{"id":1480,"date":"2020-11-18T12:25:46","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T11:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youtumor.org\/id-like-to-know-more\/other-problems-for-patients-on-therapy\/alternative-therapies\/"},"modified":"2021-01-13T19:04:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T18:04:40","slug":"alternative-therapies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/id-like-to-know-more\/other-problems-for-patients-on-therapy\/alternative-therapies\/","title":{"rendered":"ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The name “alternative therapies” is given to all those treatments that have not undergone scientific <\/span><\/strong>experimentation, but which are proposed as anti-cancer therapies on the basis of some general principle that has not been demonstrated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is very slippery ground. Indeed, human beings have a very strong tendency to believe<\/span><\/strong> in miraculous cures, and even more so when they are under great stress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If all the standard therapies have proved unsuccessful, we should not condemn a person for turning to these alternatives, as irrational as they may be. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all other cases, by contrast, alternative therapies can be very dangerous<\/span><\/strong>. Indeed, while diets and supplements aimed at supporting the cancer patient during therapy never cause any harm, alternative therapies can be harmful – even very harmful. <\/p>\n\n\n

Patients and their relatives can easily be taken in by misleading advertising or fake news.<\/strong><\/span> This may prompt them to resort to treatments that are not based on any scientific evidence whatsoever and to abandon therapies of scientifically proven efficacy. The result may be enormously harmful, and even fatal. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

In such cases, damage can be caused in two ways: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. firstly, these unproven methods may have direct toxic effects; high doses of vitamin C, snake venom, coffee enemas, cyanide, poisonous mushrooms, extreme fasting, etc. are examples of highly toxic “treatments” that can be found at the far end of the spectrum of at least 40,000 alternative therapies, very few of which are harmless.<\/li>\n
  2. secondly, the patient no longer receives therapies of proven scientific efficacy. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    In addition, there is another consideration; many alternative therapies are very very expensive. <\/span><\/p>\n

    In short, whenever standard medicine can offer proven benefits<\/strong><\/span>, even if modest, we must always rigorously oppose the use of these alternative therapies.<\/p>\n

    If, however, the patient is in an advanced stage of the disease and no longer has any hope, we may adopt<\/strong><\/span> a more understanding attitude and help him to avoid resorting to dangerous alternative therapies.  A balanced and useful reference for sound advices of potentially helpful remedies : https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/cancer\/in-depth\/cancer-treatment\/art-20047246<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The name “alternative therapies” is given to all those treatments that have not undergone scientific experimentation, but which are proposed as anti-cancer therapies on the basis of some general principle that has not been demonstrated. This is very slippery ground. Indeed, human beings have a very strong tendency to believe in miraculous cures, and even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":1474,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1480","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4705,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1480\/revisions\/4705"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}