Johns Hopkins

It is refreshing to see the following report that has been released by Johns Hopkins. For too long, the emphasis regarding cancer has been on the treatment and not the prevention. Please take the time to read this, as it may in the end save your life.

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins:

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies,changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation, while destroying cancer cells, also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

A. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg 's aminos or sea salt.

B. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.

C. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

D. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruit helps put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

E. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines becomes putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

1. No plastic containers in microwave
2. No water bottles in freezer.
3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well.
Dioxin chemicals cause cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr.Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc. should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Some thoughts on making healthy choices...

One would think that a nation that spends as much money on healthcare as the United States does should be the healthiest nation in the world, right? Well, come to find out, the US is ranked 45th on the list! With obesity and diabetes and cancer on the rise, with 100,000 deaths a year related to adverse effects of properly prescribed drugs, with chronic diseases like coronary artery disease and diabetes entering the pediatric population, we really need to stop and take a good hard look at our current state of affairs. As a student at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in Manhattan, I am blessed to have wonderful speakers who come and provide us with the latest in dietary theory and nutritional news. Teachers like Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Barry Sears, Dr. Walter Willet from Harvard, David Katz, the Director of Prevention Research at Yale, Deepak Chopra, Mark Hyman and dozens of other experts in the field continue to hammer the point back to us, prevention is key. What we ingest into our body is what we become.

This should come as no surprise to anyone. We've heard it before: "Junk in, junk out." "You are what you eat". "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". "An apple a day......." We all know this on some level. So why the difficulty for the people of this great nation in learning how to eat right, exercise and lighten up with our stress level? Eating right is not that difficult, and as a health counselor, I work to help people do just that. Those who want to clean up their diet and lifestyle, and are committed to doing that, can usually be successful. But what about the majority of Americans who continue to make poor food choices and lead stressful, sedentary lives? What can be done to prompt them into a wellness mindset? I am continually shocked as a nurse in a hospital setting to see fellow nurses and health care professionals who make poor food choices and are overweight, stressed out, irritable and doing nothing for their oveall sense of health and wellness.

As a holistic nurse, I see people as a threefold being, made up of body mind and spirit. I believe that when one facet of the whole is negatively affected, the other "parts" are equally effected. We are like one conjoined triplet. Where one part goes the other parts follow. That is why when a person does finally start paying attention to their physical wellbeing, and starts eating right and exercising and decreasing stress, he will naturally experience a better sense of emotional well being, and will naturally be eventually led to a spiritual exploration. Same thing is true of someone who starts down a spiritual path. Before too long, the person will naturally start to face and address any blocks to emotional well being, and start to look at the nutritional piece as it fits in as well.

Which leads me to my point. The many that are not making their health a priority may be suffering on a spiritual or emotional level. Maybe on some unspoken level, they don't see themselves as deserving or worthy of abundance of health. We can have the same attitude towards our health as we can about wealth or success. "It's for everyone else but me, there isn't enough to go around, or I don't deserve it, I'm not good enough to have it." These underlying blocks can stand in the way of someone taking definitive action towards changing their life for the better. So I guess that the answer to my own question of "Why don't people get this whole prevention thing?" is: They can't.

Look, there is enough information out there for anyone with a minimum amount of intelligence to be able to start doing the basics: eliminate refined sugar and processed foods, increase fruits and vegetables, avoid soda, diet and regular alike, take whole food supplements, drink more water, take the steps instead of the elevator.......this is not rocket science. A refusal to pay attention to your health in the richest nation in the world where there are so many food choices open for so many, indicates something on a deeper level. I have seen people treat their car or their pet better than they treat themselves. People, that is not the way it is supposed to be. All of the great religions and spiritual teachings in the world will tell you, "Love yourself, as you love others." That means truly caring enough about yourself to take good care of you. Sadly, most people do not love themselves. On the contrary, they treat themselves rather harshly, speaking negatively to themselves, putting their own needs last, if at all. To care for oneself is not selfish, it is what we are asked to do. For it is only when we are thriving and feeling good about our self, body mind and spirit, that we finally have our best person to put out into the world to live our life's purpose effectively.

So my first question when I work with someone as a health counselor is to explore if the person I am going to work with feels good about themselves enough so that they feel worthy of health. Do they love themselves enough to see themselves as deserving of an abundantly healthy life? I suggest that you explore these questions with yourself, as you make your way on your individual journey in this lifetime.