Integrative medicine and diets -- IMPORTANT INFO IF YOU ARE PROVIDING A MEAL

Joe again...

Lynn's radiation treatments continue.  All in all, she is doing pretty well.  Her headaches are gone, and her vision has dramatically improved.  She had been blind in one eye, and now she can see with that eye with just a little blurriness.  On the other side of things, she has had some muscle weakness in her legs.  Still, she is able to get around and out of the house every now and then.

This past week, we visited an OSU doctor in the department of integrative medicine, Dr. Glen Aukerman.  He focuses on diet as a way to treat a variety of illnesses, including cancer.  He claims to have had a terminal form of cancer in 2001 that went into remission due to diet changes.  And he has treated a number of cancer patients whose cancer disappeared after several months of adhering to his regimen.

Dr. Aukerman's thesis is essentially that it takes many years (he throws out 10,000) for the human body to adapt to new sources of food.  Over the past 500 years, we have been able to start transporting food around the world.  Over the last 50 or 100 years, that process has exploded, augmented by genetic modifications and other changes to increase yield but perhaps with hidden health costs.

Check out his book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Better-Health-120-Days-Genomic-Specific/dp/1590980123

We're adopting Dr. Aukerman's program.  He performed some pretty extensive blood work (he took 15 vials!), and he has recommended a number of supplements and dietary changes.

So we're relying upon traditional treatments to calm the immediate symptoms and to extend her life while we hope that a permanent cure can be had from the dietary changes.  It's a plausible hope, and hope is as necessary as any medicine to treat this disease!

So if you're reading this and you are planning to bring a meal (thank you!), you have some home work.  The diet is essentially gluten free.  Beyond that, take a look at the hand-outs that he provided.  We may be able to accommodate some non-compliant meals as the kids and I ease onto this same diet, but Lynn is going to begin to comply with it.  We're still learning our own way, so communicating could be challenging.  If you have any questions, please ask.

There is a notice at the bottom of these hand-outs, "Not for Duplication".  I'm not sure in what situation this was put in for, but I'm guessing that no one is going to threaten a cancer patient who is just trying to coordinate her meals!