A Different Cancer Charity

Registered Charity No. 1078066

Patrons

HRH Princess Michael of Kent

The Earl Baldwin of Bewdley
(Co-Chairman of the Parliamentary Commitee for Alternative and Complementary Medicine)

Dr Damien Downing, MBBS
(Editor of The Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine)

Mr Peter J Gravett, MB, MRCS, FRCPath.

Dr P J Kingsley, MB, BS, MRCS, LRCP, FAAEM, DA, D.Obst. RCOG.

What is Orthomolecular Oncology?

BACKGROUND

"Orthomolecular" medicine is a term coined by one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th Century, twice Nobel Laureate, Linus Pauling.

Orthomolecular medicine involves the treatment of disease with natural substances, endemic to the body, vitamins, minerals, herbs and other biological response modifiers. These are often used in enormous doses, to a drug-like intensity. But as they are not drugs, toxicity is largely avoided, and the body can respond in a more positive way. (A classic example of orthomolecular medicine is the treatment of diabetes with insulin). The practice of orthomolecular oncology was started over 25 years ago by a Canadian psychiatrist, Dr Abram Hoffer. Inspired by some encouraging results in his work with nutrition in schizophrenia, and wanting to do more than just give spiritual counsel to his terminal cancer patients, he began to prescribe large doses of vitamins and minerals for them. To his surprise, these terminal cancer patients lived four times as long as expected, and a small percentage were cured.(1) In a Scottish study - the Vale of Leven Study, - inspired by Dr Pauling, similar results were produced with just 10 grams of oral vitamin C daily, after all conventional treatment had been abandoned. In this study 10% of terminal patients were actually cured.(2)

THE PROBLEM

Yet, in the United Kingdom and Europe generally oncologists are largely ignorant and inactive in this field. Some of them compound their scientific ignorance by hostility. I have talked to a good number of consultants, both in the U.K. and Europe, and have found their ignorance of the subject astonishing, given the avant-garde knowledge and work across the Atlantic. Prevention of cancer through diet has become a fashionable subject. The World Cancer Research Fund is doing much admirable work to raise awareness on this front. However, the logical and increasingly well-documented conclusion, that cancer might also play an important part in treatment and cure, does not follow as a universal creed. This is an inexplicable medical blindspot. There is an important need for medical education in this expanding subject. It is Orthomolecular Oncology's aim to initiate and promote this. It is also our wish not to be provincial and restrict our mission to the U.K., rather to make it, at least initially, European based, but with eventually expanding world-wide interest.

There are two principal arguments for employing adjuvant nutritional therapy in cancer. One is ethical and pragmatic: in thirty years the 5 year survival and cure rate for cancer, with conventional therapies, has, with the exception of the childhood leukaemias and several rather rare cancers, such as testicular cancer, remained unchanged.(3) Indeed, there has been an overall increase in cancer of 18% and a 7% increase in mortality. Chemotherapy alone cures less than 3% of all advanced epithelial cancers.(4) "Insanity", said Rudyard Kipling, "is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". There is a need to break through the current cure ceiling by trying fresh approaches. Biotechnology will undoubtedly offer many such approaches within the next 2 or 3 decades. People who are dying of cancer however want the future now and this is possible by pooling and acting on the knowledge orthomolecular oncology has to offer now. Epidemiologically, there is a strong link between diet and cancer. Increasingly, it is being found that cause and cure are linked.

The second argument for using adjuvant nutritional therapy in cancer is economic, and therefore also, highly pragmatic. The Americans have found that it significantly reduces in-patient stay and complications of conventional systemic treatment. The cost of treating cancer is phenomenal. In the States alone it accounts for 10% of the national health budget. Anything that reduces this, with good patient results, must be welcomed.

Fundraising Appeal for Sepsis/Septic Shock Trial

Sepsis/Septic shock is the 3 rd leading cause of death in the developed world.

It is a dangerous, life-threatening condition that can affect anyone, and is caused by bacterial infections that cannot be controlled by antibiotics alone, or even the best supportive medical care. Pneumonia, Avian flu, Meningitis, hospital super-bug MRSA, and AIDS-related infections, for instance, can all induce septic shock.

Cancer sufferers are particularly vulnerable to sepsis and septic shock, because their immune systems are badly weakened by chemotherapy. It is estimated that 67% of cancer patients die from infections brought on by a ravaged immune system. Post-operative and transplant patients, the old and the very young are also very susceptible.

This 1000 + patient trial will test Dr Carmen Wheatley's published hypothesis (see below) that high doses of Vitamin B12 may be used as a safe treatment to dramatically reduce the up to 75% mortality from sepsis/septic shock in the intensive care unit. If the results of this trial are positive, it will benefit people worldwide, including the Third World, as Vitamin B12 is very cheap compared to conventional drugs.

Fundraising Appeal for Multiple Myeloma Trial

We need your help to raise £200,000.

Multiple Myeloma is a blood/bone/immune system cancer. Survive Cancer is fundraising for a small patient pilot study, to be followed by more extensive patient trials.

This study and subsequent trial aim to test Dr Carmen Wheatley's published hypothesis (see below) that a chronic deficiency of vitamin B12 is the fundamental cause of Multiple Myeloma, and its forerunner, MGUS, and that therefore high doses of intravenous vitamin B12 may be successfully used in the treatment and prevention of this cancer.

For this study we also have the backing of a consultant at the John Radcliffe Hospital, haematologist Dr Timothy Littlewood, who has agreed to run this patient study. If this hypothesis is proved, we will have a way of preventing a cancer for which there is as yet no cure and very poor survival rates. It is possible that the combination of high dose vitamin B12 and conventional chemotherapy as well as the newer drug approaches to Myeloma may have a greater synergistic impact on treatment of this disease. The approach to be tested may also benefit certain leukaemias.

WE JUST HAVE TO RAISE THE MONEY

Please help us. Thank you.

To donate , please send a cheque made out to `Survive Cancer', to:

Dr Carmen Wheatley, Survive Cancer, 4, Richmond Road, Oxford, OX1 2JJ

(C. Wheatley. A Unified Theory of the Causes of Monoclonal Gammopathy of Unknown Significance (MGUS) and Multiple Myeloma, with a Consequent Treatment Proposal for Long-Term Control and Possible Cure, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine , 2002, Vol 17, No.1. 7.)

Using Gift Aid means that every pound you give, we get an extra 28 pence from the Inland Revenue, making your donation go further. So £10 Gift Aided becomes £12.80 - with no cost to you.

To Gift Aid your donation, print this form, complete it and send with your cheque:

Michael Gearin-Tosh.

We are very sad to announce that Michael Gearin-Tosh, Living Proof fame, died on 29th July 2005 of sepsis, due to a tooth infection that became systemic. Sadly, Michael made the mistake of not taking antibiotics, as his doctor had urged. This is not a decision we would recommend anyone following Michael's treatment regime to take. Antibiotics are still on of our most useful modern drugs. Nevertheless, Michael's record of survival with untreated Myeloma, (which had been stage IV for nearly the last 3 years), was a remarkable achievement. He lived 11 years and one month, after his diagnosis, (and initial prognosis of 18 months), and, had he taken his doctor's advice, would almost certainly still be with us today. Michael had nearly completed a sequel to Living Proof , and a third book, Conversations with Doctors . We hope that this will be published in some form next year. Carmen Wheatley is also planning to write about Michael, and a surprising new aspect of his medical legacy.

Back

1). Hoffer A. & Pauling L: Hardin Jones biostatistical analysis of mortality data for cohorts of cancer patients with a large fraction surviving at the termination of study. Orthomolecular Medicine; 1990, 5: 143 - 154.

2). Cameron E. & Campbell A: The orthomolecular treatment of cancer. II. Clinical trials of high dose ascorbic acid supplements in advanced human cancer. Chem. Biol. Interact; 1974,9: 285-315.

3) Bailar JC, Gormick HL. “Cancer Undefeated”. New England Journal of Medicine, 1997; 336: 1569-74.

4). Dr Ulrich Abel, (statistician at Heidelberg, Germany); “Chemotherapy of advanced epithelial cancer: a critical review”. Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, 1992; 46: 439-452.

Legal Notice

Copyright © Caliban Scripts Ltd, 1999. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, for profit-making purposes. However, cancer patients, interested persons, and the medical profession may make free use of all the material presented for charitable ends.

This web site is a Caliban Scripts Ltd production for Orthomolecular Oncology.

Please read our full legal statement before continuing.