Ride For Life: Rugby star says alternative medicine has improved his ALS

I last spoke with Jarrod Cunningham a year ago. He had been diagnosed with ALS, a muscle-wasting degenerative condition for which there is no known cure. Slow decline and death usually follows.

Cunningham, a New Zealander who had played for the Maori, had just switched clubs from London Irish to Wasps and was participating in his first training session when he noticed he had difficulty closing his finger and thumb together.

Months later, after exhaustive tests, ALS (amyotrophic lateral scelerosis) was confirmed. It was during the soccer World Cup and Cunningham said that the doctors seemed more interested in England's progress against Brazil than his future.

That was evidence of Cunningham's frustration with the medical profession but he was determined to battle on. His desire to challenge the illness and inspire others was wholly uplifting but, frankly, I didn't expect to talk to him again. I should have known better.

"I've trained all the way through since that diagnosis," Cunningham said when I caught up with him again last week. "A year ago I couldn't lift 20kg on the leg-extension machine. My legs just went into spasm. As much as I tried, I couldn't control them. They shook so violently. A fortnight ago, about 12 months after a course of treatment, I leg-pressed 200kg. Now I'm going to start on my upper body."

That magic figure of 200kg was repeated often during our conversation because it is tangible proof that Cunningham is getting stronger. What is happening is theoretically impossible. ALS sufferers should not experience muscle regeneration but Cunningham's existence, literally, is predicated on confounding perceptions. His recovery is as bizarre as it is miraculous.

"I was asked to participate in a documentary which was shown back home. A family in New Zealand watched it and e-mailed me. They advised me to get in touch with their daughter who had cured herself in a 12-year fight with chronic-fatigue syndrome.

"Their daughter, they said, had a gift and could help me. Carrie [Cunningham's wife] and I thought we had nothing to lose so we had this lady do a reading on my body and she said my symptoms were caused by parasites found in the eye of infected chickens. She advised a programme of natural herbs and various other things to shunt my body into order again."

Cunningham took a hideous cocktail of pills for a month. On his website (www.salsassociates.com) he has a disclaimer against the amount he ingested and he repeated the warning again in interview. "I was taking 20 capsules of Astragalus a day for five days. It's a Chinese herb used to support the immune system. The recommended dosage is three per day.

"As you can imagine, when I heard that they were designed to wipe out the parasites, every time I picked up a tablet I treated it as if it were gold. As I swallowed them I said: 'Die you little buggers, die'."

Before the treatment Cunningham's arms were so weak that he was unable to lift himself out of the bath. A week later he emerged unassisted on the third attempt. Two weeks later he did it all by himself for the first time.

"Carrie was with me when it happened. I said to her I think I can do this. She was a bit nervous but you know in your own mind what you can do. The first time it took two or three goes but I managed it and every week after that it has got easier and easier."

But a successful bath-time wasn't enough for Cunningham. He demanded, something more substantial to show the world that he was making significant progress. What better for an athlete used to hitting benchmarks in the weights room than just such a benchmark?

"Imagine being told by a lady that she can help you when ALS has been around for 130 years with no causal cure. Once I had completed her programme I wanted tangible proof for myself as well as others. Getting out of the bath unaided was a sign but I needed hard facts.

"So I went back into the gym with Neal Hatley, a mate from London Irish. He was convinced I would plateau out but I kept putting the weights up. The 200kg target was important because I wanted to demonstrate that I was lifting weights appropriate to a very strong athlete, not just a normal guy."

Before that important landmark, Cunningham had received further encouragement about his physical condition from a visit to New Zealand.

"When I was playing club rugby with Havelock North we used to train by cycling up a hill called Te Mata Peak. It is a steep 4.7km climb to the top and I was determined to have a crack at it again.

My lungs were screaming all the way up when I attempted it and I was buggered for a few days afterwards because I had done no cardio work in preparation, but getting to the summit was awesome. I went up on my own and by sheer coincidence I chose the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary's ascent of Everest. It was just fantastic."

Now the motivation is to encourage others. On March 17 at Cafe de Paris, London, the Cunninghams are behind a celebrity fashion show to raise funds for Salsa, the association who offer support for ALS sufferers. Norton Rose are the sponsors and Annabel Croft, Martin Offiah, Richard Dunwoody and the Underwood brothers, Rory and Tony, have pledged to attend. Sir Clive Woodward is a patron and some of England's World Cup-winning squad will also be present.

"We're funding research with a professor here in London. He knows what we are looking for. Basically, there are parasites that are not picked up in any of the tests on ALS before diagnosis because they are micro-parasites and intra-cellular.

"In layman's terms, we all get them but the parasites that made me ill would be flushed out of most people. Obviously, something - whether it was toxins or chemically related - allowed them to get into my nervous system. We're trying to understand the process."

It looks like a long process. Cunningham, despite the enormous gains he has made, is still far from fully recovered. "I'm often tired because my body is working twice as hard to repair and regrow. I sleep like a hibernating bear, up to 12 hours some days. My upper body is still really weak but the strength is gradually returning there too.

"That was the part of me that was affected first so it will come back last. The phase I'm into now is high intensity training which involves working to failure and then resting for a minimum of four days to let the body grow. I live the life of a recluse. It's all based around the routine of rest, sleep, diet and training."

And the doctors and consultants who condemned him to slow decline and death. Are they astounded at his progress? "Carrie and I decided not to keep in touch with orthodox medicine. We've got my neurologist on video saying: 'There's no way back for him. He will die.' We stood outside Charing Cross Hospital one day debating whether it was worth going back in to see them. We decided to do the treatment ourselves.

"I've put no time limit on my recovery. I've seen what my legs can do already. The main thing is I've turned the corner. It'll be two years in June since I was diagnosed. They normally give ALS patients between two and five years but some die earlier and some later. I'm trying to prove to the medical profession that you can reverse the symptoms. I'd like to know if there is anyone out there with ALS who can leg-press 200kg."

For more information visit The Jarrod Cunningham SALSA Foundation - Supporting ALS Associates at www.salsassociates.com