When Dr. Amber Orman walks into a patient consultation, she brings two things most oncologists don’t always offer together: a deep expertise in radiation therapy and an equally deep commitment to the role lifestyle plays in cancer outcomes.
“Conventional medicine and complementary therapies are not at war,” she says. “They’re most powerful when they work in the same direction.”
Dr. Orman is a radiation oncologist and certified lifestyle medicine physician. She joined us at VeganMint to explain what integrative oncology is, which complementary approaches have the strongest evidence, and how patients can advocate for a whole-person approach to their care.
What Is Integrative Oncology?
“The word ‘integrative’ gets confused with ‘alternative,'” Dr. Orman says. “But they’re fundamentally different. Alternative medicine replaces conventional treatment. Integrative oncology adds evidence-based complementary approaches to conventional treatment.”
The Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) defines integrative oncology as a patient-centered, evidence-informed field that utilizes mind-body practices, natural products, and lifestyle modifications alongside conventional cancer treatments. SIO publishes clinical practice guidelines updated by systematic review – peer-reviewed guidelines adopted by major cancer centers including Memorial Sloan Kettering, MD Anderson, and the Cleveland Clinic.1
How Radiation Works – and Where Lifestyle Intersects
Radiation therapy damages the DNA of cancer cells, making it impossible for them to replicate. The challenge is that radiation also affects surrounding normal tissue — and the body’s ability to tolerate treatment, recover between sessions, and minimize collateral damage is directly influenced by its baseline inflammatory state, nutritional status, and immune function.
“When a patient comes to me well-nourished, maintaining a healthy weight, eating an anti-inflammatory diet, and managing their stress reasonably well, I see meaningfully better treatment tolerance and recovery,” Dr. Orman explains.
“The tumor microenvironment — the biological environment surrounding a cancer — is directly shaped by systemic inflammation. What a patient eats contributes to that environment. Diet is not peripheral to cancer biology. It’s central.” — Dr. Amber Orman
The Evidence-Based Complementary Therapies Dr. Orman Recommends
1. Plant-Based Nutrition
“If I could give every cancer patient one lifestyle intervention, it would be a shift toward a whole food, predominantly plant-based diet.” The evidence she cites includes:
2. Acupuncture
SIO clinical guidelines recommend acupuncture for treatment-related symptoms including chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, peripheral neuropathy, cancer-related pain, hot flashes, and fatigue. Multiple randomized controlled trials support these applications.4
3. Mind-Body Practices
Chronic psychological stress elevates cortisol and inflammatory cytokines, suppresses natural killer cell activity, and accelerates biological aging of cells.
4. Exercise During and After Treatment
“The old paradigm was: cancer patient = rest. The new paradigm, based on substantial evidence, is: cancer patient = appropriate movement.” A 2019 systematic review in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that exercise during cancer treatment was associated with improved survival in breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers. The American Cancer Society now recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week during and after treatment.7
5. Sleep Optimization
Sleep is where the immune system does its deepest repair work. A patient getting five hours of fragmented sleep is not healing at the rate of a patient getting seven to eight hours of restorative sleep.
Common Misconceptions She Hears from Patients
When patients can eat, the quality of what they eat matters. Dr. Orman distinguishes between patients managing treatment-induced nausea (where compassion and practicality dominate) and patients who are tolerating treatment well but have adopted a nutritionally poor diet out of misconception.
“Unless you have bone metastases in weight-bearing bones, a very low platelet count, or another specific contraindication, appropriate exercise is not risky. It’s protective. The evidence is unambiguous on this now.”
How to Find an Integrative Oncologist
The Takeaway
Integrative oncology represents a maturation of cancer care — a recognition that the patient is more than their tumor, and that the biological environment in which that tumor exists is shaped by choices within the patient’s control.
The most empowering thing a cancer patient can hear is: “There are things you can do. Starting today.”
References
- Lyman, Gary H., Nicole M. Greenlee, Kimberley Bohlke, et al. “Integrative Therapies During and After Breast Cancer Treatment: ASCO Endorsement of the SIO Clinical Practice Guideline.” Journal of Clinical Oncology 36, no. 25 (2018): 2647–2655. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2018.79.2721
- Goldin, Barry R., and Sherwood L. Gorbach. “Effect of Diet on the Plasma Levels, Metabolism, and Excretion of Estrogens.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 48, no. 3 Suppl (1988): 787–790. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/48.3.787
- Donaldson, Michael S. “Nutrition and Cancer: A Review of the Evidence for an Anti-Cancer Diet.” Nutrition Journal 3 (2004): 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-3-19
- Mao, Jun J., Ting Bao, Lorenzo Cohen, et al. “Society for Integrative Oncology Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines on Integrative Therapies for Managing Symptom Clusters in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy.” CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 72, no. 3 (2022): 283–300. https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21711
- Carlson, Linda E., Michael Speca, Kamala D. Patel, and Eileen Goodey. “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Relation to Quality of Life, Mood, Symptoms of Stress and Levels of Cortisol, Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate (DHEAS) and Melatonin in Breast and Prostate Cancer Outpatients.” Psychoneuroendocrinology 29, no. 4 (2004): 448–474. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4530(03)00054-4
- Cramer, Holger, Romy Lauche, Jost Langhorst, and Gustav Dobos. “Yoga for Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Depression and Anxiety 30, no. 11 (2013): 1068–1083. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22166
- Campbell, Kristin L., Carolyn J. Winters-Stone, Joachim Wiskemann, et al. “Exercise Guidelines for Cancer Survivors: Consensus Statement from International Multidisciplinary Roundtable.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 51, no. 11 (2019): 2375–2390. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000002116
- Lawenda, Brian D., Kelly M. Kelly, Erminia Ladas, Stephen M. Sagar, Alexander Vickers, and John A. Blumberg. “Should Supplemental Antioxidant Administration Be Avoided During Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy?” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 100, no. 11 (2008): 773–783. https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djn148
- Mao, Jun J., Heather Greenlee, Ting Bao, et al. “ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline: Integrative Medicine for Pain Management in Oncology.” Journal of Clinical Oncology 40, no. 34 (2022): 3998–4024. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.22.01357
