Metabolic Therapy
In this video, Francisco Contreras spends about 24 minutes speaking on "Metabolic Therapy" at the 45th Annual Cancer Convention held on Labor Day weekend by the Cancer Control Society.
About Dr. Francisco Contreras
Dr. Francisco Contreras serves as director, president and chairman of the Oasis of Hope Hospital. A distinguished oncologist and surgeon, Contreras is renowned for combining conventional and alternative medical treatments with emotional and spiritual support to provide patients with the most positive treatment experience possible.
Oasis of Hope was founded by Contreras’ father, Dr. Ernesto Contreras, Sr. in 1963, and since then the hospital has provided integrative cancer treatment for more than 100,000 patients.
As director, Contreras continues the practice of his father’s two fundamental principles – do no harm and treat the patient as yourself. Today, Contreras oversees the treatment of 800 cancer patients annually.
After graduating with honors from medical school at the Autonomous University of Mexico in Toluca, Contreras studied alternative therapy at the Oasis of Hope Hospital. He then completed his specialty in surgical oncology at the University of Vienna in Austria, where he also graduated with honors.
Contreras has authored and co-authored several books concerning integrative therapy, cancer and heart disease prevention and chronic illness, including “The Hope of Living Cancer Free,” “The Hope of Living Long and Well,” “Fighting Cancer 20 Different Ways” and “Dismantling Cancer.” His newest book with co-author Daniel E. Kennedy, “Hope, Medicine & Healing,” is scheduled for release in fall 2008.
In addition to writing for numerous medical journals, Contreras has participated in medical conferences such as the World Conference on Breast Cancer and is active in the Cancer Control Society. He has been a part of governmental organizations, including the Georgia House of Representatives Health Policy Task Force and the Japanese Medical Association. He has also been on special assignment to Slovakia as a member of the Mexican Health Advisory Board.
A qualified entry-level professional motorcycle racer, Contreras says that racing is similar to performing surgery in that it requires 100 percent focus. Contreras and his wife, Rosa, have four daughters and one son. The family attends church in Bonita, Calif., and enjoys skiing and travel.
Transcription
Thank you, Frank. And thank you all. It's it's really a pleasure, a privilege to be here with you.
And I would like to talk a little bit about the oasis of hope and the work that my father and mother started 60, almost 64 years ago.
And the reason why my father started doing this as a very orthodox oncologist was because of the frustration that. That was caused by the fact that he was just losing patients right and left as oncologists would get very frustrated because out of every 10 patients that we treat, we kill eleven.
You know, with with all the chemo, the radiation, all the patients die. And then maybe some members of the family will die just by looking at what's going on.
And that is what I I believe is the is the problem with oncology today. It has become very dysfunctional because even though it is true that most of the treatments will destroy tumor cells and will destroy, in many cases tumors, they also kill the patient. And so we have been known for many, many years as an alternative hospital. But the truth is that we're much more than that.
And I want to call it a hospital where we practice functional oncology.
And so a function in oncology is a part of medicine that will work with everything available to us to help the patients. And so the difference is really philosophical and not technical. When you think about the failure in cancer, in spite of the fact that we're hearing about so many breakthroughs just about on a weekly basis, the fact continues to be that this year more people are going to die of cancer than last year. And so there's no question that there's a failure there. No matter how much we want to spin it. And the reason for the failure is that we are researching cancer from the philosophically wrong point of view. Research is based on on what is it that we can do to destroy tumors? And and we believe that the philosophy should be very different. What is it that we can do to help the patient survive? And they're very different things. So 95 percent of the money spent on cancer research is to understand tumors. And that sounds logical, right? If I want to treat cancer of the breast, I want to learn everything that's possible about cancer of the of the breast. And I develop my therapies based on that. Only five percent of the money is spent on metastasis. Why? Because a very difficult to evaluate and then this very difficult to evaluate the results. There