When Hope Never Dies: The Story of My Recovery from Cancer and the Program I Used to Heal Myself

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Medical Foreword

Introduction

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

Epilogue

PART TWO

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I acknowledge all who took this journey with me for 25 years! My counselors, my cooks, my teachers, my friends and my family – in particular, my wonderful children, my former husband, and my mother. You were all so very patient and tolerant of the fact that I became me-centered to survive! I am certain that it was difficult and emotionally straining to watch me struggle. But without you, your devotion, love and support, I would probably not be here. With much love and admiration, I recognize my deceased father’s guiding spirit which has been a never-ending source of much strength for me. And my faith in God carried me through those troubling times to only doubly bless my family over the years.

A thank you to my co-author, Thomas Monte, for his sensitivity and brilliant prose. A special thank you to Suzanne Ronayne, who worked diligently and patiently on the re-write of Part II, and updated the bibliography and scientific research. Suzanne is a bright, positive and persistent woman who dedicated herself to this book revision. And a warm thank you to my son-in-law, Victor Hugo Aranda, who worked tirelessly to design the front and back cover. Victor’s creativity and talents as a graphic designer and his bright and intuitive personality were an incredible resource for me during this book revision.

I am humbled that so many people that have read my first edition, and took the time to write or e-mail me their thoughts and emotions. Thank you because you are the inspiration for this revised book.

The timing of the publication of this second edition is especially significant because 2011 marks my 25th year of being cancer-free. I rewrite this book hoping you will all join me in celebrating my ‘Silver Anniversary’ of health and renewed life.

I am only one voice but I am a believer that one voice can multiply into a thousand voices with support and love.

Marlene M. Marcello

MedMacro Integrated Health Inc.

www.MedMacro.com

Foreword

T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.

In the world of cancer research and clinical practice, opinions are often fixed and hard to change. So, too, is public opinion on this, one of the most feared of all diseases. And this is the way it has been for many decades, if not longer.

On the other hand, there is now convincing scientific evidence that diet and nutritional practices can substantially influence both the initiation and promotion, even reversal, of cancer in laboratory animal studies. There is additional supporting evidence for humans, both in epidemiological studies and case reports, although the latter is less robust than what most professionals would desire.

I know this evidence because for more than 50 years I have been a researcher in cancer etiology--including both mechanistic and epidemiological investigations, almost all of which was handsomely funded by NIH and was published in the very best, peer-reviewed cancer and nutrition research journals. In addition, I am aware of considerable research evidence that can be traced back at least 80 years, some of it summarized in the 1982 Diet, Nutrition and Cancer report of the National Academy of Sciences that I co-authored, along with the other 12 committee members.

Our research findings among experimental animals established what I consider to be diet and cancer principles, which are consistent with human evidence. For example, (1) nutrition, although affecting all phases of cancer development, primarily affects the reversible phases of promotion and progression, (2) nutritional control of gene expression is far more determinative of cancer occurrence than genetic predisposition, (3) nutrition operates through countless but highly integrated biochemical mechanisms to produce the outcome, (4) the optimal dietary lifestyle consistent with all phases of nutritional inhibition of cancer development is provided by a whole foods, plant-based diet low in added fat, salt and sugar and (5) the main dietary effect on cancer arises from the nutrient composition of the diet, not from the presence (or absence) of chemical carcinogens.

For many years, I have witnessed an unusual emotional debate surrounding the diet and cancer relationship, often including considerable skepticism. This emotion and skepticism about dietary effects also apply to many other illnesses as well but the discussion of cancer is especially heated. There are many historical, institutional, cultural and personal reasons for this behavior, yet because the evidence is becoming so significant and impressive, it is urgent that the public be informed.

Personal accounts of ‘evidence’ on cancer treatment and reversal without clinical documentation fails to resolve the problem. It may draw interest from many people but it usually does not lead to widespread adoption and public acceptance.

Marlene Marcello’s message does not only rely on her personal account. It also includes professional opinion and documentation, thus making the story that much more convincing.

I find her story not only to be singularly impressive but, even more, to be consistent with a large body of evidence now documenting a major role for a whole food, plant-based dietary lifestyle to maintain and even restore health, even in an advanced cancer cases. I hope that many people, especially the professionals, will take heed and share this book with their patients.

T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus, Cornell University

Co-author (with Thomas M. Campbell II, MD)

of the national best-selling The China Study

Medical Foreword

George Yu, M.D.

Marlene Marcello McKenna’s Melanoma

In March 1986, Dr. A. Benedict Cosimi, a cancer and transplant surgeon at Mass General Hospital, performed the exploratory laparotomy for Marlene Marcello McKenna for severe gastrointestinal bleeding with a low blood count with a hematocrit of 20% (normal 35 to 40%). 38 centimeters of small bowel in 3 separate segments were removed containing 6 separate melanoma lesions with 2 of 15 lymph nodes positive for metastatic melanoma. The mesentery attached to the small bowel had significant residual gross disease left behind as it could not be resected safely.

On gross examination at the operating table, there was neither liver metastasis nor periaortic lymph node involvement. Though we cannot be sure that Marlene was rendered disease free by this surgical debulking treatment, it is highly unlikely that she could be cured by just surgery with such aggressive melanoma left behind. She refused all chemotherapy and immunotherapy and embraced a foreign approach to her problem- Macrobiotics.

February 25, 2002

Were it not for the persistence and thoroughness of Christine Akbar, the research director for the Kushi Institute, the Best Case Series of Macrobiotic Survivors (BCS) under the National Institute of Health (N.I.H.), and National Cancer Institute (N.C.I.) would have categorized Marlene’s case as a surgically-induced disease free status. She made a desperate attempt to contact Dr. Cosimi on February 22 only 3 days away from the formal presentation-her tenaciousness paid off! The case was unanimously accepted as a cure using nutritional intervention by an expert panel of 15 scientists.

We Meet Again in 2010

Marlene is alive and free of disease 24 years later to write her second edition of her book When Hope Never Dies and she asked all of us to support her mission in life: to promote nutrition as prevention and intervention against disease. She needed legitimacy and credibility!

Coincidentally, Dr. Paul Duray, the original pathologist who first reviewed her case in 1986, happened to examine her case for the second time in 2005 at NCI as a specialist in Melanoma. Dr. Steve Rosenberg, Chief of the Surgical Branch of National Cancer Institute, concurred with Paul that melanoma involving bowel and mesentery carried a poor prognosis and highly unlikely to have a spontaneous remission.

Paul and I had good intentions to write this case report for a medical Journal, but pressing priorities left this task undone. So again this year 2010, Marlene again approached all three of us to finish the job left undone by writing the foreword to her new book. I corresponded with Marlene’s surgeon Dr. Benedict Cosimi at Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard for the second time just to refresh medical documents to ascertain his impression of the surgical exploration.

How It All Started

I met with Michio Kushi, founder of the Kushi Institute, Phyia Kushi, his son, and Christine Akbar in 1999. We reviewed the case reports documented by Dr. Larry Kushi, an epidemiologist and Michio’s other son. After reviewing those medical records, I interviewed some of the surviving patients and felt we could use some of Larry’s original research with additional cases to present to the N.IH. If I had not interviewed these individuals face to face, I probably could never have accepted these incredible results.

Since 2002, I have been auditing and reviewing cases for other nutritional centers such as Hippocrates Institute, Optimal Health Institute etc. and have seen sufficient cases to become a believer both intellectually and emotionally. Each institute has unique and had different philosophies but there were common denominators:

•    Their diets are simple and easy to digest

•    The food is abundant with nutrition.

•    Participants lose about 10% of their weight. This weight loss differs from cachexia of terminal cancer patients as these individuals’ serum insulin and cortisol levels are not elevated (Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 1987:45:236-242)

•    Dr. Peter Choike, radiologist for N.C.I., noted that CAT scans of patients on nutritional interventions all lose visceral fat simultaneously with cancer shrinkage and necrosis about 3 to 6 months into the program.

•    There are 20% cures and the rest will have partial remissions requiring adjuvant combination treatments.

•    The total calories consumed each day per person are between 1500 to 1800 calories.

CR, Caloric Restriction, The Common Denominator

A fortunate accidental meeting with the late Dr. David Kritchevsky of University of Pennsylvania and a publication by Dr. Stephen Spindler (PNAS Sept. 11, 2001, Vol. 98, No.19, 10631-) made me piece the puzzle together- Why do all these institutes with differing nutritional programs all produce the same results despite different philosophies?

Dr. Kritchevsky noted that calorie restriction (energy content of food, sodas are pure calories with no nutrition) arrested all induced or spontaneous animal cancer growths.

Stephen Spindler, a protégé of Dr. Roy Walford of Biosphere 2, showed that CR could reverse genetic expressions of cell replication, cell death, and cell detoxification back to a healthier and younger state even in a short time frame of 3 to 6 months. So gene expressions are dynamic and ever changing depending on the environment!

Oddly enough, the 3 to 6 months is the same time interval that clinically, we see cancer and visceral fat shrinkage on CAT scans of patients using nutritional intervention! This could be a phenomenon looking for a reason. With advances in research in genetic expressions using the most sophisticated reproducible tools such as the Parallel Sequencing Assays, we are now exploring the genetic reasons of the whys of nutritional interventions.

What I have written is not necessarily the opinion of Benedict Cosimi or Paul Duray, but we all stand together in support of Marlene’s incredible story. Even though we cannot explain the Hows and the Whys, Benedict, Paul and I all agree that Marlene’s case was a cure, and it is our hope that future scientists and doctors will build the Science upon what we witnessed.

A. Benedict Cosimi, M.D., Claude E. Welch, Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, and Visiting Surgeon, Transplant Unit, Mass General Hospital

Paul Duray, MD. Former Pathologist, National Institute of Health

George W. Yu, M.D. Senior Staff Aegis Medical & Research Associates, Clinical Professor of Urology, George Washington University Medical Center

George Yu, M.D. for When Hope Never Dies

January 2010

Introduction

On March 19, 1986 I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma that had spread throughout my small intestine. Exploratory surgery had revealed that my small intestine had been infiltrated extensively by malignant tumors. My surgeon explained to me that there was nothing else conventional medicine could do for me and that my only hope – however slim that was – lay with one or another of the experimental cancer therapies being offered at the National Cancer Institute or at Yale Medical Center. Short of a miracle, I had between six months to a year to live. I was forty years old, married, and the mother of four children.

The diagnosis of cancer was so shocking and terrible that for weeks I felt as if I had lost touch with myself and my surroundings. In a way, I disengaged from my world. I went inward and hid myself from all that I was feeling. I tried to remain positive and hopeful. I said to my family, I’ll beat this thing! I’ll explore all the cutting-edge treatments and get the best treatment possible. Somehow I’ll find a way.

Even as I said those words, I felt removed from them – and from my life. I was numb. Whenever I did reconnect with myself and my circumstances, whenever I allowed myself to feel what was really going on inside me, I was immediately overwhelmed with fear and sadness. The toughest times of all came during the little moments with the children – when I saw them go off to school in the morning, or when I tucked my youngest, Mary Kathryn, into bed at night. How could I leave them? How could this happen to me, especially at my age? When I considered my situation and my fate, I was soon overcome by panic. I could only take so much fear before I switched back to automatic pilot, as if my soul detached itself from my body and mind. Once again, I resumed a kind of numb detachment. I went through the day as if only half of me was present.

In hindsight I realized that those symptoms were the outward expression of a life completely out of balance. Essentially, I raced through every day, meeting the demands of my work and family. My career and financial goals, along with the demands of raising four children, took all my time and energy. If someone had asked me what I did for myself or whether I spent any time with myself, I would have laughed politely and said, I am with myself all day long. Everything I do is for me, in some way. In other words, I would not even have understood the question, because I didn’t know what it meant to be truly in touch with the inner me.

I must admit that I didn’t have the slightest understanding of what the word balance meant. I cannot remember actually using the word before I got cancer. Later, after I began to truly dedicate myself to recovering my health, I realized that only by living a balanced life could I enjoy some degree of intimacy with myself, that I could actually be aware of my inner world – that I might actually be aware of who I am. Only by having such an awareness could I know my own physical, emotional, and psychological needs, which of course is the first step towards meeting those needs.

In a very real sense, cancer awakened me to the blind rush in which I lived. After the shock of my diagnosis began to wear off and I started to feel again, I turned within, searching for that part of me that would endure beyond death. That inner world, with its gentle, nurturing and reassuring voice, was the gateway to spiritual life, which was the only thing that stood between me and terror. Not only did it give me hope, but it was my guide to an endless number of practical decisions. Each day, my inner life directed me intuitively, helping me decide what I must do next to strengthen my health and, eventually, overcome my cancer. In an odd sort of paradox, surrendering to the inner world gave me the answers to the outer one. Directed by my inner voice, I sought and found people who helped me out of my fear and confusion. Ultimately, they even helped me find and answer to my disease.

In the pages that follow, I share my journey from sickness to health, from hopelessness to the restoration of my life. More than anything else, I want my readers to know that no one can tell you with absolute certainty what you are capable of accomplishing, even when all the odds seem stacked against you. I was told that there was no hope of recovery from Stage 4 malignant melanoma. Certainly, the doctors who assured me that my fate was sealed were speaking from experience. Yet, I did recover. When I look back, it seems as if I was being led – indeed I believe I was. But while in the midst of my recovery process, I felt alone and afraid much of the time. What got me through the experience were my faith and a set of daily health practices that gave me the means to help myself and keep me grounded in the here and now. My macrobiotic diet and lifestyle, my meditations, exercise, and daily yoga were the practical activities that I used every day to strengthen my body, mind, and spirit. These are powerful tools and they worked for me.

Faith and action formed the basis of my recovery. They are the yin and yang of what I came to see as true self-empowerment. Faith alone, I came to realize, is ungrounded and impractical. In a very real sense, faith alone is not really faith but desperate fear masquerading as faith. On the other hand, daily health practices without faith is pure futility. What can we accomplish if we do not believe in what we are doing? Faith and action became, for me, the mingling of heaven and earth. In this way, I was being guided; I believed my actions were inspired by a higher power.

In reading this book, I encourage you to find your own way, to discover what works for you. While you search for healing tools, never lose your practical common sense. Ideally, every healing method should make you feel physically and mentally better; it should have an impact on your disease; and it should grant you greater access to your own inner self. My approach gave me all three gifts, which is why I want to share my experience with you.

My decision to re-publish, with updated scientific research and a more complete wellness guide, came about during the last few years. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) funded a study in 2002 involving macrobiotics survivors: I was one of six individuals whose medical records and healing program were extensively researched. The panel of Ph.D.’s and M.D.’s at the NCI concluded that I was a medical cure through nutritional intervention. And I looked around at a changing world: doctors and researchers speaking out about the benefits of plant-based nutrition and the preponderance of research and scientific studies linking the consumption of meat and dairy products to disease and obesity. I have had the good fortune to meet and interview some of these incredible crusaders, namely Neal Barnard, M.D., Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., and T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. Their work, diligence and public advocacy will help turn America around! Dr. John McDougall is another tireless physician crusader who has restored the health of many by converting people to a plant-based diet and freeing them of their reliance on drugs. Dr. Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, has helped patients to live again after advanced heart disease.

In 2010, former President Clinton announced he had converted to a whole-foods vegan diet, influenced by the work of Drs. Esselstyn and Campbell. Sixteen years earlier, in 1994, my family and I were the invited guests of President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. I shared the manuscript of my book, When Hope Never Dies with Mr. Clinton, who took his valuable time to read it, and write me a thoughtful letter. I also gave the President other books on the relationship between plant-based nutrition and health. Let us all congratulate Mr. Clinton for his willingness to find answers to his health condition outside of the Western medical model. His openness about his health will help get the message out to more people about how diet and lifestyle changes can prevent and/or reverse disease.

Keven McKenna, President Bill Clinton, Damian, Mary Kathryn, Marlene, and Joseph

PART ONE

MY STORY

CHAPTER 1

The Wrecking Ball

SPRING WAS COMING. The March air was cold and there was a stiff wind that still had to be faced. But the sun was getting stronger, the days just a little longer, and there were suggestions, here and there, that nature was about to rebound yet again, despite the awesome power of winter to snuff out all but the faintest embers of life. Spring always brings hope, I thought again, as I stood in my kitchen at the sink and filled a teapot with water. I had to keep focusing on the positive. Somehow, I would find a way out of this terrible nightmare, I told myself. As I looked out my kitchen window, I saw a small patch of grass that had somehow been cleared of snow and was now basking in the waning afternoon sunlight.

It was March 18, 1986 and I was home because I was about to be admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston the following day to undergo exploratory surgery. I was 40 years old, but my health had been collapsing in stages, like huge falling land masses from the side of some deteriorating cliff.

Three years before, I had been diagnosed with malignant melanoma. After a malignant mole had been removed from my back, I entered a frightening period in which new signs of disease seemed to emerge with shocking regularity. With each new symptom, my life seemed driven all the closer to some perilous cliff. For most of that three-year period, my doctors were unable to determine what exactly was wrong with me. None of them wanted to jump to the obvious conclusion: that the melanoma had recurred and that my symptoms were not as mysterious and inexplicable as my doctors had been saying. Finally, in February of 1986, the obvious was inescapable. Yes, my doctors finally acknowledged. The cancer probably had returned. I would have to undergo exploratory surgery to confirm or deny everyone’s suspicions.

Now in my kitchen on the day before I was to be admitted to the hospital, I couldn’t help but consider my life and the events that had brought me to this terrible precipice.

I was born on May 3, 1946 and raised in Rhode Island. I received a traditional Roman Catholic religious education, attended Skidmore College, in New York, and graduated with a degree in government. After graduation, I attended the School of Advanced International Studies in Paris, an opportunity that was made possible by my fluency in French. In 1970, I enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Rhode Island and began working on an advanced degree in government, economics, and history. Two years later, I met Keven McKenna, also a native of Rhode Island, who was just finishing law school at Georgetown Law, in Washington, D.C. In 1973, we married.

We made our home in Providence and began a family. Keven had had two children by a previous marriage and within four years we had added two more. Our children, Sean, then 20 and away at college, Christopher, then 17, Damian, 12, and Mary Kathryn, 9, became a single family, and