Health Talk: Why Sidhu's diet plan for wife with cancer garnered criticism

It is not too much to ask a celebrity to make statements responsibly especially when it directly concerns human lives

Practitioners of modern medicine are angry at former cricketer and politician Navjot Singh Sidhu’s statement on what helped his wife get rid of advanced-staged breast cancer.

Navjot Singh Sidhu with his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu. (PTI Photo)

Apple cider, neem leaves, turmeric, lemon water were some of the things that Sidhu said on a television show recently that he claimed his wife added to her daily diet besides staying off ‘cancer-feeding’ foods such as sugar and dairy, which helped her in successfully fighting a metastatic breast cancer.

The medical world was aghast thinking about the repercussions of such claims being made by a celebrity who has the power to influence his large fan following.

Doctors of modern medicine think this might lead to cancer patients not going for evidence-based treatment, and instead explore options with no or limited scientific basis.

Statements after statements followed in quick succession from across the country highlighting the danger that following such a practice would pose. Close to 300 doctors— past and present— from Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Hospital, which is a prominent hospital in India offering cancer treatment, issued a statement that essentially read, “…parts of the video imply that starving the cancer by not eating dairy products and sugar, consuming haldi (turmeric), and neem helped cure her “incurable” cancer. These statements have no high quality evidence to support them. While research is ongoing for some of these products, there is no clinical data currently to recommend their use as anti-cancer agents…”

They urged the public to not delay their treatment by following unproven remedies. “Rather to consult a doctor, preferably a cancer specialist, if they have any symptoms of cancer. Cancer is curable if detected early and proven treatments for cancer include surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy.”

Hepatologist, Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, put out a message on X through his handle—@theliverdr— “It is criminal to impose intermittent fasting or any fasting diets on cancer patients. It literally robs them of the nutrition they require for recovery, tolerate cancer meds and prevent infections looking to kill them. Just stop with this starving the cancer cells nonsense.” He also through a series of texts on the micro-blogging site, rubbished the claims made by Sidhu about how the diet helped his wife get cured. Like others, he also endorsed the prominent role of surgery, chemo, and radiation in his wife’s cancer remission.

Days later, Sidhu put out an elaborate diet plan that his wife followed, and also held a press conference to address the criticism he met with where he also mentioned that surgery, chemo, and targeted therapy was part of the treatment plan. “This war against cancer involved surgeries, chemotherapy, hormonal and targeted therapy, a strict diet plan and determination to fight cancer, together they worked as immunotherapy...,” he said.

As expected, the diet plan got reactions. Philip’s post read, “…This has nothing to do with how a stage 4 metastatic breast cancer went into remission… The diet plan is mostly a mish mash of the great Indian kitchen featuring a lot of whole plants, stems, roots and leaves and potentially organ toxic herbs and blood thinning spices… People die not from cancer most times, but from the malnutrition and infections because of lack of high protein and adequate caloric diet. The whole aspect of fasting and autophagy to kill cancer cells is a clinical myth and has never been proven conclusively outside a lab and pertri dish…”

Given what Sidhu must have gone through post his wife’s cancer diagnosis and through the arduous treatment journey, it doesn’t feel well to see him receiving all that flak. In an era of misinformation, and increasing incidence of cancer, it is not too much to ask a celebrity to make statements responsibly especially when it directly concerns human lives.