Cancer Prevention

The book Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life by Dr. David Servan-Schrieber is a must read for . . . well, pretty much everyone. The premise is that everyone has cancer cells in his/her body but there are things that you can do to limit the chance of those cancer cells ever being activated. It is very insightful and a pretty easy read. Somethings that you can do right now to limit your cancer risk:

* Avoid sugar and artificial sweetners as much as possible. Cancer cells basically feed off of sugar and the artificial sweetners are not real food. The sweetners xyletol and stevia are okay for use.

* Eat as many colorful fruits and vegetables as possible. Artichokes, eggplants and mushrooms are especially good for cancer prevention. So are the berries and cherries.

* Avoid the dirty dozen commercially grown foods that have the most pesticide in them. You can download the list of what commercially grown fruits and veggies to avoid (buy organic instead) and the ones that are considered pretty clean and safe to eat from the Environmental Working Group website. No need to pay the full price for oganic when it really isn't necessary.

* Getting 20 minutes of sunshine each day to replish your Vitamin D level is a must. Best time to do this is early in the morning before the sun gets too high in the sky. Sunscreen blocks your body's ability to absorb Vitamin D so it is best not to wear it during this time. Just 20 minutes of sunshine on your arms, legs and face should be enough to booster your immunity.

* Selenium is really important in cancer prevention. You can take a supplement but you can always opt for eating 2 brazil nuts a day to meet your selenium requirements. I've opted for the nuts.

* Make sure that you are eating primarily meat and dairy that is organic and free-range. Animals are oftentimes fed food that they were not born to eat (GMO corn for example) and this causes the animal, it's milk, it's eggs, to be high in omega 6 - very damaging for us - and low in omega 3.

* You may want to consider going gluten free for a while to see how that makes you feel. A lot of people are sensitive to gluten (wheat protein) and don't even realize it until they take it out of their diet and, after the initial detox period (the first couple of days) they all of a sudden feel a lot more energetic than they have for a while and their digestive symptoms are gone. If you are interested in going this route, there are plenty of websites and on-line support groups that I can recommend to you. Just PM me and I'll be happy to forward the info to you.

* Do what you can to reduce your environmetal stress in your home. Clean with green cleaners as much as possible (baking soda, borax and vinegar can do wonders and they're cheap!).

* Most of all, laugh as much as possible. A happy heart is a healthy heart. Go out, have fun and enjoy life. Make family exercize time fun and enjoyable. Find ways to change your perspective on issues that may be especially stressful to you. A positive outlook and a lot of love and laughter are great for the body and a fantastic way of preventing cancer.

I hope this helps. Wishing you and your family many, many years of health, wealth and happiness.

Not having your children "worry" about it would be half the battle, the other half would be healthy living. Use common sense with what goes into your body and what you are exposed to on a daily basis. Statistics (if you choose to believe them or not) show that a vegan diet is a much healthier diet as far as cancer is concerned. Each year there are new "catches" to what makes us healthy. The Omega 3's and vitamin D are those right now, but next year it will be something else.
Common sense is your best bet. Natural, organic eating, has got to be better than chemically filled products. It's a no brainer really. But, as a spoiled American, can you adopt that lifestyle? And will your kids adopt in when they are old enough to decide what they like and dislike?
God gave us all a number and a way for us to go out, so there really isnt much you can do to prevent it in the long run.
Prayers to you for what your family is going thru...

I myself had uterine cancer and some people (including my mother who had breast cancer) disagree with me but I think my personality contributed to it. I ate well, took vitamins, but I want to say that oftentimes in my life when I was depressed or grieving I kept it in. I pinpoint my development of my illness to my not so surprising grieving I experienced when my son was in the service and went overseas and I could not commuinicate with him. My mother said cancer develops many years before it shows up, but if that is so then why would there be reoccurrences after it is removed? I see she got hers shortly after her mother died of pancreatic cancer. Although there are many mysteries about cancer I agree with your husband. Take care of yourself, eat well, etc.etc. Some people grow up around certain areas and they blame the geography for it. Some blame diet. We do not know a lot and yet we know much about cancer. I am paying attention to myself, my anger and where it goes when I am upset or feel out of control. We are all going to die (sadly) so it's like when people whisper 'well he/she' smoked at a funeral and I want to almost laugh. It's as though if we do all sorts of preventative things we aren't going to die? I feel as though I have a second chance and truly I attribute that to my God and if someone else wants to attribute their survival to their diets, so be it. I know I just probably still have a few more things on earth to do. Good luck in your search!! And love, love love those children.

Overall health and systemic strength for fighting any "attackers" is the best defense no matter what your heightened odds are. You have to have the attitude that it will make a difference.

It's absolutely true that you can control your immunity even though all of us can fall prey to environmental, hereditary, and random things-even getting hit by buses. We can all drastically increase the odds of being healthy as well.

The difference in health of my husband vs his twin brother just based on lifestyle is proof that you can keep your body well, and thus have a better shot at preventing cancer than if you don't.

You can't prevent all environmental hazards, and becoming phobic raises stress levels, but your main weapons are: 1): Raw natural foods that build and strengthen all of your systems. Any cancer diet you research is heavy on raw broccoli etc. you can find tons of information and recipes. My uncle has stayed cancer free for 5 years since his diagnosis and treatment and is much healthier than he was before when he had quite and unhealthy lifestyle.

2: Exercise is vital to keep your cells strong for fighting. You can't just sit around and take vitamins (not saying you have that in mind). The supplements are debatable. Nature gave us food to keep our bodies strong, not supplements. Incorporate the antioxidants into your diets with color rich fruits etc. varieties of herbs.

There are so many hazardous things for us out there, ESPECIALLY CHEMICALS IN FOOD, but if I had to pick the WORST thing, it's meat. Just because it's naturally hard on your system anyway, blocks a lot of your defenses, and if you're getting mainstream meat from normal stores, it is loaded with hormones, drugs, chemicals in the flesh, AND the animals were fed the cheapest pesticide chemical ridden foods as well. It's like a toxic cocktail. Don't be neurotic and phobic, but keep to to a MINIMUM if you've got cancer in the family. The countries with the lowest cancer rates have high vegetable diets and low meat consumption.

And keep your thoughts positive.

Laurie D has suggested just about everything I would suggest. Great list.

There probably is an environmental connection, because most modern households, everywhere in the world, contain a cocktail of chemicals that simply didn't exist when I was a child (though there were some serious toxins then, like DDT), and the list of chemicals implicated in cancers of various types is continually growing. New wonder chemicals are being created all the time, and incorporated into household cleaners, laundry products, cosmetics (learn about this at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/), building materials, plastics, pesticides, etc. And measurable amounts of chemicals, their byproducts, and even prescription medicines are leaching into our groundwater. The implications for future generations are not comforting.

Antioxidants are a front-line defense against much of the damage that can turn cancerous. Your dad may well have extended his life for a decade or more, but because there is no scientific 'control' for comparison, you'll never know for sure. Green tea, blueberries, and many natural foods are thought to be protective. But antioxidants can't defend against all environmental damage, so keeping toxic exposures as low as possible will always be important.

And some people will just be more susceptible than others. Some of that vulnerability is hereditary. I'm sorry to hear your family has been hit so hard.

Read the China study asap!!!

Here's what I've been doing lately to limit my kids toxic exposure:
Getting rid of all our non-stick cookware and replacing it with stainless steel. Using glass storage containers instead of tupperware. Avoiding new furniture made with particle board which contains formadehyde. Buying clothing, and furniture without flame retardants when possible. We don't take vitamin supplements. But we eat alot of fruits and vegetables an go organic when possible.

In addition to the other good suggestions you have received, I would add to be careful which supplements you take. Make sure there is real published, peer-reviewed research. (A red flag should go up if the information contains language like, "studies show... That means there is no research on that actual product.) In addition, make sure you can trust the company to use pesticide and fungicide free ingredients. Fungicides can be added to raw ingredients when they are transported, so just getting ingredients from organic farms isn't enough. Or the raw ingredients could have been transported in a truck that previously transported meat and wasn't cleaned. The supplement company must run hundreds of tests to insure that no unwanted contaminants are present. Then they must use processes that don't destroy the nutrients. Companies that do that are rare.
Victoria

Hi KD,

Our environmental problems are very similar in different parts of the country because the synthetic chemicals we ALL use are almost uniform. The formulas for name brand cleaners are all about the same. Our environment, cleaming products to pesticides in our foods, create free radicals. So do poorly made vitamins. Your Dad was not wrong in being a proponent for antioxidants. It's just hard to combat the mega- multitude of free radicals we are all exposed to every day. Our world is different today than it was 100 years ago. Our cancer rates have gone up exponentially with the number of synthetic chemicals invented and used.

My two cents...

M.

I will tell you that multivitamins, particularly in pill or gummy form, are not absorbed very well and are therefore at least a partial (if not complete) waste of money. Trying to play microbiologist by mixing & matching vitamins is impossible for the average person. This is why we have a health crisis despite 80% or more of us taking supplements. The vast majority of people are well-intended but don't know what they are doing - even with all the articles and commercials out there, it's piecemeal information and piecemeal treatment.

Also, taking a particular vitamin or mineral in isolation has been completely debunked by food scientists - megadosing is dangerous and ineffective, and it just builds profits for the manufacturer, who is not the company who distributes it (who also makes a profit), and who is not the retailer (who also makes a profit), and who is not the advertising agency (who also makes a profit), and who is not the celebrity endorser (who, you guessed it, also makes a profit). And YOU are paying for all those profits.

I'm not clear why you are rejecting the expertise of people on this site if they work with a product or with people who have had success, but you will accept recommendations of products or books you can buy in store where you will have no follow-up or customer care/service. Those big stores have much more of a profit motive than individual consultants. If you go to a nutritionist, you are taking that person's recommendations. If you go to a physician, you are taking the recommendations and promises of the pharmaceutical rep who convinced that physician to take on the drugs which are making big profits for the manufacturer. You will never meet those people beyond your doctor, and they will never see how you are doing - they will just take your money. The health food store clerk will not call you and work with you.

If you really want help, you need to talk to the people who have beaten cancer in many forms, whose MRIs and scans no longer show tumors, who have strengthened their immune systems with true science and research-based information.

I would suggest you open yourself up more to the science. Also make sure that whatever you are doing has a guarantee and some support.

There really isnt much you can do. Of course, following a healthy lifestyle, not smoking, not drinking excessively, using sunscreen can all help. But if you have a gene for any type of cancer, there is no prevention or protection.