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Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Pennsylvania Teen Suggests DNA Mining Solution to Cancer Treatment

Teenager Suggests Cancer Treatment
Teenager Suggests Cancer Treatment

A Lancaster, Pennsylvania teen is all smiles these days. Marissa Witmer, a sophomore at Solanco High School, has been selected one of 12 teen semi-finalists in the National Academy Medical School Scholarship Challenge to find a cure for cancer. (Click to watch the WGAL News report.) The teen with the winning idea will receive a $185,000 scholarship to the medical school of their choice.

“I have been motivated to find an alternative treatment for breast cancer,” Marissa said. “All the women in my family have had some sort of cancer, so it’s like my mom and I are kind of next, and it would be kind of nice to figure something out before that happens.”

Traditional cancer treatments attack cancer cells from the outside, pummeling them with chemotherapy or radiation or removing them surgically. While current research has brought the cancer fight down to the cellular level, most new treatments seem to be focused on changing cancer cell behavior by manipulating external cell triggers.

Mining Cancer DNA

Marissa’s proposal would attack cancer cells internally, literally ripping their guts out. The teen wants to develop an alternative cancer treatment that would pull the DNA out of cancer cells, either killing them immediately or at least rending them harmless.

DNA manipulation of cells is already a laboratory reality so there’s every reason to believe that when Marissa is ready to enter medical school in seven years she’ll have the opportunity to make her dreams come true!

Issels Integrative Oncology has been a leader in the fields of integrative immunotherapy and alternative cancer treatment for more than 60 years. Visit our website to find out more about us.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

What Exactly Is a Cytokine and How Is It Used in Cancer Treatment?

Its Good
It’s Good

Cytokines are certain substances secreted by specific cells in your body’s immune system. These substances carry the signals that allow cells to communicate with each other. Cytokines may be proteins, peptides or glycoproteins and can interact with your immune system in both positive and negative ways.

What Cytokines Do

Cytokines may act to either enhance or suppress your immune system. Their impact on cell function may be felt locally or at a distance in another part of your body. Despite such functional differences, all cytokines share in the direction of your body’s immune response.

It is that ability to impact the functioning of your immune system that makes cytokines such an important factor in cancer treatment. By manipulating cytokines, integrative immunotherapy seeks to modify the dialog between cells. By changing the way cells interact, the goal of integrative immunotherapy is to remove impediments to a healthy immune system and amplify the body’s immune system response.

Using Cytokines in Cancer Treatment

Certain cancer drugs and cancer vaccines have been found to have a noticeable impact on cytokine production. Using vaccines to increase the presence of specific biologic response modifiers such as Interleukin-2 — which the body creates naturally but only in small amounts — floods the body with cancer fighting T-cells and Natural Killer Cells. This sudden influx of immune system-supporting cytokines significantly enhances your immune system’s response, giving it extra power to fight off cancer cells.

Over 60 years of clinical experience, Issels Integrative Oncology has found similar cancer-fighting benefits in other cytokines such as Interleukin-4, which promotes the generation of dendritic cells, and Interleukin-21, which enhances Natural Killer Cell activity. Visit our website for more information.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, News

Federal Budget Games Hurt Cancer Research

Low Budgets Are Hurting Research
Low Budgets Are Hurting Research

When the American Society of Clinical Oncology released its Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer last December, the cancer news was good and bad. Advances in cancer research were achieving “extraordinary progress in the fight against cancer,” but budget cuts and years of flat funding were delaying efforts to turn research into effective cancer treatments, Science Daily explained.

Effective Cancer Treatments

ASCO highlighted three cancer treatments at the forefront of cancer news:

  • Genomics: the use of genetic research to personalize cancer treatment.

Research-Treatment Link

The report links the development of cancer treatment techniques and the drop in cancer death rates “to our nation’s investment in cancer research over the past four decades.” Unfortunately, Congressional sequester and mandated federal budget cuts have slowed the pace of cancer research. More than half a million Americans die from cancer every year, but ASCO warns that cancer fatalities could increase dramatically without adequate research funding.

Funding Commitment Needed

ASCO’s plea that “Congress do its part to re-ignite our nation’s commitment to cancer research” appears to have fallen on deaf ears. The National Cancer Institute’s 2014 budget was $4.9 billion, only a slight increase over its 2013 budget. However, as explained by NCI Funding Policy, “this increase only restores about 53% of the sequestration reduction that NCI experienced during fiscal year 2013.”

It is time for the Congress to stop playing budget games that hurt cancer research. As ASCO President Clifford Hudis points out, “Lives depend on it.”

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Cancer Survivors, News

Joan Luden Poses Bald to Promote Breast Cancer Awareness

The Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon
The Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon

Former Good Morning America co-host Joan Luden shocked many fans when she recently posed bald on the cover of People magazine to promote cancer awareness. In an interview on Today, Joan, who lost her hair while undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, told fans, “We’re losing our hair in order to live and survive.”

Not an Easy Decision

While talking about her cancer journey and decision to bare her bald head in public, Joan admitted to Hoda Kotb that she was initially reluctant to pose for the magazine. “You just are never prepared for it,” she said about losing her hair during chemo. “You feel less like a woman. You feel less feminine. You feel less beautiful. You feel kind of embarrassed. You feel kind of like the ugly duckling. You lose a part of your sense of yourself.”

One More Loss

In the grand scale of things, you would think hair loss would be a small matter for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. But you have only to think how it feels to find a few gray hairs or notice a little thinning on top to realize how important our hair is to our appearance and sense of self. Its sudden loss during cancer treatment can be devastating to someone already struggling with the fear and loss that accompany cancer diagnosis.

A Better Solution

Non-toxic alternative cancer treatment offers a kinder, gentler way to combat cancer. Issels integrative immunotherapy works with your body to fight cancer. Our alternative cancer treatment battles cancer without the horrendous side effects, pain and embarrassing hair loss typical of chemotherapy. Find out more about the benefits of integrative immunotherapy at Issels.com.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Living with Cancer

Cancer Drug Research Will Change Lives in the Future

Cancer Drug Research
Cancer Drug Research

Cancer drug research is moving medicine toward a new frontier of personalized cancer treatment that is expected to change our lives for the better in the not too distant future. Tremendous strides in genetic and cellular research have vastly extended our knowledge about how cancer attacks and spreads on the cellular level, opening new avenues for cancer research and potential treatments.

Targeting Cancer Triggers

Focusing cancer research on genetic and cellular behavior has revealed the existence of specific genes and proteins that affect cell growth and development. When these genetic switches malfunction, uncontrolled cell growth can occur which can lead to the development of cancer tumors can occur. Recent cancer news indicates that drug manufacturers are racing to develop new cancer drugs designed to target these cancer triggers and turn them off. The first of this new wave of cancer drugs is beginning to reach the marketplace and early cancer news reports are promising.

Personalized Cancer Treatment

As cancer drugs become more effective in isolating and neutralizing genetic and cellular cancer triggers, personalized cancer treatments are expected to become the norm. If, as many believe, personal genome mapping becomes commonplace in the future; cancer specialists will be able to order personalized cancer treatments based on your own genetic code.

At the Issels Centers in Tijuana, Mexico and Santa Barbara, California, we recognize that every patient is unique and that each individual’s response to cancer is equally unique. Cancer demands an individualized response. Our highly personalized cancer treatment protocols have produced an admirable record of complete long-term remissions of advanced and standard therapy-resistant cancers. Visit our website to hear what our patients have to say.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips, Cancer Research, Living with Cancer

Five Things to Know About Lung Cancer

Things To Know About Lung Cancer
Things To Know About Lung Cancer

Perhaps you’re feeling overwhelmed and you’re struggling to learn all you can about your lung cancer diagnosis. There is a great deal of information available online, however, we would like to offer you five facts you should know about lung cancer.

Fact #1: Smoking isn’t the only cause of lung cancer

While it’s true that smoking causes around 87% of all cases, it’s not the only cause. Lung cancer occurs when the cells in the lungs mutate, and this is often caused by breathing in toxic chemicals, but it can also be due to genetics.

Fact #2: Lung cancer symptoms usually do not appear until the cancer has spread

Early cases of lung cancer generally produce no symptoms, which is why it can sometimes take years for doctors to find the cancer.

Fact #3: Researchers are working to find ways to diagnose lung cancer early on

Lung cancer is most successfully treated when it’s found early. Researchers are looking for more ways to perform early diagnostic tests. Lose dose CT scans might be one option.

Fact #4: There are many different types of lung cancer

Small cell and non-small cell are both types of lung cancer, but there are many more variables involved that will help your doctor decide which lung cancer treatment is right for you.

Fact #5: There are many effective alternative lung cancer treatments available

Chemo and radiation are no longer your only options. Alternative treatments are getting great results.

If you would like more information about Issels, we would love to talk with you and answer any questions you might have about available lung cancer treatment options. Please contact us today.