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Cancer progresses through two phases. An acute phase
manifested by a localized tumor, and a chronic phase when tumor
spreads to distant organs (metastasis). During acute phase cancer is
curable, while chronic, or metastatic cancer is generally incurable. Although
great progress have been made in treating acute cancers, medicine has little
to offer once disease has spread into remote organs. Its main medication,
chemotherapy, generally fails to cure chronic cancers. As disease advances
cancers resist chemotherapy.
Cancer Dormancy
Cancer has also some surprising features which might be exploited during therapy.
Even advanced cancers may stop progressing , halt for years without any obvious
reason, and then flare up again. This pause is known as Cancer Dormancy.
Patients feel well as if cured and after a while, when cancer 'wakes up' their
condition becomes worse. Cancer dormancy was studied in the beginning of the
previous century, and forgotten since. This important phenomenon indicates
that many patients succeed living with cancers peacefully and
feel well. Occasionally chronic cancers regress without any obvious
reason. It is estimated that one in 60,000 patients is cured after medicine
has given up hope to help the patient.
Somehow patients manage to resist their disease for prolonged periods of time,
which is documented in survival statistics. A statistical measure , the hazard
rate, expresses the risk of a patient to die. In all chronic cancers, from
the third year after diagnosis and on, cancer hazard continually declines.
Close to death, when reserves were exhausted, hazard rises steeply and
patient dies. The declining hazard indicates that with time patients resist
their disease better and better. The
longer a patient lives the better his/her chances to survive. This
amazing statistic is utterly ignored, since medicine rejects the notion of
cancer resistance. Declining hazard is regarded as a statistical bias.
If indeed patients do resist cancer, this resistance might be boosted medically.
Since cure is of no avail, patient may still be helped by prolonging,
or deepening cancer dormancy.
In other words, medicine ought to attempt to prolong
cancer remission. Unfortunately medicine ignores this treatment objective,
since rejecting the notion of cancer resistance.
Induction of Cancer Dormancy
When talking to patients with dormant cancers I learned that many
were helped by the so called 'alternative medicine' . I soon realized
that some of these methods are very effective for prolonging remission , and
should be studied in depth from the medical perspective. But how? The language
of healers is medically incomprehensible, and their methods cannot
be tested statistically. I decided therefore to create a framework
in which 'alternative medicine' may be interpreted medically, and tested
statistically. It is called Wisdom of the Body (WOB).
Wisdom of the Body
Our organism is extremely complex. It maintains a delicate equilibrium known
as homeostasis, or steady state. How homeostasis is controlled eludes medical
understanding. Yet it operates! Homeostasis forms the essence of our
life. When lost , we die. The control of homeostasis requires a wisdom
which is called here metaphorically Wisdom of the Body (WOB). It controls
processes in the body as well as cancer, and may put cancer to sleep. Scientifically
speaking, since the performance of our body is so complex, and its secrets
cannot be untangled, we ought to be content with it as it is.
An opaque box, controlled by WOB, which may be regarded as an
interface between the body and medicine. WOB has a language consisting
of ingoing (input) and outgoing (output) messages. Accordingly we are
not concerned how WOB puts cancer to sleep, but what kind
of input induces WOB to put cancer to sleep.
Language of the WOB
In order to study alternative medicine rationally, its treatments have
to be 'translated' into messages that are understood by WOB. Each treatment
and its message. In this manner the effectiveness of treatments, including
medical, may be compared. Like different ways to prolong cancer
remission. The association between message and outcome may now be evaluated
statistically for the benefit of the patient.
The WOB metaphor is well taken by patients, who are ready to search
for means to put their cancer to sleep. Since medicine ignores such treatment
modalities, the patient has to search for them by himself. He
becomes a new kind of cancer researcher, who evaluates means that will
enable him to live with cancer 'in good health'. He examines intuitively
different messages (treatments) offered by healers, and adopts those which
put his cancer to sleep. In order to emphasize the importance of this
mission, I introduced yet another metaphor, Cancer-Yogi.
Cancer-Yogi
The Hindu Yogi learned intuitively how to control unconscious processes in
his body, like slowing down his heart rate or lowering his blood pressure.
From the present perspective, he learned how to communicate his will
to WOB which then performs these feats for him. In the same vein Cancer-Yogi
knows how to communicate his will to WOB which then puts his cancer
to sleep. The first Cancer-Yogi meeting took
place on April 1, 2001 in Tel Aviv.
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