Chiropractic, homeopathy, acupuncture, juice diets, and other forms of alternative medicine cannot cure cancer. Regardless of what some think of these remedies, a new study – and science in general – is as forceful as it is accurate: alternative medicine does not cure; Bush.
A team of scientists from Yale University (USA) examined the National Cancer Database, a collection of 34 million records of cancer patients , along with their treatments and results, to identify the patients who decided giving up conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery and opting for alternative therapies outside of medicine.
They found 280 subjects diagnosed with non-metastatic breast, prostate, lung, or colorectal cancer in 2004 who used alternative medicine (defined in the database as “other cancer treatments administered by non-medical personnel and not tested”) and matched them with 560 control subjects who received conventional treatment. Subsequently, they tracked the results of the patients after a while.
After five years, 78.3% of the patients who received conventional treatments were still living, compared with only 54.7% of the individuals who used alternative medicine.
The numbers
As if that weren’t enough, even more surprising was that breast cancer patients using alternative medicine were 5 times more likely to die.
Colorectal cancer patients were 4 times more likely to die.
Lung cancer patients were twice as likely to die.
Prostate cancer patients were also more likely to die, although the difference was not statistically significant.
The researchers could not specifically identify which alternative medicines each of the patients were using, although there shouldn’t be much variation between the therapies, as, by definition, there is no convincing evidence that any alternative medicine is effective in treating cancer.
“Some limitations of the data include unmeasured confounders or selection biases that could affect survival. However, because patients receiving alternative medicine were more likely to be younger, wealthier, and better educated , this probably would not explain the observed differences in survival, “the researchers noted.
Alternative medicine advocates often innocently ask, “What’s the harm in trying?” The study makes clear that for cancer patients who opt for alternative medicine treatment, the harm is death itself. Alternative medicine is not literally killing them, but it is causing patients to turn away from effective treatments based on scientific evidence that can save lives.
Unfortunately, the most vulnerable cancer patients turn to this pseudomedicine every year in the hope of a miraculous treatment that will free them from their disease. Hopefully these new data will open your eyes.
Reference: Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival. Skyler B. Johnson Henry S. Park Cary P. Gross James B. Yu. August 2017. Journal of the National Cancer Institute doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djx145
