Our Services2 - CAMA of Chestnut Hill

Compassionate Alternative Medicine Associates
of Chestnut Hill

Compassionate Alternative Medicine Associates
and Northwest Center for Food As Medicine

Cancer Support

Added Support for You and Your Healing–An Integrative Approach

Our goal is to help you to maintain and improve your quality of life, while undergoing your doctor’s protocol to eradicate your cancer.

Our Cancer support treatments will help mitigate the side-effects of the Western treatment, boost your immune system with acupuncture, reduce your stress with bodywork, and teach you the incredible power of using food as medicine!

Our plant-based nutrition professionals will counsel you on how to fuel your body with the best cancer fighting foods, and teach you how to eat healthy for LIFE.

With this approach, you will be continuously supporting and strengthening the healthy aspects of your body.

How to Use Acupuncture During Cancer Treatment

Utilizing our cancer-focused alternative care along with your Western cancer treatment protocols can dramatically improve your quality of life during treatment and after.

Our three-fold approach combining acupuncture, bodywork and plant-based nutrition will:

reducing the impact of stress and side-effects,
will strengthen your body’s natural ability to fight the cancer and
help prevent a recurrence of cancer.

Every major cancer hospital in the U.S. incorporates acupuncture in their cancer facilities, but it’s usually expensive and inconvenient to receive. We provide affordable acupuncture and much more, as part of your holistic health team!

We’re here to support you:

from the beginning of your cancer diagnosis,
throughout treatment, and
continuing into your new healthy life and beyond, which no doubt will include an emphasis on prevention and wellness.

We hope you will feel so good about your experience that you’ll include us as an on-going part
of your healthcare team.

Acupuncture has been shown to be effective at helping to manage the side-effects of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. Common side-effects addressed by acupuncture are:

Fatigue
Nausea
Pain
Headaches
Hot Flashes
Peripheral Neuropathy
Depression/Anxiety and
Dry mouth.

A reduction in the damaging effects of stress is a powerful benefit of acupuncture.

Plant-Based Nutrition Consults

Plant-Based Nutrition for Chronic Disease Prevention, Reversal and Permanent Weight Loss

The current science now shows without question*, that what you put on your fork each and every day can have a dramatic effect on your health, often preventing and in some cases reversing, the major chronic conditions of our time:

heart-disease (our #1 killer!),
pre-diabetes,
diabetes,
many types of cancer,
arthritis,
Alzheimer’s,
obesity

ALL of these conditions are caused by a diet too high in animal products (the typical American diet) and not enough plants.

You now have the POWER to dramatically improve your prognosis with these diseases, and in some cases reverse them, by ONE choice.

It’s the choice to eat WHOLE PLANT FOOD.

You’ll be amazed at the results (without any of the side effects of drugs) that you’d never be able to achieve on drugs to manage your condition. In fact, the side effects of a plant-based diet are all positive (see graphic below).

We’re About Education

At the Northwest Center for Food-As-Medicine (a division of CAMA), we are passionate about educating people about the benefits of a whole foods plant-based diet.

As the owner of CAMA, when I educated myself about these benefits in depth (I’m a graduate of Cornell University’s Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate Program), as well as hundreds more hours of study with plant-based medical doctors, such as Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Michael Klaper, and being 90% plant-based myself, I vowed I would bring this information to my patients.

We can be 100% plant-based (vegan) or get most of the way there. The more plants, and the less animal products you eat, the better will be your results.

Affect on Diabetes and Cancer

Plant-based eating is a lifestyle change, but well worth it, given the health benefits. This change is essential if we hope to eliminate pre-diabetes, reduce our diabetes meds, lose and maintain our weight much more easily, and keep the likelihood of cancer beginning or recurring to a minimum.

Animals and the Environment

We think it’s also no small thing that this choice will also reduce climate change (the animal industry contributes more to climate change than all transportation in the world combined!) and reduces the violence, suffering and environmental damage inherent in industrial agriculture. But whatever your motivation, eating many more plants and less animal food WILL transform your health (physically and mentally) for the better.

DID YOU KNOW?

That pre-diabetes can be reversed with diet?
That diabetes can sometimes be reversed with diet, and often results, at a minimum, with medication reductions?
That reducing the risk of a cancer diagnosis or recurrence is greatly improved with a plant-based diet?
That conditions such as arthritis (even Rheumatoid) can be greatly improved with a plant-based diet?
That weight loss is often permanent with a plant-based diet?
That blood pressure, cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels and the inflammatory markers that underlie chronic disease are ALL responsive to a plant-based diet? (no drugs needed to manage these conditions in many instances after adopting this diet!!)

Nutrition and Your Western Doctor

You are unlikely to hear about the food-as-medicine option from your western doctors because they are simply not educated about food as medicine as part of their training, and don’t know how to teach you to implement this solution.

We do!

We’re now able to offer a powerful key to lasting health and quality of life for your life time!

Consult Your Doctor About Changes in Medication

We encourage you to consult your doctor if you are on medication and you choose to pursue a plant-based diet for appropriate medication reductions, which will likely result (and quickly!) from following a plant-based diet.

You’ll know your doctor is educated in the current science if they support your efforts in this regard!

Make an appointment with one of our two plant-based nutritionists, Kirsten Puskar or Elise Rivers, to help you transition gently or boldly into plant-based eating. Kirsten services are covered by insurance in some cases, listed in her profile.

You can read more about Kirsten on the staff page.