What's False In This? Anti-Cancer Email...

Factual Questions
1

My Dad forwarded me this email, and it reads kinda like an urban-legend-infused chain mail letter. Are there any direct falsities in this?

Read:

News from John Hopkins

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHN HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .

Cancer Update from John Hopkins:

  1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

  2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.

  3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

  4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

  5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

  6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

  7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

  8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

  9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

  10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

  11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water- best to drink purified water, or filtered to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

  1. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic build-up.

  2. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

  3. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Floressence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells.

Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

  1. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, un-forgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

  2. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment – exercising daily and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

PLEASE READ ON

  1. No plastic containers in microwave.
  2. No water bottles in freezer.
  3. No plastic wrap in microwave.
    Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies.

Don’t freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital was on a TV program to explain this health hazard .

He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat.

He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body.

Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

2

At least several of the ancillary statements have been debunked on SDMB in the past.

Plus, Johns Hopkins is not John Hopkins.

ETA: Oh: Here.

3

Probably easier to highlight what is TRUE in the email. At first glance the only thing I can find is there IS a disease called “Cancer”.

4

Thank you. I love rebuking my father!

Sorry if this was mere interference!

5

Some of that e-mail looks like it was lifted directly from The Dread Tomato Addiction. Yes, it’s true that cancer cells use sugar for fuel. All cells use sugar for fuel. If you cut out all sugars from your diet, and all foods which are converted into sugars by your body, your cancer will surely die.

6

I wouldn’t even say this is true! Different types of cancer are different diseases. It’s like saying, “There is an animal called Monkey”.

7

In addition, all cancer cells rely upon chemicals known as amino acids to repair themselves, grow, and replicate. If you remove all proteins from your diet, from whatever source, your cancer will surely die.

8

Oh man. I know it has already been said, but you should just tell your dad that he could have stopped reading at the third “John” Hopkins. It amazes me that so many people still don’t know the name of one of the world’s greatest medical facilities.

9

I used to have a bumper sticker that said “It’s Johnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Hopkins!”

10

It looked like just the standard wealth of misinformation, believable at first glance to those unaware of these issues, until this:

:eek:

11

Is “John Hopkins” the author of a health-plan book? Or maybe an Infomercial star?

12

Acidic, you say? Everyone knows we shouild only consume alkaline food and drink! :rolleyes:

Er what? Salt is white. AFAIK the only thing added to table salt is anti-caking agent and maybe iodine. But OH NO, now you say it has a CHEMICAL added to it? :eek:

13

Salt often comes in a grey colour, due to impurities. It wouldn’t surprise me the slightest bit to learn that dihydrogen monoxide is casually used to remove the impurities in order to sell a more appealing white salt (and dihydrogen monoxide most certainly plays a significant part in cancerous cells growth).

14

Without dihydrogen monoxide, your cancer cells will surely die, etc. :smiley:

The part about chemo destroying healthy tissue as well as cancerous tissue is true, isn’t it?

15

Of course, radio-therapy and chemo-therapy destroy the healthy cells. They use radiation and chemicals, which healthy people will never encounter! But depriving the cancerous cells of nutrients? No way will that deprive the healthy cells! Because, obviously, cancerous cells and healthy cells can’t possibly run on the same nutrients!

… Is a diet rather high in carbohydrates…many of which will be simple sugars. Most of the rest will be converted into simple sugars by the body.

Ugh, this whole email just…it makes no sense.

16

Yes, it’s true. Chemo means poison, after all. But antibiotics can destroy healthy tissue, too, and putting alcohol on a wound certainly kills healthy tissue. The whole point is that there’s a lot more of you than there is of it, so we can use toxins to kill a whole lot of it off without losing too much of you.

17

Porn star.

ETA: If you don’t stop doing that, you’ll get cancer.

18

But dihydrogen monoxide isn’t as bad as ‘silent killer’ - diatomic allotrope of oxygen. Superficially similar to regular oxygen, it has key-role in metabolic functions of cancer cells. Laboratory tests showed that removing it from air caused rapid death of all cancer tissue.

As well as death of all specimens.

19

So… cancer eats mucus? Like those cartoon mucus people who live in your lungs in those commercials? Because that would be a cool commercial.

20

These are obviously the reasons that Lance Armstrong got cancer of the nads.

Oviously this one’s true. After all, just look at the results of John Wayne’s autopsy :dubious: