Sunday Times cancer cures story.

[Rat]

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but I didn't see it. I saw today on the Sunday Times cover 'Can diet cure cancer?' or some such, and I knew it wouldn't make me very happy. As it turned out, it didn't do too bad a job in general on complementary therapies; not as bad, at least, as I was expecting from the ST, which increasingly covers such topics and has a page every week answering related questions.

Anyway, the one thing it didn't seem over critical about was a "Pfeifer diet" as promoted by a Dr Ben Pfeifer. The diet in question appears very similar to a lot of other ones: eat no meat, eat lots of pulses, take lots of supplements. The only thing that stood out was that he gave the most stunning reports of its efficacy in prostate cancer, to the extent that everyone who tried it is living a full and happy and longer life with no side effects.

Alarm bells ring, but I wondered if anyone had any comment, as prostate cancer treatments are not something I'm familiar with.

Article at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2489315,00.html but I think it will disappear after a week.
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2489315,00.html)

[JJM]

Alarm bells ring, but I wondered if anyone had any comment, as prostate cancer treatments are not something I'm familiar with.[/URL]That was quite interesting, thanks. The article suffers from the standard problem with "general" reporting on technical matters. They give time to "experts" debating as if there were a controversy.* Pfeifer is loaded with anecdotes; but, if there were anything to his claims he should be referring to proper studies reported in good journals.

There is another standard problem- how does one determine who is an "expert" and who is really an expert. Several years ago I saw a quackbuster on TV, a doctor who once had a long-time patient develop an untreatable, fatal disease. She asked him if there were any clinical trials that might offer hope. He researched, and got her enrolled in a study by a highly-regarded medical professor. In the end, the professor turned out to have become a quack, and the patient suffered needlessly. If a doctor has trouble identifying quackery- how can we do it?

Specifically on prostate cancer- the known treatment options are too complicated to address here. One has to decide which possible therapy, appropriate for the particular stage, has the least onerous side-effects.

* [URL="http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/id/"]http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/id/ (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-2489315,00.html)

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2006/10/the_trouble_with_science_journ.php (http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2006/10/the_trouble_with_science_journ.php)