Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds

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In addition we do not know why Turner’s respondents’ remissions happened. Of course they could all be due to the adoption of some combination of the nine lifestyle changes. Or they could be due to some other, unknown factors. One factor proven to be effective but not included in Turner’s nine hypotheses is the placebo effect. The placebo effect has been shown to account for up to 40% of positive outcomes in tests. Why do none of Turner’s respondents mention placebo? Because it is human nature to focus on actions taken, not expectations of the patient, and the placebo effect is all about the power of patient expectations. In addition, mentioning the placebo would imply that other interventions taken by respondents are not necessarily effective. (To beat the placebo effect as an explanation, an intervention must be more than 40% effective.) Kelly Turner: Cross your fingers that we can get a major motion picture about radical remission out there in theaters. NY Times bestselling author Kelly Turner, Ph.D., a researcher who specializes in integrative oncology and filmmaker, gives the reader the results of her research on over 1,000 cases of Radical Remission—people who have defied a serious or even terminal cancer diagnosis with a complete reversal of the disease. The results of this study, which focused on seventy-five factors, include astounding insights of the 9 key healing factors that Dr. Turner found among nearly every Radical Remission survivor she has studied and an explanation of how the reader can put these practices to work in his or her own life.

Supplements are another area in which there is some experimental support for certain findings relating to cancer. Turner admits there is no definitive proof organic food is better for health.* Some studies do show that ECGC (Epigallocatechin gallate) in green tea kills cancer cells.* Mushroom supplements like turkey tail may increase the amount of natural killer cells in the blood.* There is some support for high doses of C,* turmeric,* and daily probiotics.* Multivitamin intake may reduce cancer risk slightly.* Well, lo and behold, 18 months later they’re better. Right when their COBRA runs out, they’re better. They get the clean scan. That’s not a made-up story. That was about somebody I just interviewed. These things really happen, Her account cites many examples of people who pursued non-standard therapies and beat cancer. One of the most moving is the case of Shin Terayama, a kidney cancer patient who was released to go home because there was no possibility of remission. He claims to have cured himself through a combination of breath work, a simplified diet, fasting, purified water, and sending love to his cancerous tumors. He was cancer free for over 25 years. In another example, Nancy’s doctor recommended a standard therapy of full mastectomy, radiation and tamoxifen. She chose instead a regime of diet, exercise, herbs, emotional spiritual and energy treatments. She was still cancer-free 18 years later. To illustrate the potential power of releasing suppressed emotions, Dr. Turner shares a life story about Joe, a gay man diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. Joe worked on letting go of his resentments toward his partner and toward God, focusing on “letting go of every ounce of anger and pessimism from his past” — along with a whole host of other lifestyle changes. Despite dire predictions, tests have shown that Joe’s tumors have continued to either shrink or hold steady. This book is a scam. It designed to prey on desperate people(who are suffering from or whose loved one is suffering from cancer), who will willingly spend money buying this book in the hopes of finding the solution/cure they so desperately seek.However, the book has a very clear bias towards TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) and Eastern Mysticism/Energy healing. I will be the first to advocate for integrated and supplemental natural medicine but this went way beyond that. If you use the word social support, that’s a term that researchers understand and they also understand how amazingly powerful social support is. In any cancer survival epidemiological study, if you take out social support, the [prediction] model falls apart. Social support is so powerful when it comes to [predicting] survival time. Liz Curran – Co-Director of the Radical Remission Project and holistic cancer health coach, educator, and speaker – was inspired to become a health coach after caring for her sister with an aggressive breast cancer diagnosis in 2014. She watched her sister struggle with feeling powerless to aid in her own healing. During that time, Liz believed that there had to be a roadmap out there to guide people to play a stronger role in their own healing. She believes Radical Remission is that roadmap.

Karla has a Bachelor of Arts degree from DePaul University, Chicago with a focus in Project and Change Management. She received her health coaching certification from the Wisdom of the Whole Coaching Academy as well as the Radical Remission Project and is nationally board certified by the National Board of Health & Wellness Coaches (NBHWC). First, if you are the kind of person who absolutely never believes in ghosts, don't even try to read this book. There are no ghosts here, but for this book to even be readable, you have to be open to the idea that something might possibly, could be real, even if it defies all reason and there's no scientific explanation. You don't have to buy into alternative medicine, or believe in the paranormal, to get something positive out of this book, but you do need to take everything with a grain of salt. What do you do with that resistance? I mean, I think the lesson there that I take is that if you want to act like a radical remission survivor, you shouldn’t discount that voice from the beginning. You shouldn’t let six months or two years go by ignoring it. It should have a place at the decision-making table, at least that’s what the people I study say now. They say, “I wish that I would have just let it come to the table, let it have a voice.” Not necessarily always win or always be right, but at least have a vote in the matter.At a time when psycho-oncology has come to the forefront of conventional oncology care, and when evidence-based integrative therapies are appearing in leading medical journals, Dr. Turner’s work could not come at a more opportune time. Dr. Turner’s unique and exemplary skill set: being a psychotherapist who then trained in social science research, and is a yoga teacher, has made her an ideal candidate for formulating, conducting and presenting this very timely research for the scientific community, as well as for creating an easily digestible format for the general public. Dr. Turner points out: “I don’t give medical advice nor do I even give advice, really. I’m just here to report on my research, and I can certainly say what radical remission survivors would do from a research standpoint.” If you or someone you loved had a different outcome than those described in this book, this book would be a very difficult read. With a husband currently cancer-free, this book provided inspiration to keep on, keepin’ on. It also provided hope to keep moving forward.

Kelly Turner: That’s where it feels like I was the right person for the job, because I didn’t have a medical degree and medical training, but I was a counselor who was used to asking questions and listening. I asked them, “Tell me everything you think might have contributed to your healing.” Well, we have hundreds of studies on how depressed cancer patients die sooner. I felt like for all of the emotional factors, I could couch it in terms of reducing stress or increasing endorphins or increasing social support. For every single one of the seven emotional factors, I could reference some batch of studies that has been done, not only with health in general, but specifically with cancer patients. Scientists have done studies on stress and cancer, on depression and cancer, on social support and cancer. This book was mentioned by a friend who was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer. Facing a bleak prognosis, she refused to resign herself to fate and has committed herself to defying the odds. This is not the type of book I usually read, however, when faced with the possibility of imminent death, I can understand the desire to grasp at all possible sources of hope, and I was intrigued. Imagine a world where someone went from stage IV cancer to cancer-free. It sounds unbelievable; some might use that “miracle” word. Yet Kelly A. Turner, PhD, covers a number of cases (at least nine) in her book Radical Remission Surviving Cancer Against All Odds.

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Marianne Cirone: How did your research start to recognize what has been happening for a long time, but has been under the radar of evidence-based medicine? Another thing I wasn't fond of was the author's decision to soften the outlandishness of John of God's healing methods by using carefully chosen words. Though many online articles refer to him succinctly as a "psychic surgeon", the author described John of God as having "the ability to leave his body and go into a trance, thereby allowing the spirit of a higher being to enter his body and perform energetic healing work." (p. 237) Even when they hesitated and let their frontal cortex make the decision, their body still knew. As soon as they moved their mouse over the correct curtain, the sweat glands knew. Not only that, their bodies knew the right answer two to three seconds before the computer even randomly generated which curtain it was going to put it behind! It’s craziness that your body basically knows the future.