{"id":31347,"date":"2024-02-19T16:26:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T22:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/?p=31347"},"modified":"2024-02-26T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T17:10:18","slug":"yes-tell-me-how-to-prevent-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/19\/yes-tell-me-how-to-prevent-cancer","title":{"rendered":"YES! TELL ME HOW TO PREVENT CANCER!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a certain age, every person, doctors included, fears getting cancer. Hearing words like, \u201cI see something worrisome on your pancreas\u201d or \u201cthis could be leukemia\u201d is a moment you will remember forever. You leave the doctor\u2019s office utterly stunned and wondering \u201chow long have I got?\u201d and asking yourself \u201cwhat could I have done to prevent this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you get the courage to ask the \u201chow long?\u201d question, you are often surprised. With new advances in treatment, cancer patients are doing quite well these days. Cancer is more like a chronic illness than a death sentence. For example, 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer are very much alive 15 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cwhat could I have done?\u201d issue, and cancer prevention in general, is a major failing of the health care system. Painful as it is to say this, there\u2019s no money to be made in prevention. The \u201cSerious Money\u201d in health care is in cancer diagnosis (scoping, scans) and treatment ( surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to learning about healthful eating, useful supplements, fitness training, smoking cessation therapies, don\u2019t expect help from conventional medicine. Walgreen\u2019s continues to be a major retailer of tobacco products; your kids are still eating (and accumulating in their bodies) brightly colored, sugary toxic edibles that may well prove carcinogenic in years to come. But when it comes to the astonishing new blood test called Galleri<\/a> that can actually diagnose fifty cancers with a single blood draw, you\u2019re on your own. At $1,000, the test is not for everyone. But if you\u2019re over age 50 with a strong family history of cancer, this test can set your mind at ease by diagnosing a cancer before it spreads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We actually do know how to prevent most cancers; we just aren\u2019t. You can look to the health care system for some, but not a lot of, guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s begin with some basic facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Although steadily rising throughout the 20th<\/sup> century, the incidence of cancer seems now to be leveling off, probably through smoking reduction and less exposure to significant carcinogens (cancer causing materials). Still, one person in three can expect to get cancer some time in their lives (up from one in four just twenty years ago).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Cancer cells are always being formed in our bodies, but in normal circumstances are immediately destroyed by our immune systems. When some factor (advancing age, disease, toxins, our emotions) suppresses our immune systems, our risk for allowing cancer cells to multiply vastly increases. So maintaining healthy immune systems becomes a \u2018given\u2019 in your body\u2019s milieu of cancer prevention tools.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Our exposure to chemical substances never designed to be in our bodies has increased to the point where scientists truly have no idea what\u2019s dangerous and what\u2019s not. Moreover, two or more allegedly \u2018safe\u2019 chemicals can combine together and produce a third that may be quite dangerous.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. In summary, it is believed our bodies are being steadily challenged by known (or unknown) carcinogens. These accumulate in our cells because we never developed systems to efficiently detoxify them. Then, at some point, our \u2018poisoned\u2019 cells undergo change, somehow escape the watchful eye of the immune system, and begin growing out of control. This is cancer. If this situation weren\u2019t bad enough, it\u2019s just when we need it the most that our immune system falters and the cancer cells continue to grow and spread relentlessly.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Therefore, the formula for cancer prevention sounds fairly simple: avoid exposing yourself to cancer causing materials, keep your detoxification systems in good working order AND keep your immune system in its best possible shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If only life were that simple! If only we were certain what substances actually cause cancer; what dangerous substances accumulate in our bodies; what causes trouble. If only we had worldwide governmental systems in place to totally ban the manufacture of cancer causing substances instead of caving in to \u2018economic interests\u2019. If only we knew exactly how to strengthen our immune systems and those systems that clear toxins from our bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Well, we do have some ideas. For example, we really don\u2019t have a way to prevent all types of cancers (yet!), but we\u2019ve made great strides with specific cancers. Most lung, colon, and skin cancer can be avoided. But as far as preventing kidney or pancreas or brain cancer, we\u2019re still in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This Health Tip will offer some general guidelines for avoiding hearing a cancer diagnosis for yourself or a loved one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What\u2019s Your Risk of Cancer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n