Controlling Cancer

“Cancer, it’s is a natural process of the human body. It has never been about killing cancer, it has always been and will always be controlling it” ~ Dr. Jonathan Stegall 

A brief and basic overview of how to protect and control Cancer before it controls you

Read on to learn of the current trends, research and how you can best equip yourself to protect yourself against Cancer

The Longevity Blog   •   February 18th, 2019

For my friends, family, and clients

This has been such a difficult article to write!

Writing this I have quit more times than I can count…

Whilst researching content to create for you all on this topic over the last 4 weeks I have found myself in weird and wonderful places…

I found myself lost looking at…

Organic food to pesticides  and vaccinations

Exercise prescription for Cancer to studying the immune system

Mainstream therapies to integrative and ‘not so common’ therapies

Articles and Books on nutrition to Podcasts, and even to other Blogs…

There’s just so much out there!

I’ve hunted down and listened to many podcasts on the topic of cancer of which here are my Top 4 Recommended Podcasts 

    1. Cancer Secret Podcast – Recommended starting from the first podcast
    2. The You Project – Episode 35
      • The Oncology Dietitians featured in this podcast can be found at OncoreNutrition
    3. The Model Health Show – Episode 22 & 291
    4. ACSO

The podcasts above provide the raw essentials to understand cancer at its core and I cannot recommend them enough!

A lot of the information in this blog comes from these guys so please know that I am a cultivator on information here

I do not claim to have come up with any of this information

As I have mentioned in previous articles, I do the work, look at the research, read the books and listen to the podcasts so you don’t have to…

I know, I know!

Short attention span detected
So just take away one of the following and you may just live a happier and healthier life free(er) from Cancer

4 ways to Control, Protect and Prevent Cancer

  1. Detoxification

    • The mechanism behind your body ridding toxins
    • The importance of moving your body

  2. Nutrition

    • Why consuming more vegetables will help protect you
    • The research behind drinking more water

  3. Limit Carcinogens

    • Did you know that deli meats like ham, bacon, and sausages are classified as Group 1 Carcinogens!!!!
    • Know them!!!
    • Follow the Dirty Dozen & Clean 15

  4. Exercise

    • Move every day in as many ways as you can

  5. Sleep

    • Get a recommended 7-8 hours of quality sleep every night (article coming soon!)!
    • A lack of sleep can also impact on your immune system
    • Could sleep help reduce the risk of cancer? It seems yes, potentially!

Detoxification – a brief overview

~ The process of removing toxins from one’s body

Toxins can build up in the body if you are not ridding of them on a consistent basis

We are consistently ingesting toxins from our external world and creating toxins in our internal world our

There are a number of ways the human body processes and rids toxins:

  1. Sweating
    • Through exercise
    • Sauna use
    • Ever experienced someone smelling like alcohol? Yep!
  2. Breathing
    • I hope you’re naturally doing this? Although you could increase this at times from exercise…
  3. The Liver Processing Toxins
    • Your liver is responsible for over 300 functions in your body from managing energy, breaking down toxic chemicals, filtering blood from the digestive tract, synthesizing new molecules for the body and much more!
    • Stressing out the liver too much with external toxins such as smoking, alcohol, cosmetics, drugs and doing these too often can overburden the liver’s ability to remove them. This results in a build-up of these toxins potentially causing damage to the body that may contribute to cancer
    • Overburdening the liver can also impact on its other functions. It may start to down-regulate and lose its ability to maintain the work it usually does, this can also lead to a plethora of diseases 
    • But these toxins still have to leave the body by some means?
  4. Movement
    • Your lymphatic system is responsible for removing a lot of nutrients and waste material around your body
    • However, it doesn’t have a pump like your blood vessels do…
    • It, therefore, requires the movement of the human body to circulate nutrients and toxins out of tissues and deliver then to lymph nodes or dump them back in the bloodstream for the liver to process
  5. Urination
    • Is an essential process to remove toxic chemicals such as urea and certain drugs
    • Are you drinking your 2+ Litres of water a day?
  6. Defecating
    • This is known as pooing… enough said

Nutrition

Eating is one-way toxins can enter your body and it’s important you know what your putting int your mouth

Here is one of the best Podcasts I’ve ever heard on this topic. Vani Hari is up to big things in this space!

Increase Vegetable Intake

  • A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage has long been considered healthy for their potential cancer-protecting role (Murillo & Mehta, 2001)

Increase Water Intake (8 cups/2L per/day)

  • High fluid intake is associated with a decreased risk of bladder cancer in men (Michaud et al., 1999)

Limit Carcinogens

~ a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue

Limiting Your Carcinogen Intake

  • There are many types of Carcinogens, all I can prepare you with is the links and hope you do your own research! As I am limited with words I have only included what I believe is the most actionable from simply reading a blog
  • According to the National Cancer Control Policies, here are 111 chemicals and pesticides that have been proven to be carcinogenic (Group 1) and 66 that are probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) and 285 that are possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group2B)

To make this extremely easy for you I have listed the  Environmental Working Group’s or EWG’s for short Dirty Dozen

The Dirty Dozen (Stay away from!) – The highest recorded pesticides

  1. Strawberries
  2. Spinach
  3. Nectarines
  4. Apples
  5. Grapes
  6. Peaches
  7. Cherries
  8. Pears
  9. Tomatoes
  10. Celery
  11. Potatoes
  12. Sweet & Hot Peppers

Click the link to learn:  How to Wash Vegetables and Fruits to Remove Pesticides

On the flip side here is the Clean 15 – The lowest recorded levels of pesticides

  1. Avocados
  2. Sweet Corn
  3. Pineapples
  4. Cabbage
  5. Onions
  6. Sweet Frozen Peas
  7. Papayas
  8. Asparagus
  9. Mangoes
  10. Egg Plant
  11. Honeydew Melons
  12. Kiwi
  13. Cantaloupes
  14. Cauliflower
  15. Broccoli!

Important Note:

EWG identified six pesticides that are not permitted to be used in Europe due to human health or safety concerns, but are classified as OK to use on Australian produce!!!

Carbaryl- Is allowed at certain doses even though is linked to tumorformation

Diphenylamine- Even though it is related to causing anemia it is still allowed in cetain quantities

Ethoxyquin- Still allowed at certain doses even thoughit is recored to promote histological changes in theliver of rats

Iprodione- Is still allowed at certain doses though it promote enlargement of theadrenal glands and lever inhumans

Permethrin- Is still allowed in certain concentraitions though contributes to an increase in body and ovarian weight

In addition to this: Carbaryl, diphenylamine and iprodione may increase the risk of cancer. Permethrin harms the brain and the nervous system. Carbendazim is harmful to the developing fetus. Ethoxyquin affects the kidneys and liver. Australia is, unfortunately, a little behind the times in reporting this data (or rather making it easy to find for an individual such as yourself have access to the information)

Check these pesticides out for yourself?

Exercise – Move Your Body

A meta-analysis by Rezende et al., (2018) concluded that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of several cancers. The study looked at 770,000 patients with cancer over 22 different cancer sights in the body and concluded that colon and breast cancers werea t a lower risk

Another review of 1.44 million participants revealed that leisure-time physical activity was associated with lower risks of many cancer types (Moore et al., 2016)

You can lower your risk of cancer by:

  • Try to be physically active for at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity on most, preferably all, days of the week
  • The more physically active you are the better.
  • As fitness improves aim for at least 60 minutes of moderate activity or 30 minutes of vigorous activity every day

Sleep

In 2007 the World Health Organisation classified sleep deprivation as a probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A)

A study by Dauchy et al., (2014) looked at the disruption of circadian rhythms by night shift work or disturbed sleep-wake cycles on cancer risk and other diseases and confirmed that melatonin acted as a cancer tumor suppressor

The last two decades, Melatonin (the sleep hormone) research has exploded and a range of important health benefits from this compound have been uncovered

Including:

  • anti-inflammatory
  • both direct and indirect antioxidant activity
  • tissue regenerative benefits
  • and preservation of mitochondrial function

Blask, Dauchy, & Sauer, (2005) alluded to the importance of melatonin potentially becoming a new preventive/therapeutic strategy to optimize the host/ cancer balance in favor of host survival and quality of life

Furthermore, the anti-inflammatory activity of melatonin could yield beneficial effects on intake, particularly against the chronic inflammation which underlies many chronic diseases (Nabavi et al., 2018)

A study by Lissoni et al., (1996) found that endogenous melatonin was observed significantly lower in breast, lung, and prostate cancer patients 

Key Take Aways

  1. Detoxification

    • Move your Body

  2. Nutrition

    • Consume more vegetables
    • Drink more water

  3. Limit Carcinogens

  4. Exercise

    • Move every day in as many ways as you can

  5. Sleep

    • Get a recommended 7-8 hours of quality sleep every night (article coming soon!)!
    • A lack of sleep can also impact on your immune system
    • Could sleep help reduce the risk of cancer? It seems yes, potentially!

There you have it!

For those wanting more information on the topic, then please read on

Cancer the Disease

Normally, the predicted 50-70 trillion cells in your body grow and multiply in a controlled way.

However, a number of factors in our external and internal can cause mistakes to occur in the cells’ genetic blueprints, and this control can be lost

Cancer is the term used to describe collections of these cells misbehaving, growing and potentially spreading within the body

As cancerous cells can arise from almost any type of tissue cell, cancer actually refers to over 100 different diseases

Trends

  • it’s suggested that 95% of cancer are due to environmental factors
  • RANKED in at #3 with over 48K Deaths in 2018
  • In 2018 over 138K new cases were seen in Australia alone
  • Each year an estimated 8.75 – 9.1 million cases are known worldwide 
  • There are over 420K people living with Cancer in Australia at the moment
  • 1 in 5 will most likely die from cancer in Australia
  • 1 in 2 will be diagnosed with cancer by age 80
  • The most common types of cancer are:
    1. Tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer
    2. Stomach cancer
    3. Colon and rectum cancer
    4. Liver cancer
  • The most common ages for cancer 
    • 50-69 Years of Age
    • 70+ Years of Age

Causes

I cannot do this justice, I can only attempt it here

As there are over 100 different types of cancer you can understand why the causes can span far and wide

As 95% of cancers are caused by environmental factors, let’s look into what these environmental factors could be:

  • Toxins in the air, water, and food
  • Radiation
  • Smoking
  • Viruses
  • Cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens)
  • Obesity
  • Hormones
  • Chronic inflammation
  • Lack of exercise
  • Sun Exposure

Please note: If you are a cancer specialist reading this I do apologise if I am missing a number of critical aspects on the disease at hand here. Please feel free to reach out if you believe I have done it an injustice

Screening

For Men

  • Prostate Screening
  • Changes in the size of your testicles
  • Early Screening and detection for bowel cancer can greatly improve your chances of survival

For Women

If you are over 40 you can have a free BreastScreen Australia mammogram (breast x-ray) every two years

Mammograms look for early breast cancers in women without symptoms

Regular mammograms can reduce your risk of breast cancer death by 25%, particularly women in the 50-69 age group for whom the benefit is highest

Cervical Screening Tests every five years from the age of 25

Early detection of bowel cancer greatly improves the chances of successful treatment

Your risk of bowel cancer increases with age

If you are over 50, you should be tested for bowel cancer every two years

The National Bowel Cancer Screening program uses the fecal occult blood test (FOBT) to detect hidden blood in bowel motions

People without symptoms aged 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72 and 74 are mailed a free kit and can do the test at home

From 2020, all Australians aged 50 to 74 will be offered the test free every two years.

Some people have known risk factors which put them at increased risk

If you do, your doctor will talk to you about regular surveillance

Additional things to look out for both genders

  • lumps, sores or ulcers that don’t heal
  • unusual changes in your breasts/ testicles – lumps, thickening, unusual discharge, nipples that suddenly turn inwards, changes in shape, colour or unusual pain, changes in shape, consistency or lumpiness
  • coughs that don’t go away, show blood, or hoarseness that hangs around
  • weight loss that can’t be explained
  • any loss of blood, even a few spots between periods or after they stop
  • moles that have changed shape, size or colour, or bleed. or an inflamed skin sore that hasn’t healed
  • blood in a bowel motion
  • persistent changes in toilet habits, urinary problems or changes
  • persistent abdominal pain or bloating.
  • These symptoms are often related to more common, less serious health problems.

However, if you notice any unusual changes or these symptoms persist, visit your doctor!!!

Exercise Physiologist

Jake Holness

“Knowledge withheld is knowledge wasted”

Comments or questions?

Feel free to reach out by emailing hello@jakeholness.com

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