Measles. Not Just A Simple Childhood Infection

ourworldindata.org/measles-increases-disease-risk

FOODS WHICH INCREASE CANCER RISK (Radio Transcript)

Hello everyone.

Last time, I discussed specific foods which are known to help prevent and reverse cancer. In a nutshell, lots of whole fruits and vegetables with lots of variety. To complete the cancer segments, I wanted to talk about foods which are known to contribute to the development or accelerate the growth and spread of cancer.

Just a reminder that every single day, in every single one of us, cells are mutating and cancers are forming. With a healthy immune system, these cells are identified, destroyed and cleared long before they develop into full blown cancers. Although simply getting older leads to more cancers forming, additional inflammation and toxic exposures, along with poor health, results in more mutations and changes leading to cell changes and cancer formation. The key is to stop attacking the body with toxins and keeping your immune system healthy.

According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the top preventable causes of cancer are:

1. Diet which accounts for 30%. Primarily,  lack of fruit and vegetables and too much sugar, processed foods and animal products.
2. Smoking 20%, including 87% of lung cancers.
3. Infections 15%. These are almost always viral and these viruses all originated from animals spreading to humans. They include Hepatitis B & C, which causes liver cancer, HPV, which causes cervical and head and neck cancer, HIV, associated with sarcomas and Bovine Leukemia Virus which is strongly linked to breast cancer.
4. Obesity accounts for 20% and is strongly linked to at least 13 different cancers including breast, blood, colon and pancreas.
5. Alcohol causes 5%, and not just liver but mouth, throat and GI cancers.
6. Pure genetic mutations account for only 5%.
7. 5% of other cancers are from other causes, including chronic stress, medical and environmental radiation, toxic exposures and low physical activity.

Looking at that list, 70% of cancers are related to what we consume. Let’s go through the basics.

1. Limit processed foods. Basically, anything in a package or with a label having more than a few simple ingredients should be limited. Between the refined flower, which is basically sugar, and all the added chemicals such as flavorings, preservatives and emulsifiers, these foods cause sugar spikes and trigger inflammation. The chemicals and artificial sweeteners disrupt gut wall integrity, leading to additional inflammation, resulting in cell damage and DNA mutations. In addition, the sugar just feeds any cancer cells already present.

2. Cut out added sugar. Excessive sugar causes inflammation leading to cancer. In addition, cancer cells use sugar 50x more than normal cells, having a 100x greater attraction for fructose than normal cells. This does not include the natural sugars found in whole fruits and vegetables however. Although sugar is a key energy source for cancer cells, they are also very metabolically flexible and will use both fat and protein as energy sources if needed. This is why people with advanced cancer become very thin and why fasting is a great way to treat cancer, especially when getting chemotherapy. When the cells are suddenly starved of energy, they are not active and chemotherapy has a better chance to work and kill them off.

3. Avoid dairy. Dairy is breast milk from a cow, meant to grow a calf from 100 to 1000 lbs in just one year. It contains much higher levels of estrogen and growth hormones than human breast milk. It also contains chemicals which stimulate cancer cell growth. All animal products contain high levels of IgF 1 (Insulin Like Growth Factor 1). This is a naturally occurring hormone which helps us grow when we are younger but it feeds and promotes cancer cell growth in adults. Dairy has been shown to contribute to the development of hormone driven cancers like prostate, testicular, breast, ovarian and uterine cancer. Women who have had breast cancer have a 49% increased risk of dying from recurrence with only one additional serving of dairy daily. Another study showed that prostate cancer patients had a 73% increased risk of cancer recurrence with only 4 servings per week. There is actually a stronger link between prostate cancer and dairy consumption than there is between smoking and lung cancer!

4. Limit meat consumption. Again, animal products are filled with hormones as well as many environmental contaminants. Animal fats also contain arachidonic acid which our body converts into inflammatory compounds which then go on to stimulate breast cancer growth and also play a role in colon cancer, lung cancer, and head and neck cancer. Processed meats in particular like bacon, lunch meats and sausage are really unhealthy. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have both put processed meat in category 1, meaning that they are known carcinogens. This is the same category as smoking, asbestos and plutonium! Just a 3% increase in animal protein led to a 15% increase in the risk of bladder cancer in a group of 500,000 people. However if you replaced that animal protein with plant protein, there was a 23% decreased risk of bladder cancer! Colorectal cancer rates are on a rapid rise, mostly attributable to meat consumption. In people under 50, colon cancer rates have doubled in only 25 years, prompting the recommendation to start colon cancer screening at 40, rather than 50.

5. Eliminate or at least limit alcohol consumption to1 drink a day for women and 2 for men. And you can’t save it up for the weekend. Binging is just as bad, if not worse, than less but more regular drinking. Why is alcohol so carcinogenic, especially with breast cancer?

• It increases estrogen levels.
• It impairs immune function.
• It can cause bone marrow suppression leading to low red blood cells and white blood cell counts also impairing immune function.
• It creates toxic byproducts, especially acetaldehyde, which is produced even if you gargle with alcohol-based mouth rinses.
• It inactivates a crucial enzyme which converts folic acid into its active form, methyl folate, crucial for proper cellular metabolism.
• It depletes thiamine or vitamin B1, leading to confusion, as well as visual, balance and coordination problems. If left untreated, this progresses to permanent dementia.
• It directly causes oxidative stress and DNA damage.

Again, pointing to the Blue Zone populations, 4 of the 5 consume some animal products, but it is less than 5% of their total calories. Mostly it is fish and some occasional dairy, mostly from sheep, but it’s rare. The healthiest Blue Zone population with the lowest cancer rate however is vegan. 

Eat more whole plants and you can;t go wrong. It’s as simple as that.

See you next time.