By Yehuda Ben-Asher, MD NOTE: Agi Hirshberg met Yehuda eight years ago when he came online to give a comprehensive critique of our first web site. As you will read, he is a renowned hand surgeon, with an urgent commitment to the holistic approach towards fighting pancreatic cancer.

Before beginning, I think that it would be of help to understand my background.  I am a 50-year-old second-generation high-risk pancreatic cancer family member. After obtaining my medical degree, I specialized in hand and reconstructive microsurgery, being boarded in general, plastic and hand surgery. I combined this with a background in naturopathy (holistic medicine) to develop an Integrative Medicine practice.  After my father and four of his brothers and sisters died of pancreatic cancer, we entered a high-risk family epidemiological study and program.  The most memorable thing that the program physician said to my siblings and cousins was that “high-risk” is only that, a risk, and not necessarily real.   Like all risks in health, cancer genetic risk produces only a tendency to develop the disease, and is preventable and treatable.  The lesson was that a family genetic weakness, only in combination with environmental factors, and general health would determine whether we also would develop pancreatic cancer.  More so, my belief that I could overcome the family cancer tendency, or any ensuing cancer, actually saved my life.

After my father’s death, and meeting with the epidemiologist, I decided to test myself with holistic style tests.  A combination of bioresonance energy testing and blood tests demonstrated that I contained cancerous cells in my blood, along with pancreas, liver and lymph abnormalities.  The tests also showed a tendency to bladder cancer along with the pancreatic cancer. Although CT scans, ultrasounds and cancer tumor markers were normal. I remembered back to my father who, only 4 months after receiving normal reports of CT scans, endoscopic ultrasound and tumor markers, died in a six week time span after diagnosis of an anaplastic cancer in the pancreas and liver.  My history of multiple other skin cancers along with the above findings resolved the issue of using only holistic means to rid myself of these cancer propensities.

After undergoing a holistic style cleansing, nutritional program, bioresonance energy treatments, and supplements, my liver, pancreas and lymph returned to normal within one year and blood within three years.   The bladder abnormalities also improved within 6 weeks.    My skin weakness and multiple skin cancers and precancerous lesions resolved within the last 2 years only after taking massive doses of Vitamin A high foods, like goat milk products, ice creams, and organic eggs. 

   Now eight years later, I look back to that health crisis, really an opportunity, as a crisis that stimulated me to reconstruct my health, career, family and religious/spiritual life. This enabled to me to be happier and healthier than that I had ever been in my life.  I also used this opportunity to dedicate my life to developing a chemotherapy free style of treatment that would in most cases cure already proven cancer.

In this article on the holistic approaches to pancreas cancer, I will try to describe some of the diagnostic and treatment approaches of which I have found to be useful in my practice.  As there are so many approaches out there in the uncontrolled world of holistic medicine, I will not attempt to discuss all of them.

The holistic approach to all disease is to use natural means to strengthen and balance the body to allow for better healing.  This applies to acute and chronic illness, whether inflammatory, infectious or degenerative.  Cancer is a form of chronic degenerative illness, so is treated as such.

There are major conceptual differences between the holistic and conventional approaches.  Conventional medicine regards disease as an external process, which has attacks the person, while holistic medicine looks at disease as primarily resulting from internal imbalance.  The body has its own innate intelligence, which gives it the ability to continually heal itself.  Imbalance stimulates the body through multiple mechanisms, mostly within the sympathetic autonomic nervous system .   These processes include fever, swelling, phlegm, pus as well as tumors.   Even though we experience these processes as “illness”, they are actually beneficial in nature, as long as we respond to these processes in the correct manner.  When we don’t, we drive the illness farther into the cell, to only reappear at a later time.

   When our actions and behavior that caused the imbalance continue unabated, then the natural balancing process loses control, resulting in cancer.  A foundation of holistic medicine, until recently not addressed in conventional medicine, is that each person, a combination of body, emotion and mind/spirit, must be treated as a whole in order to heal.  Unless the emotional and mind/spiritual imbalances are treated, then the physical illness will remain, even though temporary remissions or improvements may occur.  I have found that these emotional and mind/spiritual imbalances are also found within the sympathetic autonomic nervous system, connected to the neurohormonal systems, and therefore can be addressed by physical treatments.

These conceptual differences may attribute to the fact that, after decades of experience and experimentation with chemotherapy and other conventional cancer therapies, consistent long- term cures remain unattainable.  While the short -term (3-5 year) remission and cure rates in some cancers have improved, 15-year rates remain unchanged.  For many cancers, like pancreas cancer, the treatment protocol results remain very poor indeed, typically reaching 2% survival at 2 years.

Early Diagnosis

As it has been demonstrated that pancreatic cancer, like all cancers, is a process of progressive degeneration, the goal of treatment should be early diagnosis and treatment while the degenerative process is still more easily reversible.  It has been demonstrated by colonoscopic cytology studies that pancreas cancers will slough cancerous cells up to 10 years through the pancreatic ducts into the colon, prior to radiologic detection.  Once the tumor can be detected by radiologic three-dimensional studies such as ultrasound, endoscopic ultrasound, CT Scan or MRI, results of surgery and chemotherapy are poor, while the lifestyle changes demanded by many holistic therapies are not easily tolerated by many patients.

All early diagnostic means in the alternative medicine spectrum are incredibly flawed.  Energy is very subjective , with multiple interpretations by different practitioners according to their skills, knowledge of the body and physiology, and prejudices.  Therefore, I have stopped using many of the alternative and energy based tests in my practice.

After many years of absence, my childhood ability to see and feel energy regained prominence over the last couple years, after I electively shut it off for many years during my conventional medical career.  While having too much a scientific mind, I refused to give credence to such a non-”scientific” approach to diagnosis, as what I saw on the energy level of the body physiology  contradicted so much with what I learned during my many years as a conventional doctor.  Although I routinely used this ability to diagnose hand and upper extremity problems during my surgery career, I hesitated to use the ability to see energy during my naturopathic career until the last few years.  Despite my fear of “coming out of the closet”, I found that the vast majority of patients accepted my style of diagnosis, especially since my diagnoses of subtle pathology held out when checked with conventional tests.

I now only rely on my eyes, using my typical skepticism as a scientifically based surgeon as a balancing tool.  Of course, I back up this diagnostic ability with the use of tests already performed by the patient.  I also suggest that patients obtain tests to validate my finding and treatments, although many tests such as bone scans and CT scans are remarkably inaccurate.  I have found that these scans will persist to show tumor mass despite the absence of active cancer cells.  I have found that only the PET scan accurately demonstrates the presence and activity level of cancer cells in the body.

Treatment

My treatment of precancer and cancer patients is the same.   It consists of helping the body re-establish the normal interaction between the sympathetic autonomic nervous system, the neurohormonal system and the immunodigestive system. 

I perform this through the following steps:

• Re-establish the body’s natural structural alignment, and energetic flow
• Re-establish organ function

• Replenish the body with minerals, vitamins and caloric energy via nutrition
• Increase the body’s oxygen content
• Cleanse the body of wastes and toxins

Body Realignment

I have found that most patients have abnormal alignment of their skeletal structure that affects their internal function.  The most important in the case of cancer of any kind is the neck, pelvis, and feet.  This shuts down the thymus, thyroid and liver, which are the main fighters against cancer.  The hips, secondarily displaced in pelvis abnormalities, shut down the kidneys, decreasing general strength in the body.  When realigned, and then charged with energy, these organs start to function, first slowly, then begin to function at increasing rates when re-energized with nourishing special foods.  ‘When the three main organs in the fight against cancer work sufficiently, the cancers  quickly recede.  In the short series of 5 cancers that I have treated in the last 2 months with this new technique, all patients became tumor free within 3 weeks.  2 of 5 patients were checked with PET scans, and the others with clinical diagnosis alone.  When I say clinical diagnosis, that means that the typical red energy field of cancers disappeared, and the patients physiologic parameters improved significantly. Although a short series, it is extremely promising.  It is interesting and important to note that all bacterial/fungal/parasite infections that I typically see within the cancers also resolved.  The kidneys, pericardium and brain, when realigned and activated, also give the patient the will to live and abilility to overcome their fears of life, and decrease all types of pain

Nutrition

While not going into an in-depth discussion of nutrition, I use a wide array of whole foods to implement my treatment program.  Only whole foods nourish the cells in order to maintain energy treatments and skeletal readjustments.  While every patient is different, I use mainly whole animal products, including lamb, goat and cow products.  Although heretical in the mainstream nutritional movements in the west,  I have found that animal products are much more easily digested, allow the absorption and assimilation of large doses of fat soluble vitamins and high quality minerals, and allow the patient to strengthen rapidly.  I only use grass fed, unpasteurized, and fermented products, all from the mountain regions of Israel.  I also insist on clean water, also from the mountain streams of the Golan Heights region of Israel, amongst the cleanest waters in the world.

The only food balancing techniques as well as recipes that I use are based upon the works of Maimonides, with substitutions of the specific foods based upon today’s climate, ground quality, and change in the human speciies in the last 800 years.

I must note that I use very few supplements.  Most of the supplements on the market are synthetic or made from mineral sources, and are very poorly absorbed by the sick patient.  Most people are actually harmed by these supplements, typically in the stomach and livers.  I only use specific foods to provide the specific nutrients that people lack, along with an array of basic herbs to tonify the neuroendocrine  systems.

Cleansing and Detoxification

While once a devotee of cleansing techniques, I do not use patients’ strength to cleanse, only to kill the cancer.  The body, in its innate intelligence, cleanses automatically through strength rather than weakness.  In certain cases, I cleanse the digestive track with a variety of fermented foods, such as beer, malt beer, and fermented animal products such as goat yogurt.  I also cleanse the patients from the effects of toxins and pollution, including electricity electromagnetic fields, with a variety of products, including plants, copper plates and herbs.  These types of detoxification strengthen the patient while removing toxins, improves oxygenation of all cells, and decrease the viability of the cancer.

Hormonal Balance

Hormonal balance is important in the regulation of the immune system and nervous system.  The most commonly present, and the least often treated hormonal imbalances are thyroid and adrenal insufficiency.  This significantly decreases the immune system, and is associated with chronic infection, poor vascular flow, inflammation, neuropathy and increased cancer rates. I have found that a large percentage of cancer patients, as well as other immune disease patients have one or both insufficiencies. Testosterone, DHEA and melatonin deficiencies, as well as estrogen/progesterone imbalances are also associated with higher cancer rates.

It has also been proven that the most prevalent toxins in our environment, based on petroleum products, act to weaken the neuroendocrine system.  These toxins, ranging from fertilizers to deodorants, act as xenoestrogens, blocking liver function and attaching onto normal extrogen receptors to block normal sexual hormone function.  It is necessary to know that normal sexual hormones are vital to normal defense systems of the body.  Therefore, not only is hormonal balancing necessary, but also a normal intimate life between married people is fundamental.  It has been known throughout the ages that excesses, lack of sexual relationships and immorality lead to damaged endocrine systems.

Emotional Balancing

Emotional imbalance affects the body by causing hormonal and other neurotransmitter imbalances, which affect the immune system.   I, as a doctor, do not attempt to directly deal with the specific emotional imbalances not due to organ dysfunction and toxicity.  While much of the imbalance seen at first diagnosis can be dealt with, I have found that there is a significant amount of psychological dysfunction in most cancer patients, most dealing with anger and frustration within the family unit.  As Maimonides wrote over 800 years ago, every doctor should know that the emotional soul is vital to healing, but that it is not the doctor’s role to develop the patients’ ability to deal with their problems.  I refer all patients with continuing psychological problems to either a spiritual, religious, or psychological counselor.  While supporting psychological counseling, I do not favor medications for these problems. I have found that all psychoactive drugs suppress the neurohormonal system, and significantly negatively affect my treatment of the cancer.  There are many alternative herbs that help the counselor effectively treat the patients without the use of synthetic drugs.

A holistic treatment approach of cancer must entertain the patient’s needs, the doctor’s abilities and local resources.  While my approach is rather singular, many other holistic (not alternative) approaches are equally as valid, as long in the right hands.  I can only hope that more  doctors with the girft of sight and palpation of energy will take an interest in this field, or have the courage to “come out of the closet”.  I have seen many colleagues in the last few years with the ability, although I knew that they would never use it due to their fear of other doctor’s prejudices.  I know that the field of cancer therapy will be greatly enhanced by their inclusion in the medical approach to this very common disease.  I believe that the active inclusion of proven holistic means to treat cancer will make chemotherapy and radiation therapy obsolete within the next decade.

About the Author:  Yehuda Ben-Asher, MD is Board Certified in general surgery, plastic surgery, hand and microsurgery.  He received his training

at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Duke University, UCSF-Davies Medical Center and Inselspitel Hospital (Bern, Switzerland).

He now has private practice of integrative medicine and hand surgery in Jerusalem, where he is married to Efrat and has five children. The family lives in a small community, Efrata,  twenty minutes south of Jerusalem.