Natural Approaches to Chronic Degenerative Disorders: Cancer, Arthritis, Diabetes, Heart Disease
with Dr Margaret Jinn Ngu

If you are not getting anywhere with that headache, flu like symptoms, fatigue, general un-wellness or recurring infections there may be underlying factors you are not addressing. Perhaps you have been diagnosed with joint arthritis, diabetes, heart disease or cancer, chances are you have already been on the merry go round of heavy duty drugs, chemo, surgery or radiation which no longer are enough to bring back your sense of wellness. As you go down the conveyor belt of being fixed you notice further symptoms developing over time like going “from out of the frying pan into the fire”.

In searching for answers, you may need to ask “what is the cause of my sickness?” since putting out the fire is not enough if there are simmering embers in the fireplace. I often say to my patients “a headache is not because of a deficiency of panadol or any other painkiller,” but something deeper.

Whatever chronic illness or recurring symptoms you have, do not be satisfied with being diagnosed and put into a box, like being told, “you’ve got X Disease! Here is your medication to take for the rest of your life”.

The question I have asked since I was 5 years old (one that irritated my senior peers) was “but why?” This seeming insatiable question furthered my continuing search into the why’s of premature aging and chronic illness and the how’s of transforming and regenerating physical and mental wellbeing.

The ultimate process of illness is always Oxidative Stress and inflammation – which can attack any cell, tissue, organ, nerve, brain, glands, joints or bones. Inflammation can spiral and when inflammation becomes chronic; the end stage can be cancer.

If you are looking for the best available information, here are 7 fundamental checks to reverse mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress involved in inflammations:

1. Unhealthy Lifestyle
• Obesity and weight loss - Check BMI (Basal Metabolic Index calculated from your height and weight) – if result is 30 or more, obesity is an issue and a high risk factor.
Check your abdominal circumference; this can indicate risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and some cancers.
• Hydration - Are you drinking enough? Are you absorbing enough?
• Diet - What type of foods does your body want and NOT want? You may have food intolerances. Are you still having sugar and processed carbs? Are you constipated? Check for GUT dysfunction and leaky gut.
• Exercise - Try interval training (a type of physical training that involves a series of low to high intensity exercise workouts interspersed with rest or relief periods).
• Tobacco & Alcohol are high risk factors. Just say no!

2. Hormones & Nutrition:
Antioxidants, Vitamins, Minerals, Essential fatty Acids, Amino Acids like glutathione, SOD, NAC, alpha lipoic acid and other nutrients are essential for mitochondrial function, energy production and neutralizing free radicals. Check your hormonal status: adrenals, thyroid and insulin.

3. Oxygen/Ozone and Oxidative Stress: Are your cells hypoxic?
Hypoxia is the term given when the powerhouse of your cells called mitochondria is getting low in oxygen. Without enough oxygen, energy (ATP) cannot be made to meet the functional needs of the cell causing loss of function, hyperacidity, DNA breakdown, metabolic errors and/or mutation to cancerous state. Furthermore mutated cancer cells thrive on anaerobic state (low oxygen). Ozone therapy via autologous hemotherapy is effective in reversing hypoxia.

Ozone therapy (Prolozone) has also been shown to reverse arthritic joint inflammation and pain.

4. Hyperacidity and Alkaline balance
Appropriate minerals, alkaline diet, juicing.

5. Toxicity
Check for overload of accumulated chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, medications, foods preservatives, coloring; heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, lead and aluminium.

6. Infection
Microbes often underpin chronic inflammation. Check for viruses, bacteria, fungus and parasites.

7. Spiritual & Emotional Integrity
What is certain is that the body never lies and body symptoms are here to return you to your emotional and spiritual integrity. Check what thoughts, judgments and beliefs you are carrying that is generating the causal chain of emotional reactivity (anger, fear, sadness, infatuations) crystalizing in physical hormonal, nervous and cellular dysfunction called illness. Look for assistance with growth and transformation.

If you have been diagnosed with cancer, remember you have a choice of which approach you take so choose carefully. The outcome studies have shown that patients who had standard of care chemotherapy improved longevity by only 2.3% compared to those who didn’t. You may want to choose quality of life and possibly longevity using non-toxic approaches. The above 7 steps plus less toxic or non-toxic targeted cancer therapies may be one of choice from the best available information currently present.

These investigations cannot be undertaken in a short 10 minute consultation. Remember you are a whole being and pay attention to all 7 areas. After 35 yrs of witnessing spiritual and emotional integrity underpins it all.

Dr Margaret Jiin Ngu (MBBS Monash, FACNEM, MAMAC, MSE (Psych) is a Monash University medical graduate (1978) of 36 yrs, an expert in Integrative and Transformational Medicine for the past 30 plus yrs. Internationally she is a founding member of the IOICP (International Organisation of Integrative Cancer Physicians) and member of the AAOT ( American Academy of Oxidative Therapies). In Australia she is the only accredited IPT Physician offering Metabolically Supported IPT low dose chemotherapy; and trained in the USA in Oxygen/Ozone therapies for degenerative illness. Dr Ngu is a past president of the AIMA (Australasian Integrative Medicine Association), member of the RACGP, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners; the AMAC, Australian Medical Acupuncture College and Fellow of the Australasian College of Nutrition & Environmental Medicine, ACNEM.