The Two Lies and the One Moral Failure of Traditional Medicine in Cancers

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AtmasvasthBhavin Jankharia

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AtmasvasthBhavin Jankharia

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Every year, countless cancer patients turn to traditional medicine (TM) seeking hope and healing. While these ancient practices may offer comfort, they also present serious risks that are often overlooked.

When it comes to cancer treatment, traditional medicine - including Ayurveda, homeopathy, Unani, acupuncture, Chinese and Tibetan medicine, reiki etc - perpetuates two dangerous lies with one significant moral failure.

The Two Lies

1. There is no harm.
2. It works.

1. There is No Harm

There is no bigger lie than this because it prevents patients from understanding the real risks they face. 

This harm manifests in two critical ways.

a. Preventing or delaying standard-of-care treatment. 

If a patient diagnosed with cancer uses traditional medicine (TM) first, it delays treatment causing further growth of the tumor and a cancer that may have been potentially curable becomes incurable. A recent study out of Nagpur that also references similar studies from India and across the world showed that TM use was associated with rural residence, illiteracy, delayed presentation and advanced cancer stage at diagnosis. TM use was specifically associated with more advanced disease because patients wasted time with TM before finally going to a modern medicine practitioner [1].

In India, a major challenge is the lack of access to modern healthcare facilities and high costs, leaving a wide-open door for lower cost TM practitioners to step in. 

How to Reduce and Manage Healthcare Costs

Healthcare costs will keep rising due to advancing technology, expensive new drugs, corporate healthcare expansion, and insurance practices. We should know how to reduce healthcare costs.

AtmasvasthBhavin Jankharia

But, delayed presentation due to the use of TM first is not restricted to the poor and illiterate. A few years ago, the CEO of a bank was diagnosed to have breast cancer. Her distrust of modern medicine was so deep that she opted for TM and her breast cancer progressed rapidly. I don’t remember now whether it was from Stage I to IV or Stage II to IV, but when she finally decided to opt for standard-of-care modern medicine, it was too late and she eventually died within two years of diagnosis. This is especially sad because patients like her tend to now live disease free or with controlled disease, without significant pain and suffering for many, many years. 

b. Side effects.

There is a weird belief that TM products are “natural” and do not cause side effects. This is absurd. Anything we ingest or inject or inhale, including vitamin and mineral pills, can have side effects and that includes all forms of TM pills. 

Iatrogenesis of Vitamins, Minerals and Herbal Supplements

Vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements that we take or are prescribed are not only useless in most instances, but can cause harm, both financial and bodily

AtmasvasthBhavin Jankharia

In addition to standard side effects, the other challenge is of illicit and unchecked heavy metal and steroid usage. Many TM pills contain unacceptably high levels of lead, arsenic and mercury, which can cause poisoning [2], and affect the disease adversely. Many non-branded TM products also contain illicit steroids or other anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic drugs, which again can adversely affect our bodies and disease outcomes. 

2. It Works

The first lie endangers patients directly, while the second lie fundamentally undermines the foundation of evidence-based cancer care.

No empire built on warfare and dominance has come even close to the kind of conquest that modern medicine has achieved. In just 150-200 years, it has vanquished, killed and annihilated every other form of medicine that existed for the last 30-50,000 years. Perhaps a lot of it was necessary because to practice medicine on the basis of “humors”, without knowledge of anatomy, physiology and microbiology makes no sense. But to believe that all healing is only because of drugs and surgery also smacks of scientism and hubris, which is what drives a lot of people away from modern medicine and towards TM.

Yet when it comes to treating cancers, it is important that the therapies we use are proven to work. This requires more than anecdotes (e.g. I know this person who went to that Ayurveda doctor and is now completely cured). While observational data may help (as over the last 30-50,000 years) to formulate a hypothesis, that hypothesis should be proven with randomized controlled trials (RCTs), with which we can figure out whether specific forms of treatment (chemotherapy, other drugs, radiation, surgery) singly or in combination work or not, allowing oncologists and oncosurgeons to offer the correct treatment to an individual patient.

No traditional medicine works in cancer, despite knowledge built over thousands of years. Nothing has been proven in a properly conducted trial. Nothing. All we have are case reports where TM has been used along with standard-of-care modern medicine, the authors attributing long term survival to TM rather than the standard-of-care treatment that caused the remission or cure in the first place [3, 4].

This is precisely what happened with Navjot Singh Sidhu and his wife. A couple of months ago, he went on air, attributing his wife’s remission/cure from metastatic breast cancer to naturopathy and specific foods and feeding schedules. He conveniently or otherwise forgot that she had undergone standard-of-care treatment anyway at the same time. 

The Moral Failure

While the two lies described cause harm, misunderstanding and misattribution, the deeper ethical problem is with the practitioners of traditional medicine. 

If a patient with cancer seeks out a TM healer to treat their cancer, that’s the patient’s choice. This choice may be due to financial or access constraints (in which case it may not really be a choice) or a deep-seated belief in TM or antagonism to the scientism of modern medicine.

My issue is with the traditional medicine practitioners who make patients believe their cancers can be cured or controlled. 

Many TM practitioners offer their solutions as adjuncts with a clear explanation that even if their therapies work, they will work only along with standard-of-care treatment, which remains the primary mode of therapy and should never be stopped. Those TM practitioners who have time to spend with patients can offer solace and help with techniques to cope with pain and managing mental distress. 

But if a TM practitioner truly believes they can cure cancers, it means they are deluded and misguided and need to be stopped from harming patients.

The vast majority, though, are the ones who do not truly believe that TM works in cancer, but will offer their treatment anyway, preying on the hopes of those who come to them, taking advantage of their faith and hastening their death by delaying standard-of-care treatment. This is deliberate deception and exploitation. These TM practitioners are truly committing fraud and should be stopped and perhaps even prosecuted.

In our atmasvasth quest to live long, healthy, what does this mean for you and I? If you are diagnosed with cancer, the best outcomes and your best chance of survival are with standard-of-care modern medicine. Period. Traditional medicine has no role to play in primary treatment. It may be used as an adjunct, but only with the involvement of the oncologist and oncosurgeon, to ensure that the TM pills do not contain illicit products or heavy metals that can worsen your disease.

Footnotes:

1. Pawar A et al. Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use and Its Impact on the Delayed Presentation and Advanced Stage of Breast Cancer in Newly Diagnosed Indian Women. Ind J Med Paediatr Oncol 2024;45:495–501.
2. Sikder MM. Ayurvedic Medicine: A Traditional Medical System and Its Heavy Metal Poisoning. Chonnam Med J. 2024 May;60(2):97-104. doi: 10.4068/cmj.2024.60.2.97. 
3. Sardeshmukh S, et al. Integration of Ayurvedic and Allopathic treatment in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer patient with Germline BRCA1 mutation for long term disease free survival: A case report. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2024 Nov-Dec;15(6):100999. doi: 10.1016/j.jaim.2024.100999. 
4. Sardeshmukh S et al. Long-term disease-free survival of a patient of acute myeloid leukemia with superior vena cava syndrome grade 2 with adjunct Ayurvedic treatment: A case report. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2024 Nov-Dec;15(6):101027. doi: 10.1016/j.jaim.2024.101027.