News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
"We are looking for a cure for cancer, and I know we're on the right track," Quillin, Vice President of Nutrition for Cancer Treatment Centers of America, told employees of the Sisters nutritional supplement company.
Dr. Quillin, PhD, RD, was in Sisters to celebrate the development of a package of nutritional supplements manufactured by Metabolic Maintenance. The supplements are used with traditional forms of cancer treatment such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
This intense nutritional treatment protocol is what makes Cancer Treatment Center programs different from those of other cancer treatment hospitals.
"Nutrition is essential to comprehensive cancer treatment," Dr. Quillin said.
The record of cancer treatment over the last 20 years seems to support his statement.
The United States spends $110 billion a year on cancer treatment, Dr. Quillin reported, making it the nation's most costly disease. Since 1950, the incidence of breast cancer alone increased from one in 20 women to one in nine. One in three people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer and one in four will die of the disease.
According to Quillin, cancer treatment has failed; there has been no progress in prevention or treatment.
For many years, the patients at CTC hospitals "mostly came from failed cancer treatment after what was called the best medical care in North America," Quillin said. "Now we treat more cancer patients than all the other cancer treatment hospitals in the nation."
Doctors had told those early patients they had an average of three months to live. The comprehensive treatment protocol at Cancer Treatment Centers extended that estimate to 10 months even for patients who respond poorly to the treatment. For those who respond better, Dr. Quillin reported, life expectancy was from six to 10 years and more.
Dr. Quillin theorizes that cancer kills because of malnutrition, and the disease most likely begins because of poor eating habits, which he also diagnoses as malnutrition. He cited some of the low nutrient foods eaten annually by the average American, including 756 doughnuts, 60 pounds of cake and cookies, 365 sodas, 90 pounds of fat and 134 pounds of refined sugar.
Because of this consumption, most Americans are "nutritionally bankrupted" by junk food, Dr. Quillin believes.
The result, Dr. Quillin said, is that the body loses the ability to absorb good food when it is eaten and the immune system is compromised. Cancer therapies also compromise the body's natural immune system.
Pesticides, toxic waste, drugs (including hormones and antibiotics), lack of exercise and poor attitude contribute further to the debilitation of the body's normal protective mechanisms.
"To treat cancer with traditional therapy only," Quillin argued, "is like cutting a fungus growth off a tree and expecting the fungus to not return. The fungus will return as long as conditions are favorable for it."
Following extensive research, Dr. Quillin determined that nutritional cancer therapy would require the intake of 150 to 200 pills a day, along with dietary changes. Five years ago, he decided to develop a comprehensive package of nutritional supplements to reduce this number and the cost. He began searching for a company that could manufacture such a package.
About this time, he met Ed Fitzjarrel, owner of Metabolic Maintenance, at a nutrition conference in Atlanta. They began a friendship and consulted often. Four years ago, Quillin asked Fitzjarrel to take on the challenge of creating the supplement package. This included the difficult task of finding sources for a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, food products and botanicals (herbs).
Then came the manipulation of these combinations into a workable program of supplementation and finally developing the product. Today, the powder and pill combination is available to patients directly or through Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
"This is hugely important," Quillin said. "We are seeking a more rational, less toxic form of treatment for disease."
For patients who are receiving radiation or chemotherapy, Quillin reported, the effect of nutritional aid has already shown dramatic benefits, reducing nausea, hair loss, weight loss and improving energy of patients.
The improvement of recovery through pre- treating cancer patients with the Metabolic Maintenance package before applying traditional therapies "is staggering," Quillin said. Recurrence of cancer has been documented to be greatly reduced with nutritional supplementation in the form of antioxidants.
Selenium, magnesium, calcium, vitamins A and E in combinations have demonstrated a reduction in recurrence of many cancers by a third to a half.
Dr. Quillin emphasized that living a healthy lifestyle is still the best way to beat cancer before the disease occurs.
"Exercise and eat lean," he cautioned, "with balanced supplements and lots of fiber and fluid, especially water. Practice the 90/10 rule," of 90 percent healthy to 10 percent treats.
He emphasized the importance of exercise and attitude.
"I try to do one hour of exercise a day," he reported, and take care of my attitude through playing music. Do something you like for part of every day. Include Vitamin F -- fun."
Quillin is the author of "Beating Cancer With Nutrition."
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