The popularity of alternative medicine and the internet has spawned dozens of fraudulent "natural" therapies, treatments or cures for cancer, AIDS, heart disease, and severe infections. Many of them are complete scams that are actually quite harmful. Some of them are toxic chemicals or metals that don't belong in your body. They are not natural (that is, do not support and maintain the body's metabolic and immune systems), and have long-term negative consequences. A few of them may kill an infection or cancer temporarily, but because they so weaken your metabolic functions and your immune system that the cancer or infection will most surely come back with a vengeance and may kill you.

Some of them reveal their harmful nature by telling you not to take vitamin C, which is both an essential nutrient for many metabolic processes and a critical part of your detoxification and immune systems. When they tell you not to take vitamin C, they are revealing that their "alternative treatment" is toxic and will cause you to get ill. Vitamin C depletion is life-threatening.

These are the "alternative treatments" to especially avoid:

Protocel (also called Cancell, Cantron, Sheridan's Formula)

Poly-MVA

Far Infrared sauna (which actually causes cancer, see below)

Cesium therapy

Miracle Mineral Supplement (MMS)

Zeolite liquid (powdered zeolite is OK for detoxification, but does not help for cancer)

Essiac Tea

Alkaline pH

Coral Calcium

Colloidal Silver

Any treatment that specifies not to take Vitamin C

Fasting

"Fruit-only" regimens

714X - camphor is not to eat

Laetrile - cyanide poisoning from fruit pits

Fresh cell therapy - animal cells shouldn't be injected into humans

The promotion of "Alkaline pH" needs special attention because it is so popular. If you read any good anatomy and physiology book, you will actually find that the pH of your body is naturally fine-tuned to a slightly alkaline pH of between 7.35 and 7.45. This acid-alkaline balance is maintained by several metabolic processes; if it begins to veer off, these processes automatically compensate. You don't have to change your diet to maintain it. (There are exceptions: if you eat nothing but meat, you can unhinge your pH balance to end up with condition called metabolic acidosis. A similar condition can happen if you drink "alkaline" water, called metabolic alkalosis.) So go ahead, eat a grapefruit. It will not harm you. But please don't drink alkaline water, as long term use of it can do real harm.

Another new "technology" - Far Infrared Saunas - are now being sold, along with distorted information about the electromagnetic radiation from them, claiming that our Sun beams far infrared radiation on us. This is not true. A quick check of the EM spectrum (in any elementary college physics text, and explained pretty nicely on Wikipedia) explains that the Far Infrared energy from the sun is, quite fortunately, blocked by our water-laden atmosphere. I say quite fortunately, because we'd be boiled alive, and life probably wouldn't exist on the planet.

The lower end of Far Infrared is commonly called microwave, and it is what is used in microwave ovens and cell phones. While the cell phone industry vigorously denies any connection, it is now well accepted (including the World Health Organization) that microwave energy is a likely cause or promoter of cancer. If you know that the system you are using or considering purchasing actually does produce far infrared (microwave) energy, or it says that it has a special energy tube (called a klystron tube) in it, then don't use it. Some of these systems are actually are just Near Infrared (heat) systems, and call themselves Far Infrared for "product differentiation" (or more commonly called "hype"). These are perfectly safe; they are attempting to make plain old sauna heat therapy sound mystical.