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| Panel of doctors with Mark Taylor Sept 2025 conference |
Last Saturday I was fortunate to join the annual conference in London of the charity Yes to Life where there was a talk from Mark Taylor, Founder of Patient Led Oncology Group and the lead behind the guide. This year the title of the conference was: "What’s Really Working? Integrative strategies that are transforming health and wellbeing.” The conference was a wonderful mix of new connections, reconnecting with folks I’ve met previously, meeting a whole host of professionals and some great inspiring talks - and one of the talks introduced this guide - and wow, wow, wow do we need this.
https://conference.yestolife.org.uk/
The team behind the guide monitor publications and the guide is updated twice a week with as many as ten papers each week - there is also an option (for a fee) of counsel/support to be guided through the info. It is not written by medical professionals but rather mathematicians and business people by background, who became a patient and caregiver. They note: "This book is written more like an algorithm or a business strategy document than your normal cancer book. Complex problems need complex solutions, and the structure and content is laid out in a peculiar but deeply thought through way”.
As the slides of Mark Taylor's talk here show in the UK we have a limited number of treatments - looking overseas we see many other treatment possibilities. However there is still lots we can do even if we can’t afford to travel and find those treatments overseas.
I welcome that this team are trying to encourage those of us with cancer to look at whether the treatment options have been studied with humans (and perhaps with animals where useful) - stuff just tested in Petri dishes doesn’t really hack it.
There are some great examples of where research has been done and shown hugely positive results but very little is being done to encourage use - for one example see the slide below with Pubmed links on taking an oral bicarbonate showing significant impacts.
Mark talked about how too often we are encouraged by ’survivorship bias’ to try something like Fenben - this is a common name for fenbendazole, a medication used to treat various gastrointestinal parasites in animals, such as dogs and cats. It is having a real moment online with lots of suggestions re its use with cancer - yet as the guide shows there is not a single case report of someone curing cancer with Fenben. Joe Tippens who did lots to launch Fenben and cancer did it with immunotherapy - there is no research re Fenben alone yet.
There is however lots of new exciting developments especially in immunology but also the benefits of mind, body and spirit work. Indeed, research is starting to show how this deep inner work can activate the body's innate healing and lead to improved outcomes, including durable remissions.
It was interesting to hear that Mark is suspicious of diets sorting out cancer. Many of us have put a lot of faith in getting healthy diets right - however he says they can help but often their impact is over estimated. Of course that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat a healthy diet! I am looking forward to reading more on that in the guide.
The recordings of the conference will be for sale in a couple of weeks or so from Yes to Life - in my view definitely worth looking at! If you can’t wait that long for Mark then here is a link to him being interviewed re the new guide by the Cancer Patient Lab: https://youtu.be/RaidIt4Zs_0
See the guide at: https://www.hackingcancer.health/products/hacking-cancer-0-1
