Following a three-decade battle with breast cancer, the world bid farewell to Olivia Newton-John on Monday who passed away "peacefully" at the age of 73 at her ranch in Southern California.
The legend of the big screen was initially diagnosed with cancer in 1992, on the same weekend her dad succumbed to the disease.
The actress underwent a mastectomy and nine months of chemotherapy.
Olivia complimented her traditional medicine treatments with meditation, acupuncture and massage therapies, sparking the beginning of her recovery journey with alternative medicines and a plant-based lifestyle.
She went into remission until 2013 when her cancer resurfaced and had metastasized outside of her breasts.
And in 2017, Olivia’s cancer had progressed to stage 4 and spread to her spine.
Olivia turned to a plant-based lifestyle and medicines during her battle with cancer and became a pioneer for a “kinder, happier and healthier existence”.
In recent years, she was a vocal advocate for plant-based treatments and implored medics to take them more seriously.
Olivia was a champion of cannabis and used it medicinally throughout her treatment.
She turned to alternative therapies like herbs, meditation, and medical marijuana, thanks to the cannabis farm her daughter, Chloe Lattanzi, owns.
Her daughter is also reported to have influence her mum’s diet, encouraging her adopt a vegan diet.
She told Closer Weekly, "now I'm eating vegan and feeling very good."
But the actress wanted a breakthrough from alternative medicine.
"Plants and herbs that my husband has introduced me to … helped strengthen my body," she told Today, while praising her other half “Amazing John” for his knowledge of medicinal exotic herbs.
Her plant-based lifestyle led her to launch the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund with her husband to support plant-based medication research to give cancer patients more treatment options.
She vowed to support others battling the disease and to give them the “tools and information they need to have a kinder, happier, and healthier existence.”
Olivia committed the later years of her life to cancer research, raising money for decades and opening the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Australia in 2015 under a partnership between a local hospital and the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute.
Olivia was not alone in her quest to push plant-based lifestyles to the forefront of society’s consciousness as recent studies have found some stark links between meat and dairy-heavy diets to increased risks of cancer.
A 2018 global blueprint on how to beat cancer shockingly stated that no amount of alcohol, sausage or bacon is safe.
Even small amounts of processed meats and booze increase the risk of a host of cancers outlined in World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) guidelines updated every decade.
And in 2015, a study revealed that removing meat from your diet can reduce your risk of bowel cancer by up to 43%.
Scientists found vegetarians had a 22% lower risk of the disease compared with meat-eaters. Vegans, who eat no animal products, such as eggs and dairy foods, had a 16% reduced risk.
But pescovegetarians, who avoid meat but eat fish, enjoyed the greatest benefit as they were 43% less likely to get the cancer.
In the same year, another study found women who eat a Mediterranean diet - lots of vegetables, fruits and nuts, pulses, cereals and potatoes, fish, monounsaturated fats but little meat, milk and other dairy products - can slash their risk of womb cancer by more than half.
And just last month a study conducted the Catalan Institute of Oncology, the World Health Organization, and the Imperial College in London found that a female’s diet that is high in meat, dairy, and processed sugar increased one’s relative risk of breast cancer by as much as 12 percent.
Olivia Newton-John’s later outlook on health and incorporating herbal medicines into her meat and dairy free diet have also been supported by scientist studying Marijuana.
The herb can kill cancer cells and shrink some types of brain tumour, research found in a ground-breaking study in 2015.
A study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) - funded by the US Government - showed extracts from the plants can help enhance the impact of radiation therapy.
It is believed that the drug – which is legal in a number of American states – can also shrink some of the most serious types of brain tumours.
Olivia pushed for the wider use of cannabis as a medicine after she claimed it helped her tumours shrink and gave her longer to live.
The actress and singer said in 2020: “My tumours are receding or they’re going away or they’re staying the same. On a stage four metastatic breast cancer that’s pretty amazing. I don’t see it as a battle. I am winning.”
She added: “For me the proof is in the pudding and I’m the pudding.
“If I hadn’t had the experience I’m having with cannabis I wouldn’t be able to talk about it.”
