Have Cancer rates declined? Of course not. There is almost nothing out there that plays any role in preventing you from getting it either. Cancer is reaching epidemic levels. Who is not touched by it now?
Medicine enters the scene after your diagnosis. Then you are confronted with a regime that is very destructive. It has taken Robin 9 years to get over most of the effects of her treatment. And she is of course now made more vulnerable by the treatment itself. Some aspects linger on.
I fear that the Search for a cure puts the problem out there outside your control. It takes off the table the reasons why we might get cancer in the first place. It obscures what we can do to take control. Each of us can do a lot to reduce our chances of getting it. That is in our control.
The first thing to know is that cancer is part of being a mammal.
In Thesis 15 Michael shows how Cancer is part of who we are as humans - Cancer is related to how our cells work as humans - they divide. This unchangeable situation is part of who we are. As we get older the risks increase.
So the issue cannot be a cure but the choices we make about how we live that either increase or reduce the risks. The most important things to know about cancer are the factors that raise the risks of you getting it and that raise the risks of it becoming more virulent.
Rogue cells like cancer need to get energy. If you eat a lot of sugars then you likely support the growth of these cells.
Of course reducing your risks are not confined to this.
There are a number of lifestyle choices before you that will make a big difference.
Here is a snip from a great post by Dr Mercola that again fits with Rose's thinking - take as much of the modern world out of the equation.
"I strongly believe the cancer rates are escalating because they are in no way shape or form addressing the underlying cause of most cancers. Instead, most of the research is directed towards expensive drugs that target late stages of the disease and greatly enrich the drug companies but simply do not prevent cancer.
If ever there was an area in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure it is cancer. I strongly believe that if you are able to work your way up to the advanced health plan, that you will virtually eliminate the risk of most cancers.
Environmental- and lifestyle factors are increasingly being pinpointed as the primary culprits fueling our cancer epidemic. This includes:
- Pesticide- and other chemical exposures
- Processed and artificial foods (plus the chemicals in the packaging)
- Wireless technologies, dirty electricity, and medical diagnostic radiation exposure
- Pharmaceutical drugs
- Obesity, stress, and poor sleeping habits
- Lack of sunshine exposure and use of sunscreens
This is clearly not an exhaustive list as such a list would be exceedingly long. For more specifics on consumer products implicated as contributors to cancer, please review the Cancer Prevention Coalition's "Dirty Dozen" list.
The pharmaceutical researchers would like you to believe they're doing everything they can to come up with a solution. Yet all we see is research into newer drug therapies. Clearly they're not digging close enough to the root of the problem, because if they did, they'd touch on some of these lifestyle issues just mentioned.
From my perspective, you ignore lifestyle factors at your own peril when it comes to cancer... Because, clearly, drug-based "advances" are not making a dent in this progressively prevalent disease.
On the contrary, cancer drugs are notoriously toxic and come with devastating, including lethal, side effects. Conventional medicine is so desperate to give the illusion of fighting the good fight that many of these drugs are used despite the fact that they're not really doing much to prolong or improve the quality of life of those diagnosed with cancer.
The best-selling (and extremely expensive) cancer drug Avastin, for example, was recently phased out as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer after studies concluded its benefits were outweighed by its dangerous side effects. Treating a disease in large part caused by toxins with toxins seems ignorant at best."
So the bottom line is - you can make choices about how you live that will make a difference.
The closer we live to our evolutionary design the better. If we live in an environment that is alien to how we evolved - we will have health problems. This is the core of Michael's message - Thesis 3
Why should you do this? Remember that cancer is all but unknown in societies that do not live the modern life. Most of the cancer we get is connected to how far away we live from our design.
This does not mean that you have to live in a cave and wear skins. It does mean that the eat better. Sleep better. Avoid a lot of chemicals. Live in the natural world in a better way. Work on your relationships and thoughts to avoid stress.
In follow up posts I will be providing more information on many of the risk areas that Dr Mercola describes. Here are some links for now to our support site The Missing Human Manual
- The dietary science behind food and modern disease Staffan Lindeberg
- Sleep why you need more and how to get it
- Why fat is not the problem
- If you want to eat better try this
- We are designed to be healthy
- What stress is and how to reduce it
- Be more active
A suumary from Dr Mercola follows
You can do a lot, right now, to significantly decrease your cancer risk. Even the conservative American Cancer Society states that one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity, and carrying excess weight. So making the following healthy lifestyle changes can go a very long way toward ending the failure-streak and becoming one less statistic in this war against cancer:
- Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure. This works primarily by optimizing your vitamin D level. Ideally, monitor your vitamin D levels throughout the year.
- Control your insulin levels by limiting your intake of processed foods and sugars/fructose as much as possible.
- Get appropriate amounts of omega-3 fats.
- Get appropriate exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
- Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
- Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties. Remember that carb nutritional types may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than protein nutritional types.
- Maintain an ideal body weight.
- Get enough high-quality sleep.
- Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
- Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
