Alternative or Complementary Therapies?

Just a few years ago if someone diagnosed with cancer wanted to pursue nutrition in their healing and treatment process it was considered an alternative therapy and they would often find themselves cautioned by friends and doctors, being told they were either unsafe or just downright insane.

Nutrition, or food therapy as I like to call it, is still not getting the attention it deserves in the realm of cancer therapy. But the overall awareness of nourishment is. Food is not the only add on of helpful tools that a cancer patient now has access to. More and more research is showing positive results with activities and therapies such as yoga, acupuncture, music, and writing.

When we have cancer we need a lot of nourishment, food being on of the things that feed us. But it is not just the food that is found on our plate, especially since that might not even suit us as well during time of treatment, it is even more so important to get support from a professional who can help identify other options and choices to feel better.

Food however is a tool that has a very immediate effect, as well as long term, on our well-being. More and more is being written about foods that help protect us against cancer, but what should we eat when we are living with cancer?

Most doctors might still tell their patients that food does not matter. But is that really true or is it that their drugs are enough to cure and therefore food does not matter. Or is it also the fact that they do not know enough and do not want to get involved in that conversation with their patients. Granted they also do not have the time.

Food does matter. And no, I am not talking about food as a cure for cancer. I am talking about feeling better. I am talking about even being part of the process. Feeling like you are doing something that is at least within your own power instead of sitting around waiting for the drugs to help. That alone already helps in the success of treatment. The emotional strength that comes from eating well and knowing that we are caring for our bodies and using the tools of food to its utmost.

But food can affect the drugs used in cancer treatment, which may be another reason doctors do not want their patients to start experimenting with food as medicine. Surely all aspects need to be taken into consideration when discussing nutrition in cancer therapy.

Living with cancer is however still regarded as somewhat of a gap in ones life. Where everything is abnormal and we just need this period of time to be over. But living with cancer is also a lifestyle for a period of time. Maybe even forever, so is it not time we start doing exactly that. LIVE with cancer and accept it as our new lifestyle and learn everything we can about how to take better care of ourselves. With all the complementary therapies that are available to do just that.