Hippocrates, the Greek philosopher and scientist taught one underlying principle: to do no harm. It is so important that it became a key part of the Hippocratic Oath taken by people entering the healing profession.

How well do you think that is being adhered to today?

My teenage son has flat feet that point out, and even though I believed the problem related to his whole alignment, the pediatrician sent me to a podiatrist.

The podiatrist looked at him for a whole 30 seconds and began to tell me right in front of my son that he needed an immediate triple surgery where a portion of his foot would be removed and a steel plate inserted. He would not be able to walk for a year, and it would likely give him trouble for the rest of his life.

Do no harm? Are you kidding me?

My 13 year old with a steel rod?

Fortunately I’m not a parent that is cowed by a doctor. He is now doing daily exercises that are addressing the root cause which was his body’s alignment issues.

If this were an isolated case, I wouldn’t be writing this. It’s not. Fear used to sell a $30,000 procedure (the insurance would pay for it, but not the real solution) is not unusual. It was a sales pitch, but how skeptical are we when pitched by a doctor?

It goes back to the training in medical schools today: it’s all pharmaceutical interventions and surgery.

While emergency operations and medications can sometimes save lives, the problem is that they’ve become the only way. Other means don’t even come into their heads.

My search for a better way led to the discovery of an amazing place that actually taught that the body is self-healing and amazing.

What a notion, that our bodies will actually do the work of healing if we just give them the tools and nutrition they need. Oh, and stop working them to death with processed foods.

The Hippocrates Health Institute, aptly named after the original Hippocrates. It truly follows the idea of do no harm and teaches people to take charge of their own health.

To me, the experience I had at Hippocrates Institute was a taste of heaven. It was so uniquely different.

People call it a miracle when some with cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, various tumors and so many other health conditions bring about their own healing using what they learn.

Alternative health therapy is becoming more accepted, often replacing conventional treatment. Mainstream medical treatment and alternative or complimentary therapy has become part of integrated treatment and today there is some very high quality scientific verification in safety and efficacy aspects. Alternative therapies provide certain services not available in conventional medicine. The services are Homeopathy, folk medicine, herbal medicine, faith healing, diet fads, chiropractic, ‘new age’ healing, naturopathy, massage, and music therapy and many more. These are used instead of the conventional methods of healing in order to address some underlying disease.

Quality of life and general health improves with alternative health therapies. It relaxes you by reducing your anxiety, stress, depression, sleeplessness and tension. They can even help to reduce the symptoms of cancer, such as pain, feeling sick, breathlessness, constipation, diarrhea, tiredness and poor appetite as well as help to moderate some of the side effects of traditional cancer treatment.

They alleviate pain which could conceal a grave situation and this is a possibility as today they are frequently used with traditional medicine. Some hospitals provide chemotherapy and radiotherapy as part of cancer care; these are conventional cancer treatments and are offered by some social support organizations for free or at a small fee. Several of the people that now have cancer are known to use all of these therapies in order to help support them throughout the stages of cancer and the treatment itself. These therapies are very valuable in that they identify and support spiritual and emotional characteristics and physical features, but they should not be used as the only alternative line of treatment.

For example, Americans are now spending four billion dollars annually on different alternative health products like herbs and vitamins. Studies in 2005 by Tindle, Davies, Phillips and Eisenberg showed that about 72 million American adults use alternative and complementary therapies. Also indicated from these studies is a figure of more than billion per year spent on out-of-pocket for these therapies according to Herman, Craig, & Caspi, 2005.

Nevertheless it is important to find out which particular alternative health therapies offer the most effective treatments for your needs, as well as discover which treatments you feel comfortable with. Individual therapies like reiki and reflexology, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, massage, meditation, acupuncture and aromatherapy have proved beneficial. It is always advisable to check with your doctor before starting with any of the alternative health therapies and you should also remember to check whether any such treatment adapted would have adverse effect on any of the treatment programs which are already being undertaken.

In case you are thinking of using any alternative health therapy along with your contemporary medication then you must talk to you doctor and find about the pros and cons that are related. The treating physician can often recommend and help in acquiring alternative treatments at the clinic or hospital itself or some other provider. Maybe they will be able to recommend some precise practitioners or therapies as more doctors are convinced that in today’s society, complementary medicine has a place. These types of therapies help some people in fighting with the side effects of conventional treatment like anxiety and gives them hope and control over life.

Cancer has been a plague on humanity for a long time. The cure will come eventually and the world will rejoice that this awful disease that can strike anyone at any time, has been been silenced. The problem is we don’t fully understand the causes of cancer although there are many things in our life that can trigger it.

Even now many people do not really understand what cancer is despite growing up with it all around them. This is a disease where unhealthy cells grow, divide and then expand into other cells, often transferring to parts of the body using a method called metastasis.

There are rare occasions when a benign tumor changes to a malignant one. Statistics show that cancer is responsible for around thirteen in every one hundred deaths each year. While smoking, chemicals and radiation for instance, can be the cancer trigger, it is the poison from these or other sources that transform body cells and create genetic abnormalities which grow and multiply.

A genetic trait may be inherited and thus present in all cells from birth. It is still not fully understood why one person will contract the disease and another be free from it but it is believed that the interactions between any carcinogens and each person’s particular DNA is complicated.

Research into the cause of cancer continues around the globe and is the disease most frequently studied on a regular basis. We are always learning more about diseases and how they affect our bodies and minds. By understanding the origins of cancer, perhaps we will be able to avoid contracting it until we come up with a cure.

Over recent years, concern has been made public over the possibility that our dietary habits may be partly to blame for the incidence of the condition. Other foodstuffs that could create problems are too much salt and saturated fat.

Cancer does not seem to have preferences as it is able to invade just about every part of the human body and organs. Sometimes the disease is only picked up through routine screening. For those people diagnosed with cancer, my heart goes out to them and their families.