The Book That Empowered Us During an Extreme Diagnosis
I’ll never forget the book I was reading back in 2000 that tipped me off to the fact that my late husband Isamu and I should eliminate sugar from our diets to help combat his brain cancer. I was newly pregnant. He was recently diagnosed. We were in project mode. This wasn’t a time to “wait and see”, but instead an alarm to “act now”. And fast.
The book was Michael Lerner’s 1994 tome Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches in Cancer. There wasn’t much like it at the time and I was fortunate that it was one of the first books that I happened upon. Lerner, a social activist and co-founder of Commonweal, a nonprofit health and environmental research institute, combined his personal experiences with his father’s cancer and his extensive research to offer this comprehensive guide for others facing a cancer diagnosis.
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Feeling empowered with new knowledge.
The book emphasizes the importance of empowering patients to make informed decisions about their care and healing. And it also helped to empower me, the partner and caregiver. Choices in Healing inspired a number of suggestions that I brought to Isamu about our complimentary courses of action. It galvanized my interest in nutrition as a means of support, and it showed me the research to back up suggested approaches.
Beating the odds with a sweet tooth.
What I also remember, almost like it was yesterday, was sitting in bed next to Isamu and presenting the studies connecting sugar and tumor growth. Perhaps, I suggested, sugar needed to go. Isamu had a sweet tooth that was heightened by some of the anti-seizure medication he was prescribed. Though he’d never had a seizure, the risks were high with the mass in his right frontal lobe. The prescription was meant to be preventive and had numerous side effects, including a voracious appetite.
Despite the cravings for chocolate cake and root beer floats intensified by both the pharmaceuticals and the profound desire to savor every moment, the stakes were high. Isamu was a young (32) and successful man who was intent on building a family. He had just learned that his wife was pregnant with their first child and was told that he would likely be dead in about six months, all within the span of a couple of weeks. His lust for life and living far outweighed his hunger for sweets.
I learned quickly that Isamu was eager to adopt any integrative approach that had some sound research behind it. He was told that only 5% of those with his type of cancer lived to the one year mark. He was determined to be within that narrow percentage and beat the odds beyond that too.
Aggressive cancer, intense sugar cravings and a new normal for our diet.
The relationship between sugar and cancer that I shared with Isamu, first suggested in Choices in Healing, was unquestionable. It was shown to have impacts on gene expression, immune function, and various physiological processes that could impact his outcomes. While the research was still emerging, he was all in.
Taming sugar cravings the natural way.
Initially, Isamu went cold turkey, consuming no sweets at all for several weeks. That felt unsustainable and like an unnecessary deprivation. As I researched more I found ways that he could still eat sweets while leaving the refined white stuff in the dust. He was sold and thus began my journey into the world of natural and lower glycemic alternative sweeteners that are still the mainstay of my treat production and consumption today, over 20 years later.
It’s too bad that Isamu never got to try my Nakayummies. While he did live beyond that first year mark, he did not make it to three. But he would have loved these sweet morsels and, as you explore natural refined sugar substitutes for your own health outcomes, I hope you will too.
