Cancer is Preventable

In the year 1900, cancer was not commonplace. Today, 1 out of every 2 men and 1 out of every 3 women is expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.

What is different?

Since WWII, we have exponentially increased our use of chemicals. Also, the growth of factory farming and the food processing industries have dramatically altered human nutrition. These developments provided benefits, but also contributed to the rise in cancer and many other chronic, degenerative illnesses.

Today we are awash in a sea of chemicals, most of which received little or no safety testing or public approval process.

Meanwhile, the food we eat has far fewer nutrients than in 1900 because the soil is devitalized. Processing food for "shelf life" reduces nutrient value.

As we grow older, our liver is less able to process the overload. Our cells are less able to detoxify. Toxins build up, generating free radicals, damaging our DNA. The stage is set then for cancer cells to grow.

Between the chemical assault and the lack of old-fashioned nutrition these days, our bodies are simply breaking down.

To lessen your odds of becoming a statistic, you can start connecting the dots.

Connecting the Dots…

• According to the U.S. Council of Environmental Quality, "Cancer risk among people using chlorinated water is as much as 93% higher than among those whose water does not contain chlorine." According to BreastCancerFund.org, "One common factor among women with breast cancer is that they all have 50-60% higher levels of chlorination by-products in their fat tissue than women without breast cancer..." So filter the water you drink and bathe in. You can take in as much chlorine in your morning shower as you do drinking 8 glasses of city tap water.

• In 1998 researchers at the University of North Carolina found there is a 40% increase in breast cancer in women eating trans fats (hydrogenated vegetable oils). These trans formed oils interfere with both B and T cell functions, thus reducing immune response. Trans fats interfere with enzymes the body uses to protect itself against cancer.

Read more at
www.westonaprice.org/brochures/TransFatsTrifold.pdf
www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/oiling.html

• Sugar feeds cancer. Otto Warburg, Ph.D., won the Nobel Prize in 1931 when he discovered cancer cells consume 4 to 5 times more glucose than normal, healthy cells. In fact, cancer cells are unable to multiply rapidly without it. They may have anywhere from six to 15 times the number of insulin receptors as normal cells, giving them a real competitive advantage in swallowing up fuel. Avoid sugar in all its forms. It has been linked to the development of breast cancer as well as cancers of the ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach. Sugar can suppress the immune system and interfere with mineral absorption.

Read more at
www.thermographyarizona.com/articles/scary_sugar.html

• Many studies, including that of Dr. Peter Gotzsche published in 2000 in The Lancet, conclude mammograms are not nearly as effective as thermography, a process that does not use radiation. Thermography measures the body's output of heat through a scanner. It can diagnose breast cancer long before a mass has grown large enough to be detected by a mammogram. We all have cancer cells inside us. These cells can grow for 20 years before they become detectable by conventional means.

Read more at
www.thermographyarizona.com/articles/screening_tool.html

• Conservatively, one-third of us may have an iodine deficiency which often leads to an enlarged thyroid gland (goiter). Eventually, cancerous nodules can form in the thyroid gland. Med school taught doctors to treat enlarged thyroid glands with thyroid hormone without considering the possibility of lack of iodine. Failure to diagnose and treat iodine deficiency leads to an increased risk in breast cancer. And do you know about bromide in bread?

Read the book
"Iodine-Why You Need It" by David Brownstein, M.D."

• Studies find that babies are born now with a virtual chemical stew in their bodies. We can lessen the chemical burden that surrounds all of us each day and strains our body's natural detoxification system. What do you know about the estimated 900 chemicals building up in your body? We are learning that plastics for example can wreak stunning havoc in the body by disrupting the delicately balanced set of hormones and glands. We eat plasticizing additives, drink them, breathe them, and absorb them through the skin every day. The fact that we don't see violent and immediate reactions does not mean this ubiquitous pollution is benign: Scientists are just beginning to research the long-term ways in which the chemicals of all kinds interact with our own biochemistry.

Read more at
www.pbs.org/tradesecrets
www.emagazine.com, the Sept/Oct 2001 edition

• According to Environmental Working Group, many ingredients certified by the US government as "known or probable carcinogens" are in cosmetic products including shampoos, lotions, make up foundations, and lip balm. Parabens, used as a preservative, are found in cancerous breast tissue. And do you know about phthalates? California recently listed them as a chemical known to be toxic to our reproductive systems. Phthalates are used to make plastic soft and pliable, but they leach easily from millions of products—packaged food, cosmetics, varnishes, the coatings of timed-release pharmaceuticals—into our blood, urine, saliva, seminal fluid, breast milk, and amniotic fluid. Bisphenol A (BPA) is another compound found in plastics; BPA has been found in nearly every human who has been tested in the United States.

Read more at
www.ewg.org
www.ourstolenfuture.org

• Antiperspirants and bras can contribute to breast cancer. Underarms allow the body to release toxins through perspiration; antiperspirants direct the toxins instead to lymph nodes below the arms. Nearly all breast cancer tumors occur in the upper outside quadrant of the breast-same area where these lymph nodes are located. Bras, particularly tight sports bras, inhibit lymph circulation.

Read the book "Dressed To Kill"
by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer
The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras

• For millions of years the sun supplied mankind's vitamin D needs. Sunshine boosts immunity against all manner of disease, including breast cancer. Vitamin D deficiency is thought to be behind an increase in breast and other cancers, plus a number of chronic illnesses. Do you know skin cancer rates are higher in the northern latitudes where people get less sun exposure? Most of our vitamin D is manufactured in the skin through the influence of the UV rays which we shut out too often these days with sunscreen.

Read more at
www.vitamindcouncil.com

• Know who is behind the messages you hear. "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" for example was created and sponsored in 1985 by Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, now known as AstraZeneca. The company manufactures the controversial breast cancer drug, Tamoxifen. Zeneca also manufactures pesticides and fungicides. Pesticides are increasingly implicated as a causal factor in breast cancer.

"My mother and my sisters have all had breast cancer, so I know I will too because it's in the genes."

Not necessarily.

"We're beginning to understand that genetics is really about vulnerability," Pat Levitt, director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.

How vulnerable are you by virtue of environment, diet, and lifestyle?

• On May 14, 2007, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Silent Spring Institute announced the publication of Environmental Factors in Breast Cancer, the most comprehensive review to date of scientific research on environmental factors and breast cancer risk.

Researchers concluded that environmental pollutants contribute to breast cancer risk by "damaging DNA, promoting tumor growth, or increasing susceptibility by altering mammary gland development … Overall, exposure to mammary gland carcinogens is widespread … These compounds are widely detected in human tissues and in environments, such as homes, where women spend time."

Because breast cancer is so common and the chemicals so widespread, "if even a small percentage is due to preventable environmental factors, modifying these factors would spare thousands of women," researchers wrote. "Regulators have not paid much attention to potential mammary carcinogens."

This study is a clear warning bell that cancer is not a natural function of old age or bad luck, nor is it primarily just a function of heredity.

Cancer is an environmental disease.

Read the study details at:
http://sciencereview.silentspring.org/index.cfm

The "cure" is more in your control than you may think.

Prevention starts with you. Eat food that supports your body's ability to repair and regenerate. Learn about grass fed meats and pasture fed eggs. Avoid meats containing hormones, steroids, antibiotics. Avoid processed foods, period. Avoid artificial colorings-sugars-preservatives, and ditch the hydrogenated oils.

Reduce the chemical burden surrounding you. Avoid pesticides, plastics (use glass), solvents, chlorine, stain-free fabrics, fire retardant mattresses, VOC paints, formaldehyde treated furniture, chemically treated carpets and glues, perfumed laundry detergent and dryer sheets, and air fresheners to name a few.

Why is it we rarely hear about prevention but we often hear about raising money for drug research? The pharmaceutical industry is well able to fund messages telling you and your doctor the cure will come from a pill bottle. Cancer treatment is a multi-billion dollar business.

Prevention does not have the glamorous appeal of an "instant cure." But think about it – what are the odds that something caused in great part by poor nutrition and a chemically saturated environment can be "cured" with a drug? You and your loved ones stand to gain immensely from prevention.

So, learn everything you can about prevention and commit to making changes that can keep you and your loved ones from being a cancer statistic.

Here is how one community has taken on that commitment as reported Nov 4, 2003 by MSNBC:

The National Cancer Institute has released some eye-opening new figures revealing that not only is the United States not winning the war on breast cancer, but the enemy has been gaining on us over the past 15 years. That has prompted environmental health advocates to demand more and better research into the possible role of pollutants, radiation and other environmental factors in driving the dreaded disease.

Forget the San Andreas Fault. The news that Marin County, Calif., had seen a skyrocketing increase in the incidence of breast cancer unleashed an earthquake of concerns.

Breast cancer jumped by 72 percent among Marin women ages 46 to 64 during the 1990s, according to a May report in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

"These high rates set off a mobilization of people from throughout the Bay Area to work together on solving this medical crisis," says Fern Orenstein, a board member of Marin Breast Cancer Watch, a local nonprofit group that has sponsored community forums attended by thousands of residents as well as researchers.

"While most cancer researchers discount the role of the environment, that's about 95 percent of what people in the community talk about," says Orenstein. Local concerns range from the possible roles of radioactive dumping and nuclear submarines in the San Francisco Bay to hazardous chemicals in Richmond Harbor to toxic fuel from jetliners and pesticides on suburban lawns.

In August, two groups, The Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action, released "The State of the Evidence," a report compiling results from many studies that they say already show links between environmental toxins and breast cancer. Among the findings: Common pollutants, such as benzene, a compound found in car exhaust, are linked to breast tumors, and people who move to industrialized counties suddenly face a higher breast cancer risk within one generation.

But critics complain that research institutions haven't focused enough on this kind of investigation.

"Every year, there's a press release about how we're winning the war on cancer. We've been warning for years that the emperor has no clothes. Now the emperor has just stood up on stage naked and said, ‘Whoops!'" says Barbara Brenner, director of Breast Cancer Action.