Cancer patients who use alternative medicine more than twice as likely to die
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/ Date: August 15, 2017 After five years, 78.3 per cent of people who opted for medical treatment were still alive compared to just 54.7 percent of people who opted for alternative therapies. A new study has shown that cancer sufferers who turn to alternative therapies in preference to conventional medicine are more than twice as likely to die. Scientists from America's prestigious Yale University found that patients were more likely to be cured through conventional medicine, despite anecdotal evidence from some who say their cancer was cured by turning to natural or alternative remedies, . Researchers sifted through the National Cancer Database for their study “Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and its Impact on Survival”. They tracked 280 people who were diagnosed with the disease in 2004 and opted for alternative medicine and 560 “control” cancer patients who underwent conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. After five years, 78.3 per cent of people who opted for medical treatment were still alive compared to just 54.7 percent of people who opted for alternative therapies. The study also looked at different types of cancer including breast, lung, prostate and colorectal. They found those with lung cancer were twice as likely to die after five years if they had opted for alternative therapies. Breast cancer patients who used alternative therapies were five times as likely to have lost their lives to the disease.Colorectal cancer patients were four times more likely to die if they rejected conventional medicine in favour of alternative [...]