There is a dark side to the modern cult of “wellness”

Fashion icon Elle Macpherson has announced to the world that she has rejected conventional medical treatment for her breast cancer and has instead sought to cure herself with the help of alternative medicine practitioners in the United States. Thankfully, she now says she is in “clinical remission.”

We all have the right to make our own decisions – that is the basis of democracy. I vividly remember a very angry mother pleading with me to call the police to take her 21-year-old son to the hospital for chemotherapy for testicular cancer. In the end we managed to convince him without having to handcuff him.

There are also many options for patients. In cancer, we are learning to personalize care to get the best outcomes, and one example of tremendous progress during my lifetime has been breast cancer. Surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and hormonal treatments are chosen for each patient by careful study of the unique characteristics of their tumor. Over the past decade, we have increasingly used sophisticated molecular, genetic, and protein markers to guide recommendations. There is no longer one shoe that fits all, and our outcomes have never been better.

But to dismiss pure science in favour of “wellness” treatments is deeply unwise. Complementary therapies are widely used in cancer as an adjunct to orthodox treatment. They can help increase quality of life, reduce the side effects of treatment and provide excellent psychological support. All cancer centres provide access to them, both within and outside the NHS. Acupuncture, massage, counselling, yoga, naturopathy, herbal medicine and dietary advice techniques are now common, but only when used alongside orthodox medical care.

A handful of my patients have opted for purely alternative treatment, but it always ends badly: most are treated again long after the cancer has become incurable. That’s the nature of cancer: an aberrant cell that starts in one place, grows and spreads steadily through the lymph nodes and bloodstream, and spreads to the lungs, liver, bones and brain. Early-stage breast cancer is often curable, but advanced cancer is not.

The reason why Britain’s cancer survival rate is so much worse than in much of the rest of Europe is because of the huge delays in diagnosis. The NHS’s growing administrative machinery has not yet solved the problem. The service’s target of treating cancer patients within 62 days of diagnosis is woefully unambitious and remains only an aspiration. There is nothing wrong with the staff; rather, it is the system that is at fault.

But public figures would do well to carefully consider the risks of sharing their alternative treatment plans. Enthusiasm for the world of alternative medicine, with its shocking anecdotes and lack of solid evidence, must be balanced with information about the power of modern technology for cancer treatment. Publicly rejecting conventional medicine could lead many less fortunate people to follow a dangerous example.

The big business of “wellness”, with its fancy diets, strange potions and bizarre practices that promise eternal life, has infiltrated the public consciousness. Harley Street is filling up with longevity clinics, perhaps as a result of distrust of modern medicine and “big pharma”. All of this carries enormous risk. Unless people see it, we are putting many lives at risk – and not just from breast cancer.

Professor Karol Sikora is a leading cancer specialist.

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