Sixty percent of cancer patients try alternative medicine.
Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cancer cures from alternative medicine, but these mostly unproven treatments are becoming mainstream with more than a third of all American patients using them.
While some people who try unproven remedies risk only money, medical experts say others may lose their chance of beating cancer by skipping conventional treatments or by mixing in other therapies. Some vitamins and “natural” supplements can interfere with cancer medicines or affect hormones that help cancer grow.
Studies estimate that 60 percent of cancer patients try unconventional remedies and about 40 percent take vitamin or dietary supplements. And about 7 percent of cancer patients go straight to an alternative approach. They sometimes travel to Mexico, the Bahamas or a “spa” in Europe for treatments not allowed in the United States.
Read more…
