Let’s create a Health Awareness Month, when we celebrate what causes health rather than dedicating 30 days to become more aware we are sick and urging everyone to test how sick they are by getting mammograms and colonoscopies.
Cancer isn’t a special kind of sick. It’s just another flavor or expression of the inability to heal. You don’t “get” or “catch” cancer, you lose the ability to kill cancer cells. Largely, due to lifestyle choices. Genes account for 5-10% of cancer, maximum. Leaving us 90% or so in charge of whether we have to deal with a cancer. That’s good news.
What are cancer cells? Just normal cells multiplying abnormally. They simply don’t stop dividing. Normally, your body recognizes this and kills them. If we lost the ability to recognize OR kill them, the cancer keeps growing until it’s a detectable mass or alters the balance of blood cells. That’s where the testing and screening comes in. But, recognize, by this time, it’s very late in the game. Oncologists believe on average, by the time a cancer is found, it’s already 8 years into it. That’s why they repeat over and over, “early detection.”
I’m not going to suggest that they are wrong in saying that. Just that screening for cancers across the population is no better than screening for learning disabilities in schools. The question is, why are cases increasing? And, while it’s great there are people and organizations working on treatments for cancer, more importantly, how do you not get cancer in the first place? That’s worth some time and energy. Because as noted above, you are 90% in charge of it.
Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. The choices we make…you are already aware things like tobacco increase your likelihood of cancer. Did you know sugar does too? PET scans (MRI with radiolabeled glucose) light up where the sugar goes. And the sugar goes to the tumors. Stop feeding the tumors sugar.
Your vitamin D levels are critical here as well. Breast cancer 30-80% reduction, colon cancer and ovarian cancer would be reduced as well. In fact, people who keep their levels at 60ng/ml or more experience a reduction of all cancers of 77%.
How much do you need? First, the way the US measures vitamin levels differs from other countries. We use the Recommended Daily Allowance which is the “minimum daily requirement”. The minimum. That’s the level below which you will create disease. Rickets in the case of vitamin D. The RDA is 400IU for vitamin D. That’s a long way from adequate. Adequate is roughly 1,000IU per 25 pounds of body weight. 5,000IU per day for most people. That’s a lot more than 400.
The goal is to keep the blood level at or around 60ng/ml (some use nmol/L for units and that changes the ideal to 150 nmol/L). 25ng/ml is the minimum and pretty much where people test at if they are not taking a vitamin D supplement in the range of 5,000 per day. Some people with digestive problems need to take 10,000IU per day. And, yes… you can take too much D (fat soluble), but that’s 20,000 per day for weeks. Nobody gets too high in vitamin D at 5,000 per day.
Exercise, yes… oxygenation of the tissues keeps cancer rates lower. No surprise here.
Nervous system: This runs EVERYTHING. Including finding and eliminating cancer cells. As I said earlier, you don’t “get cancer.” We get cancer cells every day. Healthy functioning bodies kill them. If you lose the ability to kill cancer cells, you “get cancer.”
Get adjusted. Probably more important than any of the above, but the data is not in yet. We know people who get adjusted regularly have 60% less hospitalizations, less lost “sick” days and 85% less medication costs. That’s across all diseases, not just cancer. Pretty powerful.
For Cancer Awareness Month, rather than focusing on tests like mammograms, pap smears, PSA, and colonoscopies to see if you already have cancer, let’s focus on not getting cancer. Do one more thing that fights cancer and one less thing that causes cancer.
Vibrant Life Center
Oakdale, MN
651-777-3611
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