Best Prostate Cancer Treatment

Prostate Cancer Treatments

Of the prostate cancer treatments available, your doctor will recommend the treatment option that is best for you. The decision will depend on your overall health and how far advanced your cancer is. If the treatment recommended for you is not something you're comfortable with, for instance you may not be comfortable with external beam radiation therapy; you can give your doctor your opinion. It's important that you are at ease with the decision. Discuss it with your family as well, particularly the possible side effects and cure rate.

Oncologists specialize in certain fields. The one you are referred to will be a specialist in the treatment prescribed for you.

Watching and Waiting

The first strategy in most treatment plans is watching and waiting. The signs and symptoms that may indicate prostate cancer are also indications of other problems such as an infection in or close to your prostate. Watching and waiting is to determine which condition your symptoms are from.

During this period, blood samples will be tested for PSA levels and tissue samples may be sent for a biopsy.Elevated levels of the prostate specific antigen may point to a less serious medical problem. This is why a tissue sample may be taken; to verify or to rule out the presence of cancer. Remember that early treatment usually has a better possibility of cure.

Surgery

Men who are the best candidates for prostate cancer surgery are the ones most likely to achieve a successful recovery from the procedure. These are men with good overall health and who do not have secondary conditions that may interfere with recovery like heart problems. Surgery can lead to some serious side effects including incontinence and impotence.

Radiation

There are 3 different types of radiation therapies. External beam therapy is typically a stream of X-rays aimed at your pelvis from a device outside the body. The X-rays burn away cancer cells through repeated treatments over several weeks.

An alternative external beam therapy is Proton Beam Therapy. Instead of using X-rays, protons, which are charged particles or ions, are streamed at your pelvis, again from a device outside your body.

Brachytherapy is the introduction of several radioactive seeds directly into your prostate. They are implanted with a series of injections while you are under a general anesthetic.

All of the radiation treatments above work on the principle of burning cancer cells away with high energy particles. Radiation treatment can take place over time, and is subject to the same side effects as surgery.

Hormone Therapies

Hormone therapy is a method of chemical treatment that seeks to alter your hormone levels to halt or slow the growth of cancer cells. This procedure is temporary because most patients develop a resistance to the effectiveness of the injections after about 2 years.

Hormone therapy is not a cure and is usually recommended when the patient has a higher stage (T-3 or T-4) of prostate cancer. The idea is to prolong the patient's life and slow the cancer's growth.

Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy is a procedure where, during surgery, your prostate is frozen and then thawed to destroy cancer cells.

HIFU

High Intensity Focused Ultrasound uses focused ultrasound to heat and evaporate diseased tissue out of your prostate. The device is aimed using an MRI scan and targeted tissue is heated to 80°C. The result is tissue that can no longer reproduce and so cannot grow any further. Healthy tissue is spared because the effective area of the ultrasound pulse is very small and only a few cubic mm at a time can be targeted. It is done on an out-patient basis and does not affect the quality of life that some of the other treatments do. HIFU also results in fewer significant side effects than surgery or radiation. HIFU for prostate cancer is highly effective and can often be used for recurrent cancer. This is not an option, however, once the cancer has spread beyond the prostate.

By Nancy Stonecutter

Why cooking with a microwave destroys cancer-fighting nutrients in food and promotes nutritional deficiencies

(NaturalNews) Microwaves absolutely decimate the nutritional value of your food, destroying the very vitamins and phytonutrients that prevent disease and support good health. Previous studies have shown that as much as 98% of the cancer-fighting nutrients in broccoli, for example, are destroyed by microwaving.

To understand why, you have to understand the nature of vitamins and phytonutrients (plant-based nutrients). These are very delicate molecules which are fragile. They are easily destroyed by heat, which is why raw plant foods contain more plant nutrients than cooked foods. Carotenoids, antioxidants and other molecules like DIM (in broccoli) or anthocyanins (in purple corn) are all easily destroyed by microwave energy.

Microwaves "nuke" your food at a cellular level

Microwaving is the worst way to cook foods because microwaves excite the water molecules inside whatever you're cooking, causing heat to be formed from the inside out. This results in a cell-by-cell "nuking" of the food (such as broccoli, carrots, etc.), causing the near-total molecular decomposition of the vitamins and phytonutrients that promote disease.

Microwaved food is not merely "dead" food at every level, it is food that has been molecularly deconstructed, leaving nothing but empty calories, fiber and minerals. Virtually the entire vitamin and phytonutrient content has been destroyed.

Anybody who says microwaving food is a healthy way to cook is wildly ignorant of nutrition and cooking methods. While steaming vegetables is, indeed, a good method for some veggies to help make certain nutrients more bioavailable, microwaving destroys veggies from the inside out at a cellular level.

Don't be fooled by appearances

What's really deceptive about microwave cooking is that the food still appears to be basically the same, but at the cellular level, it's like a nuclear war has taken place. The actual molecular structure has been decimated. If you could see microwaved foods with a powerful microscope, you'd never eat them again because you would recognize just what a nutritional wasteland they really are.

If you want to eat in a healthy way, make sure a significant part of your diet is raw plants. It's okay to eat some steamed, stir-fried or even grilled veggies, but when grilling foods, avoid burning them because all burned parts contain toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that promote colon cancer.

Personally, I am absolutely astonished that more people don't already know all this. I'm even having to talk with my own staff about these issues, as they don't seem to know the full story on microwave cooking. Spread the word: Microwaves promote death because they turn nutritious, healthy food into empty, decimated calories. I gave up using a microwave well over a decade ago, and I don't even own one.

Remember, a person who cooks a lot of their food with microwaves will inevitably have chronic nutritional deficiencies that promote cancer, diabetes, bone diseases, loss of brain function, heart disease and many other health problems. The least healthy people of any society are typically the ones who frequently use the microwave oven to "nuke" their foods

naturalnews

Is Graviola a Miracle Cancer Cure?

It is not uncommon to find people searching for natural remedies for cancer and natural cancer cure, but how effective are such natural treatments when it comes to a life threatening disease like cancer. Can you really take the course of natural cancer cures without opting for chemotherapy? The popular belief is that complete cancer cure is only possible with radiation therapy or chemotherapy since this kills cancer cells, but you can prevent cancer from recurring by using natural remedies for cancer. Recent research has shown that graviola, also known as paw-paw or custard apple, may be helpful in natural cancer treatment although no significant medical research exists around this.
The notion that graviola extracts can become a natural remedy for cancer stems from the composition of the plant, which includes a phytochemical called annonaceous acetogenins. People from countries like Africa, South America, and South East Asia have used the bark, root, and leaves of the tree to cure ailments such as depression and arthritis. Graviola extracts have also been known to treat certain kind of infectious diseases caused by viruses. Though cancer does not fall into this domain, Cancer Help UK mentioned how graviola extracts have been used to kill certain types of liver and breast cancer cells which were resistant to chemotherapy. The problem is that no large scale studies have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of graviola as a natural cancer cure.
Oncologists and other medical researchers do not support the use of graviola for the treatment of cancer because it can cause nerve changes, resulting in symptoms that are typically seen in Alzheimer patients. The National Institute of Health in the United States published a medical paper by JL McLaughlin, CJ Chang, and NH Oberlies about how graviola extracts were used to kill drug resistant mammary carcinogenic (cancer inducing) cells. The study was positive but no further research was conducted on the subject.
According to Cancer Tutor, the use of graviola with alternative natural cancer cure, Protocel, can increase the effectiveness of Protocel but it is a risky treatment that is not recommended at all for brain cancer patients. Graviola attacks cancer cells by cutting off their energy supply. The problem is that graviola extracts are easily available over the counter and most cancer patients are taking self prescribed medicines. It is extremely important to consult a doctor and take medication as recommended by them. A lot of oncologists are gravitating towards combining cancer therapy with natural remedies for cancer to prevent cancer from resurfacing. However, for stage III and stage IV patients, chemotherapy is the only option for increasing their life span.
Apart from inflicting symptoms similar to Alzheimer's, graviola can also result in the destruction of digestive and intestinal lining, especially in people who do not have any parasitic ailments. Most manufacturers provide a list of symptoms that may occur post graviola intake but caution must be advised. It is important not to trust sources on the internet blindly, unless supported by a recognized cancer research institute.

Lisa Sequera