Soursop Juice Alternative Cancer Treatment

Throughout the developed world, most people are inclined to reach for pharmaceutical answers to disease instead of seeking alternative treatments to illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and even the flu. Modern medicine is praised and considered to be the solution to problems with the ill health of a Nation and for centuries greater and greater medicines have been developed in order to help to prevent and cure various illnesses. Now, however, more and more people are turning to natural healing in order to prevent and cure disease.

Whenever possible, prevention is better than cure, and there is no replacement for good eating habits. The body can't process synthetic vitamins the way that it processes the nutrients from food, and those wishing to avoid illness as much as possible should be careful to eat a healthy and balanced diet that is high in essential nutrients and disease preventing vitamins and minerals. Take good care of your body, and have a plan in place if something should go wrong.

Please note that I am not a doctor and that there is no substitute for sound medical advice. Anyone should discuss alternative therapies for the treatment of cancer or any disease with a medical professional before deciding not to opt for modern pharmaceutical therapies.

The first thing to understand about cancer is that it is not a single disease, but a series of different disease types. The defining factor that makes a disease cancer is that the disease itself involves the reproduction of abnormal cells. These abnormal growths may spread throughout the body in malignant forms of the cancer.

In order for normal cells to become cancerous, the cells must change. In normal growth, cells divide throughout their lifetime until they finally age and die off. In order for these normal cells to become cancer cells, it is believed that the DNA of the cell changes, causing it to become mutated. These mutated cells then divide and continue to reproduce more mutated cells (which reproduce more mutated cells, and so on and so forth).

There are five different basic types of cancer: Carcinoma, Sarcoma, Leukemia, Myeloma and Lymphoma, and Central Nervous System cancers. For more information on these types of cancer, please see the government cancer site.

Chemotherapy works by killing off rapidly reproducing cells. Because the abnormal tumor cells generally divide faster than the surrounding normal cells, the chemotherapy targets these cancerous cells and slows down the growth of inoperable tumors. This is good news for those who prefer a drug-regimen in controlling disease.

The common well-known side effects of chemotherapy (which include hair loss, stomach upsets resulting in weight loss, and skin reactions) are caused due to the fact that the cells that make up hair, skin, nails and the stomach lining are rapid-growth cells, which are therefore attacked by the drug (chemo) therapies that are available for the treatment of cancer.

Chemotherapy doesn't kill off all cells in the body, but instead attacks those fast-dividing cells that are generally an indication of a cancerous growth in the body.

The problem with pharmaceutical medicine (drug therapies -- including chemotherapy) is that we are too dependent upon these methods for eradicating disease in our culture. Over time we have grown to expect our doctors to prescribe drugs for both the prevention and cure of every illness from the common cold to serious diseases like HIV/AIDS and cancer. The Centers for Disease Control (in the United States) recommend a growing number of vaccinations for children and adults, and there are new drugs available which claim to treat the flu.

Drugs are an industry, and as an industry, Big Pharma is invested in pressuring the infirm into purchasing their product -- which is the drugs we've come to rely on.

Common sense tells us that good nutrition is the key to improving our overall health. We know that breastfeeding passes antibodies from mother to child and that certain nutrients (such as vitamin C) support immune development. Components (nutrients and chemicals) in various foods have an effect on the health of the individual. Some may be preventative (like vaccines) and some may be curative (such as the Soursop that I'm suggesting in this article).

There is nothing inherently wrong with pharmaceutical medicine and I'm not suggesting that anyone should avoid their doctor's good, solid advice. But I do believe that alternative therapies may be the answer to cancers that cannot be treated by traditional medicine, and that in some cases the alternative treatments may even be more effective than chemotherapy and radiation.

Soursop, also known as Graviola or Guanabana, is a the fruit of a flowering evergreen tree native to the warm climates in central and south America as well as the Caribbean. The fruit can be consumed raw or used to create juices, sorbets, ice creams and candies. The juice is the product most commonly recommended in the treatment of cancer.

It seems that Soursop is sometimes confused for Durian Fruit. The two fruits, however, are distinctly different types of plant, and the Durian (to the best of my knowledge) is not used in alternative cancer therapies at all. The fruit that you'll be focusing on is the soursop, or Graviola.

Soursop, or Graviola, works by targeting the cancer cells in the body (whereas chemotherapy attacks all fast-growing cells in the hopes of killing the cancer cells along with all the other cells it hits). This makes it a good alternative to traditional chemical medicine, since it lacks the vicious side effects for which Chemotherapy is so well known.

For this reason, Soursop is believed to be a natural and effective means of curing (but not preventing) cancer, as it will stop the spread of malignant cancer cells throughout the body and cease the progression of the disease.

There are risks, however, with soursop (as there are with most "cures") and users should be aware of neurotoxins in the plant and its extracts which are linked to neurological problems in humans, including atypical Parkinson's Disease.

Patients may wish to consider other naturalistic remedies for cancer and explore further options. Graviola (soursop) may be healthy in moderation but those consuming it must make themselves aware of the potential risks of the fruit in the same way that they would make themselves aware of the risks with any chemical (drug) therapy.

Soursop is native to South and Latin Americas as well as to the Caribbean. It requires hot weather in order to grow, and even the briefest of frosts can kill the plant. For this reason the Soursop tree must be grown in tropical areas that do not receive any temperate weather.

For this reason, those looking to grow in the United States are mainly out of luck. While the Soursop does grow in Florida (including Homestead, Florida as shown in the map to the right, where Lyon's Farms can be found), American patients seeking alternative therapies will need to purchase their soursop on the Internet.

If you are in Florida or in another tropical region, you may want to try growing your own soursop.

Regardless of what decisions you make as a cancer patient, always remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. There is no substitute for supporting your immune system throughout your life and avoiding unhealthy habits such as smoking. Soursop is known to be especially useful for certain types of cancer (and in particular prostate cancer) but no matter how effective this miracle fruit is known to be, it does have devastating side effects. Good nutrition, immune support and intelligent decisions provide a higher possibility of avoiding cancer altogether.

I'm not a doctor, and chemotherapy has been very effective in treating diseases that my family members have been fighting. There is a place for pharmaceutical therapies in the treatment and maintenance of disease, but I am also a very firm believer in nutritional medicine, and in the idea that it is better to prevent disease than it is to cure it once you have it.

This page is not intended to give medical advice, but to suggest a possible alternative therapy that you may wish to discuss with your doctor. If you're looking for serious medical advice, then contact a professional.

If you're a smoker and looking to quit in order to help prevent the risk of lung cancer and other diseases, you may find my article on how to easily quit smoking to be an interesting and helpful read!