The UK National Health Service reports that one in two people in the UK will develop cancer at some time in their lives. This is a stark and rather frightening statistic, not only because cancer is a leading cause of death but also because the usual treatments are almost as scary as the disease itself.
You probably know someone who has endured toxic, painful and sometimes disfiguring treatments, only to lose their battle against cancer or experience a relapse and have to face it all over again. According to a 2021 survey, 40 percent of British adults say their lives have been “significantly affected” because a close friend or family member has had cancer.
As a conventionally trained medical doctor, I appreciate the advances in cancer care over the past few decades. I would not hesitate to recommend surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or immunotherapy for the types of cancer they have been proven to help. I also recognize the value of blood tests, X-rays, MRIs, CTs and other tests and use them in my clinic for cancer screening, diagnosis and monitoring.
Yet I learned early in my medical career that they are not enough. Routine blood tests and imaging scans are great at detecting obvious tumors and metabolic irregularities, but they
