The other day I received a disturbing email from an old friend of mine who lives in Western Canada. He informed me of the troubling news that his wife had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Because he knows that I'm a Wellness Chiropractor, he was hoping that I could help him get her started on some wellness adjunctive therapies for her upcoming medical interventions as she went through this nerve-racking and stressful ordeal.
I sent him my professional recommendations for those wellness therapies that were based on scientific research, including dietary recommendations that help to put the body in a very alkaline, and anti-inflammatory state. I told him that it was not easy to explain the rationale for the protocol in an email and that he would just have to trust me until I could clarify things for him.
I realized that if I was going to write it down for him, I might as well share the information with my patients in a blog too. So here we go.
There are certain misconceptions in our society that need to be corrected in order to understand the reasoning behind wellness adjunctive therapies for any disease including cancer.
First and foremost, you must understand that cancer IS NOT about BAD LUCK hanging over your life. It IS NOT about BAD GERMS attacking your body from the outside. And, it IS NOT about BAD GENES running amuck on the inside of your body. It IS about BAD CHOICES overloading your body's ability to maintain normal function - primarily: lifestyle (diet, lack of exercise, stress) and it IS about BAD ENVIRONMENT like pollutants/toxins in our air, water and foods.
It is important to remember that, like a computer with built-in software, our bodies are programmed to always try and remain healthy or move toward health. Regardless of what the environment may bring, the body will ALWAYS attempt to maintain health or move toward health. If the environment is so toxic that it overwhelms our body's abilities, then and only then, will it begin to struggle (dis-ease) and ultimately fail (disease). It will be forced towards illness and death.
For example, if you cut your hand, your body will immediately begin to heal that cut - move toward health. If you rub the scab off the cut every day, your body will still try to heal that cut and move you back toward health. If you rub dirt in the cut and fill it with bad bacteria, the body will still try and move you toward healing and health. It will keep on trying, even if it is overwhelmed and starts losing the battle. It will never stop trying to move you back toward health.
The human body is an incredible self-regulating, self-healing ecosystem composed of 75 trillion cells all working in harmony. As I mentioned in a previous blog, some of our cells live as long as we do. For example, most of the neurons in our nervous system will hang around for life. But some of our cells are very short lived. They are classified as very metabolically active and have a high turnover rate. In fact, you make millions upon millions of copies of new cells in your body every day!
Statistically, because so many copies (new cells) are being made each day, sometimes the copying goes wrong - an error is made. A newly copied cell that was copied incorrectly IS a potential cancer cell. Scientists know that because of the sheer number of new cells being made in your body each and every day, that hundreds of thousands of bad cells (potential cancer) are also made each day. Yet, a healthy person doesn't get cancer from those bad cells. That begs the question - Why? The answer is that a healthy body with a healthy immune system recognizes the errors (bad cells) and eliminates them before they can cause any trouble. Our bodies are so smart that they even know how to protect us from errors that have occurred!
Most people believe that our bodies just start randomly making mistakes and that those mistakes cause the body to start to fail and fall apart. This is completely wrong! Our bodies never willingly make mistakes - the programming won't allow it. We make mistakes in our thinking, actions and choices all the time. However, our bodies never do; they have to follow their programming (which is to move toward health) and therefore, cannot make mistakes unless the system is overtaxed.
Bad luck is for poker games or lottery tickets. Our bodies are not influenced by random luck. They are influenced by Bad Choices and Bad Environments: Junk foods; air pollution; sugar, Sugar, SUGAR; water pollution; obesity; lack of proper exercise; stress from work and home; negative self-talk; etc., etc. These things are all Bad Choices and Bad Environment and they have a powerful influence on how our bodies behave.
It has been established that certain cancers are related to certain viruses (Bad Germs). However, those viruses are not strong enough to overpower a healthy body. It is only if the body's immune system becomes weakened or overwhelmed because of Bad Choices or Bad Environment that those viruses can take hold.
For example: Which comes first, rats or a garbage pile? In other words, is it the rats that cause the garbage pile to form or is it the formation of the garbage pile that attracts the rats? I think it's clear that if we didn't allow the garbage pile to form in the first place, there wouldn't be anything to attract the rats and they wouldn't be there. So, which comes first - germs or a garbage pile? Again, the germs don't create the garbage pile they just take advantage of the garbage pile that is already there. Okay so the question then becomes: Which comes first - germs or a weakened body? If our body is healthy will it allow the germs to flourish? You are in constant contact with all sorts of nasty germs (both bacteria and virus) every day yet, unless your body is in a weakened condition (the garbage pile) the germs are helpless and can't take hold.
The most difficult aspect with understanding the causes of cancer for most people is the genetic aspect of this class of disease. Once again, science does indeed show us that people with certain genes are more susceptible to certain cancers than other individuals who do not have those genes. They can even test for some of the genes to see if you are at higher risk. But it is vitally important to understand that simply having the gene does NOT condemn you to developing cancer.
In disease studies, like cancer studies, scientists love identical twins that were separated at birth. If the twins were raised in different environments, it helps the scientists to see whether a cancer (or any disease) is truly genetic or is more influenced by the environment that the twin was raised in.
The New England Journal of Medicine published an article in July, 2000 by a cancer researcher named P. Lichtenstein. He looked at 89,576 twins. What he found was that even identical twins had about an 80% chance of NOT getting the same cancer as his or her affected twin. He pointed out that the vast majority of cancers are not caused by inherited defects in people's genes, but by environmental and behavioural factors such as chemical pollutants and unhealthy lifestyles.
Genes hold the blueprints of who we are. They also are the recipe book that our bodies use to create the things they need to function from day to day. Our bodies keep a very tight control over our genes. Genes are not allowed to express themselves by random chance. And, it's a good thing, because gene's can be very powerful in their actions. If our bodies simply allowed all the genes to do what they wanted, when they wanted to, life as we know it would not be possible. Our bodies have an 'Innate Genetic Intelligence' or 'regulatory mechanism' in place that controls when a gene is switched on and when a gene is switched off.
Those regulatory mechanisms are a hot new topic in Genetics. The regulators that the body uses are called Epigenes. Epigenes are like little ignition keys. They will switch on or switch off genes for use by the cells as needed. How do the Epigenes know which genes to switch on or off? The answer is really cool and very important in understanding cancer prevention or cancer healing. What controls the Epigenes is the environment! Stimulation from the environment is what causes Epigenes to switch on or switch off the genes that create the things needed by the cell to help it cope with that environment.
For example: if you start exercising on a regular basis your Epigenes will begin to switch on the genes that are needed to create more powerful muscles, more flexible joints, a stronger heart, etc. If you move to Mexico City, which is at a much higher elevation than here, and stay there for awhile your Epigenes will begin to switch on the genes that make more hemoglobin so your blood can capture more oxygen. The Epigenes switch on and off the genes as they are needed to help you cope with the environment.
What do you think the Epigenes do if you smoke cigarettes for awhile? They will switch on or off the genes that the body needs to try and help it cope with the toxic environment. The same thing applies when you eat junk food regularly, or too much alcohol, or too much sugar, or not enough exercise, etc.
As you can see, the good news is: if you do healthy things, your Epigenes will switch on healthy genes and switch off the unhealthy genes. However, the bad news is: if you do unhealthy things your Epigenes will turn on the unhealthy genes and switch off the healthy ones. The take home point here is that even if you do have cancer genes they will NOT express unless something in the environment causes the Epigenes to switch them on.
When it comes to cancer (or health in general) the research is showing that OUR CHOICES and the ENVIRONMENT are EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!
BAD LUCK, BAD GERMS and BAD GENES are NOT the cause of cancers or any other disease. It's BAD CHOICES and BAD ENVIRONMENTS that cause the problems.
Cancer is a very serious health concern. Once an individual is diagnosed with cancer the treatment protocol can include: surgeries, chemotherapies or radiation therapies. But there are wellness therapies that can be used as adjuncts to the Medical Treatments for cancer. Next blog I will touch on that subject.