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How to help your body help itself
In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, Anticancer: A New Way of Life, French psychiatrist and neuroscientist David Servan-Schreiber describes how he survived cancer with medical treatment and by boosting his immune system’s natural defenses through diet, exercise and a positive outlook on life.
I have cancer.
I was diagnosed with a brain tumor for the first time 15 years ago. After surgery and chemotherapy, I asked my oncologist for advice. What should I do to lead a healthy life and what precautions could I take to avoid a relapse? “There’s nothing special to do. Lead your life normally. We’ll do MRI scans at regular intervals and if your tumor comes back, we’ll detect it early,” replied this leading light of modern medicine.
“But aren’t there exercises I could do, a diet to follow or to avoid? Shouldn’t I be working on my mental outlook?” I asked. My colleague’s answer bewildered me. “In this domain, do what you like. It can’t do you any harm. But we don’t have any scientific evidence that any of these approaches can prevent a relapse.”
What my doctor meant was that oncology is an extraordinarily complex field that’s changing at breakneck speed. He was already hard-pressed to keep up with the most recent diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
I know this problem as an academic physician. Each in our own specialty, we’re rarely aware of fundamental discoveries recently published in prestigious journals such as Science or Nature. Not until they’ve been the subject of large-scale human studies do we take note. Still, these breakthroughs may enable us to protect ourselves long before they’ve led to new drugs or protocols that will become mainstream treatments tomorrow.
When I found out I had a brain tumor, I was 31 years old, young and ambitious. I’d been out of my native France for more than 10 years, living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With a friend, I ran a laboratory of functional brain imaging funded by the National Institutes of Health. Our goal was to understand the mechanisms of thought by linking them to the workings of the brain. We had a new theory—on the role of the prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia—and were rising stars of American psychiatry.
I discovered overnight a world that looked familiar but, in fact, I knew little about—the world of the patient. I’d known casually the neurosurgeon to whom I was immediately referred. We’d had patients in common, and he was interested in my research. After my tumor was discovered, our conversations changed completely. No more allusions to my scientific experiments. I was asked to lay bare the intimate details of my life, describe my symptoms in full. We discussed my headaches, nausea, the chances I would have seizures. Stripped of my professional attributes, I joined the ranks of ordinary patients. I felt the ground giving way beneath me.
I clung as best I could to my status as a physician. Rather pitifully, I wore my white coat with my name and degrees embroidered in blue lettering to my appointments. In my hospital, where hierarchy was often pronounced, the nurses and orderlies who knew your status called you “doctor” respectfully. But when you were on a stretcher and no longer wearing your white coat, you became “Mr. So-and-so” or, more often, “honey.”
Like everyone else, you waited in the waiting room that as a doctor you’d breezed through, head high, avoiding eye contact with patients so as not to be waylaid. Like everyone else, you were taken to the examination room in a wheelchair. What did it matter if the rest of the time you moved around these same corridors on the run? “It’s hospital policy,” the orderly would say. You resigned yourself to being treated as someone who couldn’t be trusted to walk.
I entered a colorless world. It was a world where people were afforded no recognized qualifications, no profession. A world in which nobody was interested in what you did in life or what might be going through your mind. Often the only interesting thing about you was your latest scan. I began to feel frightened that I was among people defined primarily by their disease. I was afraid of becoming invisible. Afraid of no longer existing, even before dying. Perhaps I was going to die soon, but I still wanted to live fully up to the end.
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I was thrilled to read about Dr. Servan-Schreiber’s experience using nutrition to heal his body following his cancer treatment. I was captivated by his experience and excited to know another doctor has recognized the immense importance of nutrition combined with positive attitude when it comes to healing the body.
I was diagnosed with Stage II Rectal Cancer in March 2007, and I also treated my body with a nutrition therapy, specifically, with a plant based diet focusing on a high percentage of plant based protein. Only I did the opposite of Dr. Servan-Schreiber and did my nutritional treatment prior to the chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. And what were the results? When the tumor and surrounding tissues were removed and biopsied, not a trace of cancer was found! These results are unprecedented among the physicians I work with at Guthrie Medical/Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, PA (one of the top 100 hospitals in the United States).
Within the first couple months, it became clear to me the cancer diagnosis had been a gift; my only hope was that the gift included longevity. The gift itself showed up was in countless ways: the opportunity for me to give up my need to do everything on my own and more importantly, giving up how I believed the world and life should be; the immeasurable generosity of so many people in our community; the opportunity to experience my treatment and healing while watching my new born baby grow; and the privilege of being married to a woman who shared my commitment to being joyful and playful regardless of our circumstances.
I have blogged my experience from the start at the following URL: www.bertscholl.blogspot.com Naturally, the initial purpose of the blog was to keep family and friends updated regarding my health status, my treatment, and what my experience was like. As time went on, I began to use the blog to publicize the effectiveness of my choice of nutritional treatment. As I received more and more positive responses and encouragement from my readers, I found myself committed to the transformation our cultural conversation about cancer - here in the U.S. - from one of fear and dread, to one that empowers those of us who have cancer, as well as our friends and loved ones. (I should acknowledge that my commitment is not only to those of us in the U.S., it's just that I have no experience with cultural conversations about cancer, outside of the U.S.)
I began my nutritional treatment on May 14, 2007 at the Gerson Clinic in Baja, Mexico then returned home and continued the therapy with the support of my incredible wife, as well as other family and friends. Due to the location of the tumor, I did a modified version of the therapy for a total of ten months, at which point the cancer had grown about a millimeter and painfully into a nearby nerve. As the pain became too much, I switched to the traditional cancer treatment.
For the complete story of my experience, please visit my blog at: www.bertscholl.blogspot.com I invite you to leave comments and/or questions at the end of any of the entries and I assure you I will read them and the questions I will respond to.
posted by RobertScholl on 10/25/2008 10:12 pm