If you have struggled with a chronic or life-threatening illness or agonized while a loved one does the same, you are aware of the limitations of conventional medical treatment. And you surely have asked, "Isn't there another way?"

Two new books, one with a Pittsburgh connection, approach that question from two very different viewpoints. At first glance, their answers seem very different -- a definitive and enthusiastic yes from "Anticancer" and a shrill warning about risks from "Trick or Treatment."

	"ANTICANCER:A NEW WAY OF LIFE" By David Servan-Schreiber Viking ($25.95)

But the disagreement is only an illusion. Both books advocate care based on science and clinical trials, which they describe by the same words, "evidence-based medicine." The main distinction between the books is simply different adjectives: "alternative" vs. "complementary" or "integrative."

"Trick or Treatment" pulls no punches. Its authors, noted British science journalist Simon Singh and Dr. Edzard Ernst, the U.K.'s first professor of complementary medicine, deliver a powerful indictment of medical treatments based on anecdotes and conjectures rather than on established science.

		"TRICK OR TREATMENT: THE UNDENIABLE FACTS ABOUT ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE" By Simon Singh and Edzard Ernest Norton ($25.95)

The book describes scientific evaluation of all forms of conventional and alternative medical treatments, with fully developed chapters about acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic therapy and herbal medicine. Its message, though shrill, is vital:

These therapies are rarely beneficial and often dangerous.

Singh and Ernst's greatest concern is that practitioners of alternative regimes often claim benefits for a wide range of conditions, contrary to the science, and disparage the benefits of conventional treatment.

The author of "Anticancer," Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, strongly agrees that the first line of defense against cancer is conventional treatment. In fact, he owes his life to it.

Clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and co-founder of its Center for Integrative Medicine, Servan-Schreiber was 31 when diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Surgery offered the best chance of a cure, but no long-term guarantee.

Still, Servan-Schreiber's annual follow-up tests were clear. He returned to his high-pressure, grab-a-bite-of-fast-food-when-you-can routine, but after seven years came the relapse.

This time his surgery was followed by 13 months of chemotherapy. And this time he asked his oncology team if there were some things he could do to complement the treatment. Could he change his lifestyle or diet?

It couldn't hurt, they told him, but it probably wouldn't help. Undeterred, he conducted serious research into the relationship between cancer, lifestyle issues, and chemicals in the environment.

This book, published in his native France last year, 15 years after his first diagnosis, is the result.

In presenting the science of cancer, Servan-Schreiber offers clear and vivid descriptions of the initiation, development, and treatment of the disease. Everyone, he notes, develops abnormal cells, "micro-tumors," all the time.

Our bodies are battlefields between our immune systems and those mini-cancers. The outcome of those battles depends in part on our genetic makeup, but environmental toxins and lifestyle factors -- diet, exercise, and response to emotional stressors -- are usually of much greater importance.

The book has numerous tables and a 16-page full-color "Anticancer Action" insert that summarize the "New Way of Life" of the subtitle. Those alone are worth the purchase price, but Servan-Schreiber's writing offers much more than science. It is full of passion for his topic and compassion for his psychiatric patients dealing with the emotional aspects of serious or terminal illness.

Normally, details of the author's personal life would seem superfluous in such a book, but in this case, his account of finding the love of his life and their painful divorce is compelling.

That section is integral to the presentation, just as having an anti-cancer diet, an anti-cancer mind set, an anti-cancer body, and an anti-cancer environment can be to living -- and even thriving -- with cancer.