There is a dark side to the modern cult of ‘wellness’

Zeal for the world of alternative medicine must be balanced with information about the power of modern cancer treatment technology

The fashion icon Elle Macpherson has announced to the world that she shunned conventional medical treatment for her breast cancer. Instead, she sought to heal herself with the help of alternative medicine practitioners in the US. Thankfully, she now says she is in “clinical remission”.
We are all entitled to make our own decisions – that’s the basis of democracy. I vividly remember a very irate mother begging me to call the police to bring her 21-year-old son to hospital for chemotherapy for testicular cancer. We managed to persuade him in the end without using handcuffs.
There are also always many options for patients. With cancer, we are learning how to personalise care to get the best outcomes, and one example of tremendous progress during my lifetime has been in breast cancer. Surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immuno-therapy and hormone treatments are chosen for a patient by detailed study of their unique tumour features. Over the past decade we have increasingly used sophisticated molecular, genetic and protein markers to guide recommendations. One shoe no longer fits all sizes, and our results have never been better.
But to throw hard science away in favour of “wellness” treatments is deeply unwise. Complementary therapies are widely used in cancer as an adjunct to orthodox treatment. They can help in increasing the quality of life, reducing the side effects of treatment and providing superb psychological support. All cancer centres provide access to them, both inside and outside the NHS. Acupuncture, massage, counselling, yoga, naturo-pathy, herbal medicine, and dietary advice techniques are now mainstream – but only when used alongside orthodox medical care.
A handful of my patients have pursued a purely alternative course. It always ends badly – most come back for treatment long after the cancer has become incurable. That’s the nature of cancer – an aberrant cell, starting in one location, steadily growing and spreading through the lymph nodes and blood stream and seeding in lungs, liver, bones and brain. Early-stage breast cancer is usually curable; late-stage is not.
The reason Britain’s cancer survival is so much worse than much of the rest of Europe is due to the huge delays in diagnosis. The burgeoning administrative machine of the NHS has not yet cracked the problem. The service’s goal to treat cancer patients within 62 days of diagnosis is woefully unambitious – and remains only an aspiration. There’s nothing wrong with the staff; rather, the system is at fault.
But public figures would do well to carefully consider the risks of sharing their alternative treatment plans. Zeal for the world of alternative medicine, with its powerful anecdotes and lack of solid evidence, must be balanced with information about the power of modern cancer treatment technology. Publicly spurning conventional medicine could lead many less fortunate people to follow a dangerous example.
The big business of “wellness”, with its fancy diets, weird potions and strange practices giving the promise of eternal life, has seeped into the public consciousness. Harley Street is filling up with longevity clinics, perhaps arising from distrust in modern medicine and “big pharma”. There is a huge risk to all this. Unless people can see that, we put in jeopardy many lives – and not just due to breast cancer.
Prof Karol Sikora is a leading cancer specialist