Do you know what really annoys me?

Medical misinformation. It’s dangerous—even immoral.

I understand that websites and news services need to drive eyes to their articles. And I can put up with a certain number of flashing ads and screaming headlines populating my favorite websites.

But I draw the line when it comes to health. False promises can do significant harm.

And no subject is more prone to exaggeration than cancer drugs.

Today, I’m going to tell you why you should be extremely skeptical of the next miracle cure you come across.

But I’m also going to tell you the best way to deal with cancer. Indeed—the best way to avoid it altogether.

So put down the hyperbolic headlines that tempt your eye. And get ready to hear the truth instead.

There is no miracle cure

JAMA Oncology just published a study of articles about new cancer drugs, and it found a startling pattern.

A dizzying number of articles about cancer drugs come with huge superlatives. Specifically, the following ten terms: “Miracle,” “game-changer,” “revolutionary,” “cure,” “groundbreaking,” “transformative,” “life saver,” “home run,” “marvel,” and “breakthrough.”

Here’s the first problem: 50% of the drugs described aren’t approved by the FDA. They aren’t yet considered safe—and may never get to market.

And fully 14% of the drugs have never even been tested on humans. Articles are postulating from petri dishes and rat reactions!

If you follow medical literature as much as I do, you know that most drugs fall flat once they make it to human trial. To make huge claims about a drug this early in its testing is irresponsible.

Worse, it can mislead people of the true situation. If you have cancer—or, especially, if you don’t—you can become overly dependent on medical technology to save you.

That can interfere with making the real changes you need to truly improve your health, or even save your life.

This is what upsets me most. All these promises of miracle cures give the impression that drugs are the answer.

They aren’t. Even useful drugs are uni-modal—they only work in one way.

The very best, proven drugs we have can’t work alone, except in very rare cases. Combinations are required—sometimes including radiation, multiple forms of chemotherapy, environmental and lifestyle changes, and surgery.

No single drug can be a cure—not at our current level of technology and understanding.

And even taken in conjunction, a number of uni-modal drugs don’t work well together.

I sometimes compare this to baking chocolate chip cookies. You can’t make cookies with only chocolate chips.

Likewise, you can’t make chocolate chip cookies by cooking the butter, the dough, the chips, and the sugar separately. But that’s what taking multiple drugs is like.

Our “cures” don’t work well together—they do a poor job making the body resistant to cancer.

Instead, you need a multi-modal answer.

How To Prevent Cancer?

The answer to curing cancer—and avoiding it in the first place—is found in nutrition and lifestyle.

Avoid sugar

Cancer cells feed on sugar. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize proving that cancer cells love the sweet stuff.

In fact, cancer loves sugar so much, that’s how we find and measure it. Before a cancer test, patients are told to stop eating for 24 hours (to cleanse their system of sugar). Then we inject a radioactive dye that’s full of sugar into the patient’s veins.

The cancer cells love sugar so much, they eat it all up. The radioactive dye then shows up on a PET scan, showing us just how much cancer there is, and where it is.

That’s called the SUV—the Sugar Uptake Value. The higher your SUV, the more cancer you’ve got.

Yet, even though cancer cells love sugar, I have not found a single patient whose oncologist tells them to avoid sugar.

That’s horrifying! When I get a patient with cancer, I immediately cut them off from all sugar and refined carbohydrates (which turn into sugar in the body).

If and when the cancer abates, I may relax restrictions a bit. But the best way to combat cancer is to starve it.

Likewise, the best way to avoid getting cancer in the first place is to limit its food from the beginning.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across patients who, after receiving some big health shock, change their lives around their disease.

That’s great—but, if you make those changes before you get sick, you can avoid the disease in the first place.

Small changes in behavior can lead to big changes in health. And if you have the will to be healthy, you can greatly improve your odds by making changes before they’re absolutely necessary.

Diet For Cancer

Limiting sugar and carbohydrates is a good start. But to turn that small change into a big change, you want to increase healthy foods as well.

Drinking enough water and getting proper nutrients is, of course, necessary for a healthy functioning body.

And making sure you get certain compounds in abundance can help as well.

I often talk about the power of curcumin, found in turmeric, and available in supplement form.

Unlike uni-modal drugs, curcumin has 15 different modes of increasing your health. And many of those help prevent and fight cancer.

Exercise

A motionless wheel is more prone to rust.

Likewise, a body that isn’t in good use provides fertile ground for dysfunction.

And cancer usually grows out of dysfunction.

If you want to avoid or survive cancer, don’t put your faith in inflated miracle drugs. Instead, take proper care of your body, cut most sugar out of your diet and limit carbohydrates, and take up a sensible exercise program.

You’ll give yourself a much better chance—in the short-run, and in the long as well.

Last Updated: June 23, 2021
Originally Published: December 9, 2015