The concept of “early detection early cure” is an unchallengeable, authoritative theory both in the medical world and society as a whole; especially if applied to the diagnosis and the cure of “cancers” it is even more so, doubtlessly un-debatable.
However, we discover a fact that cannot be understood.
However, we discover a fact that cannot be understood.
In the past few decades the development of more advanced medical equipment has greatly improved the success rate of detecting the very early stages of this disease; Small tumors, regarded as the early stage of cancers which previously weren’t easily detected, are now detectable with regular health checks, and not to mention the treatment options are also greater, so in theory cancer survival rates should be much higher, transforming this disease from “incurable” to “curable”. So, why are more people dying of cancer every year? Not only is it the first of the top ten causes of death, but also it is three times higher than the second cause? Yet 40 years ago, cancer didn’t even make it to the list of the top ten causes of death (although back then it was considered to be incurable). Why is it that in our modern world that, despite the fact that we have far more advanced methods for diagnosis and cure, the death rate keeps on increasing? Why is there this contradiction?
Some people may say it was because that the medical devices were not as developed in the past, when there were lots of cancers that had not been diagnosed, and thus it appeared as though the patients who had cancer were fewer. This is an explanation that can be easily accepted. However, the popular cases of deaths on the “cause of death list” in the past such as: strokes, heart diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases… etc, all required a diagnosis, including cancer. Maybe it is true that there were lots of cancer cases that hadn’t been detected, but most cases of death weren’t due to the cause of cancer. This is fact. There were even cases when after one died of a stroke, heart attack, or accident, that cancer was discovered inside their bodies, sometimes even the very last stage of cancer, but it was never detected when they were alive. So this confirms that the number of cases that died of cancer in the past were much fewer than nowadays.
Some people may say that the lives of the people in modern times are much more tense and stressed; or the environment is much more polluted, and thus the rate of getting cancer is much higher. This is also possible. But if considering these reasons, then in theory the risk of getting high-blood-pressure, heart attacks or strokes should also increase, and it shouldn’t just affect the rate of cancer.
So then why is it that the more medical technology evolves, the higher the death rate of cancer? What is the real reason? More health-checks, more detections, more advanced methods of cure, yet more deaths as a result. Why?
There are a few possible causes, but the root-cause is often ignored, which is the unreasonable “fear” that emanates from the inside. “Fear” is “worrying” or “being afraid”. In the mentality of earlier times, “cancer” is incurable; people grew pale with fear hearing about it, everyone was afraid of getting cancer. Even though later on a lot of people had been cured from cancer, but at the same time we discovered that there are more people around us who had died of cancer, which intensifies the worry of not knowing if there would be a day that we would also die of cancer ourselves. And because of that worry, we are like drowning people desperately wanting to grab hold onto a floating kickboard; we grab hold onto a belief – “Early detection early cure”. Since cancer has higher rate of cure if it is detected earlier, so there are more and more medical resources spent on health checks and diagnosis. However, the root-cause of “fear” hasn’t decreased but increased by day, which results in increasing deaths of cancers every year.
The definition of “early detection early cure” is actually based on that when a cancer tumor is detected, if it is at an earlier stage, the rate of survival is higher than when the cancer is being detected at a later stage. This statement is only meaningful for when the cancer is already being detected, and for the matter of it being at an earlier or later stage, then it is more appropriate to judge the rate of survival after the treatments. But it cannot be compared with the people who never go to health checks. In other words, the rate of cancer survival between people who are involved in health checks and the people who are not is incomparable. Which means that using the saying “early detection early cure” to encourage people to get active in constant health checks in order to detect earlier stage of cancers, and to do active treatments to increase the rate of survival, it is something that still needs to be discussed.
“Early detection early cure” is an evaluation according to the results from the people who have already done their health checks, and it appears to be that those who are being detected at an earlier stage have a higher rate of survival. But is it true that for those who don’t do the health checks at all that they would have a higher rate of death from cancer? It is hard to compare. It is like the medical system in earlier times when health checks were not so accessible and the checks themselves were not as refined and detailed, some of the cases that died of other causes had been detected to have cancer after the dissection, and yet the cause of their deaths wasn’t cancer.
Often we’ve actually been ignoring a fact – “The human body is already the perfect doctor itself”. It has great ability to heal itself. In many clinical cases we’ve seen a lot of illnesses are cured by themselves. The involvement of the medical system is often just the secondary support. Just as in the daily metabolic process of the physical body, there will be some abnormal cells being produced (these could be pre-cancer cells), but through the monitoring ability of our immune system, those abnormal cells are always being kept in a dynamic balance with the physical body, and are being prevented from progressing into cancer cells. Those monitoring system could be strengthened or weakened by your lifestyle, diet or emotions, and thus the progressing of those abnormal cells are also either strengthen or weaken. In other words anyone could have cancer cells being produced in a lot of situations, but most of them can disappear automatically by themselves (because of the immune system), meaning that the physical body has the ability to cure cancer by itself. However, in the current times, we intentionally trying to dig it out, trying to detect it early, and of course it is possible to then have early cure (disregarding the fact that it could also very well be cured by the body itself), but the detection triggers the internal “fear”, plus the medical treatments will diminish the body’s self-healing ability, so the death of cancer often happens during the process of medical treatments or syndromes themselves. And even after claiming the completion of the treatments, often there is higher possibility for reoccurrence or metastasis.
Let’s explain this in a purely hypothetical example:
There are two doctors. They are responsible for the health care of two separate communities with 1000 people of population each. One of the doctors is of an active type. He is very active in encouraging the community to be involved in health checks in order to detect any earlier stage of abnormal cells, and then be involved in active treatment in order to increase the rate of cancer survival. During the ten years of his medical involvement with the community, because of his very thorough health checks, he has detected all together 100 people with early stages of cancer, and with active treatment, 90 of them survived, 10 of them unfortunately passed away. So the rate of survival is as high as 90%. The other doctor is just simply doing the treatments when the actual symptoms present. He is very active in healing the people who have already-existing illnesses, but he won’t actively try to find the un-noticed diseases. During the ten years that he’s with the community, there is one cancer case, but since the doctor isn’t involve in active health checks, so by the time this patient realizes, the cancer is already at the latest stage, and the person has passed away very quickly. The rate of survival, therefore, is 0%.
In the hypothetical example above, let’s ask: if you were a patient, what kind of doctor would you wish to see? And if you were a doctor, what kind of doctor would you choose to be?
Answer for the first question: You would choose for the doctor who is involved in active detection and treatments, so that just in case I would discover a tumor in the early stage I would still have 90% chance of survival. But if I chose the other kind, it would have been 100% incurable (death rate).
Answer for the second question: You would choose to be a doctor that is in active health checks and treatments. Repetitive health checks and treatments would have very positive effect on the income, and the active treatment itself plus a higher chance for complete cure would gain more appreciation and gratitude from the public. Being the kind of doctor that only treats the existing symptoms would certainly earn much less income, even with the possibility of being sued (for not detecting the illness early and thus the chance to heal is postponed).
These kinds of choices are the trend in modern days, a natural tendency. This is also why our medical expenses have increased so dramatically, also the anxiety towards the disease from the general public, and thus that’s why the death rate of cancer is becoming higher and higher.
The hypothetical example above is only trying to make a point to compare the current medical results of treating cancer to 40 years ago. The result shows that the survival rate of cancer has greatly increased, yet the amount of individuals who died of cancer has also increased hugely (10 times more). This is a situation that is worth taking a closer look at.
Actually, there is a very important cause of the disease that has been ignored by all of us, which is “fear”. Within our current environment (either from the medical perspective or the media), the fear of cancer is being repetitively emphasized. “What you focus on grows.” “Health check” is not wrong or problematic in itself, but the attitudes towards it from the checker and the checked is to be discussed. When a checker’s attitude is all about hoping to find something; or trying to find something earlier than other people, or to find something that others can’t find, the search of that satisfaction of the accomplishment would be a hidden desire behind it. So if when the result of the health check shows that everything is normal, the checker will congratulate you, yet at the same time can’t help feeling slightly disappointed inside. The person who is being checked would have the attitude of wanting to detect something early and cure early rather than detect something too late to cure. If the health check shows that everything is normal this year, the person feels relieved, and will come back again for the check the next year, and then the next year… I will eventually detect something some year, and I will do my very best to deal with my problem. The whole tendency of society is constantly reminding us the “fear” inside of us, emphasizing our attention on cancer, causing this negative cycle, and thus it is constantly re-occurring.
In our concept of the process of achieving “health”, we put most of our attention on the “body”. This is actually putting the cart before the horse. We discover that we’ve spent a lot of effort (energy and money), but the result is limited. In which case, would the idea of “health for the mind and body” be more complete? “Yes,” but it has to be experienced, and not just known. The real effect comes from one’s stable inner experience; this is something you can’t rely on someone else to give to you. For decades we’ve been dragged by our beliefs; “what I should do to be a good child”, “what to do to be a good student”, “what to do to be considered as a good person”, “what to do to make the body healthier”. Every stage of growing up seems to have a direction and a goal that we need to work hard towards; some different concepts that we need to achieve. Looking back at it after a few decades, it just all seems like an unending, repetitive game of life. And then finally we are told that after a lifetime of hard work, not to forget to chant the mantra of “Namo Amita Buddha” the moment before we die, and thus the end of our life. Is it really what it is all about? Of course not. Perfect health, infinite joy and peace are your birthright. The only thing that prevents you from experiencing it, is usually just a thought or a belief; a thought or a belief that there is still something I haven’t achieved or I just don’t deserve it. Just simply let go of this belief, at that very moment you can have the experience of being in heaven (or paradise). It’s just that the mind doesn’t know how to “still” itself (the beliefs are just the mind), but the real you does. Just simply let go, come back to that emptiness, put your attention on that space, then you can immediately experience that silence, eternity and infinity; truly experience the perfect health. (more details find in my article “The discovering of the Self Trilogy”).
Truly experience the “relaxation” or “letting go” from all of those concepts, which you think are “right” or “wrong”. Be open to the present moment completely. In this instant of Now, “fear” doesn’t exist, “anxiety” doesn’t exist; only the fullness of “Silence” and “love” filling up your awareness. The perfect health of your mind and body, is achieved in this very instant.
Some people may say it was because that the medical devices were not as developed in the past, when there were lots of cancers that had not been diagnosed, and thus it appeared as though the patients who had cancer were fewer. This is an explanation that can be easily accepted. However, the popular cases of deaths on the “cause of death list” in the past such as: strokes, heart diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases… etc, all required a diagnosis, including cancer. Maybe it is true that there were lots of cancer cases that hadn’t been detected, but most cases of death weren’t due to the cause of cancer. This is fact. There were even cases when after one died of a stroke, heart attack, or accident, that cancer was discovered inside their bodies, sometimes even the very last stage of cancer, but it was never detected when they were alive. So this confirms that the number of cases that died of cancer in the past were much fewer than nowadays.
Some people may say that the lives of the people in modern times are much more tense and stressed; or the environment is much more polluted, and thus the rate of getting cancer is much higher. This is also possible. But if considering these reasons, then in theory the risk of getting high-blood-pressure, heart attacks or strokes should also increase, and it shouldn’t just affect the rate of cancer.
So then why is it that the more medical technology evolves, the higher the death rate of cancer? What is the real reason? More health-checks, more detections, more advanced methods of cure, yet more deaths as a result. Why?
There are a few possible causes, but the root-cause is often ignored, which is the unreasonable “fear” that emanates from the inside. “Fear” is “worrying” or “being afraid”. In the mentality of earlier times, “cancer” is incurable; people grew pale with fear hearing about it, everyone was afraid of getting cancer. Even though later on a lot of people had been cured from cancer, but at the same time we discovered that there are more people around us who had died of cancer, which intensifies the worry of not knowing if there would be a day that we would also die of cancer ourselves. And because of that worry, we are like drowning people desperately wanting to grab hold onto a floating kickboard; we grab hold onto a belief – “Early detection early cure”. Since cancer has higher rate of cure if it is detected earlier, so there are more and more medical resources spent on health checks and diagnosis. However, the root-cause of “fear” hasn’t decreased but increased by day, which results in increasing deaths of cancers every year.
The definition of “early detection early cure” is actually based on that when a cancer tumor is detected, if it is at an earlier stage, the rate of survival is higher than when the cancer is being detected at a later stage. This statement is only meaningful for when the cancer is already being detected, and for the matter of it being at an earlier or later stage, then it is more appropriate to judge the rate of survival after the treatments. But it cannot be compared with the people who never go to health checks. In other words, the rate of cancer survival between people who are involved in health checks and the people who are not is incomparable. Which means that using the saying “early detection early cure” to encourage people to get active in constant health checks in order to detect earlier stage of cancers, and to do active treatments to increase the rate of survival, it is something that still needs to be discussed.
“Early detection early cure” is an evaluation according to the results from the people who have already done their health checks, and it appears to be that those who are being detected at an earlier stage have a higher rate of survival. But is it true that for those who don’t do the health checks at all that they would have a higher rate of death from cancer? It is hard to compare. It is like the medical system in earlier times when health checks were not so accessible and the checks themselves were not as refined and detailed, some of the cases that died of other causes had been detected to have cancer after the dissection, and yet the cause of their deaths wasn’t cancer.
Often we’ve actually been ignoring a fact – “The human body is already the perfect doctor itself”. It has great ability to heal itself. In many clinical cases we’ve seen a lot of illnesses are cured by themselves. The involvement of the medical system is often just the secondary support. Just as in the daily metabolic process of the physical body, there will be some abnormal cells being produced (these could be pre-cancer cells), but through the monitoring ability of our immune system, those abnormal cells are always being kept in a dynamic balance with the physical body, and are being prevented from progressing into cancer cells. Those monitoring system could be strengthened or weakened by your lifestyle, diet or emotions, and thus the progressing of those abnormal cells are also either strengthen or weaken. In other words anyone could have cancer cells being produced in a lot of situations, but most of them can disappear automatically by themselves (because of the immune system), meaning that the physical body has the ability to cure cancer by itself. However, in the current times, we intentionally trying to dig it out, trying to detect it early, and of course it is possible to then have early cure (disregarding the fact that it could also very well be cured by the body itself), but the detection triggers the internal “fear”, plus the medical treatments will diminish the body’s self-healing ability, so the death of cancer often happens during the process of medical treatments or syndromes themselves. And even after claiming the completion of the treatments, often there is higher possibility for reoccurrence or metastasis.
Let’s explain this in a purely hypothetical example:
There are two doctors. They are responsible for the health care of two separate communities with 1000 people of population each. One of the doctors is of an active type. He is very active in encouraging the community to be involved in health checks in order to detect any earlier stage of abnormal cells, and then be involved in active treatment in order to increase the rate of cancer survival. During the ten years of his medical involvement with the community, because of his very thorough health checks, he has detected all together 100 people with early stages of cancer, and with active treatment, 90 of them survived, 10 of them unfortunately passed away. So the rate of survival is as high as 90%. The other doctor is just simply doing the treatments when the actual symptoms present. He is very active in healing the people who have already-existing illnesses, but he won’t actively try to find the un-noticed diseases. During the ten years that he’s with the community, there is one cancer case, but since the doctor isn’t involve in active health checks, so by the time this patient realizes, the cancer is already at the latest stage, and the person has passed away very quickly. The rate of survival, therefore, is 0%.
In the hypothetical example above, let’s ask: if you were a patient, what kind of doctor would you wish to see? And if you were a doctor, what kind of doctor would you choose to be?
Answer for the first question: You would choose for the doctor who is involved in active detection and treatments, so that just in case I would discover a tumor in the early stage I would still have 90% chance of survival. But if I chose the other kind, it would have been 100% incurable (death rate).
Answer for the second question: You would choose to be a doctor that is in active health checks and treatments. Repetitive health checks and treatments would have very positive effect on the income, and the active treatment itself plus a higher chance for complete cure would gain more appreciation and gratitude from the public. Being the kind of doctor that only treats the existing symptoms would certainly earn much less income, even with the possibility of being sued (for not detecting the illness early and thus the chance to heal is postponed).
These kinds of choices are the trend in modern days, a natural tendency. This is also why our medical expenses have increased so dramatically, also the anxiety towards the disease from the general public, and thus that’s why the death rate of cancer is becoming higher and higher.
The hypothetical example above is only trying to make a point to compare the current medical results of treating cancer to 40 years ago. The result shows that the survival rate of cancer has greatly increased, yet the amount of individuals who died of cancer has also increased hugely (10 times more). This is a situation that is worth taking a closer look at.
Actually, there is a very important cause of the disease that has been ignored by all of us, which is “fear”. Within our current environment (either from the medical perspective or the media), the fear of cancer is being repetitively emphasized. “What you focus on grows.” “Health check” is not wrong or problematic in itself, but the attitudes towards it from the checker and the checked is to be discussed. When a checker’s attitude is all about hoping to find something; or trying to find something earlier than other people, or to find something that others can’t find, the search of that satisfaction of the accomplishment would be a hidden desire behind it. So if when the result of the health check shows that everything is normal, the checker will congratulate you, yet at the same time can’t help feeling slightly disappointed inside. The person who is being checked would have the attitude of wanting to detect something early and cure early rather than detect something too late to cure. If the health check shows that everything is normal this year, the person feels relieved, and will come back again for the check the next year, and then the next year… I will eventually detect something some year, and I will do my very best to deal with my problem. The whole tendency of society is constantly reminding us the “fear” inside of us, emphasizing our attention on cancer, causing this negative cycle, and thus it is constantly re-occurring.
In our concept of the process of achieving “health”, we put most of our attention on the “body”. This is actually putting the cart before the horse. We discover that we’ve spent a lot of effort (energy and money), but the result is limited. In which case, would the idea of “health for the mind and body” be more complete? “Yes,” but it has to be experienced, and not just known. The real effect comes from one’s stable inner experience; this is something you can’t rely on someone else to give to you. For decades we’ve been dragged by our beliefs; “what I should do to be a good child”, “what to do to be a good student”, “what to do to be considered as a good person”, “what to do to make the body healthier”. Every stage of growing up seems to have a direction and a goal that we need to work hard towards; some different concepts that we need to achieve. Looking back at it after a few decades, it just all seems like an unending, repetitive game of life. And then finally we are told that after a lifetime of hard work, not to forget to chant the mantra of “Namo Amita Buddha” the moment before we die, and thus the end of our life. Is it really what it is all about? Of course not. Perfect health, infinite joy and peace are your birthright. The only thing that prevents you from experiencing it, is usually just a thought or a belief; a thought or a belief that there is still something I haven’t achieved or I just don’t deserve it. Just simply let go of this belief, at that very moment you can have the experience of being in heaven (or paradise). It’s just that the mind doesn’t know how to “still” itself (the beliefs are just the mind), but the real you does. Just simply let go, come back to that emptiness, put your attention on that space, then you can immediately experience that silence, eternity and infinity; truly experience the perfect health. (more details find in my article “The discovering of the Self Trilogy”).
Truly experience the “relaxation” or “letting go” from all of those concepts, which you think are “right” or “wrong”. Be open to the present moment completely. In this instant of Now, “fear” doesn’t exist, “anxiety” doesn’t exist; only the fullness of “Silence” and “love” filling up your awareness. The perfect health of your mind and body, is achieved in this very instant.