both cancer stem cells as well as senescent cells. To which we include the activation of key metabolic biochemical and methylation processes as well as DNA repair, telomerase, optimal longevity mechanisms, among a few other relevant pathways. (1)
In terms of the studies and experimentations that support our protocols, we choose studies and techniques that are rigorously grounded in science with strong evidence and whose lead scientists show scientific integrity, whatever the “brand” or school, whether conventional, integrative, functional, indigenous, spiritual or naturopathic (ie, the World Health Organization has categorized over 100 medical systems, of which conventional or allopathic medicine is just one).
In medicine, there are rigorous scientific-based studies whose application are risky, inefficient long term, too costly for what they offer and irrelevant in terms of the activation of the optimal longevity hallmarks and the down-regulation of the cancer pathways.
In contradistinction, there are studies that are not as rigorously crafted as others, but that nonetheless show evidence of relevance insofar as the activation of the key hallmarks of optimal longevity and cancer reversal pathways are concerned. We prefer to choose the latter.
At the risk of displeasing many conservative mainstream physicians, for me, good Medicine is less an exact science than an art. This means that the clinician needs to be as holistically fit as possible so that he or she can efficiently use the healing gifts (including, but not limited to his or her capacity for compassion, humor and mindful “vibes”) as well as “gut feelings”, (intuition) the treating physician may have developed over the years, if only to better comfort and understand the needs of his or her patient (including emotional needs).
Concomitantly, the treating physician should never lose sight of rationality and evidence-based science, (including for clinical evaluation) so that he or she can better assess the cost-benefit analysis of any therapeutic option.
In terms of research methodology, rigorous evidence-based science should prevail, but insofar as the art of healing is concerned, emotional intelligence and spiritual mindfulness should be the driving force of any “good medicine”.
Thereafter, the health provider must discuss all of the important aspects of all of the relevant options for a given health problem, not only those that come from the drug-based allopathic school of medicine. (2) Once a chosen treatment plan is bilaterally agreed upon, the health-care professional should provide the patient with published peer-reviewed evidence that the proposed treatment option has the therapeutic effects that the patient is looking for. Providing favorable testimonials (versus anecdotal & clinical evidence) may be an efficient marketing element, but in law and science, testimonials are usually not admitted as valid evidence. (3) In law, this professional “due diligence” duty is called “securing informed consent”. (4) Most health professionals do not meet this requirement. It is the second major violation of medical malpractice law (Tort), the first being serious negligence.
References
(1). For over 15 years, there has been substantial evidence that most cancers are driven by a subpopulation of cells that display stem cell properties. There is no less substantial evidence that these cancer stem cells (CSCs) significantly contribute to metastasis and treatment resistance. Just as normal stem cells are regulated by their microenvironment or “niche”, CSCs interact with and in turn are regulated by cells in the tumor microenvironment. These interactions involve inflammatory cytokines including IL-1, IL-6 and IL-8, which in turn activate Stat3/NF-ĸB pathways in both tumor and stromal cells. Activation of these pathways stimulates further cytokine production generating positive feedback loops which in turn drives CSC self-renewal. In this perspective, CXCL8 (formerly IL-8) has been reported to play multiple roles in cancer, such as increasing proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastases. (Source). From memory, when chemo blasts non-CSC tumor cells, in their death process, they release IL 8 which signals to the dormant CSC to activate and promote metastases. From memory, i have to find the supporting piece of evidence to substantiate this claim. Likewise with the immune system. From the works of Coley and the French Nobel laureate Lwoff as well as Parisian oncologist Georges Mathé (ie, his “graft-vs.-leukemia” bone-marrow transplant work) to last year’s Nobel in Physiology, immunotherapy has progressively shown to be one of the keys to the cancer challenge. So here too, the patient needs to be informed on the long-term consequences of any and all treatments that harm the immune system, like certain chemo, surgical, radiation, combinational, hormonal and targeted therapy modalities.
(2). But an informed consent on all meaningful therapies. Not just drugs and then more drugs to alleviate the side-effects of the preceding drugs and if that doesn’t work, then surgery and radiation, all of which often ends up killing the patient. Securing informed consent is a legal obligation the majority of conventional oncologists I’ve met violate all the more so that they consider integrative oncology to be the integration of pseudo-science, woo and quakery in their camp, on their sacred soil (turf), while forgetting that what characterizes Medicine the most are three general principles: therapeutic results that are meaningful for the patient, therapeutic results that don’t excessively harm (Hippocrate’s “Primum non nocere”) and therapeutic results based on new “alternative” findings and more relevant understandings (See the top quote by Proust). Alternative oncologists are not without faults either. For a holistic scientists, what counts are less ideology (including scientific reductionism) and labels (e.g., conventional oncologist vs integrative oncologist) than affordable healing results, optimization of vibrant lifespans and, from the point of view of methodology, scientific rigor and intellectual honesty.
(3). First off, one must distinguish between a testimonial from anecdotal evidence. A testimonial is the testimony of a person who claims to have had cancer and to have been cured by a given technique. Most medical websites use testimonials as marketing tools. However, the rules of evidence usually reject these claims because too many have been hyped or wrong. Some claimants think they got cancer, but in reality the tumor was indolent or benign. Other claimants seek glory and fortune, so they spin the facts while they try to sell the product that “cured” them. On the other hand, a piece of anecdotal evidence is a documented story of a patient’s protocol (alternative or conventional) which worked. The key element on the story being documentation, where the patient was followed by a doctor who noted the improvements in his or her medical records, including with lab tests and whatnot. The other piece of information i need to share is that even if the testimonial is a valid piece of evidence in terms of reaching the documented anecdotal level, it is weak evidence. Why ? Because just about any health promoting marketer can produce successful and documented testimonies because spontaneous regressions, delayed effects from a past medical or lifestyle intervention and placebo effects do regularly happen in medicine, even in oncology. (If needed, i can prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the natural course of many (not all, just many) of the screen-detected invasive breast cancers and different types of prostate and even thyroid cancers is to spontaneously regress). Furthermore, testimonials say nothing of relevance about the materiality, let alone the reliability of a “reversal” or “cancer cure” technique. Even anecdotal evidence must be put in the proper perspective. For example, five anecdotal cases of five years survival for pancreatic cancer, all properly documented, can be insignifiant if these are compared to 95 other pancreatic patients who had an early death using the same protocol. That would be a 5 percent success rate. What is needed to really convince a patient as well as a court of law that this or that technique has medical value are prospective and outcome studies in addition to a few other elements that the Institute’s Coaching and Consultation Sessions go into. I spoke about this problem in detail with Drs Gonzalez (who passed), Ben Johnson (who also passed) Gabriel Cousens, (who is still dynamic, at 72 years) Professors Seyfried, Bergson and Yu and many others, including Charlotte Gerson, (who must be at least 92 by now) because it is a weak aspect of today’s alternative oncology scene.
(4). The conservative allopathically trained physicians and oncologists would naturally protest about having to talk about alternative oncology options to secure informed consent because for this school of thought, the only valid medicine is theirs, the one they learnt in pharmaceutically financed (in part) medical schools and paid hundreds of thousands dollars for. For this school, integrative oncology is the integration of quakery and pseudo-science in “medicine”. The five thousands years evidence-based Traditional Chinese medicine, millennia-old Ayurveda, science-based homeopathy, (in part) which millions of patients have adopted in the world, including over 40 percent of the cartesian physicians in France, who also adopted quality wine as medicine, detoxification, aromatherapy, fasting, hyperthermia, mind-body techniques including meditation, Vitamin C IV, mistletoe, herbalism, chelation, holistic nutrition, naltrexone and much more, all of these options are “woo” and “delusional” for this mainstream medical school. Even the N.I.H. states on its website that detoxification is “unproven”. Yet, the weight of the evidence is overwhelming that this technique is proven. Likewise with many other “alternative” cancer technique. Allopathic medicine has been able to convince much of the Government to bestow upon conventional medicine professionals the monopoly of medicine, especially in oncology where minors who refuse chemo can be removed from their parents and forced cytotoxic chemo in their veins. Evidence for this happening in the US is real. Furthermore, from my understanding, the quakery in this case is often (not always, just often) on the side of conventional allopathic medicine. There is an abundance of quakery in alternative oncology too, but from my understanding (after having reviewed the totality of the relevant evidence), the conventional quakery is much more dangerous than the alternative quakery. Not only because there are many unscientific aspects of conventional medicine, but because there is the emergence of norms, supported by case law and courageous Judges, that have widen informed consent to include some aspects of integrative and holistic medicine. There is still a lot of recognition work to be done in this field, but the evidence is there. Futhermore, no serious Historian of medicine can deny that most of what will eventually become strong medicine is usually found years earlier in “quack” or alternative medicine. It’s just a question of time for lucid clinical observation, reproducible scientific experimentation, good faith and common sense to fine-tune and ripen so that compelling proof is better established. Again, please read or re-read the pertinence of French novelist Marcel Proust which i quoted in the top of this Page. A quote that invites scientific humility and integrity…
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