Lessons from immunotherapy show the importance of lifestyle factors in fighting cancer from the inside out.
Twice, Jim Mann survived aggressive melanoma, which quickly kills most people.
Surgery in 2016 to remove a large spot on his head—along with lymph nodes, some under his skull—was sufficient to put Mann into remission, surprising doctors who expected to find the cancer had spread throughout his body.
Eighteen months later, follow-up testing on a mass he found revealed eight tumors throughout his body.
However, two months into his two-year immunotherapy treatment protocol, the tumors disappeared. His immune system, which he described as good before his diagnosis, responded robustly to treatment. By then, he had also quit eating sugar, minimized stress, and joined a support group.
“I shouldn’t have lived more than a month or two, based on how big the melanoma was, but I’m glad they didn’t tell me that at the beginning,” Mann told The Epoch Times. “The fact that they were shocked every time they saw me was unnerving, but great at the same time.”
Under ideal conditions, the immune system is a cancer-fighting machine. Immunotherapy—and its success on previously hopeless advanced cancer patients like Mann—elucidates how tweaking immune system mechanisms can get results that defy previous survival odds in some cancers. It’s a significant step forward in cancer treatment, and also illustrates that supporting the immune system during treatment appears to increase success—an initiative some patients embrace with lifestyle changes.
Immunotherapy requires a strong, well-functioning immune system, Dr. William Li, physician, scientist, and bestselling author of “Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself,” told The Epoch Times in an email interview.
“This is connected to a healthy diet, because your gut microbiome—the healthy bacteria that live in your gut—helps to nurture your immune system so it can effectively fight invaders like cancer cells. What we eat feeds our gut bacteria, which in turn, influences the ability of the immune system to respond properly to immunotherapy.”
Immunotherapy 101
Unlike healthy human cells, cancer cells often have defective repair mechanisms. They replicate out of control, rapidly multiplying but not dying like normal cells do when they are stressed or diseased.
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