Congrats on your new year’s ‘anti-cancer’ resolution
A few thoughts on what to prioritise for the new year.
People are fascinating. We just love risk taking. It makes us feel alive and provides excitement into what can otherwise be a routine existence. Whether it’s breaking the speed limit in a car, having unprotected sex on a one night stand or trying a cigarette for the first time, our curiosity and desire to experience that which our collective learnings has told us will likely fuck us up, is inspiring. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in our ambivalence towards our cancer causing lifestyle. We are slowly learning just how saturated our modern day world is in terms of cancer promoting substances. Meat, booze, pesticides, BPAs, stress, pollution — it’s literally coming at us from all angles. The body of evidence is now indisputable and while our lab studies can prove that things like processed meat and alcohol are Group 1 Carcinogens, what we don’t really know (but isn’t hard to imagine), is what the effects are of combining many of these contributing factors. Cancer kills more people each year than car and air plane crashes, murders, suicide and terrorism combined. Yet our vigilance toward cancer prevention is nowhere near as strong as buckling up our seat belts.
Even with the vast amount of cancer in my life — my father, mother, friends all being diagnosed, I chose to take the “as long as I change my habits before 40 I’ll probably be fine” approach. During my 20s and now my 30s, I’ve smoked, drank, eaten burgers, consumed processed sugar and enjoyed bacon, tasty tasty bacon. Drool. And to be honest I’ve loved it. Thinking like most young adults that it’s worth the risk. What I didn’t know, which I do now after having done my research as a result of my niece and one of my good friends getting cancer in 2018, is that cancer cell spread can start many many years before diagnosis, and grow slowly over time. It can be years, sometimes even 20 years or more (known as latency period), that cancer takes before it is evident. So while we can wreck ourselves in our peak party years and then settle down in later life, the cancer seed could have already be sewn during that time, only to show itself later in life. And while we are carelessly indulging ourselves during the best years of our life, what are we doing to counter balance a toxin intake that is almost inescapable? A green salad twice a week? A jog in the afternoon? A ‘break’ from beer for a week. While these are commendable efforts, they won’t get you close enough to giving your immune system what it needs to fight the cancer war.
The fact is that cancer is nothing more than our own cells gone rogue and this is something that your own body can reverse and heal. Right now your immune system is searching for, identifying and eliminating cancer cells. And our immune system is really good at dealing with these cancer cells when functioning at peak condition. It’s in a daily battle that it is usually winning, to keep cancer cell growth in check.But when an overstrained and under-supported immune system loses control of cancer cell extermination, it allows them to establish a foothold in the body, which can start to grow to the point where it becomes problematic.
So if the body is already fighting and (normally) winning the battle against cancer on a daily basis, why is it that conventional medicine tells us that the only options to fight detectable cancer in the body are chemo, radio and surgery? And why do we only focus on eliminating widely accepted cancer contributing factors like smoking? Sure you can not smoke, but plenty of people get cancer anyway who don’t. Since we do not have a single recognised ‘cure’ for cancer but we know that our immune system can kill cancer cells, what can we do to increase our odds of staying on top of that battle? One thing we can do is to cleanse our own bodies using natural cancer fighting protocols that supercharge the immune system and counteract the cancer causing vices that we all love. There are many cases of people healing themselves from advanced cancer using nutrition, supplements and natural cleansing techniques. With over a third of people expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime (depending on what country you are from), it would seem wise to make the assumption that you’re at considerable risk of developing it at some point and employ some simple and natural known cancer fighting routines into your life. And just as cancer causing factors combine to overwhelm your immune system, you can combine these routines to overwhelm the cancer cells and eliminate them. A green salad once is a while won’t cut it. You’re going to have to get a plan and stick to it. But trust me, it’s easier that than trying to deal with it after a doctor tells you “you have cancer”. And what better time to commit to some new lifestyle changes than the new year.
Although anti-cancer routines are relatively easy to implement, the sad truth is that many won’t prioritise it due to time or fear of the unknown. I don’t have time to juice. I don’t have time to meditate. Fasting is for weird old people. What the hell is tempeh anyway?? Maybe this context will help: get cancer at 55 and die by 65 vs not getting cancer at all and living till 85. You can choose to trade a few days to implement some habits now for an extra 20 years on your life. That’s the potential upside to making a few habit changes and not a bad return if you ask me.
To inspire you into making these changes I’ll be documenting the ones I’ll be trying and sticking with over the course of this year. The first to kick off the new year is giving up alcohol for 12 months, but I’ll be adding a bunch more as I cleanse hard this year after partying hard for the last 20. I invite you to follow my journey and try them with me and maybe we can both buy ourselves an extra 20 years together.
Big love and best wishes to you for 2019.
