National Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Taking Your Power Back
By Andrew Pacholyk, MS L.Ac
Doctors often cannot explain why one person develops cancer and another does not. But research shows that certain risk factors increase the chance that a person will develop cancer. Risk factors in which you have some amount of control include:
-poor food choices -lack of exercise -high stress levels -inflammation -disruptions in your wake/sleep cycles
The destructive power of one benign cancer cell can manifest in a bad inner environment and, therefore, increase your chances of getting cancer in the first place. By improving your inner environment and overall health habits, you can keep the benign cancer cells at bay or from developing into malignant cancer in the first place.
First and foremost, stress is a major body manipulator. It affects every aspect of your body’s internal environment. Overscheduled, overstimulated and overworked these three factors are the most common causes of long-term stress. You start your de-stressing program by reframing your day. Try fitting 3 things into your day instead of 10. Avoid stimulants such as alcohol, caffeine and sugar. Start practicing meditation, yoga or a exercise you like doing.
Inflammation is a trigger. High acidity levels, poor diet, drugs and alcohol, all play a role by increasing the inflamatory response. One of the reasons inflammation occurs is from a rapid rise in blood sugar, which causes biochemical changes in the cell. Staying away from sugar and high-glycemic (simple) carbohydrates, which the body rapidly converts to sugar, is one of the best ways to decrease inflammation. C-reactive protein (CRP) is a key factor of inflammation. In a major study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, people with elevated CRP levels were four and one-half times more likely to have a heart attack. Not only is elevated CRP more accurate than cholesterol in predicting heart attack risk, but high CRP levels have turned up in people with diabetes and pre-diabetes and in people who are overweight.
Excessive estrogen from many sources, can be a cause of cancer. Internally (endogenously) such as the Pill, the patch or HRT (hormone replacemeng therapy) or environmental estrogens (exogenously), which are found in pesticides, plastics, and PCB’s (chemical pollutants in the water, air, and soil). These forms of estrogen are thought to have a major influence on the excessive amounts of estrogen that are being found in both men and women. Poor diet, with too much refined carbohydrate and saturated animal fat and too little fiber is also responsible.
OM Times Magazine » syndicated
