Our new campaign aims to raise awareness and funds to help make Integrative Cancer Care available and affordable to everyone in the UK.
Yes to Life is dedicated to providing information about Integrative Cancer Care options to people with cancer and their families, a holistic approach to treatment that combines traditional medical care with lifestyle and complementary therapies. Cancer can have a profound impact on the physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing of those affected, as well as on their families and loved ones. Integrative Cancer Care offers a more comprehensive approach to treatment, focusing not only on the physical symptoms of the disease, but also on the mental, emotional, and spiritual needs of patients.
Integrative Medicine is the judicious combining of conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery, with lifestyle and complementary therapies, to broaden patient choice, increase patient engagement, improve quality of life, and extend survival.
It is a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario that has its roots in the patient perspective. Historically, it has been an ‘either/or’ situation between conventional medicine and other approaches, which has often placed patients in an extremely difficult position at one of the most stressful points in their lives. Any open-minded patient looking for the best possible outcome is far less interested in the label attached to an approach, than in whether or not it could help them. This is the perspective that underpins Integrative Medicine.
There are enormous strengths to both conventional and lifestyle/complementary approaches. Conventional medicine is largely preoccupied with removing or killing cancer cells and has some highly effective means of doing this. This approach can often be life-saving, such as when dealing with a rapidly growing cancer or one that threatens a vital organ. Early surgery can commonly be sufficient to deliver a complete remission.
Lifestyle practitioners, however, are far more preoccupied with the process of cancer – what circumstances prompted it to start, what is driving it – and overarchingly they are concerned with optimising the health and immunity of the patient. Their approach can result in a slowing or reversing of the process, which can deliver unexpectedly good outcomes in even late stage cancers. With the proportion of cancers attributed to lifestyle ranging from 60% to well over 90%, depending on who you ask, there is no credible rationale for overlooking lifestyle approaches.
The magic really happens when the full gamut of both approaches is available. Clearly conventional medicine has a certain level of success independently – although in the case of many of the most prevalent cancers, the statistics are still shockingly poor, notably in the UK where performance is well below average for its investment. And it is increasingly recognised that there is a group of patients who achieve good results without conventional medicine at all, or despite failed conventional treatment.
Imagine the power of integrating the technical sophistication of conventional medicine with the deep understanding of the foundations of health and wellbeing that lifestyle and complementary medicine has established. Our NHS can deliver superlative results in highly sophisticated surgical procedures, yet flounders when it comes to treating patients with care and compassion, responding to them as people rather than a collection of body parts or as a disease type, or delivering patient choice and patient-centred care – which successive governments have attempted, but largely failed, to introduce for more than four decades.
While lifestyle and complementary medicine make no pretence to be able to respond adequately to a heart attack, the entire sector is immersed in an ethos that is caring, wholistic, and patient-centered – it is a complementary therapist’s DNA. Integrating the complementary and lifestyle sector into our cancer care will address the desperately needed reforms to the outdated didactic and patriarchal system that stubbornly persists.
The evidence for lifestyle and complementary approaches has built exponentially in recent years. It is deeply uncaring and disrespectful towards those with cancer to dismiss all such interventions as ‘having no evidence’ without even troubling to look. The only basis on which this could be said to be true, in any way, is when it comes to randomised, placebo-controlled trials (RCTs). It is now abundantly clear that the ‘gold standard’ of evidence, the RCT, is totally unsuited to natural medicines, let alone complex protocols involving multiple simultaneous interventions, and far too expensive to apply to a low-profit product such as a supplement. The evidence is there in spades for many lifestyle interventions – albeit not RCTs – but quite sufficient on which to base the adoption of strategies that are almost universally cheap, safe, and health-promoting.
The understanding of, and interest in, the building blocks of good health that preoccupies lifestyle practitioners is largely absent from our healthcare system, leading to criticisms that it is actually a disease management system. The most important cancer strategy needed at this point – where one in two of us will get cancer – is prevention. And the strategies for prevention are deeply intertwined with those for people with a cancer diagnosis. Precisely the same understandings of the process of cancer inform strategies for prevention.
IN CONCLUSION
There are a huge range of safe, inexpensive resources available to help people with cancer achieve better outcomes and quality of life, right now. To fail to move quickly towards integration is to fail people with cancer.
Click here for an extensive video introduction to Integrative Medicine.
Click here to explore our Life Directory of Therapies and Providers.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death In the UK, with more than 300,000 new cases diagnosed each year. While conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery are the mainstay of cancer care, they can be associated with a range of side effects and limitations. Integrative Cancer Care, on the other hand, is a holistic approach that combines conventional treatments with complementary therapies and lifestyle medicine to enhance overall wellbeing and quality of life, and improve treatment outcomes.
Why support and join the movement?
There are many reasons you may want to consider joining our movement for universal access to Integrative Cancer Care. Here are some of the key ones:
Access to a wider range of treatment options: By combining conventional medical treatments with lifestyle and complementary therapies, Integrative Cancer Care significantly broadens the range of options available to address any particular issue.
Improved quality of life: Cancer and its treatments can have a significant impact on a person’s quality of life. Integrative Cancer Care focuses not only on the physical symptoms of the disease, but also on the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of patients. By incorporating lifestyle therapies into treatment plans, patients can experience improved quality of life, reduced side effects, and enhanced overall wellbeing.
Empowerment and self-care: Helping you take an active role in your own care, Integrative Cancer Care encourages patients to make lifestyle changes such as improving diet and exercise programmes to promote overall health and wellbeing. This can help them feel more empowered and in control of their own health.
Personalised care: Integrative Cancer Care takes a holistic approach to treatment, which means that healthcare providers will take into account a patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This approach can lead to more personalised care that takes into account someones unique circumstances and preferences.
Support and community: Joining our movement can help to provide you with access to a supportive community of individuals who are going through similar experiences.
In summary, by joining our movement, you can help others gain access to a wider range of treatment options, improved quality of life and treatment outcome, empowerment and self-care, personalised care, as well as to support and community. If you or a loved one has been affected by cancer, joining us would be a great way to gain additional support and resources through a difficult time.
By joining our movement, you will be supporting a charity that is making a real difference in the lives of cancer patients and their families. Your donation will help to fund vital work to promote and provide access to Integrative Cancer Care for those who need it most, and thereby to improve the quality of life of cancer patients and their carers.
You will be joining a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to having a positive impact in the world. Together, we can make a real difference to the lives of those affected by cancer.
Please join our movement in support of this important goal. Your support will provide hope and healing to those affected by cancer and their families.
If you, or a loved one is faced with a cancer diagnosis,
knowing where to get trusted medical information is vital.
The Yes to Life Charity
promotes evidence-informed lifestyle strategies
that can improve well-being,
reduce adverse effects,
lower the risk of relapse
and improve long term survival.
Professor Robert Thomas
Consultant Oncologist
Bedford & Addenbrooke’s Cambridge University Trusts
Professor of Exercise & Nutritional Science
University of Bedfordshire
Our Services
OUR HELPLINE
Our helpline is supported by highly trained volunteers all who have personal experience of cancer or another chronic condition or have supported a close relative or friend. Our volunteers often provide a lifeline to those whose voices have not been heard, or who are otherwise isolated.
A quick response has always been an essential feature of our service, and this is underpinned by a robust administrative system. When you call our Helpline you will be asked to leave your name, a contact number, and a convenient time for a call-back. We aim to return all calls within 24 hours.
0870 163 2990
Alternatively, you may wish to contact the Helpline by email. Please complete the form on this page, indicating your preferences for our response.
LIFE DIRECTORY
Welcome to our fully searchable directory of Therapies and Providers relating to integrative approaches to cancer.
WIGWAM CANCER SUPPORT GROUPS
Our Yes to Life Wigwam Cancer Support Groups provide a safe and nurturing space for those with cancer or supporting someone with cancer.
Members come together, connect, and share what they are learning about their experience and the use of lifestyle changes (mind, body & spirit) that support health and well-being and receive support and inspiration from others.
People can talk openly about their successes as well as their challenges in a respectful, non-judgemental and confidential environment.
PERSONAL FUND-RAISING
Some people may choose to undertake treatment which can be costly – this might include going overseas for treatment or perhaps undertaking a private treatment programme in the UK which the NHS cannot provide.
Through Yes to Life you can set up a Personal Fundraising Scheme (PFS). All money donated to a PFS goes to the person and choice of treatment it is intended for.
And much more …
ACCEPTS VIRTUAL CLIENTS
Robin Daly
Founder & Chairman
[email protected]
71-75 Shelton Street
Covent Garden
London WC2H 9JQ
020 3222 0587
[email protected]
Helpline
0870 163 2990
[email protected]
Leave a Reply