While some scoff at side effects and treat them less than they are, other patients take them seriously and try to reduce the magnanimity of them as much as possible if they continue to take chemotherapy. Maia De La Baume, a journalist in the New York Times, reports on Dr. Servan-Schreiber's rehabilitation techniques. "In detailing his "natural approaches" to addressing anxiety without drugs or psychoanalysis, he discussed heart rhythm, exposure to light, acupuncture, visualization, medication, yoga, nutrition (including emphasis on omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and some vegetables), exercise, and "emotional communication" with people and pets" (De La Baume, 2). These methods simply recycle the "junk" or the dead cancer cells into new normal cells. This keeps the process going as long as the host system's defenses can hold up during the chemotherapy. Gretchen Reynolds, another journalist from the NewYork Times, reports on how maintained lifestyles fuel this "circle of life"."Through a process with the expressive name of autophagy, or "self-eating", cells create specialized membranes that engulf junk in the cell's cytoplasm and carry it out to a part of the cell known as the lysosome, where the trash is broken apart and then burned up for energy" (Reynolds, 1). Autophagy is a vital component in removing these cancerous cells, however with a negligent lifestyle autophagy can become fatal."In recent years, some scientists began to suspect that faulty autophagy mechanisms contribute to the development of a range of diseases, including diabetes, muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's and cancer" (Reynolds, 1). All the sudden these little side effects turn into something much bigger and much greater--and by then its too late. But the conventional ways and natural ways come hand in hand for some patients. De La Baume advises"[Dr. Servan-Schreiber] said his approach was not intended to replace traditional methods like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which he believed were the most important weapons against cancer, but to supplement them" (De La Baume, 2). It is important to view all the options before jumping at one familiar sounding method. Otherwise the patient has done themselves harm and no help because of a single hasty decision.
Although patients may find it easier to resort to the conventional methods, these methods aren't always an 100 percent guarantee. For example, Edie Littlefield Sunby, a New York Times journalist and a recent cancer patient, took chemotherapy in hopes to quickly kill her gallbladder cancer. "As a result, in the past four and a half years [she] undergone GS treatments, every three to four weeks, and [her] body has ingested and processed more than 500,000 milligrams of chemotherapy" (Sunby, 1). Sunby, who was and still is quite athletic and leads a very healthy lifestyle, was shocked when finding out her cancer later transformed into something much worse: liver cancer that was inoperable. However, she still continued with her same healthy routine, and eventually coped with the liver cancer inside her. It's not gone, but her body, internally of course, was healthy enough to keep moving along with minor amounts of pain. Another patient, David Smith, carried himself in a similar way during his treatment. For 2 years he fought against lung cancer, and frequently went back and forth for chemotherapy and some radiation. During the treatment he exercised daily, and struggled to tame his weakness for meat. For David, life still holds it's struggles, but he continues on anyways. Did chemotherapy really do that much for him? He answered "[chemotherapy] was a factor of me getting back on my feet--but that wasn't the main thing. I had a purpose, and that was to stay alive to protect my family. I wasn't going to go down that easy. I looked around and saw all these people with me who just looked already gone--I didn't want to be like them one bit" (Smith, 1). Willpower is essential for any method to work. It is evident that "[if] we all have potential cancer lying dormant in us," [Servan-Schreiber] wrote in Anti Cancer, "each of us also has a body designed to fight the process of tumor development" " (De La Baume, 1). Without the determination to keep on living, no method can be effective, and it won't even be close to full-proof.
