Alternative Treatments More Than Double Risk of Death for Cancer Patients

[Julian Englis]

Source: Healthline

Alternative cancer treatments that seem too good to be true may actually be dangerous. In fact, these treatments can more than double the risk of death for some people with cancer, according to a recently published study.

Some alternative treatments promise a cure or a way to fight cancer without the harsh side effects of chemotherapy or radiation.

In order to find out how people with cancer fare on these treatments vs. traditional medications, researchers from Yale University turned to the National Cancer Database.

Dr. Skyler Johnson, a physician at the Radiation Oncology at Yale-New Haven Hospital and lead author of the study published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, said he wanted to look into survival rates for alternative medicine after he saw an increase in people wanting to pursue these methods.

Read more: http://www.healthline.com/health-news/alternative-treatments-more-than-double-risk-of-death-for-cancer-patients

[Equinox Moon]

1. Sounds like he was paid well by Big Pharm.

[Orrex]

2. Ladies and gentlemen, I present another sad case of Threefer Madness

In any discussion that contradicts the dogma of "alternative" "medicine," the likelihood that someone will raise the specter of Big Pharma within 3 replies is very close to 100%.

It's comically predictable, and I can cite many prior examples.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

4. Or maybe Big Snake Oil has always been full of shit.

Incidentally, do you know what they call "alternative medicine" that actually works?

Medicine.

[Archae]

7. You do realize what absolute bullshit that is.

Heck, people are *STILL* selling laetrile, decades after it was proved to be garbage!

[7962]

21. Now they're calling it a "Vitamin" to make it sound natural nt

[Archae]

23. I saw that in one offer.

Did you know there still are even adherents to Phrenology? Yup.

Doesn't matter how discredited a belief is, there always will be those who swear by it.
Chiropractic, iridology, laetrile, IV hydrogen peroxide, vitamins, etc.

[snooper2]

24. you aren't responding to anybody, did Big Pharm finally get to you too?

Tell us it isn't so! PLEASE!!!

[Dreamer Tatum]

29. ....and THAT'S why people fall for woo.

Because the alternative might just be someone else making a buck.

[Orrex]

3. "But what's the harm?"

k/r

[Dr Hobbitstein]

5. I have a buddy whose neighbor has stage IV lung cancer.

Former heavy smoker, late 60s. My buddy (conspiracy theorist, early 50s) was complaing to me that Helen (the neighbor) was following her doctor's advice and undergoing chemo. He was railing against sugar (that old "inflamation" BS), and was convinced that living in a flight path of a small airport caused her cancer, not the 2+packs of smokes/day.

He's an incredibly bright individual, but man does he believe some kooky shit.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Well look at Steve Jobs.

His name claim to mind when I read the headline. The article mentions him

Jobs would be alive today if he had the surgery. He had a very treatable cancer. But he was too smart for his own good and fucked around with "alternative treatments" while the cancer spread beyond help.

[Botany]

8. Jobs had pancreatic cancer

n/t

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Yes but...

He didn't have the type you are thinking of.

[Dream Girl]

10. The cancer he had was one of the few treatable forms of pancreatic cancer

[politicat]

13. Yup. Solidarity.

Smother's second hubs got a prostate stage II dx fairly young (under 60). Totally treatable, but came with consequences he or they didn't want (ED). So they spent two years under the care of a quack who used audible spectrum sound waves (not HIFU, which is borderline effective and less so than cryro; this was much earlier; Black Sabbath would have been more effective...) and took way too much of their money. Didn't quit smoking or drinking... By the time Quack took his teenage Nth plural wife off to Colonia Le Baron to escape the Feds, 2nd Hubs was stage IV and multi-metastatic.

Smother to this day believes that prostates are filtration organs, along the lines of kidneys and livers. And blames keeping his cell in his pocket rather than the smoking and his lead soldering (electronics machinist by profession.)

Cancer quacks peddle an alternative form of suicide.

[queentonic]

11. Question

If US medicine is so good, why are we ranked 31st in the world for longevity while Japan is number one and their medicine is based on herbals?

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Germany and France use "herbal" medicines also.

and the usual chemical drugs, I hasten to add.

[Humanist_Activist]

15. What the hell does "based on herbals" mean?

They use the same conventional medicine we do, if they didn't they would have death rates similar to what everyone had before the advent of modern medicine.

In addition, the reason we rank lower is because people lack access to medicine in the United States because it becomes cost prohibitive. Countries like Japan have more robust systems to alleviate costs to individuals, to provide a type of Universal Health Care.

[still_one]

17. That is a false argument using longevity as a measure to imply inferrior medicine.

Diet, heredity, and other factors come into play, along with the fact that Japan is a homogeneous society, while the U.S. is not

WHO rates Japan with the highest life expectancy for both sexes at 83.7 verses the U.S. at 79.3, but as stated a lot of factors go into those numbers.

Japan also has a highly advanced medical system, with the latest various treatments and technologies.

[paleotn]

22. It's the best in the world, if you can afford it.

Though ACA has cut the gap, many American's still don't have adequate coverage and for those that do, the out of pocket costs for major treatment can rack up quickly. Thus, unless you can afford it, many don't seek treatment until later in the disease process, when outcomes aren't as good. Add to that, the diet and lifestyle of the average American is absolutely appalling.

Japan's health system is NOT based on herbals. It may be supplemented by them in some cases to a greater degree than ours, but Japan still practices modern medicine... because modern medicine works. Unless there's scientific evidence to back up the claims, "herbal" is nothing by horseshit and snake oil.

[Dreamer Tatum]

28. That's an indicator that our medicine is stupendously good

Japanese people don't eat like trash cans. We do, yet we still have a good life expectancy.

[still_one]

14. The treatement is changing drastically, and I suspect within 10 years immunotherapy will be common

place.

Keytruda from Merck, Opdivo from Bristol Myers, Novartis, and a host of others are changing the whole course of how cancer is and will be treated

[NickB79]

20. Yes, because it will have been vetted by science as effective

The study in the OP is referencing treatments that have been studied by science, found to be ineffective, and yet still pushed by quacks as bonafide treatments.

[zentrum]

16. Thanks for information.

[SunSeeker]

19. Desperate cancer patients are easy prey for charlatans, sadly. nt

[flotsam]

25. Am I the only one

who noticed that this is clearly marked as an advertisement (Right under Lifeline)???

[fishwax]

27. those labels are for the banner and side ads, not the article

They took a while to load on my browser, but eventually came up as ads for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

[Sanity Claws]

26. How many of the people seeking alternative treatment

were told that they were at stage IV or terminal? I wonder whether the difference in result is due to a different population being examined.

Frankly if I were told I was terminal, I might try alternative treatments and avoid all the pain/side effects of chemo.

[harun]

30. Yes, I think this raises many questions beyond just the survival rate. Everyone

dies eventually.