Far more and a lot more folks who have been diagnosed with cancer or related illnesses embrace alternative medicines, and seek out holistic practitioners who use vitamins, herbs, nutrition, homeopathy, and acupuncture to treat the disease. This lengthy-awaited book by Donald Yance–1 of the nation’s most respected herbalists–is a main contribution to the literature of all-natural healing and cancer.
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This author has rave reviews from cancer patients in my area. I have gone through breast cancer treatments with this author’s help, one year after my mother died of breast cancer (most breast cancer is environmentally caused ). I am doing very well. I also learned of a man with prostrate cancer who was cured with Donald Yance’s help; he wrote his story in the local newspaper. In my opinion he is brilliant and a very loving human being who had so many cancer patients that he wrote a book to make his infomation available to others. I am so very grateful for his help and recomend this book as a first choice resource.
A cooperative working relationship between “allopathic” physicians and “naturalists” is long overdue in my opinion, and my opinion ought to be worth something. I am a physician with 25 years experience in cancer medicine and I have board certifications in internal medicine, medical oncology, hematology, and radiation oncology. Mr. Yance’s book is a step in the right direction, and I feel it is a worthwhile reference for any physician who is interested in the nutritional welfare of his patients. The book is far from perfect, however. For example, Mr. Yance overstates the risk of carcinogenesis from therapeutic radiation, presents site-specific side effects such as dry mouth as if they were general effects of radiation, underplays the value and effectiveness of radiation for common adult tumors such as breast cancer, and claims benefit for herbal or nutritional remedies for side effects of cancer treatment even when they have been shown to be ineffective in clinical trials. Administration of vitamin B12 and folate to prevent chemotherapy-induced neuropathy is the most egregious example. At the same time, glutamine is not mentioned for prevention of neuropathy though it is known to be useful, at least for prevention of nerve injury from vinca alkaloids.
Another problem is that much of the nutritional information is too technically advanced for most lay readers. One would have to know more biochemistry than the majority of phyicians to wade through the terminology.
Despite its shortcomings, I think Mr. Yance’s book is a valuable resource and would recommend it to my medical colleagues. My advice to the general public is to go to the best source for information about cancer treatments. As a medical and radiation oncologist, I wouldn’t try to inform my patients about nutritional therapies, and I sure wouldn’t ask a nutritionist their opinion about radiation or chemotherapy. Discuss all the therapeutic issues with your main healthcare provider. If he or she won’t discuss herbal, nutritional, and other alternative or complementary modalities, ask for other opinions.
Several times in the course of completing a 4 year degree in Phyto Medicine I came across the work of Donnie Yance. He is well known for his work in treating cancer with Herbal Medicine. This book provides an excellent insight into his experienced approach and use of Herbal Medicine as an adjuvant to “conventional” treatment. Clearly influenced by the great American physicomedicalist, Eli G. Jones (who treated many cancer patients in the early 20th century – when Herbal Medicine was the conventional medicine), he brings the historical evidence base & treatment approaches up to date and expands upon them in the light of modern scientific research.
For the layperson looking for a reputable source of information on Herbal Medicine in cancer treatment & prevention, this would certainly be one of the books to read. As well as being eminently readable for the layperson it is also sufficiently referenced with primary sources for the use of medical practitioners.
From reading the book it is immediately clear that Donnie is a religious man, often mentioning his beliefs in explanation of his own personal approach to the therapeutic relationship with his patients. Rather than clouding or detracting from the scientific content of the book, it helps repeat a common theme in his treatment approach – “compassion” and “treatment of the person, not the disease”.
In short, one of the very few non-conventional medicine books relating to this subject that I have on my bookshelf.
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