Being told you have cancer and going through long-term, intensive treatment can cause a lot of worry, which can affect many parts of your health.
Complementary medicine is a type of holistic health care that combines alternative therapies with standard medical care to improve health all around.
Mind-body techniques like yoga and hypnosis are in this group, as well as certain diets like the Mediterranean diet. The goal of these methods is to boost your immune system, lower your worry and anxiety, and make your life better overall.
Let’s look at some popular alternative therapies and how they can help your cancer treatment and make you healthier in general.
Different kinds of alternative cancer treatments
Mindfulness and body work
Focusing on the mind, breathing exercises, and physical moves are all parts of these mind-body therapies that help with relaxation and mental health:
- Meditation is the practice of deep breathing or saying the same thing over and over to calm your mind and lower your stress.
- Yoga is a set of movements, stretches, meditation, and controlled breathing that can help your body and mind stay in balance.
- Qigong is an old Chinese exercise that uses controlled breathing, movement, and meditation to improve health and energy flow.
- Tai chi is a way to improve your physical and mental health by moving slowly and deliberately and controlling your breathing.
- Imagery: picturing good things to help the mending process
- Engaging in art, music, or dance activities as creative outlets can help with mental health issues.
- Biofeedback is the use of special gadgets to take control of body processes that you can’t change, like your heart rate.
- A 2014 review of the data saysBased on a reliable source, mind-body activities like yoga, tai chi, qigong, and meditation can help lower stress and make life better.
A study done in 2023 found that virtual mind-body exercise classes could also help people with cancer by keeping them out of the hospital and making their quality of life better. People who took these classes, which included yoga, tai chi, dance therapy, and meditation, spent less time in the hospital and were there for less time than people who didn’t take them.
Behaviors based on biology
Biologically based methods for cancer involve using natural things, like food and dietary supplements, to improve health and maybe even make cancer treatment work better.
Here are some examples and the possible benefits they bring:
- Adding Things
- Vitamin D helps the defense system work and may lower the risk of getting cancer
- When taken in large amounts, vitamin C may make cancer treatments work better and lessen their side effects.
- An antioxidant called selenium may help protect cells and lower the risk of getting cancer.
- Fish oil has omega-3 fatty acids, which may help lower inflammation and improve health in general.
- Probiotics can help keep your gut healthy and boost your defense system.
- Curcumin, which is found in turmeric, can help lower inflammation, which may slow the growth of cancer and make treatment work better.
- The ingredient from green tea has antioxidants like EGCG that may help fight cancer.
- Medicinal cannabis may help with pain, nausea, and loss of hunger, and it may also help fight cancer.
- Ginger: helps with sickness and vomiting that come with chemotherapy
- Garlic: makes you healthier and may help fight cancer
One study from 2023 found that people who were mostly Black and regularly took supplements, like multivitamins, had a 30% lower chance of getting non-cardia gastric cancer. This drop was especially big for people whose diets weren’t very good.
Even though these results are encouraging, they only show an association and not a clear cause. This means that more clinical trials are needed.
The writers of a study from 2024 warn that taking too many supplements for a long time could make you more likely to get cancer and die from it.
Overall, taking supplements on a daily basis may be helpful, but taking too many of them could be bad for you. More study is needed to get a better idea of these effects.
Different diets
The keto (keto) diet: Cancer cells use glucose for energy, so this high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet is being looked at to see if it could slow cancer growth. More research is needed, but some studies show that adding a keto diet to normal chemotherapy and radiation might help the tumor respond better.
Diet in the Mediterranean Fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, and healthy fats like olive oil are all important parts of this diet. It’s linked to a lower chance of dying from cancer and better health outcomes for people who already have cancer.
Methods for healing with energy
These techniques work on the flow of energy in your body to make it more balanced and healthy.
Reiki: People who practice Reiki put their hands lightly on or above your body to help heal you.
Five of the seven studies that were looked at in 2023 showed that Reiki may help cancer patients feel less pain. But two studies showed that it didn’t work. We need more high-quality randomized controlled trials.
A healing touch
To help you heal and get back in balance, people who practice this method move their hands over your body’s energy fields without touching you directly.
A look back at 2016In several clinical studies, therapeutic touch was shown to improve pain, nausea, anxiety, fatigue, and quality of life overall (Trusted Source).
Methods that use manipulation and the body
In these treatments, your body is changed physically to make you healthier.
Giving massages
Massage therapists use kneading, rubbing, and tapping, among other things, to loosen up joints and boost blood flow.
A 2023 study of the researchAccording to a reliable source, massage therapy can help cancer patients feel a lot better, especially those who are having surgery or who have blood cancer. Acupressure on the hands and feet work especially well, with hand acupressure being the most helpful.
Chiropractic care
Chiropractors fix problems with the muscles, bones, and joints by adjusting the spine and using other methods.
A small study from 2020Trusted Source found that most people with cancer go to the chiropractor for back pain and other connected problems. Most people thought that the benefits were better quality of life, less pain, and better performance.
Foot massage
For this method to work, you put pressure on certain points on your feet or hands that are thought to relate to different parts of your body.
A 2019 studyTrusted Source looked at 57 women with breast cancer and found that reflexology made their tiredness a lot better.
Behavioral and mental health treatments
These therapies focus on changing behavior and mental health, which can help with general health and finding ways to deal with problems.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of therapy that can help people with cancer deal with worry, anxiety, and depression.
A look at 2022Of the 1,979 cancer survivors who took part in 15 studies, those who used cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) had much lower rates of sadness and anxiety during treatment and for up to 6 months afterward. But more high-quality studies are needed to make sure these results are correct.
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a type of treatment that tries to help people accept their hard feelings and thoughts while also making promises to do things that are in line with their values.
A 2023 review of 77 studies found that ACT techniques like acceptance, present moment awareness, and self-compassion were linked to less worry in cancer patients.
What are some possible advantages of alternative therapy?
The goal of complementary treatments is to provide the following advantages:
In addition to traditional medical treatments, holistic approaches can help your general health, ease symptoms like pain, nausea, and fatigue, lower your stress and anxiety, improve your quality of life, and help your body heal and deal with illness.
Should we worry about safety?
Yes, there are times when you might worry about the safety of complementary treatments. Some common safety issues to think about are:
conflicts with conventional treatments; differences in the quality and training of practitioners; possible delays in getting needed conventional treatments
possible side effects if treatments aren’t done right
What to Do
Using alternative treatments along with traditional medical care to ease symptoms and make people healthier is called complementary therapy. Yoga, massage, and meditation are all therapies that are meant to ease pain, nausea, and tiredness while also lowering worry and anxiety.
It can be very helpful to look into complementary treatments if you have cancer, but you should talk to your healthcare team first. They can help you pick therapies that are safe, successful, and right for your condition and treatment plan.
