A Triumph Over Cancer -

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A Triumph Over Cancer - JoAnn Guest Jun 08, 2005 16:27 PDT

One person's quest for good health

 

A Triumph Over Cancer

Facing a terminal diagnosis, one woman beat the odds with a deceptively

simple eating plan.

 

By Portland Helmich

 

" She's healthier than anybody I've seen in my office in the last 12

months, " says Dennis Grossman, an internist in Cleveland, Ohio. Out of

context, this isn't a remarkable statement. Meeting his patient, though,

one realizes Grossman's assertion is nothing less than astonishing.

 

Sitting in the afternoon sunlight on an early spring day, Janet Vitt

looks like a normal 54-year-old woman. Thin, but not sickly. And yet

nine years ago, this divorced mother of two then-teenage sons was worse

than sickly--she was terminal.

 

Stage IV lung cancer was the diagnosis. A dull pain in the center of her

chest had led to a CAT scan, revealing three tumors in her left lung and

seven in her right--and the disease had spread. Her liver housed three

tumors, she had another in her pancreas, and yet another was causing her

abdomen to swell. A registered nurse since 1971, the soft-spoken

Midwesterner understood the gravity of her diagnosis. " When cancer is

above and below the dia-phragm, " she explains, " we say people aren't

going to make it. "

 

Though her mother had died of lung cancer at 42, Vitt had thought her

fate would be different. She worked out three times a week and had what

she assumed was a fairly healthy lifestyle. Okay, so she held two

part-time teaching jobs in addition to working full-time as a nurse

manager at a local hospital. ( " I foolishly thought being stressed-out

was exciting, " she admits.) But so what? Unlike her mother, she never

smoked.

 

She didn't have time, though, to rethink her lifestyle in the beginning.

When her abdominal tumor was removed eight days after her diagnosis, it

had ballooned from the size of a nickel to an 8- by 11-centimeter mass.

One oncologist gave her three to six weeks to live; another suggested

three to six months. She grabbed onto the more promising prognosis and

agreed to participate in an experimental chemotherapy trial, hoping to

extend her life by a month.

 

But just three weeks after receiving the first dose, she dropped 46

pounds from her already slender 118-pound frame. " During those three

weeks, " she recalls, " if I had even a sip of tea, I'd puke for a half

hour. "

 

Realizing that a second dose would kill her, Grossman suggested

something that sounded outlandish: alternative healing. " I thought that

was for hippies, " Vitt says. " But I asked him what he thought I should

try and he said,'macrobiotics.' "

 

Through a chance meeting with a macrobiotic counselor, Grossman had

begun reading about and taking classes in this highly specialized diet.

" I knew there was no harm in it, " he says. " The oncologists had nothing

for her, and I thought it might help to change her immune system and

enhance her quality of life. "

 

Macrobiotics (meaning " great " or " large life " in Greek) is much more

than just a diet; it's a way of living in balance. Exercise and rest,

socializing and solitude, sensible sleep habits, even keeping a tidy

home, are all part of a macrobiotic life. But most people associate

macrobiotics with the nutritional regimen developed by Japanese

writer-philosopher George Ohsawa in the early 20th century. Popularized

in America by Michio Kushi in the sixties and seventies, the macrobiotic

diet is a far cry from its trendy, contemporary counterparts, like the

low-carb, antiaging, or raw-food diets.

 

There's nothing flashy about it. Emphasizing whole grains, fresh fruits

and vegetables, and beans, and largely restricting intake of meat (fish

is an occasional staple), dairy products, refined sugars, and processed

foods, macrobiotics aims to provide the body with essential nutrients

while limiting the accumulation of toxins.

 

It's based on the Eastern concepts of yin and yang, two contrasting

universal energies believed to be present in all things, including food.

By consuming foods with the least pronounced yin and yang qualities

(like whole grains and vegetables), one can supposedly achieve a more

balanced condition and initiate a healing process. It's thought that the

standard American diet, with its emphasis on red meat (overly yang) and

sugary foods (overly yin), can throw the body out of balance and lead to

disease.

 

" I would have done anything at this point to live, " Vitt says, so her

sister proceeded to search the Cleveland phone book for macrobiotic

counselors. The one she found arrived to meet a 72-pound fragment of a

woman gasping for air. " I was on oxygen, " she recalls. " I was bald, my

nails were blue, and my color was gray. " By that point, she was relying

on hospice workers and had signed her do-not-resuscitate papers.

 

Observing her face and hands, Vitt's macrobiotic counselor uttered a

statement no doctor had ever made: " You could be healed, " he said.

 

" That was the first positive thing anybody had said to me, " she recalls.

Too weak to cook for herself, she enlisted the help of friends and her

ex-husband. After learning the principles of macrobiotic cooking, they

signed up for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or overnight shifts.

" Basically, " she says, " they gave up an entire year of their lives to

save me. "

 

Gasping for air made swallowing difficult, so Vitt eased her way into

the diet with very small portions. After two days of meals consisting of

just two tablespoons of pressure-cooked brown rice, a half cup of miso

soup, and some steamed kale and bok choy, her vomiting stopped. After

only one week on the diet, she got rid of her medications, which

included painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs. " I decided if I wanted to

clean out my body, " she says, " I couldn't be putting drugs into it. "

 

To address her pain, a massage therapist came three times a week. After

a few weeks on the regimen, Vitt began emitting a horrible odor from her

skin and was convinced she was dying, but her macrobiotic counselor

assured her she was just detoxing.

 

Months passed and she began to feel better. No longer in need of oxygen

around the clock, and able to get to the supermarket with help, Vitt had

become cautiously optimistic. " I thought I might have some quality of

life before I died, " she says.

 

Although she was relying on an alternative therapy, she continued seeing

her internist. " I told him, 'No more scans; no more Western medicine.'

Our agreement was that he would support me as long as I came to see him

once a week, " she explains. " Mostly he listened to my lungs, and we

talked about sadness and death. "

 

But one year after her diagnosis, and ten months after she began the

macrobiotic diet, Vitt turned the corner. " I was still weak, but I could

feel that I was getting better. " And soon she got proof. The CAT scan

that had delivered a deadly diagnosis one year earlier now brought

miraculous news: The tumors were gone.

 

Usually that's where stories like this end. The patient walks away,

mainstream docs scratch their heads in wonder and disbelief, and life

goes on. But this one is different.

 

In 2002, the Kushi Institute, the world's leading macrobiotic

educational center, in Becket, Massachusetts, presented Vitt's case and

five others like it to the Cancer Advisory Panel for Complementary and

Alternative Medicine (CAPCAM) at the National Center for Complementary

and Alternative Medicine. A panel of 15 physicians and scientists

reviewed all the evidence and unanimously recommended that the Kushi

Institute receive government funding for a clinical study on

macrobiotics and cancer.

 

The study is not yet under way, but George Yu, clinical professor of

urology at George Washington University Medical Center and the person

who presented the cases on behalf of the Kushi Institute, offers one

explanation of why macrobiotics might help: the diet's reliance on

fermented foods like miso. " They have good bacteria, which produce many

enzymes, " he explains. " Those enzymes may have some way of keeping the

body in balance, breaking food down, preventing inflammation, and

decreasing toxic accumulation. " The simplicity of the diet also improves

elimination, Yu adds, which contributes to its detoxing effect.

 

Yu says approximately one-third of people who adopt a macrobiotic way of

life recover from their illness after three to six months on the diet.

" Why it doesn't work for the other two-thirds, I don't know, " he admits.

 

 

Vitt is just happy she was one of the lucky ones. Nearly a decade after

her life came dangerously close to ending, she's still cancer-free. Now

a certified macrobiotic counselor herself, she still follows the diet;

these days, food is her medicine.

 

Gone is her habit of eating without thought and working without rest.

These days she rises at dawn and goes to bed at 10. She makes room for

quiet time, takes daily walks, and has intimate conversations with God.

 

There have been other positive side effects of eating and living in a

more balanced manner. " I used to have migraines, joint pain, and

restless sleep, " she says, " but not anymore. " The biggest changes in her

life, though, are less tangible. " I'm no longer afraid, " she says. " I

don't care about impressing others, and I don't judge myself.

 

" All the cells in my body are different, " she adds. " I'm really not the

same person I was before. "

 

Portland Helmich is a writer and TV host in Maynard, Mass., who

specializes in alternative medicine.

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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