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Heal and Prevent Cancer With Food, Therapy, Testing and Mind-Body Care
Cancer care can reach far beyond the tumour itself. The internal environment of the whole body helps decide whether cancer cells grow or are held in check. Food, fasting, careful testing, gentler therapies and emotional healing can all strengthen that environment, alongside surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy. Clinicians and survivors with very different views set out their reasoning in full, so you can weigh each one yourself.
Ways to Work With Your Body's Terrain Through Every Stage of Cancer
- Look at the whole terrain, including metabolism, immunity, hormones, toxins and stress, and treat the tumour as one part of it.
- Keep blood sugar and insulin steady, since many tumours rely on sugar and glutamine for fuel.
- Plan any fast or fasting-style diet around treatment with your medical team so healthy cells are protected.
- Track your own markers, from tumour cells in the blood to ketones and glucose, so each choice rests on your results.
- Ask which supportive therapies, such as mistletoe, vitamin C infusions or heat, could suit your situation and timing.
- Make room for emotional healing each day, because a calmer nervous system supports the immune system.
Why the Body's Terrain Shapes How Cancer Behaves
Seeing the whole body as the setting for cancer gives you many more places to act. A tumour grows inside an internal environment, often called the terrain. It is made up of metabolism, immune strength, hormones, toxic load, gut bacteria, the nervous system and emotional life. Everyone makes some cancer cells each day, and a healthy immune system finds and clears them.
When the terrain is strained for a long time, a tissue can shift into a survival mode. Its cells stop serving the body and keep themselves alive at any cost. Changing the terrain therefore becomes the main work, and conventional treatment is used where it helps most. No single therapy is a cure. Each one is a tool within a plan that supports the body's own ability to fight cancer.
It can also help to ask what in your life was out of balance before the diagnosis. Toxins at work, poor sleep, heavy stress and loneliness are all drivers worth looking at. Cancer usually develops over years, so a newly diagnosed person has time to pause. That time can go into gathering information and choosing a team before acting.
How Metabolism and Fuel Supply Open New Options
Treating cancer as partly a problem of energy gives you levers you can use every day. On the metabolic view, mitochondria (the cell's energy producers) are damaged. Tumour cells then lean on fermenting sugar even when oxygen is present. This is the Warburg effect, and it makes blood sugar, insulin and the amino acid glutamine important targets.
One survivor's approach maps three fuel routes, glucose, glutamine and fat, as a triangle. Each route is paired with medicines and natural agents that can block it. Repurposed drugs such as metformin and statins are combined in this way, always under medical supervision. Some clinicians add tests of insulin resistance and home checks of ketones and glucose. You can then see whether your diet is really changing your fuel supply.
Eating and Fasting Patterns That Support Treatment
Food is one of the most direct ways to change the terrain. Ketogenic eating (very low in carbohydrate and high in fat, so the body makes ketones) aims to cut tumour fuel. Whole-food plant-based eating takes a different route. Rainbow eating (a wide range of colourful plant foods) supplies protective plant compounds and fibre for the gut.
Fasting gets equal attention. Intermittent fasting, longer fasts and a five-day low-calorie plan that imitates a water fast are all described. So is autophagy (the self-cleaning process that fasting triggers inside cells). Timed around chemotherapy, a fast lets healthy cells stop dividing and protect themselves. Cancer cells keep dividing and stay exposed to the drug.
Clinicians do not agree on every point. Some favour ketogenic eating while others favour whole plant foods. Views also differ on fasting during chemotherapy and on antioxidants during treatment. Each position is kept in its own terms, which helps you take the right questions to your own doctors.
Therapies That Can Work Alongside Conventional Care
A wide range of supportive therapies gives you real options to discuss with your team. They include mistletoe extract, high-dose intravenous vitamin C and ozone. Hyperthermia (raising the temperature of the body or a tumour) is another. Light-activated treatment, molecular hydrogen and pulsed magnetic field therapy appear too. So do enzyme therapy, the Gerson diet, peptides and medicinal mushrooms.
Several natural compounds receive close study. Beta glucans prime the immune system. Modified citrus pectin blocks galectin-3, a protein that helps tumour cells spread and grow. Another recurring idea is that cancer stem cells, a small group of cells that can rebuild a tumour, often survive standard treatment. Many clinicians therefore add therapies aimed at those cells, to help keep the cancer from returning.
Testing That Helps You Make Clear Decisions
Good testing turns guesswork into choices based on your own body. Blood tests can track tumour markers and inflammation. They can also count circulating tumour cells (cancer cells shed into the blood). In chemosensitivity testing, a patient's own circulating cells meet a range of candidate drugs before any is given. Genomic testing reads the tumour's genetic changes.
Imaging and screening get practical attention as well. Whole-body MRI is described as a single screening scan that can find problems a person did not know were there. For small breast tumours, cryoablation freezes the tumour through a fine probe guided by ultrasound, under local anaesthetic. Testing also covers estrogen metabolism, insulin resistance, the gut microbiome (the bacteria living in the gut) and exposure to mould and toxins.
Lowering Everyday Risk at Home and in the Mouth
Prevention covers sources of strain that are easy to overlook, and many are within your control. Oral health has its own focus, including gum disease, root canals and mercury fillings. Electromagnetic fields from phones and wireless devices come with simple ways to reduce exposure. Examples are keeping the phone off the body, using airplane mode and switching the router off at night.
Household chemicals, mould and fungus add further load on the body. Making your own cleaning and body-care products is an affordable way to lower that load. The guiding idea is to live as if a diagnosis had already arrived, rather than waiting for one to change your habits.
Support for Movement, Fatigue, Children and Pets
Guidance also reaches people at very different points in life. Exercise during and after treatment, protecting bone strength and recovering from long-term fatigue each have dedicated advice.
Parents of children with cancer hear from families who combined integrative care with hospital treatment. A child usually arrives already diagnosed and already on treatment. The first task is then a plan that makes that treatment more effective and less toxic, and the question of what contributed to the illness comes later. Pet owners learn how diet and light-based therapy are used for cancer in dogs and cats.
How Emotional Healing Becomes Part of Treatment
Inner work is a working part of care, not an extra. One view holds that every cell carries a survival response rooted in fear of dying, and that easing it helps the body heal. Fear, grief and stress held in the body are met through nervous system regulation and meditation. Creativity helps too, as does tapping on acupressure points while voicing feelings.
Research into people who recovered against expectations found ten healing factors common to all of them. Every one is a change a person can make. They include taking control of health decisions, following intuition, releasing suppressed emotions and having strong reasons for living. Faith, hope and preparing to die well are discussed with the same care, so every stage of the journey is covered.
Go deeper with what matters to you
The source holds the detailed protocols behind each of these themes. It sets out fasting schedules around chemotherapy and the drug and nutrient combinations for each fuel route. It gives the testing sequences clinicians use to guide treatment. It also carries recipes, food guides, body-care formulas and many first-person recovery accounts from fourteen companion guides.
You might bring a question shaped by your own situation. One example is how to weigh ketogenic against plant-based eating during radiation. Another is which tests to ask for after a diagnosis to see what is driving the cancer. The chat will draw the relevant parts of the source together into an answer that fits what you need. It can also show where clinicians disagree, so you can discuss those points with your own medical team.
Where these ideas come from
These ideas come from Cancer Breakthroughs Summit 2023, 2.0 and 3.0, three online summits released in October 2023, July 2024 and September 2025. Fourteen companion e-books and guides sit alongside them. The series is led by Michael Karlfeldt, ND, PhD, a naturopathic doctor with more than three decades of naturopathic cancer care. He founded the Karlfeldt Center (his naturopathic clinic) and wrote A Better Way to Treat Cancer (one of the companion e-books). He shares hosting with Isaac Eliaz, Nasha Winters and Eric Zielinski. More than a hundred physicians, naturopathic oncologists, researchers, survivors and founders join them. If you would like to experience that original work in full, it is well worth seeking out directly.
What you read here is our own source, an independent work built from those ideas. Every concept has been studied and then rewritten from scratch and reshaped so it can answer your questions alongside other refined sources. The knowledge has been transformed, not reproduced, and the reference is named clearly because the ideas deserve proper credit and because it stands on its own merits.
Good to know
This page draws on the work of qualified experts and documented experiences, shared for you to explore and act on as you see fit. While it comes from professional and expert sources, I'm not acting as your licensed medical professional or mental-health professional, and the spiritual ideas and practices here are offered for your own exploration, not as factual, medical or psychological claims. You know your own situation best, so weigh these ideas, take what's useful, and make your own informed choices. If you're in immediate danger or it's an emergency, please contact your local emergency services straight away.
Who you'll hear from
Lead host of all three summits, naturopathic doctor and founder of the Karlfeldt Center in Idaho, host of the television show True Health: Body, Mind, Spirit and author of A Better Way to Treat Cancer, with more than three decades of naturopathic cancer care.
Eric Zielinski, DC
Co-host of the 2025 sessions, founder of NaturalLivingFamily.com, public health researcher and best-selling author on essential oils, nutrition and natural healing, and author of Heal Your Gut with Essential Oils.
Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc
Co-host of the 2023 sessions, integrative physician and founder of Amitabha Medical Clinic, author of The Survival Paradox, researcher on galectin-3 and modified citrus pectin, and meditation teacher.
Nasha Winters, ND, FABNO
Co-host of the 2024 sessions, naturopathic oncologist and integrative cancer care consultant who trains practitioners in metabolic and terrain-based oncology and co-authored a book on mistletoe.
David Jockers, DNM, DC, MS
Doctor of natural medicine and founder of DrJockers.com, teaching fasting, autophagy and metabolic nutrition, and author of the 30 Cancer Fighting SuperFoods & Herbs guide.
Véronique Desaulniers, DC
Chiropractor known as Dr. V, founder of Breast Cancer Conqueror and creator of the 7 Essentials System, drawing on her own two breast cancer healing journeys.
Sylvie Beljanski
Founder and president of The Beljanski Foundation, a lawyer by training who continues her father Mirko Beljanski's research on RNA and botanical extracts and wrote Winning the Challenge Against Cancer Stem Cells.
Evan Hirsch, MD
Board-certified medical doctor and founder of the EnergyMD Method, teaching recovery from chronic fatigue through the toxic five and a four-step process.
Ben Tammetta
Electrical engineer and creator of H2Genesys, who builds molecular hydrogen therapy machines and teaches inhaled hydrogen and hydrogen water.
Nathan Crane
Founder of The Panacea Community and of Conquering Cancer coaching programs, holistic cancer coach and documentary filmmaker.
Sharon Stills, NMD
Naturopathic medical doctor and naturopathic oncologist, founder of Stills Health Clinic, teaching the terrain approach, emotional terrain and German biological diagnostics.
Al Sanchez
Scientific advisor and researcher for Poly-MVA and president of AMARC Enterprises, explaining the lipoic acid mineral complex and cellular energy.
Nicolas Pineault
EMF health advocate, citizen journalist and best-selling author of The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs.
Jeffrey Dach, MD
Medical director of TrueMedMD, retired interventional radiologist and author of the Cracking Cancer Toolkit on the metabolic theory of cancer and repurposed drugs.
Francisco Contreras, MD
Director, president and chairman of Oasis of Hope Hospital, surgical oncologist trained in Vienna and co-author of The Art & Science of Undermining Cancer.
Jonathan Landsman
Managing director of NaturalHealth365.com, teaching oral health in cancer, including mercury fillings, gum disease, root canals and cavitations.
Catharine Arnston, PhD
Founder, CEO and chief scientific officer of ENERGYbits, board certified health coach teaching spirulina and chlorella algae for prevention and detoxification.
John Richardson, Jr.
Founder of Operation World Without Cancer and son of a laetrile physician, recounting the B17 history and the Richardson Nutritional Center.
Liz Curran
Co-director of the Radical Remission Project and health coach, teaching the ten healing factors found across radical remission survivors.
Kim Murphy
Founder of Simply Plant Based Kitchen and plant-based health coach, teaching whole-food plant-based eating one simple meal at a time.
Joseph Canillo, DC
Founder and scientific director of Forza Vitale Laboratory, teaching CoQ10, quantum biology and plant stem cells.
Karen Wonders, PhD
Exercise physiologist and founder and CEO of Maple Tree Cancer Alliance, teaching exercise during and after cancer treatment.
Mary Beth Gonzalez
Founder, president and treasurer of The Nicholas Gonzalez Foundation and widow of Nicholas Gonzalez, carrying the Gonzalez protocol forward.
Michelle LaMasa-Dawson
Director of Recall Healing USA, teaching emotional and biological awareness as a path to healing.
Ryan Sternagel
Founder of The Stern Method and father of a child who survived neuroblastoma, teaching integrative approaches for families.
Dagmara Beine, PhD, PA-C
CEO of Zuza's Way, physician assistant and integrative pediatric oncology practitioner, and mother of Zuza, guiding parents through childhood cancer.
Jane McLelland
Stage four cancer survivor and author of How to Starve Cancer, whose Metro Map combines repurposed drugs and nutraceuticals to block cancer's fuel pathways.
AJ Lanigan
Beta glucan and immune system educator explaining how yeast beta glucan primes innate immunity.
Jim Ladwig, CHC
Certified health coach and colon cancer survivor working with Haelan Products on fermented soy nutrition.
Andre Williams, MD
Medical oncologist in Jamaica trained in the Gerson and Gonzalez protocols, describing his move from conventional oncology to the Gonzalez enzyme approach.
Mark Lintern
Designer, cancer survivor and author of The Cancer Resolution, presenting a cell suppression theory of cancer's origins.
Margie Bissinger, MS, PT, CHC
Physical therapist and integrative health coach teaching bone protection and osteoporosis prevention during cancer treatment.
Joe Tippens
Small cell lung cancer survivor, former venture capitalist and blogger who shares his veterinary dewormer protocol.
Neil McKinney, ND, BS
Retired naturopathic physician, professor of naturopathic oncology and author of Naturopathic Oncology.
Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA
Medical oncologist and hematologist teaching patients how to navigate cancer care and information without getting lost.
Ericha Scott, LPCC, REAT, PhD
Art therapist and addiction counselor teaching creativity as a route through trauma recovery.
Doug Kaufmann
Host of the television show Know the Cause and author on fungus, mycotoxins and health.
Dan Rubin
Naturopathic oncologist and a founder of the naturopathic oncology certifying organization, teaching personalized strategy in cancer care.
Leigh Erin Connealy, MD
Physician and medical director of the Cancer Center for Healing and the Center for New Medicine, teaching integrative technologies, early detection and prevention.
William Li
Physician, cancer researcher and head of the Angiogenesis Foundation, teaching foods that influence angiogenesis and health defenses.
Joseph Antoun
CEO and chairman of L-Nutra, teaching fasting, the fasting mimicking diet and nutrition alongside cancer treatment.
Antonio Jimenez
Founder and chief medical officer of Hope for Cancer Treatment Centers, teaching an integrative treatment approach.
Kevin Conners
Director of Conners Clinic, practising integrative oncology and teaching what cancer diets get right and wrong.
Thomas Cowan
Retired physician and author on alternative views of biology and cancer.
Eric Schoen
Naturopathic doctor practising integrative oncology, teaching how natural therapies combine with an oncologist's care.
Dr. Aimie
Physician and creator of the Biology of Trauma model, teaching how life experience is held in the body.
Henning Saupe, MD, PhD
German physician at an inpatient integrative cancer clinic, teaching non-toxic treatments and personalized chemotherapy.
Linda Isaacs
Physician offering enzyme-based nutritional cancer programs in the Gonzalez tradition.
Thomas Seyfried, PhD
Professor of biology at Boston College and researcher of cancer as a mitochondrial metabolic disease.
Cyrus Khambatta, PhD
Nutritional biochemist and author of Mastering Diabetes, teaching insulin resistance, dietary fat and cancer risk.
Devin Stone
Naturopathic physician and medical advisor to Haelan products, teaching fermented soy.
Paul Anderson
Naturopathic physician who led an NIH-funded integrative cancer trial, teaching basic to advanced tactics in cancer care.
Stephen Iacoboni, MD
Medical oncologist with more than 40 years of practice, discussing the future of cancer care.
Frank Shallenberger
Physician using ozone therapies with cancer patients.
Tom O'Bryan
Clinician and educator on food sensitivity, gut health and autoimmunity.
Deanna Minich
Nutrition scientist and certified functional medicine practitioner teaching rainbow eating for full-spectrum health.
Mary Hardy
Board-certified internist who founded the Cedars-Sinai Integrative Medicine Clinic, teaching mitochondrial support and gentle cancer treatments.
Dana F. Flavin
Medical doctor, researcher and former toxicology expert, discussing what is missing from cancer strategies.
Jennifer Simmons
Former breast cancer surgeon turned functional medicine physician and author, teaching the hormone and terrain view of breast cancer.
TJ Hills
Breast cancer survivor, researcher on estrogen metabolism and founder of the Better Estrogen Health Foundation.
Terry Wahls
Internal medicine physician and functional medicine clinical researcher living with multiple sclerosis, teaching the link between cancer and autoimmunity.
William Pawluk
Holistic physician who has worked with pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for decades.
Karla Mans Giroux
Co-director of the Radical Remission Project and health coach.
Steven Johnson
Physician in anthroposophic medicine who trains clinicians in mistletoe therapy.
Michael Weber
German physician who developed laser therapies, teaching photodynamic therapy and photobiomodulation.
Patrick Vickers
Chiropractor and founder of the Advanced Gerson Therapy clinic.
Amit Goswami
Retired physicist on the University of Oregon faculty from 1968 to 1997, presenting his quantum account of cancer, vital energy and the heart.
James Templeton
Stage four melanoma survivor and founder of the Templeton Wellness Foundation.
Kent Holtorf
Physician and founder of an integrative peptides company, teaching peptides for immune support.
Andrew Serafini
Medical cannabis and CBD educator and pastor, teaching cannabis in cancer care.
John Kortum
Developer of the Kortum Technique, a body-dialogue method, who states he has no medical training.
Donald Yance, Jr.
Clinical master herbalist, certified nutritionist and founder of the Mederi Center, teaching botanical cancer care.
Ron Hunninghake
Physician and board chair at the Riordan Clinic, teaching intravenous vitamin C in cancer care.
Marlene Siegel
Integrative veterinarian with almost 40 years in practice, teaching cancer care for pets.
Adam Payne
Inventor of UltraBotanica extraction technology and company CEO, teaching alternative cancer pathways.
Matthew Halpert
PhD scientist at Immunocine researching dendritic cell vaccines.
Dennis Holmes
Breast surgeon who performs cryoablation for breast cancer.
Geo Espinosa
Naturopathic doctor working in a university urology department, teaching testosterone and prostate cancer.
Zach Bush
Physician, former chemotherapy researcher and hospice doctor, teaching the ecology of health.
Nathan Goodyear
Medical director of an integrative cancer clinic in Arizona, teaching therapy stacking.
Jason Prall
Former mechanical engineer and creator of the Human Longevity Project, teaching circadian rhythm and healing.
Valter Longo
Researcher who developed the fasting mimicking diet, teaching fasting alongside cancer therapy.
Lloyd Burrell
EMF educator and founder of electricsense.com, teaching how to reduce electromagnetic exposure.
Deanna Hansen
Athletic therapist, founder of Block Therapy and author of Unblock Your Body, teaching fascia decompression.
Peter Kan
Doctor teaching inflammation and immune suppression in cancer.
Christine Schaffner
Doctor trained in bioregulatory naturopathic medicine, teaching terrain-based cancer care.
Sean Devlin
Integrative oncology physician who teaches and mentors clinicians, on treating beyond remission.
Nalini Chilkov
Practitioner of integrative cancer care and Chinese medicine, teaching side-effect management during treatment.
Neel Butala
Cardiologist, researcher and co-founder of the Catch tool for quantifying personal cancer risk.
Charles Meakin
Radiation oncologist and former chief medical officer of Care Oncology, teaching repurposed and off-label drugs.
William Lee Cowden
Cardiologist turned integrative cancer physician and co-author of a 1996 cancer guide.
Maya Shetreat
Neurologist and herbalist, author on master plants, teaching holistic cancer therapies.
Ahmed Elsakka
Former neurosurgeon and clinical metabolism specialist, teaching ferroptosis and iron in cancer.
Tomas Duraj
Medical doctor and PhD researcher in a Boston metabolic laboratory, studying cancer bioenergetics.
Cathleen King, DPT
Founder of Primal Trust, guiding people through chronic illness with nervous system regulation and author of How Healing Happens.
Piper Dobner
Naturopathic doctor working with fecal transplant and helminth therapy, teaching the gut microbiome's role in cancer.
Raj Jana
CEO of Liber8, former petroleum engineer and podcast host, teaching trauma healing for better cancer outcomes.
Andrew Lacy
Serial entrepreneur leading Prenuvo, teaching whole-body MRI screening.
Ralph Moss, PhD
Author and former assistant director of public affairs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, writing on cancer treatments.
Gerald Peter Curatola
Biologic dentist with 40 years in practice, teaching the link between oral health and cancer.
Mark Taylor
Patient advocate and founder of a patient data group, teaching immunotherapy outcomes.
Ronald Alexander
Psychotherapist and Zen and mindfulness teacher, teaching trauma, creativity and healing.
Petra Davelaar
Researcher on deuterium and metabolic water.
Stacy McCarthy
Yoga teacher named a Health and Fitness Instructor of the Year, teaching yoga for people with cancer.
Dorian Greenow
Co-founder of Keto Mojo, teaching blood ketone testing and the ketogenic lifestyle.
Gemma Kochis
Co-founder of Keto Mojo and cancer survivor who used ketone testing in her own recovery.
George Yu
Surgeon and founder of a cancer research foundation, teaching cancer metabolism, fasting and enzymes.
Monisha Bhanote, MD
Pathologist with five board certifications, teaching cancer prevention, gut health and cell care.
Vineet Datta
Physician and internist working as a genomics company executive in oncology, teaching multi-analyte precision oncology.
Daniel E. Kennedy
Psycho-oncology counselor, chief executive of Oasis of Hope Hospital and co-author of The Art & Science of Undermining Cancer.
Sabrina Ann Zielinski
Author known as Mama Z, lactation consultant and health coach, who wrote Mama Z's Non-toxic Body Care & Recipe Guide.
Nicholas Gonzalez, MD
Physician who created the Gonzalez enzyme protocol, author of the Metabolic Type Test slide presentation.
Vaclav Vetvicka
Glucan researcher and author of Understanding Glucans: A Guide to Their Benefits for Cancer.
James Forsythe, MD
Board-certified oncologist and homeopathic physician, author of the Poly-MVA e-book on cancer and mitochondrial health.
An independent work. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the original teachers or publishers.
Added: October 1, 2026
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