Alternative Cancer Treatment - Dr N Gonzalez interview (1:42:22)

The Cancer Treatment So Successful - Traditional Doctors SHUT it Down

Posted By Dr. Mercola | April 23 2011 | 416,132views

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Total Video Length: 1:42:22 (There are 7 parts to the interview)
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Dr. Nick Gonzalez is a physician focused on alternative cancer treatment using a three-pronged nutritional approach. Located in New York City, he’s had remarkable success treating patients with some of the most lethal forms of cancer that conventional medicine cannot effectively address.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Alternative cancer treatments are a kind of "forbidden area" in medicine, but Dr. Gonzalez chose to go that route anyway, and has some remarkable success stories to show for his pioneering work.

He didn't set out to treat cancer at first however, let alone treat patients. His original plan was to be a basic science researcher at Sloan-Kettering, a teaching hospital for Cornell Medical College. He had a chance meeting with William Kelley, a controversial dentist who was one of the founders of nutritional typing. Dr. Kelley had been practicing alternative- and nutritional approaches for over two decades at the time, led him to begin a student project investigation of Kelley's work, in the summer of 1981.

"I started going through his records and even though I was just a second year medical student, I could see right away there were cases that were extraordinary," he says. "Patients with appropriately diagnosed pancreatic cancer, metastatic breast cancer in the bone, metastatic colorectal cancer… who were alive 5, 10, 15 years later under Kelley's care with a nutritional approach."

This preliminary review led to a formal research study, which Dr. Gonzalez completed while doing his fellowship in cancer, immunology and bone marrow transplantation.

The "Impossible" Recoveries of Dr. Kelley's Cancer Patients

After going through thousands of Kelley's records, Dr. Gonzalez put together a monograph, divided into three sections:

1. Kelley’s theory
2. 50 cases of appropriately-diagnosed lethal cancer patients still alive five to 15 years after diagnosis, whose long-term survival was attributed to Kelley’s program
3. Patients Kelley had treated with pancreatic cancer between the years 1974 and 1982

According to Dr. Good, the president of Sloan-Kettering who had become Gonzalez' mentor, if Kelley could produce even one patient with appropriately diagnosed pancreatic cancer who was alive 5-10 years later, it would be remarkable. They ultimately tracked down 22 of Kelley's cases. Ten of them met him once and didn't do the program after being dissuaded by family members or doctors who thought Kelley was a quack.
The average survival for that group was about 60 days.

A second group of seven patients who did the therapy partially and incompletely (again, dissuaded by well-intentioned but misguided family members or doctors), had an average survival of 300 days.

The third group consisting of five patients, who were appropriately diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and who completed the full program, had an average survival of eight and a half years! In Dr. Gonzalez' words, this was "just unheard of in medicine."
One of those patients included a woman diagnosed by the Mayo Clinic with stage four pancreatic cancer who had been given six months to live. She'd learned about Kelley's program through a local health food store. She completed his treatment and is still alive today, 29 years later.

The Truth about Medical Journals: Why Gonzalez's Book Was Never Published

However, despite—or rather because of—the remarkable success of the treatment, Gonzalez couldn't get his findings published.

"We tried to publish case reports in the medical journals; the whole book, parts of the book, individual case reports—with no success," he says.

This is an important point that many fail to realize.

Those of us who practice natural medicine are frequently criticized for not publishing our findings. My justification for that is that it's not going to be published anyway, and Dr. Gonzalez' anecdotal story confirms this view.

His mentor and supporter, Dr. Good, was one of the most published authors in the scientific literature at that point, with over 2,000 scientific articles to his name. He'd been nominated for the Nobel Prize three times, and yet he was refused because the findings were "too controversial," and flew in the face of conventional medical doctrine.
If the cream of the crop is refused, how does a general primary care physician get an article published?

He doesn't…

"Robert Good was at the top of his profession: President of Sloan-Kettering, father of modern immunology, and did the first bone marrow transplant in history. Yet, he couldn't get it published," Gonzalez says. "He couldn't even get a single case report published.

In fact, I have a letter from one of the editors, dated 1987, who wrote a blistering letter to Good saying "You've been boondoggled by a crazy quack guy. Don't you see this is all a fraud?"

It was just the most extraordinary, irrational letter... [Because] the patients' names were there, the copies of their pertinent medical records were there… Any of them could have called these patients, like Arlene Van Straten who, 29 years later, will talk to anyone… But no one cared. They wouldn't do it; they didn't believe it.

They couldn't believe it.

It was very disturbing to me because I say, "It is what it is." I come out of a very conventional research orientation, and it was astonishing to me—I had assistance; I had the president of Sloane-Kettering who couldn't get this thing published because it disagreed with the philosophy that was being promoted in medicine; that only chemotherapy, radiation, or immunotherapy can successfully treat cancer, even though the success rate was abysmal.
The idea that medical journals are these objective and unbiased repositories of the truths about science is total nonsense. Most of them are owned by the drug companies. They won't publish anything that disagrees with their philosophy."

By the end of 1987, it was clear that the work would never get published, and since Dr. Good had retired from Sloan-Kettering, they no longer had the power-base to conduct clinical trials.

Dr. Kelley, realizing his work would never be accepted, let alone get published, "went off the deep end," in Dr. Gonzalez' words, and stopped seeing patients altogether.

"When I last spoke to him in the summer of 1987, he accused me of being part of a CIA plot to steal his work, and I knew that I had to move on," Dr. Gonzalez says.

"To this day, of course, I give him credit for his brilliant innovation. It's kind of like Semmelweis, who ended up going crazy during the 19^th century after showing doctors should wash their hands before delivering babies and no one accepted that. Semmelweis just went off the deep end, and that's what kind of what happened to Kelley, I say with great sadness."

Starting the Alternative Cancer Treatment Practice

Dr. Gonzalez set up a practice in New York together with his associate, Dr. Linda Isaacs, and started seeing patients using Kelley's three-pronged approach. The results were impressive.

One of his remarkable success stories includes a woman diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, which is the most aggressive form. She'd been given a death sentence.

Today, over 23 years later, she's still alive and well, and cancer free.

"Here's a woman that was given six months to a year to live AND developed metastases while getting aggressive multi-agent chemotherapy, yet 23 and a half years later, she's alive and well, enjoying her life and just doing so well.
We could see that Kelley's approach really worked and when I report these cases I'm giving Kelley the credit because he developed this treatment," Dr. Gonzalez says.

Recognition from the National Cancer Institute

In 1993, as part of a legitimate effort to reach out to alternative practitioners, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) invited Dr. Gonzalez to present 25 of his cases in a closed-door, invitation-only session. On the basis of that presentation, the NCI suggested he conduct a pilot study with patients diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, which in conventional medicine is known to be an untreatable, highly lethal form of cancer.

Interestingly, Nestle stepped in to finance this pilot study. It may seem an odd choice, but the business motivation was the same then as it is today—making junk food appear healthier is a good business move, even if it's only in theory.

Supervised directly by Dr. Ernst Wynder, a premier cancer researcher, the study was completed in early 1999 and published in June that year. According to Dr. Gonzalez:

"It showed the best results for the treatment of pancreatic cancer in the history of medicine."

Chemo Therapy vs. the Kelley Treatment

To put his results in perspective, the chemo drug, Gemzar, approved for pancreatic cancer dates back to 1997, and the major study that led to its approval had 126 patients. Of those, 18 percent lived one year. Not a single patient out of the 126 lived beyond 19 months.
Dr. Gonzalez' study had 11 participants, of which:

• Five survived for two years
• Four survived three years
• Two survived five years

Based on these results, the NCI decided to fund a large scale clinical trial, to the tune of $1.4 million, to test his nutritional approach against the best chemo available at the time.

"My friends say "Why did you get involved with something like this? How could you trust the NCI?"

Well, the NCI had been very fair, up to that point, and the then-director, Richard Klausner, in face-to-face meetings with him said he thought I was doing something really interesting and needed to be properly supported," Dr. Gonzalez says.

But that goodwill soon disappeared.

How to Sabotage a Clinical Study 101

About a year after the study was approved, Klausner left the NCI and was replaced by new management with a wholly different attitude.

"[F]rom our first meeting, we knew something has changed significantly," Dr. Gonzalez says, "and all the people that had initially been assigned to the study, who were supportive and believed we were doing something useful, were taken off it. In fact one of them couldn't even talk to me. She said she'd be fired if she talked to me; if she took my phone call.

I was told by another person who had supported me at the NIH that I shouldn't call him at his office; that he was afraid his line was tapped, and I should only call him at home.

That's how insane the politics over this clinical study got. I couldn't believe it! I thought this was just something you'd read about or see on TV, or that some paranoid or crazy person would make up. But here I was living it. Coming out of Robert Good's group, I don't say that to impress people, but my background is so pure and conventional! It was unbelievable to see that the profession I respected and wanted to join could behave like this."

Unfortunately, the study was, in the end, sabotaged.

"Turned out the principal investigator at Columbia, who's supposed to be completely neutral, had helped develop a chemo regimen that was being used against us—a conflict of interest that was never declared," Dr. Gonzalez explains.

"[T]here are specific requirements for entry into a clinical study. Ours is a nutritional program, and when the first protocol version was written, we had a list of specified criteria… They have to be able to eat…Ours is a nutritional program, so patients have to be able to eat. If they can't eat, they can't do the therapy. They have to be able to take care of themselves…

This is a program the patients have to follow at home.

… Initially, the patients could do it and responded to the treatment. Then, there was a sudden change, around 2000-2001, when the Columbia group took total control of the entry of patients in the study. We were excluded from that process, except during the initial months. The thinking was that if we were involved in the admission process, we'd enter the dreaded bias, whereas if conventional doctors were in control, they couldn't possibly be biased.
Of course, the chief investigator helped develop the chemo regimen used in the study. That's virtually the definition of a 'potential bias'!

He started sending us patients that couldn't eat. We had patients that were so sick we would never have accepted them into our private practice. That were so sick, they died before they got the treatment.

Whether it was a trick to the protocol or not, the Columbia team, the NCI, and the NHI insisted that we had an "intent to treat provision into protocol". This means that the minute a patient is accepted into the trial, they're considered treated, even if they never do the therapy. So the chief of the study at Columbia would enter patients that were so sick, several died before they could pursue their treatment. But because of this intent to treat provision into protocol, they were considered treatment failures.

Ultimately, 39 patients were entered for treatment. Maybe at best, being kind and optimistic, maybe five or six actually did it, the great majority were so sick they couldn't do it."

As a result, the chemo treatment appeared to be a clear winner in this head-to-head evaluation of treatments against incurable pancreatic cancer.

In 2006, Dr. Gonzalez and his partner filed a complaint with the Office of the Human Research Protection (OHRP), which is a group responsible for making sure federal-funded clinical trials are run properly. After a two-year investigation, the OHRP determined that 42 out of 62 patients had been admitted inappropriately. Unfortunately, this never made it to the media, and the Columbia team was able to publish the research findings without mentioning the results of the OHRP review.

"So the study was a total boondoggle; a waste of $1.4 million," Dr. Gonzalez says. "Even though I won the grant, all the money went to Columbia. It's all gone. The data, as far as I'm concerned, is worthless, and the NIH and NCI are using it to show that my therapy doesn't work.
So that's how this long journey of 30 years, from when I first met Kelley, has gone.
"I tell people now regarding the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), I wouldn't send a dog to that group.
They're not there to help you objectively investigate alternative therapies; they're there to undermine them. It gives the illusion that the government's interested in alternative therapies, when in fact that office is being used, as it was in my case, to help undermine promising useful alternative therapies."

Gonzalez's Three-Pronged Approach to Cancer Treatment

Although most of the studies done on this approach were done on pancreatic cancer, Dr. Gonzalez uses it to treat ALL cancers, from brain cancer to leukemia. His treatment, which is based on Kelley's work, consists of three protocols: diet, supplements and enzymes, and detoxification.

The Dietary Protocol:

The cornerstone of the treatment is a personalized diet based on your nutritional- or metabolic type.

Dr. Kelley originally had 10 basic diets and 90 variations that ranged from pure vegetarian and raw food, to heavy-protein meals that included red meat three times a day.

"In terms of diet, Kelley… found that patients diagnosed with the typical solid tumors: tumors of the breast, lungs, stomach, pancreas, liver, colon, uterus, ovaries, and prostate needed a more vegetarian diet," Dr. Gonzalez explains. "But he had all gradations of a vegetarian diet; one that was 80 percent raw, one that was 80 percent cooked. So even on the vegetarian side, there were all different variations.

Some had minimal animal protein, some had fish, some had also red meat.

A patient with immune cancer (leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and sarcomas,( which are connective tissue cancers that are related to immune cancers) tended to do best on a high-fat, high meat diet.

… Then there are balanced people that do well with a variety of foods, both plant foods and animal products, but they don't tend to get cancer.

Cancer tends to occur on the extremes, the extreme vegetarians—those that tend to be too acid—or extreme meat eaters, who tend to be too alkaline. Balanced people don’t tend to get cancer too much. So we continued the individualized approach, as did Kelley."

Individualized Supplementation and Enzyme Protocol:

The second component is an individualized supplement protocol, designed for your particular metabolism.

"For example, our vegetarian patients need completely different supplements from our meat eaters. The vegetarians do very well with most of the B vitamins, while the meat eaters don't. The vegetarians don't do well with vitamin A, but the meat eaters do. The vegetarians do well with vitamin D; the meat eaters not so well with large doses, and so on," Dr. Gonzalez explains.

"The meat eaters do well with calcium ascorbate as a vitamin C source, while the vegetarians do well with large doses of ascorbic acid. So the supplement protocols are very individualized and very precisely engineered."

Omega-3 fats are also prescribed, but even here Dr. Gonzalez prescribes different types of omega-3's depending on the patient's nutritional type. In his experience, vegetarians, or carbohydrate types, tend to fare better on flaxseed oil, which contains alpha linoleic acid (ALA) – a plant-based omega 3.

"It is thought that the conversion of the plant-based ALA into the fish-oil based eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is not that efficient," he says, "But we find that our vegetarian patients actually do it very well and don't use the fish oil or animal-based omega-3 fatty acids as effectively."

Chia and hemp seed oils can also be used.

Protein types, on the other hand, appear to need the EPA and the DHA and do better on animal-based omega-3 such as krill oil.

"They don't do well with flaxseed," he says. "Those are the people who can't make the conversion."

In addition to vitamins, minerals and trace elements, he also prescribes large doses of pancreatic enzymes.

"The essence of Kelley's work was based on the work of Dr. Beard, which goes back to the turn of the last century, about 110 years ago. Beard was a professor at the University of Edinburg, an embryologist actually, not a medical researcher, who first proposed that pancreatic proteolytic enzymes are the main defense against cancer in the body and are useful as a cancer treatment," he explains.

When treating cancer, however, he found it's important to take the right ratio of active and inactive enzymes. The inactive precursors are particularly active against cancer. They also have far longer shelf life, and are more stable.

"That would be my advice – get an enzyme that isn't completely activated," Dr. Gonzalez says. "More active isn't better when it comes to pancreatic enzymes, just like more and more D isn't better than getting the right dosage. You want the right proportions of activated and inactive—most of it as an inactive precursor."

His proprietary enzyme formula is manufactured by NutriCology. According to Dr. Gonzalez, pancreatic enzymes are not only useful as treatment for active cancer but are also one of the best preventive measures.
Antioxidants, such as astaxanthin, are also very helpful, both in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

The Detoxification Protocol:

The third component is a detoxification routine. Coffee enemas are used to help your liver and kidneys to mobilize and eliminate dead cancer cells that have been broken down by the pancreatic enzymes.

Coffee enemas, although often scoffed at today, were actually used as part of conventional medicine all the way up to the 1960s, and were included in the Merck Manual, which was a handbook for conventional medical treatments into the 1970s.

"They fell out of favor not because they didn't work, but because the drug industry took over medicine, so things like coffee enemas were kind of laughed at," Dr. Gonzalez says. "So Kelley learned about coffee enemas from conventional literature and incorporated them into his program and found them extremely helpful."

When you drink coffee, it tends to suppress your liver function, but when taken rectally as an enema, the caffeine stimulates nerves in your lower bowels, which causes your liver to release toxins as a reflex. Other detox strategies include colon cleanses and liver flushes developed by Kelley.

It's important to realize, however, that conventional coffee should NOT be used for enemas. The coffee MUST be organic, naturally caffeinated coffee, and were you to do this at home, you'd also want to use non-bleached filters to avoid introducing toxins into your colon.

"[Organic coffee] is loaded with antioxidants," Dr. Gonzalez says. "In fact, there are recent studies showing that coffee loaded with antioxidants can have an anti-cancer effect and that coffee may actually help suppress cancer.
But you have to use organic coffee, it has to have caffeine, and you have to use a coffee maker that doesn't have aluminum, and preferably no plastic."

Dr. Gonzalez also relies on sodium alginate as a detoxifying agent.

"We have a preparation that we put together and it's very effective... It's an algae and it chelates heavy metals and halides. I never use intravenous chelation; we just use sodium alginate."

He recommends taking three capsules three times a day, away from meals, for six weeks to detoxify your body of heavy metals, such as mercury, and halides.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the most fascinating interviews I've ever done, and it is chock full of information—far more than I can summarize here. So please, I urge you to take the time to listen to the interview in its entirety.

In addition to expounding on the subjects mentioned above, Dr. Gonzalez also reviews the benefits of optimizing vitamin D during cancer treatment, and how iodine supplementation can benefit breast cancer—not to mention help protect against thyroid cancer, in light of the current nuclear crisis in Japan.

We discuss the benefits of juicing and chiropractic adjustments, and the importance of regular exercise for cancer patients. We also review the dangers of electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure, in terms of how it may aggravate cancer growth and hinder cancer recovery, and the benefits, along with some surprising precautions, of Earthing or grounding.

For more information about Dr. Gonzalez and his practice, see www.dr-gonzalez.com. He's also working on a series of books, two of which have already been published and received five-star reviews: The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer, and One Man Alone: An Investigation of Nutrition, Cancer, and William Donald Kelley , which is the original monograph of Dr. Kelley's work that he couldn't get published 23 years ago.
This written summary is only a small glimpse of the insights that were shared in our interview. If you or anyone you know struggles with cancer I would strongly encourage you to listen to the entire interview.

Thankfully Dr. Gonzalez is still on the front lines and actively engaged in helping people by helping coach them with natural alternatives to toxic drugs and radiation. His office is in Manhattan and he can be reached at 212-213-3337.

Source: Video Transcript

Related Links:

New Model Of Cancer Development: Vitamin D is the Key

Twelve Changes That Will Cut Your Cancer Risk in Half

The Kanzius Machine: A Cancer Cure?

 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/04/23/dr-nicholas-gonzalez-on-alternative-cancer-treatments.aspx

A Tragic Decision That May Have Cost Steve Jobs His Life?

Posted By Dr. Mercola | October 09 2011

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Story at-a-glance

• Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, died on October 5 from complications of pancreatic cancer. While Jobs seems to have received the best care possible, even some conventional oncologists question the decision to perform a liver transplant, stating that this procedure and the subsequent immuno-suppressant anti-rejection drugs he had to take was, perhaps, a fatal mistake.
• Steve's premature passing is a profound tragedy, but if we take to heart some of the wisdom he lived his life by, we may be able to improve our own lives.
• Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez is an internationally known expert on the natural treatment of pancreatic cancer was interviewed for his take on the treatment Steve received and an attempt to put it proper context.

By Dr. Mercola

Steve Jobs died at 56 years old last week from complications of pancreatic cancer. Steve was the charismatic pioneer and innovative co-founder of Apple who transformed personal use of technology as well as entire industries with products such as the iPod, iPad, iPhone, Macintosh computer and the iTunes music store.

Steve was only 21 when he started Apple--officially formed on April Fool's Day, 1976. He was forced out in 1985 but returned 15 years ago and plucked Apple from near-bankruptcy, and in August of this year turned it into the most valuable company in the world passing Exxon.

Jeffery Kluger from Time Magazine had a great comment on the impact he made on the culture.

"But it's also fair to argue that Jobs was in some ways different from other captains of industry. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Bill Gates changed the world too - Gates more than all of them, perhaps, with his second chapter as the world's greatest philanthropist - and yet the garment rending and candle lighting that has followed Jobs' death suggests a passion that none of the others stir up.
Perhaps it's that Gates and the rest that invented what were essentially just products - remarkable things that transformed the way we lived, but merchandise all the same. Jobs' inventions got inside not just our lives but also our heads and - improbably - our hearts. That, of course, is the way it is with living things."

What Type of Person Was Steve Jobs?

Much has been said about Steve's brilliance in technology but there has not been much commentary about him as a person. The LA Times has an exceptional article that provides a great view into Steve's character. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was the director of Google's philanthropic arm Google.org, knew Steve Jobs for 35 years. He recalled first meeting Jobs when Jobs was 19, and he was in India working to eradicate smallpox.

"Jobs shielded himself and his family from the media, and his friends respected his privacy. But over the summer, Jobs told Brilliant that he would be "happy to have people talk about him," Jobs had dropped out of college and traveled to India to meet Brilliant's guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Baba died before Jobs reached the Kainchi Ashram with a Reed College friend –- and later, Apple's first employee -- Daniel Kottke

.
"We met when he, like all of us, were spiritual seekers in India. It was that quality in him that people feel even though these are physical instruments, iPhones, iPods, iPads. People can feel that he was continuing that quest," Brilliant said. "He had this idea back in the 1970s, that cliché of giving power to the people. He really believed it. When he made the first Apple II, he thought he was giving power to the people by putting a computer on everyone's desk so they would not have to be dependent on the priesthood with mainframes. 

 This was giving power to the people in a very real way, not a theoretical way. What he has done is democratize access to information and access to beauty."

Because his private life was so little known, few outside of Jobs' inner circle experienced the caring side of Jobs, Brilliant said. In 2006 when Brilliant joined Google, both his wife and son were diagnosed with cancer. Brilliant was distraught. He says Jobs supported him by creating spreadsheets that ranked cancer surgeons based on a number of criteria including post-surgery infection rate, follow-up care and approval ratings.

"That's the part that people couldn't possibly know -- the love and the care that he put into everything he did. He just loved his family, Laurene (Powell) and the kids. He loved them more than anyone could articulate. And he loved Apple," Brilliant said.

"The defining character of Steve Jobs isn't his genius, it isn't his talent, it isn't his success. It's his love. That's why crowds came to see him. You could feel that. It sounds ridiculous to talk about love when you are making a gadget. But Steve loved his work, he loved the products he produced, and it was palpable. He communicated that love through bits of steel and plastic."

Classic Steve Jobs Quotes that Can Help You Live Your Life Better

Steve's premature passing was clearly a profound tragedy but we can use it to take to heart some of the wisdom he lived his life by and possibly improve our own life. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Steve that truly hit home as to some of the central reasons why we are on this planet. Remember he was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, dropped out of college, fired from the company he founded, and still, he changed the world.
What's your excuse?

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been ‘No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

As a testimony to Steve's greatness, there were many creative memes that people came up with. If you cared for Steve or Apple you will likely appreciate viewing these.

What Did Steve Jobs Die From?

Pancreatic cancer is one of the faster spreading cancers; only about 4 percent of patients can expect to survive five years after their diagnosis. Each year, about 44,000 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S., and 37,000 people die of the disease. Although cancer of the pancreas has a terrible prognosis--half of all patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer die within 10 months of the diagnosis; half of those in whom it has metastasized die within six months--cancer in the pancreas is not necessarily a death sentence.

The pancreas contains two types of glands: exocrine glands that produce enzymes that break down fats and proteins, and endocrine glands that make hormones like insulin that regulate sugar in the blood. Jobs died of tumors originating in the endocrine glands, which are among the rarer forms of pancreatic cancer. Unlike pancreatic cancer, with neuroendocrine cancer, if you catch it early, there is a real potential for cure. His cancer was detected during an abdominal scan in October 2003, as Fortune magazine reported in a 2008 cover story.

It is widely believed in conventional medicine that surgery can lead to long-term survival. Despite the expert consensus on the value of surgery, Jobs did not elect it right away. He reportedly spent nine months on "alternative therapies," including what Fortune called "a special diet."
  

But when a scan showed that the original tumor had grown, he finally had it removed on July 31, 2004, at Stanford University Medical Clinic. He underwent an operation called a modified Whipple procedure, or a pancreatoduodenectomy, which removes the right side of the pancreas, the gallbladder, and parts of the stomach, bile duct, and small intestine, which was a strong suggestion that his cancer had spread beyond the pancreas.

Within five years, it was clear that Jobs was not cured. In April of 2009 Jobs flew to Switzerland and underwent an experimental procedure called peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). It involves delivering radiation to tumor cells by attaching one of two radioactive isotopes to a drug that mimics somatostatin, the hormone that regulates the entire endocrine system and the secretion of other hormones.

This treatment apparently failed, as shortly after that he had a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis. This is likely because the cancer had spread from the pancreas to his liver. Liver transplants are a well-established treatment for tumors that originate in that organ BUT it is very uncommon to remove the liver for metastatic cancer.

This is not routinely done for two primary reasons. The first is that it in no way, shape, or form addresses the original cancer, and it can easily spread to the new liver. But more importantly, he had to be placed on large doses of drugs to suppress his immune system so he would not reject his new liver. Tragically this is the very system your body uses to help control cancers. The liver has enormous regenerative capacity, and if they only removed the portion of his liver that contained the malignant cells, he would not have to take those dangerous anti-rejection drugs. 

Conventional cancer experts disagree with the approach that was taken for Steve.

" In contrast, with a liver transplant "the overall costs and complications ... override its benefits, especially when compared with partial [removal of the liver]." Indeed, liver transplants for metastatic cancer "have been largely abandoned," says Columbia's Chabot, because the immune-suppressing, anti-rejection drugs "lead to such a high recurrence rate.

Interestingly, it appears Steve was not given any chemotherapy or radiation treatments after his liver transplant, which undoubtedly contributed to his living over seven years after his surgery.

Was there Another Option for Steve's Cancer?

I am certainly not an expert in the treatment of cancer but it seems that Steve got the best cancer care possible. He avoided all treatments for nine months before electing to have a surgical intervention that frequently is curative for this type of cancer. It appears he also was able to avoid chemotherapy and radiation. Of course, the question remains on how he got the original cancer. It is impossible to know for sure as there are so many variables.
However, the biggest issue may have been the decision to have a liver transplant and go on the anti-rejection drugs. Conventional oncologists are stating that was, perhaps, a mistake.

I thought it would be helpful to interview an expert in the natural treatment of cancer on this so I contacted Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, who is widely known for his work with pancreatic cancer. I previously interviewed Dr. Gonzalez about his remarkable cancer program, in which he discussed the details of his history and the therapeutic approaches he employs-with a rate of success that is entirely unheard of in conventional medicine, I might add.

As explained in our first interview, Dr. Gonzalez has been involved in the natural treatment of cancer for over 25 years, and offers really innovative therapies for this devastating disease. He's known internationally for his expertise on pancreatic cancer specifically, but his therapies have wider applications and can be applied to all forms of cancer.

Many of his pancreatic cancer patients are still alive and well today, having survived up to 20 years... In conventional medicine, this is simply unheard of. Using the best conventional therapies we have, the typical survival rate for a pancreatic cancer patient is about 12-18 months. 

To summarize Dr. Gonzalez' program, it consists of three basic components:

1. Individualized diet based on nutritional (metabolic) typing
2. Individualized supplement program, which includes vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and pancreatic enzymes
3. Detoxification, which includes coffee enemas and colon cleanses

To review the details of his program, please see our previous interview.

Steve Jobs, Another Victim of Pancreatic Cancer

There are two basic types of pancreatic cancer. The most aggressive form is adenocarcinoma, which develops in the cells that produce pancreatic enzymes (these enzymes help digest proteins, fats, and carbohydrates and eliminate toxins from your body).

"About 95 percent of pancreatic cancers develop in the enzyme-producing cells that synthesize the main digestive enzymes of the intestinal tract," Dr. Gonzalez explains. "About five percent are developed in the endocrine component of the pancreas. The pancreas not only produces enzymes, but also produces hormones like insulin and glucagon. Cancer can develop in the insulin or other hormone-producing cells, but it's much less common. They tend to be a little less aggressive – the average survival for carcinoma of the enzyme-producing cells is probably three to six months."

Steve Jobs had this latter version of pancreatic cancer; islet cell carcinoma, the technical term for cancer of the hormone producing cells of the pancreas.

"He didn't have the most aggressive form," Dr. Gonzalez says. "... [H]e's had it for many years. He had a liver transplant in Memphis about two years ago. Again, he was very secretive about what was going on... [I]t must have meant he had a metastasis in the liver. First, he had to be treated with immunosuppressants. Whenever you have a transplanted organ, your body will tend to reject it, so you have to suppress your immune system. That's not good when you have a history of cancer, because immunosuppression can stimulate cancer growth since you're suppressing your own immune ability to fight cancer."

It appears Steve Jobs did everything he could, conventionally and alternatively to stay alive. As Dr. Gonzalez states, money certainly wasn't a limiting factor in his treatment.

"A procedure like that can run several hundred thousand dollars, at least. So my assumption, having treated pancreatic cancer for over two decades, he probably had metastasis in the liver, and it was a somewhat desperate attempt to try to keep it under control, although it would be ultimately futile. There's always the possibility of some kind of liver failure for reasons other than cancer that might have led him to a liver transplant, such as a medication reaction, hepatitis C from transfusion or something. But again, the reasons have never been publicly released, so we don't know. But most likely, he had metastasis in the liver."

Many Cancer Patients Shun Natural Cancer Treatment Options

According to Dr. Gonzalez, Jobs was seeing an acupuncturist who was very anxious for him to contact Dr. Gonzalez for advice. Dr. Gonzalez has been successfully treating cancer patients for over two decades.

"One of my great patients is a fellow from Michigan who had islet cell carcinoma that, at the time of diagnosis in 1995, had already metastasized to his liver. He went to the Mayo clinic, where everything was confirmed; he had CAT scans and biopsies... To the Mayo clinic's credit... if they know that a therapy isn't going to be useful, they don't promote it, whereas a lot of oncologists will promote therapies that are worthless.

The Mayo clinic told him chemo wouldn't do anything for him... There was really nothing they could do. He started with me in 1995, shortly after his diagnosis. He's alive and well now, 16 years later. CAT scans beginning around 2000 showed total resolution of his big tumors. He had a huge tumor in the pancreas -- it must have been around 6 centimeters. And then he had a big tumor, right under the liver. All these are gone."

Celebrity Patients and 'Star' Oncologists

Jobs is not the only celebrity who did everything he could through the conventional paradigm, which tragically has an abysmal success rate.

"Michael Landon actually did consult with me," Dr. Gonzalez says, "but he never did the therapy. His press agent, Harry Flynn, became a very good friend. Harry and I remain friends to this day, and this goes back to 20 years ago. As soon as a successful celebrity gets cancer, the conventional predators come out of the woodwork-and they say that alternative doctors are sitting there like predators, trying to lure unsuspecting cancer patients into their lairs. You know, I've been in the alternative world for a long time, and I've come out of this very conventional research. But I don't see a whole of that in the alternative world. 

What I do see is conventional doctors doing exactly what they criticize in alternative doctors. Landon was treated by an "eminent oncologist" from Cedars-Sinai, who held a press conference. The first thing conventional doctors do when they get a celebrity is to hold a press conference. To me it's almost like narcissism, just to show how important they are with all these celebrities coming to them. This is even if they know they can't do anything. He gave Landon an experimental chemo, but he was dead in three months."

As Dr. Gonzalez points out, conventional doctors can fail miserably and still be considered heroes. Alternative doctors, even the most successful ones, are still looked upon with great suspicion if not disdain. Upon Landon's death, his oncologist held another press conference, and Landon's widow was impressed with how "hard" his doctor had worked to treat her dying husband.

"You see, when a conventional oncologist loses a celebrity patient, they portray him as a hero fighting this terrible disease against the enormous odds; working late into the night trying to keep the celebrity alive," Dr. Gonzalez says. "But when an alternative practitioner loses a patient, they consider him a sleazy quack getting money from unsuspecting cancer victims. 

... The same thing was true, more recently, with Patrick Swayze. He had a very aggressive pancreatic cancer. Stanford oncologists doing his treatment held press conferences routinely... filled with this kind of joyful optimism that "they're going to help." He was gone in 18 months. Friends of his are actually patients of mine, but he absolutely had no interest in alternative medicine. He was very conventional – used "the best doctors" from Stanford."

Misplaced Blame-The Case of Steve McQueen and Dr. Kelley

Dr. Gonzalez' mentor, Dr. Kelley (who developed the cancer program Dr. Gonzalez now uses), treated Steve McQueen. McQueen ultimately died, although he lasted almost a year under Dr. Kelley's care.

"He was terminal when he came to Dr. Kelley," Dr. Gonzalez says. "He had failed radiation, failed immunotherapy. He had been misdiagnosed for a year. The reason he ended up with Stage 4 mesothelioma is because he was misdiagnosed by his fancy conventional doctors in Southern California.

Then they gave him radiation – there's not a study in the history of the world showing that radiation helps in mesothelioma; they gave it anyway. Then they gave him immunotherapy. There's not a study in the history of the world saying that immunotherapy helps in mesothelioma. They did it anyway. Then he was dying and he went to see Kelley. He died, and Kelley got all the blame-not the doctors who misdiagnosed him! In fact when you read the newspaper articles, there are still articles about how Dr. Kelley killed McQueen.

No, cancer killed McQueen.

You see, an oncologist at Sloan-Kettering can do a bone marrow transplant on celebrity patients. They die, and he's written up like a hero... Kelley tries to help after conventional doctors failed miserably and misdiagnosed him, and McQueen lived longer than he should. (He was a half-compliant patient – he continued to smoke, drink, and eat ice cream.) I told Kelley when I first met him, "The biggest mistake you've made with McQueen is you took him as a patient. You should have told him to hit the trail."

Dr. Kelley is now dead. But 30 years later, he still gets blamed for McQueen's death. About two or three years ago, there was an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal attacking unconventional cancer therapy. They talked about McQueen, and how Kelley killed him. ... Conventional oncologists lose patients every day, and no one says they're murdering anybody. Instead they're considered heroes for trying so hard."

As Dr. Gonzalez says, it's not even a double standard; it's like being in an alternative Universe. If you're a conventional oncologist, you can do no wrong, you're lauded as a hero despite your failures, and you make a lot of money making them. Meanwhile, alternative practitioners may succeed again and again, and still be considered dangerous quacks. This is a mindset that has absolutely nothing to do with scientific validity, objectivity, or evaluation of data. It really falls into a category more reminiscent of religious fervor.

Conventional Medicine as a Religion

So, how did we get to this point? Why does this situation exist when it's so illogical?

"Conventional academic medicine is the last religion left in America," Dr. Gonzalez says.

"So the way you have to look at medicine is not as a scientific profession, but rather a religious profession... It has its irrational beliefs. It has its own special language. It has its tools, it has its rituals. ... The fact that they don't make us better is ignored. Landon died, Patrick Swayze died, Linda McCartney died; I could list 20 celebrities who are dead because they went the conventional route. Why didn't they do my therapy? 

Because I don't have a temple. I don't even own a white coat... Michael Landon picked that up right away. In fact, his press agent, Harry Flynn, wanted him to come and see me... [But] one of Landon's comments about me was that I "wasn't fancy enough." So he went to the priesthood. He went to Cedars-Sinai." 

Meanwhile, Dr. Gonzalez has patients who were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the same time as Michael Landon, who are still alive today. His oldest survivor began the program in 1988.
"We have multiple patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have done well," Dr. Gonzalez says. "It's interesting: I do have very world-renowned celebrities as patients. But no one knows who they are; no one knows they have cancer. The reason for that is because they didn't die, and we don't hold press conferences. They're doing their program and doing well with their lives. 

We tell our patients: don't make cancer your life. Move on with your life. So they're back acting in movies, doing talk shows and that kind of stuff. No one knows they even had cancer. And that's fine with me. Some of them keep it secret because of the career thing, and they don't want the publicity. I understand that. So my successful patients who are celebrities, nobody knows who they are because they got well and they're just doing their job."

Now, it's important to stress that this is not a conspiracy. The physicians who promote the conventional approach do so because they truly believe it's the right thing to do; the only thing that has any chance of working. Healing cancer with foods and coffee enemas seems ludicrous when compared to the most advanced drug cocktails. If the most potent toxins can't kill the cancer, how in the world could you get rid of the cancer with nutrients? They've bought the conventional paradigm hook line and sinker, and they promote it not just for their patients, but for themselves and their families as well. And they suffer the same consequences as their patients.

"They grow up with the bias that drugs are the way to go. It's how they're trained; it's imprinted in their brain in medical school. It's like mind control – it's what they believe. They just can't believe anything else. They go to their graves believing it – often to their discredit, unfortunately.

Many conventional physicians are also in just as poor a health as their patients. However, there are signs that the tide is slowly about to shift.

"We get calls from doctors now, asking us about nutrition and what supplements they should take," Dr. Gonzalez says. "There's been a big change in the last few years. Fifteen years ago it didn't happen, and now it's starting to happen."

For More Information

For more information about Dr. Gonzalez and his practice, see www.dr-gonzalez.com. 

He's also working on a series of books, two of which have already been published and received five-star reviews: The Trophoblast and the Origins of Cancer, and One Man Alone: An Investigation of Nutrition, Cancer, and William Donald Kelley. Three others are in the works, one of which will contain 100 of Dr. Gonzalez' case reports of patients with advanced cancer who successfully recovered on his program. 

Thankfully, Dr. Gonzalez is still on the front lines and actively engaged in helping people by coaching them with natural alternatives instead of toxic drugs and radiation. 

I would personally not hesitate to recommend him to a family member or a friend diagnosed with cancer. His office is in Manhattan, where he can be reached at (212) 213-3337. His website, www.dr-gonzalez.com also contains information on how to become a patient, and everything a potential patient needs to know. 

Another source for more information about alternative cancer treatments in general is Suzanne Somers' book, Knockout. She reviews Dr. Gonzalez' work in one chapter, and Dr. Gonzalez personally recommends the book as a well-researched resource for anyone interested in getting more information.

"For cancer, specifically, I think Suzanne did a good job," Dr. Gonzalez says. "She really worked hard to put together resources that she thought legitimate and would be helpful for patients... So that's a good place to start in terms of general recommendations."

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/09/dr-nicholas-gonzalez-on-steve-jobs.aspx?

Related Links:

Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez on Alternative Cancer Treatments

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