How to Prevent Cancer

What is cancer? It's the result of unhealthy cancer cells ganging up on healthy but weaker cells, overwhelming them.

This is true for all disease, by the way. Replace the word "cancer" with "flu" or "autoimmune" or any other disease. This is how disease spreads in your body: disease cells overwhelm weak cells.

In today's world, one in two men and one in three women -- of all ages -- will develop cancer. That's an astronomical risk.

In fact, we all have cancer cells all the time. Everyone does. Normally, your weak or diseased cells kill themselves -- it's called apoptosis. How does a cell know to kill itself? From HowStuffWorks:

"...cells that go through apoptosis die in response to signals within the body. When cells recognize viruses and gene mutations, they may induce death to prevent the damage from spreading." [Emphasis added.]

When your immune system is not healthy, it stops sending the correct signals. When your cells are not healthy, they lose the ability to perform apoptosis. < < < That is critical.

This is the malfunction:

Your diseased cells stop killing themselves, allowing disease to spread. It's the perfect storm as far as disease is concerned! We don't "get" cancer, we develop cancer because our diseased cells have stopped committing suicide.

Actually, since 90% of all cancers are caused by lifestyle (also addressed here), we allow cancer to develop by not paying attention to lifestyle: food, water, air, chemicals (food, household, body), environment (where you live and work).

Harsh words, I think. That's like saying if you have cancer, you allowed it to happen. For most of us, that is the unvarnished truth. On the flip side, that also means we have ALL THE POWER to prevent and reverse cancer!

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about what I'd do if I developed cancer and it's updated regularly. Thanks to the internet, the truth about cancer, about chemo, about alternative cancer cures is becoming more and more well-known.

Cancer becomes dangerous when your immune system malfunctions, meaning your guard is down. If we were smart, we'd prevent this from ever happening.

How does your immune system malfunction?

To the right is Maslow's famous "hierarchy of needs" pyramid. Click on the photo to see it larger. Fulfill these needs, starting at the bottom, and you'll have a shot at real health!

Meanwhile, here's how we developed that malfunctioning immune system:

• Not taking care of our emotional needs: laughing, talking, connecting, daydreaming, de-stressing. Bottom line, we all die of stress-related disease. If you decide to "fix" one thing about your lifestyle, fix your stress management.

• Not taking care of our physical needs: nutrition, breathing, sleep, movement (Tabatas will correct that), sex -- these are all the bottom of the pyramid.

• Ingesting poisons: GMOs, faux foods, sugar, herbicides and pesticides, solvents, chemicals, chlorine, fluoride, to name a few.

• Dousing your body with chemicals: chlorine, fluoride (both are in your shower and drinking water), personal care products, home cleansers, new clothing, carpeting, furniture off-gassing.

We choose everything we put in, on and around our bodies. We choose how we deal with stress, when and how to sleep, how and if we relate to others. These are all choices. We can fix an out-of-balance immune system by choosing wisely. Truly a simple fix. Not easy, but simple, like all the good things in life!

My simple cancer prevention scheme:

• Feed your body, not your cancer cells. That means keeping your diet clean and real: organic foods, pastured meats and eggs, raw milk where possible, quality fermented foods, only natural sweeteners like raw local honey and stevia. This is the absolute BEST cookbook and primer on real food to get you started!

• Supplement -- the soil ain't what it used to be so if we want all the nutrients our bodies need, we have to supplement.

• Sleep -- in bed by 10, up at 6. Make your room completely black, reduce your blue light consumption by 9pm (because blue light suppresses your melatonin which is your sleep hormone). You can wear blue-blocking sunglasses at night. I wear blue-blocking reading glasses so I can use my iPad in bed. (Don't judge me, bro. I must play Scrabble before falling asleep, it's part of my stress management. Heh.)

• De-stress -- the first step is to notice when you get excited (good or bad): what are your triggers. My biggest trigger is my imagination!!! I imagine something horrible and feel my body react. Stress reactions are internally caused. We can reverse our reactions to stressful events, real or imagined.

• Detox -- Unless you've been eating clean all your life, there's very likely toxic sludge hanging out in your body. Detox is not just clearing your colon. It means liver health above all, then chelating metals and clearing your cells. This is a HUGE topic. If you have specific questions about detox, I'd love to answer in the comments -- please ask!

Two of my Fav Experts on How to Prevent Cancer

Chris Wark's interview with Bill Henderson on the topic is fantastic. (And Chris' website is chock a block full of prevention and healing strategies.)

The simple fact is there are thousands and thousands of people all over the world right now -- and for decades prior -- who are preventing and curing themselves of cancer with natural methods. These cancer survivors are everywhere, you'll see them once you start looking.

Just Say No to Chemo

I want to prevent cancer, I do NOT want to have to cure it. However, in the event that my many years of hard-living have not been undone by my fewer years of clean living, here's what I'd do if I developed cancer, updated regularly. Notice cut/poison/burn (surgery/chemo/radiation) is not on my list.

It has been well-established that radiation causes cancer and chemo has a 2% success rate. Here's the conclusion from the 2004 PubMed study on chemo:

"...it is clear that cytotoxic chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival. To justify the continued funding and availability of drugs used in cytotoxic chemotherapy, a rigorous evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and impact on quality of life is urgently required." [Emphasis added]

With regard to tumors, MIT researcher Dr. Stephanie Seneff suggests that tumors actually HELP your body defeat cancer cells. She also points out what we've known for some time now: mammograms cause more cancer than they cure. Then there's the risk that biopsies can cause cancer to spread to other tissues.

Prevention is key. Questions? Please ask -- if I don't know the answer, I'll find it!