Stop The Cause

The war on cancer has recently become a reality in my life as two people in my immediate family have been diagnosed with stage 4 Lung and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. A few months ago I didn't even know what stage 4 was and now I'm reading and researching the disease daily to get a better understanding. One of the things that really angers and confuses me is that all this time and money is (supposedly) being spent on research for the cure and it seems that everyone is ignoring the cause. Of course a cure would be great but maybe in the meantime we should start eliminating the thousands of  toxins, chemicals and carcinogens (cancer causing compounds) in our air, food, water, cosmetics, paint, cleaning supplies etc. 

In the book "How to Prevent and Treat Cancer with Natural Medicine" Dr. Michael Murray says, 

"Cancer risk factors fall into two main categories: inherited and environmental. There's not a lot we can do to eliminate genetic risk factors, because they're passed on from generation to generation and are present at birth. But inherited genetic defects are responsible for only about 15 percent of all cancers. This statistic means that approximately 85 percent of all cancers result from environmental risk factors, such as diet, lifestyle, and exposure to harmful substances. "

"Foods To Avoid Entirely

• Smoked or cured meats: bacon, hot dogs, smoked luncheon meats, sausages, ham, spam and son on

• Meats cooked at extremely high temperatures or cooked to well-done

• Heavily sweetened or artificially sweetened soft drinks, sweet powdered drink mixes, juice-flavored drinks and so on

• Fried foods, including french fries, potato chips, corn chips, and doughnuts

• Processed foods packed full of empty calories (sugar and fat) or salt (e.g., canned soups, theatre-style popcorn, chips)

• Refined-white-flour products: pastas, cakes, muffins, pretzels

• Refined sugar-loaded cereals, candies and baked goods

• Margarine, butter and vegetable shortening

If we look to other cultures where their rates of cancer are much lower there's one main difference.  Diet.  The majority of what we eat today is not food it is over-processed, synthetic, chemically treated stuff that at one time may have contained some form of a naturally occurring nutrient rich food.

Cancer, disease prevention and nutrition are going to be an on-going theme here on my blog. I have so much to say about it and everyday I learn something new. Hopefully you will learn something new too.