Cancer Vaccines

Last Saturday (August 2018) I attended Dr Chen and Dr EE’s health talk at Marina Bay Sands Convention Hall and she shared with us 2 good news regarding cancer treatments.

The first good news is that scientists have developed a vaccine-like injection to fight cancer and this new cancer vaccine has been approved for clinical trials in human at the end of the this year.  This type of cancer treatment is known as immunotherapy, involving fighting cancer by using our body’s immune system to attack tumors.

The second good news is that recently, the FDA has also approved a type of cell therapy known as CAR-T cell therapy for treating some types of leukemia and lymphoma.  This therapy involves removing the patient’s immune cells from the body which are then genetically engineered and reintroduced to attack tumor cells.  But this process is both expensive and time consuming.  

I was shocked to hear that one dosage of immunotherapy cancer treatment can cost as much as $100,000 (per dosage) and per treatment (consisting of more than one dosages) can cost as high as $500,000!  The cost for cancer treatments are really high, not to mention the side effects one may experience from the treatments, especially from the traditional chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

We can see that the new cancer vaccines are actually falling back on the very basic principle of our immune cells – which is the best doctor we have in us.  Since we are born with the best doctor in the world, why then are we still falling prey to diseases and illnesses? 

Apart from minority group which has immune system problems due to genetic issues, majority of us have weak immune system due to our poor diet, lifestyle, stress, pollution etc.   Our body has an immune cell called B-cell which is capable of producing more than 10,000 different types of antibodies to fight viruses and bacteria.  Our body also has an immune cell called Natural Killer Cell (a.k.a T cell) whose job is to look for cancer cells, attach itself to these cancer cells and destroy the cancer cells by emitting a toxin on the cancerous cells.

So are we giving our immune cells the correct nutrients that they need in order to help us fight the foreign invaders in our body?  Apparently not, as statistics shows increasing death rate due to cancer and other diseases and the most worrying is that the average age of cancer patients are getting younger and younger.

So from today, please consume more wholesome plant based food rich in phytochemicalsantioxidants and polysaccharrides as these are nutrients that our immune cells need in order to fight off diseases and illnesses.

Prevention is definitely cheaper and with good health we will be able to attain longevity! 

Article contributed by Ou Ee Him. 26 August 2018.

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