After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery to remove her tumour and one of her breasts, Vicky Sewart from Devon was advised to take Tamoxifen - a drug commonly issued during the post-cancer remission stage.
However, Sewart refused.
Vicky Sewart believes her strict superfood diet has kept her cancer-free
Instead, she launched into a health regime of exercise and ate a diet of 'anti-cancer' ‘superfoods', including spicy turmeric, instead of taking the powerful drug as she wanted to avoid any nasty side effects (which can include blood clots, and strokes).
Although health experts and doctors were at first skeptical about the so-called superfoods and their ‘healing’ powers, Sewart has remained cancer-free for four years and claims that her strict diet and lifestyle changes “made cancer cells commit suicide”.
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“The doctors absolutely will not say that the diet is going to do anything to help the cancer in any way, other than to say a healthy diet is going to help in the fight against any disease,” Sewart said, reports the Telegraph.
“This was four years ago and I think attitudes are changing a bit now so that these ideas are running alongside the more usual treatments.
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“I believe absolutely enormously that my diet has assisted my recovery."
Sewart began her lifestyle overhaul by cutting out dairy products and eating more ‘superfoods’ like red berries, garlic, ginger and turmeric spices and followed a strict organic, vegan lifestyle.
She also prepared all her food from scratch, made her own body lotions from natural ingredients. Something she has kept up for the last four years.
“I decided that I was going to help myself and do as much as I could," she said.
During her time following the strict superfood diet, Sewart provided blood and urine samples for experts who are compiling national research.
Thought to be the largest of its kind, the research will involve 56 hospitals around the UK and 3,400 cancer patients and is aiming to shed light into alternative cancer therapies.
However, although Sewart swears by the power of her superfood diet - a leading cancer charity has warned cancer patients not to ditch Tamoxifen just yet.
Vicky Sewart, pictured during her battle with breast cancer
“It’s not recommended that alternative therapies are used in place of conventional medical therapy,” Sara Hiom from Cancer Research UK, said in a statement.
“There is little scientific or medical evidence to indicate that alternative therapies are more effective than the proven treatments used by cancer specialists on the NHS.
“We would urge anyone to talk to their specialist if they’re contemplating them."
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