Traditional Oncology v. Integrative Oncology:
In an age where our phones give us the power to search and learn about a topic in a matter of seconds, Lyndsay and I continue to find ourselves sharing our stories of “integrative” or “alternative” medicine and health, with the constant follow-up questions of “what does integrative mean?” or “why haven’t we heard of this?” Our experience is that of caregivers to our husbands with cancer. Navigating the medical system was something we were forced into. Intuition, wisdom, desperation for control, and that little voice whispering that there had to be more drove us to look outside the traditional model of our healthcare system. Like many of you, we knew very little about “integrative” medicine, let alone “integrative oncology.” So, let’s start with some definitions.
The National Cancer Institute defines Oncology as, “a branch of medicine that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It includes medical oncology (the use of chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and other drugs to treat cancer), radiation oncology (the use of radiation therapy to treat cancer), and surgical oncology (the use of surgery and other procedures to treat cancer).”
The Society for Integrative Oncology defines Integrative Oncology as, “a patient-centered, evidence-informed field of cancer that utilizes mind and body practices, natural products, and/or lifestyle modifications from different traditions alongside conventional cancer treatments. Integrative oncology aims to optimize health, quality of life, and clinical outcomes across the cancer care continuum and to empower people to prevent cancer and become active participants before, during, and beyond cancer treatment.”
Oncology, as most of us understand it, is rooted in western medicine focusing on evidence-based medical practices to diagnose and treat diseases. Evidence-based medicine according to the National Cancer Institute means, “A systematic approach to medicine in which doctors and other health care professionals use the best available scientific evidence from clinical research to help make decisions about the care of individual patients.” In the oncology world you will also hear the phrase “standard of care.” This is the model that the United States follows which aims to standardize care to all patients by prescribing “accepted treatments” for a certain type of disease. The treatment must be accepted by both medical authorities and widely used by healthcare professionals. A treatment deemed the “standard of care” typically becomes the prescribed treatment for that specific disease as a result of randomized clinical trials, research, and clinical experience. For example, the standard of care for the World Health Organization (WHO) classified grade 3 or grade 4 gliomas (aka brain cancer) is surgery, 30 rounds of radiation with adjuvant temozolomide (oral chemo), and then post radiation temozolomide at a larger dose on days 1-5 of a 28 day cycle. The duration of the cycles is dependent on tolerance of the patient and advice of the oncologist, but typically a minimum of six months to 18 months with some patients continuing for longer durations. Surveillance MRIs are performed every 8 weeks, and if the patient is stable (meaning no changes) after one year, then duration between scans is extended. The standard of care makes sense because it ensures all patients, regardless of age, socioeconomic class, or ethnicity receive treatment that has been researched and proven to have effectiveness, and administration is not geographically limited. The downside is each patient is bio-individual, and the standard of care is typically driven by the final pathology diagnosis, not the person.
Oncology ultimately means treating symptoms of disease using drugs, radiation and surgery, rather than treating the cause of the disease. The practice of Integrative Oncology takes a look at the whole body, understands that every part of us is connected, and then seeks to use lifestyle medicine like dietary modifications, stress reduction, exercise, supplements and mind-body practices (Stacy D’Andrew, M.D., Mayo Clinic medical and integrative oncologist), in addition to technology, repurposed medications, therapies and modalities to support the body and guide it back to its innate ability to heal.
Why does it matter to consider both types of treatment?
A cancer few facts to consider as we dive into the various types of treatment.
“In the United States, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.” – American Cancer Society
“2024 – the first year the United States expects more than 2 million new cases of cancer.” – American Cancer Society
To put that into prospective, that’s 5,500-cancer diagnosis a day…
“In 2019, the incidence of early-onset cancer (i.e. <50 years old) was 3.26 million, a 79.1% increase from 1990 – BMJ Oncology
“Only 5-10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90-95% have their roots in the environment and lifestyle… Environmental factors include cigarette smoking, diet, alcohol, sun exposure, environmental pollutants, infections, stress, obesity, and physical activity…” – PubMed Central
It matters because we have some control in our outcomes through prevention and treatment of cancer. If 90-95% of cancer is caused by environment and lifestyle, logic tells us that simply treating the disease with chemo, radiation and surgery may treat the immediate tumor or proliferation of cells causing symptoms, but will not fix the environment which allowed the cancer to grow in the first place. If that is true, then cancer treatment should also include a plan to correct the terrain of the body. Dr. Nasha Winters, Naturopathic, integrative oncologist and cancer survivor, and nutrition therapist Jess Higgins Kelley, in their book The Metabolic Approach to Cancer: The Optimal Terrain Ten Protocol to Reboot Cellular Health”, explains the metabolic theory of cancer and how it can be prevented and managed by correcting the terrain of the body.
We live in Eastern Colorado where the biggest industry is agriculture. The example I often use to explain the terrain theory relates to soil. If a farmer is planting a crop, and the crop fails to grow and produce as it should, the farmer is not going to treat the attributes of the plant like the leaves, stalk, or head. The farmer would instead test the soil to understand its quality, to see if it was missing nutrients or to understand if there was an overexposure to toxins. With that information, the farmer would then provide the correct inputs to change the quality of the soil, and thus change the expression of the plant. The same concept applies to a body with cancer. Treating the tumor, or the physical manifestation of the disease, is simply that – treating the tumor. It is not treating the soil in which the tumor grew. Integrative oncology therefore looks at the body as a whole, tests to understand the terrain imbalances, and then prescribes natural or supportive treatments to change the soil.
Why do we believe it’s important?
To be clear, we are proponents of both camps of medicine. In our journeys we helped our husbands to incorporate both. Traditional oncology and integrative oncology each have their time and place, and they work well together. Unfortunately, once you receive a cancer diagnosis, you are thrown into the medical oncology system and are likely told you need surgery, radiation, chemo, or all of the above. And you need to decide quickly. We are told the statistics about the cancer type, and the fear of our mortality usually incentivizes most people to enter the system, not ask questions, trust their doctor and the science, and deal with the side effects as they come. If we do ask what else we can do to support ourselves or our loved ones, we are often met with theories that diet doesn’t matter, supplements can cause adverse interactions, and alternative treatments have never been studied for effectiveness.
However, the reality is that every person is a bio individual. Every person’s cancer type, pathology, genetic code, lifestyle, support system, spiritual beliefs, and mindset are all different, and it may be beneficial to use both systems of treatment. In navigating both systems with our husbands, we have seen the power and drawbacks of both. In our experiences, we’ve needed both. Brady needed emergency brain surgery to remove a tumor that would have continued to impair him, if not taken his life. Derek received a stem cell transplant (bone marrow transplant) that likely extended his life for several years. And still, there were huge costs for receiving the treatments from the traditional oncology system. Chemo quite literally creates a toxic environment in the body, damages DNA, and inflames healthy cells. Radiation for brain cancer causes fatigue, hair loss, and necrosis or dead brain tissue that can cause headaches, cognitive issues, deficits, and swelling among many other side effects. And yet in our experience, we were able to offset many of the side effects through diet, exercise, supplements, grounding, sunlight, high dose Vitamin C, hyperbaric oxygen chamber, acupuncture, light and sound frequency technology, and slowly changing the terrain of the body to let itself heal. These “alternative” modalities are not recognized as supportive, but our experience tells us differently.
It’s our mission to share the truth of our experience. There is no judgment in the path chosen because we each have the beautiful freedom of CHOICE. Our stance at Wellrado is that every person should be able to clearly understand their treatment options and then consent to the treatment they choose to receive. Informed consent does not come from a 20-minute interaction with your oncologist. Consent in its truest form can only be given if one understands that which he or she is consenting, including the benefits and potential side effects. The wisdom we hope to impart on our readers is that there is always hope, and there are more options for cancer treatment than strictly those offered in the oncologist’s office.
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