In my own journey with kidney cancer several years ago, it is easy to understand the confusion navigating the literature around the treatment of cancer and the multitude of protocols; lifestyle changes, diet, stress reduction, exercise, hormone & enzyme therapy, conventional treatment using radiation and chemotherapy, to name a few. Ted Schettler, MD., MPH., author of the The Ecology of Breast Cancer offers us an ecological paradigm of health, a way of understanding biological systems as they interact with their environmental contexts. The causes of cancer are complex and treatment involves not only an individual response, but a collective response at the community, societal, and global level. Ultimately it is a system design problem. This new paradigm gives us insight not only into breast cancer, but a model of understanding the epidemic of diseases that we are facing today. Instead of focusing on cancer only at the cellular level, can we also see the future impact of how current and future generations raised on fast food could be a ticking time bomb of unprecedented disease in the coming decades.
This book offers a thorough map of research based on science in describing a wider perspective in understanding disease. Listen to Commonweal's Michael Lerner conversation with Ted Schettler. In addition Ted's book is available for download.