The Gerson Therapy???

[boardn10]

Hi Jeff,

What do you and Dr. McDougall think of the Gerson Therapy? Are you familiar? It falls somewhat in line with your thinking.

I am not sure this diet is raw.....but I know a few people who really benefited from it.

http://www.healingdaily.com/conditions/Gerson-therapy.htm

http://www.gerson.org/GersonTherapy/gersontherapy.htm

[talkingmountain]

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cancer.html

[SactoBob]

Quackwatch does tend to disregard worthwhile therapies IMO. But in this case they got it right.

Charlotte Gerson claims that treatment at the clinic has produced high cure rates for many cancers. In 1986, however, investigators learned that patients were not monitored after they left the facility [19]. Although clinic personnel later said they would follow their patients systematically, there is no published evidence that they have done so. A naturopath who visited the Gerson Clinic in 1983 was able to track 21 patients over a 5-year period (or until death) through annual letters or phone calls. At the 5-year mark, only one was still alive (but not cancer-free); the rest had succumbed to their cancer

There needs to be some proof that these strange cancer therapies work for claims to be made. Otherwise, it is quackery.

[boardn10]

It will be difficult to ever see large scale legitimate studies on something like this due to the fact that there isn't a lot of money to made in the long run. If anything, Big Pharma would lose out.

[JeffN]

It will be difficult to ever see large scale legitimate studies on something like this due to the fact that there isn't a lot of money to made in the long run.

Not true.

As you can see, there is no credible evidence supporting the "Gerson" therapy and evidence to the contrary.

Specifically

Austin S, Dale EB, DeKadt S. Long-term follow-up of cancer patients using Contreras, Hoxsey and Gerson therapies. Journal of Naturopathic Medicine 5(1):74-76, 1994.

American Cancer Society. Unproven methods of cancer management: Gerson method. CA -- A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 40:252-256, 1990.

"Overview of the Gerson Regimen". Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. March 18, 2009. http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69233.cfm.

Weitzman S (1998). "Alternative Nutritional Cancer Therapies". International Journal of Cancer Supplement II: 69–72.

And in general,

http://drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8172

For instance, there are over 25 well done studies specifically on the raw food diet and there are over 25 studies on the raw/vegan/vegetarian diet on arthritis of which there would be no money or pharma benefit from that.

In Health
Jeff

PS Updated 10/15/2012

Deaths related to coffee enemas.
AMA. 1980 Oct 3;244(14):1608-9.

Campylobacter sepsis associated with "nutritional therapy"--California.
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1981 Jun 26;30(24):294-5.

American Cancer Society. Unproven methods of cancer management: Gerson method.
CA -- A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 40:252-256, 1990.

Juices, coffee enemas, and cancer.
Lancet. 1990 Sep 15;336(8716):677-8.

Long-term follow-up of cancer patients using Contreras, Hoxsey and Gerson therapies.
Journal of Naturopathic Medicine 5(1):74-76, 1994.

"Alternative Nutritional Cancer Therapies".
International Journal of Cancer Supplement II: 69–72. 1998
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 7/abstract

Overview of the Gerson Regimen". Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. March 18, 2009.
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69233.cfm.

Gerson regimen.
Oncology (Williston Park). 2010 Feb;24(2):201.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20361473

Gerson therapy
Helen Cooke, Helen Seers, CAM-Cancer Consortium.
http://www.cam-cancer.org/CAM-Summaries ... on-therapy. September 24, 2012.