Testimonials

Breast cancer (adenocarcinoma) cured thanks to the macrobiotic diet

following lumpectomy and radiation treatment

I had my first mammogram (at age 45) in January 1994 and the lab called me back to do it over. When I got there, the receptionist was evasive, wouldn’t look at me, and just said the technician needed to see another X-ray. So, I had another mammogram and they sent it to my doctor. He told me that they saw a mass on the X-ray and referred me to a surgeon.

Well, the business of surgeons is cutting, so on April 1 I had a hospital date for a biopsy. The worst part about that was the needle placement procedure. That really hurt.^[1] The surgeon had mentioned it, but hadn’t exactly described it. I tried to faint, but they wouldn’t let me and waved smelling salts under my nose.

After the biopsy, my surgeon told me that the lump was a benign mass (I forget the name), which is what he had thought it was. So, I was relieved, and went home to recover.

By the time I went back to the doctor for the removal of my stitches, he had the news from the lab that the mass was an adenocarcinoma. He already had a plan, showed me some diagrams, and said, “This is what we are going to do.” The plan was a lumpectomy, axillary dissection, and radiation treatment afterwards.

I felt frightened when I left the surgeon’s office and felt like the world had changed by the time I got to my car. But, I went along with the medical program because I didn’t know of any other options. I wish there had been someone around to tell me the truth about cancer and diet and the uselessness of conventional medical methods of treatment.^[2] My health hasn’t been the same since, but I’m still working on it.

I had the lumpectomy on April 29 and all went as expected except that I felt terrible afterwards. They woke me up, shoved a pain pill in my mouth, and told me to get dressed so my friend could take me home. This was way different from the biopsy. I was so groggy from the anesthesia that I couldn’t sit up in the car and felt really nauseous.

My friend took me home and I started feeling better in the next 12 hours, although I stayed off work for a week and had to deal with drains and bandages and soreness for a while.

After the first few weeks of freaking out over a cancer diagnosis, I finally got hold of myself. Having attended a metaphysical church for the past 10 years, I made myself think about the lesson I was supposed to learn from the experience.^[3]

I was interested in nutrition, homeopathy, and alternative healing and had known about the macrobiotic way of eating for 25 years. I knew macrobiotics as a method of dealing with serious health problems such as cancer and it was clear to me that this was the next step. I had been nudging myself in that direction, but wasn’t quite ready to give up my nachos and sugary soft drinks. Now I knew I had to go macro.

I had been calling myself a vegetarian, but although I ate no meat, poultry, or fish, I rarely ate vegetables other than salads and had never eaten a whole grain. I also hated fruit because it always tasted sour to me, but I forced myself to eat it. If you know anything about macrobiotics, you are probably starting to see some interesting patterns here.

I called my brother who had been eating a macrobiotic diet and he sent me some information. I started trying to straighten up my diet on my own and stopped eating sugar and cheese before I started radiation treatments. He had sent me an article about how sugar and dairy products caused radiation to do more damage to the body than if one did not eat them.

The radiation treatments didn’t hurt, but were a nuisance because I had to go every day. Besides, my job was being eliminated and I was out of a job in June with only a part-time one to move on to. I had concurrent challenges going on, to say the least.

As part of my treatment I was required to see a nutritionist. The woman knew next to nothing about vegetarian diets, insisted that I had to eat dairy products, had never heard of macrobiotics, and never mentioned the importance of eating whole grains. She even gave me an article about “dangerous fad diets” that was actually kind of funny.

Anyway, I finished radiation treatments in early July and had my first appointment with a macrobiotic counselor on July 9. I was a mess by the time I got there because I was starting to feel fatigued and unwell, and the messy and uncomfortable skin breakdown had begun on some areas that had been radiated. If you’ve had it you know what I’m talking about.^[4]

The macrobiotic counselor explained the body functions and energy meridians according to traditional Chinese medicine and I had an a-ha moment when he showed me where the stomach meridian ended in the breast area. He also said that if I really believed that surgery, radiation, and drugs cured cancer I would not be sitting in his office.

I went back to the surgeon and the radiation oncologist for follow-up exams a few times and then eventually stopped going. I couldn’t see the point anymore since I knew that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t be doing those kinds of treatments again.

It annoyed me that my radiation oncologist was so pleased that I had no permanent skin damage from the radiation, but didn’t understand that it had something to do with what I was eating. And I wish I had known about miso’s protective qualities while I was undergoing the radiation treatments.^[5] I didn’t learn about it until later that fall when I signed up for cooking classes.

I assume the cancer is gone since I’m still here almost 10 years later^[6].

There is more to the story though, since my general health kind of went downhill despite macrobiotics, and I blame a lot of that on the radiation. It whacked-out my immune system and caused some problems along the way, but acupuncture, acupressure, and Chinese herbs have been very helpful.

I think the best way to deal with serious health issues is with diet and knowledgeable alternative health practitioners. Also important is your own willingness to learn and change.

If you have the right information, you don’t have to be afraid and can take action to correct your body’s imbalances. The standard American diet (SAD) creates an acidic body condition which allows cancer and other diseases to develop. Eating the macrobiotic way creates an alkaline body environment which does not allow cancer to grow. It really is pretty simple once you understand.

[Even though the cancer was a thing of the past, worsening non-specific health problems such as chronic fatique and fibromyalgia-type symptoms were becoming a problem. This led Debbie (not her real name) to an acupuncture practioner and to Body Restoration Technique (BRT) treatments, a technique in which acupressure is used to balance the endocrine system and restore health.]

The above breast cancer healing account was found (among many others) and adapted from a site devoted to macrobiotics that went offline in mid–2007.

Footnotes

1 Actually biopsies not only hurt but can spread cancer.

2 See the extensive Conventional section for details.

3 See Healing Cancer and the Power of Your Mind.

4 Many more details on the Potential Serious Side Effects of Radiotherapy Doctors Might Not Have Told You About.

5 More on the macrobiotic diet against radiation damage under Combatting radiation poisoning tips.

6 reported in December 2003. Debbie died fifteen years later (in 2018) at age 69 likely of "natural causes".

Is there a cure for cancer? After 20 years of research

discover what this German expert thinks.

Testimonials

Breast cancer (adenocarcinoma) cured thanks to the macrobiotic diet

following lumpectomy and radiation treatment

Related content

Related sections