Has the Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson discovered how to treat cancer successfully without chemotherapy and extensive surgery?
At first glance it would appear so – for, in a remarkable story of recovery, the 60-year-old has revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago, but despite being advised to have a mastectomy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormone treatment, she went against the counsel of her 32 doctors and decided on a holistic approach, including meditation and naturopathy.
And thanks to this, she says, she is now in remission.
Australian model Elle Macpherson in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in 2022
Her cancer, diagnosed following a lumpectomy, was a form known as HER2 positive, which means it is driven by the protein human epidermal growth factor receptor 2; it can be a faster-growing type, but it has a good survival rate if it hasn’t spread beyond the breast.
Generally speaking, it is unhelpful to quote celebrities who have had cancer and rejected orthodox treatment, not least as not everybody can avail themselves of a multiplicity of complementary or alternative therapists – let alone 32 doctors – or spend eight months in a house in Arizona ‘focusing and devoting every single minute to healing [herself]’, as Elle did.
But what worries me is that Elle will be seen as an example of the way forward for treating cancer. And yet – while it is seven years since she was diagnosed – we would be wrong not to be cautious: the story is not over yet.
This is not to say that I am against the use of alternative therapies – some of them may work.
Over my nearly 50 years of practising as a doctor, I’ve seen many friends and patients who’ve gone down a similar route – but they’ve had mixed results.
One close friend, a medical doctor, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia – at the time (this was in 1980) there was no treatment as such, and no donor suitable for a bone marrow transplant, which was the only potential option then. So I called Deepak Chopra – an alternative medicine doctor and now New Age guru – who was then just starting out (hence my being able to just ring him!).
He advised my friend to meditate, drink clarified ghee and eat only fresh, vegetarian food. He also told him to give up sex. My friend did all of this (except the celibacy bit) and survived for 18 years, before the leukaemia underwent a transformation and ended his life within weeks.
Another close friend developed a brain tumour and declined radiotherapy – opting instead for Gerson therapy (which involves a strict vegetarian diet and up to five coffee enemas a day), which turned out to be rather cruel.
It was not the coffee enemas but the fact that she was only allowed the juice from crushed fruit and vegetables – she was not allowed to drink cold water – and so she was very thirsty. Up until the end of her life, she was miserable and longing for a glass of water. She only survived for a few weeks.
Another, a patient with malignant melanoma that had spread to her brain, had multiple lesions ‘destroyed’ by CyberKnife therapy (where the beams are fired at the target from multiple directions). But she attributes her survival and good health years later to multiple complementary therapies – and why not?
For the important point I draw from all these experiences is that you can benefit from both: go full tilt with the lifestyle options, but go orthodox as well – back both horses. A belt-and-braces approach.
In fact, the reason complementary therapy is called ‘complementary’ is because it can work alongside orthodox treatment – and no sensible, intelligent medical practitioner would ever dissuade a patient from trying it. Even if the evidence is not there: look at the proven benefits of the placebo effect!
(Of course, we must be careful about treatments that might interfere with mainstream medicine, which is why the advice from Cancer Research UK is to speak to a doctor first.)
The holistic approach helps because it targets not just the tumour itself, but the whole patient – something that, increasingly these days, researchers in mainstream medicine are looking much more closely at, specifically the impact of lifestyle in terms of boosting the body’s immune responses to fight off cancer and reduce the inflammation linked to the disease.
This means exercise, sufficient sleep, reducing stress and careful food choices to enhance the microbiome (the community of gut microbes now linked to inflammation and disease). Even activities such as tai chi or yoga are backed by evidence.
Elle Macpherson on the beach aged 50
In just one example, breast cancer patients who regularly exercised were found to have a 55 per cent reduced chance of their disease recurring and were 68 per cent less likely to die from any cause, according to a 2020 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Separately, studies show that the state of the gut microbes at the beginning of treatment is ‘the biggest predictor of how long a patient survives’, Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, has said.
Meanwhile, Professor Robert Thomas, an oncologist at Bedford and Addenbrooke’s hospitals, has been pioneering research on the role of diet and lifestyle in cancer care – he says research shows major health benefits from eating a diet of fruit and vegetables, gut-friendly fibre and probiotics (beneficial bacteria).
I have seen many patients who have had cancer which has spread that has been eradicated by orthodox aggressive treatment; yet those same patients have rejoiced in the fact that it was the work of their complementary therapist that enabled their survival.
What matters is that complementary therapists help patients hold out hope. And sometimes conventional doctors forget that that’s important too.
But whether Elle Macpherson has the answers for anyone but herself, I remain to be convinced.