You Can Prevent Cancer

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The Future is Prevention

The answer to all major cancers lies not in surgery,
chemotherapy or radiation therapy or any other kind of
medical treatment. These procedures, though essential for
treatment once the disease is established, have such a high
failure rate, that we have to find a better answer. The
new science of cancer has now pinpointed that answer. It
lies all around you, in your lifestyle and environment.

If it seems too simple consider this. In July
2000, the New England Journal of Medicine published a most
important research paper, a collaborative effort of many
cancer specialists, which followed 44,788 pairs of twins to
assess the relative contribution of heredity and
environment for 11 different kinds of cancer. In all cases,
heredity was only a minor cause. The researchers concluded,
“This finding indicates that the environment has the
principle role in causing cancer”.

In September 2001, the leading journal, the European
Journal of Cancer, published the relative reductions in
deaths from cancer prevention programs that targeted
environmental causes, and from advances in cancer
treatment. Prevention won hands down! By the end of 2000,
simple prevention had reduced cancer deaths by 13%, while
all the touted breakthroughs in treatment, early diagnosis
screening etc. reduced deaths by only 6%. The researchers
predicted that effective application of prevention
strategies could reduce the cancer death rate by a further
whopping 29% by 2020, whereas advances in treatment would
only achieve a measly further 4%. Prevention is the only
way to go!

Yet even with this knowledge, less that 1% of cancer
dollars are spent on prevention. Over 99% are spent on
treatment, much of it ineffective, all of it wildly
expensive. Medical science is not focused on prevention of
cancer because it is almost impossible to get research
grants for it. Unlike a tumor to cut out, you can’t see
prevention. It earns no fat fees, sells no drugs, confers
no status, hones no surgical skills, plumps no résumés, and
provides no immediate medical gratification at all. No
person or agency can convincingly claim the credit for
prevention. Few therefore, are motivated to try.

Prevention happens slowly, by education, by the
dissemination of information that you can use yourself.
Prevention happens when you realize that no physician,
hospital, or government agency can protect you against
cancer. You have to learn to protect yourself.

Before you can develop cancer, your body has to lose or
damage many of its defense mechanisms. In the healthy
person, leading a healthy lifestyle, these mechanisms
destroy cancer cells every day without any difficulty at
all. Esteemed British scientists and physician, Sir Peter
Medewar, was fond of saying in lectures, that the average
person gets cancer a million times in his life. The
healthy body destroys every one of these budding cancers
long before they become established.

Today in 2002, cancer is still the second biggest cause of
death and infirmity in Western Society, yet the risk
factors for more than 99% of all cancers are known. Since
publication of the first edition of Prevent Cancer Now in
1990, science has learned many novel strategies to counter
almost all of them. If you seize this new knowledge, and
use it well, you will avoid almost all cancers. I am sure
the evidence presented here will convince you that you can
do it.

Cancer Prevention Strategy

So many things are shown to cause cancer today, from the
chlorine in tap water to pesticides on our fruit and
vegetables, that many people just give up trying to fight
it. They have little idea what constitutes a real risk, and
what is just media hype. Not surprising, because most of
the media are equally poorly informed. Focused on
circulation profits more than on human health, they have us
and themselves running scared at negligible risks of
cancer, such as cell phones, while often failing to inform
us of the big risks.

Too many people, for example, pesticides seem to pose a far
greater cancer risk than being overweight. In fact, the
reverse is true. Cancer risk from overweight is many times
that of all the pesticides on our food put together. So
the first step in prevention of this dread disease, is to
sort the elephants from the fleas.

Numerous studies show, without any doubt, that smoking (and
second-hand smoke) is the biggest cancer risk. Smoking
accounts for about one third of all US cancers, and 90% of
all US lung cancers.

The second biggest cancer risk is overweight and
inactivity, which accounts for 25% of all cancers. They
are two different risks to be sure, but occur together so
frequently that it is difficult to put separate numbers on
them in the overall cancer statistics.

The third biggest cancer risk is poor diet which accounts
for 15% of all cancers. The quarter of the US population
eating the fewest fruits and vegetables for example, has
twice the cancer rate for most types of cancer, than the
quarter of the population eating the most fruits and
vegetables.

We now know that the fourth biggest cancer risk is chronic
infections. Hepatitis, for example, readily develops into
liver cancer, and papiloma viruses often develop into
cervical cancer.

The Colgan Institute gets numerous requests from
individuals and organizations to apportion the degree of
risk for different carcinogens. It is a difficult task,
and cannot be exact. The following table presents our best
estimates to date. To help us in this work we have used
figures from the National Cancer Institute, the American
Cancer Society, from cancer expert Professor Bruce Ames of
the University of California (Berkeley), from British
cancer experts Drs. Richard Doll and Richard Peto and many
others, plus our 27 years of computer records of all major
studies. Our analysis is summarized in Table 1. It
indicates the way that you should tackle cancer.

The table makes it clear that a smoker who worries more
about environmental pollution is being idiotic. A mother
who stuffs her children with high fat chips and dips, yet
refuses to buy apples because they may contain traces of
pesticides, is sadly ignorant. And a person who eats the
average American diet, but plasters on the sunscreen to
prevent skin cancer, has no idea where the big risks lie.

Successful prevention of cancer is a numbers game. Played
well, it allows you to eliminate over 90% of all cancer
risks. Even playing only moderately, by not smoking, not
associating with smokers, eating an anti-cancer diet,
keeping your bodyfat at a minimum, avoiding pollution, and
using the right nutrient supplements, you can avoid over
80% of cancer risks.

You don’t have to live like a monk. I sometimes bet against
the 2% cancer risk from sunlight, in order to play on the
beach, and the 1% risk from alcohol, in order to enjoy
wine with dinner. But I would never bet against the 33%
risk from smoking, or the 25% risk from being overweight
and sedentary. For successful prevention of cancer, first
you have to avoid the elephants.

Table 1: The Relative Risks for Death by Cancer
Avoidable Causes of Cancer % of US Cancer Deaths
Smoking, chewing tobacco & second-hand smoke 33%
Obesity and inactivity 25%
Nutrient deficits and poor diet 15%
Chronic viruses and other infections 7%
Environmental pollution in foods, air and water 5%
Sunlight 2%
Prescription drugs 2%
Illicit drugs and excess alcohol 1%
Radon gas 1%
Radiation 1%
Unavoidable Causes of Cancer % of US Cancer Deaths
Infections & viruses 7%
Genetic defects 2%
References: Adami H, et al, Primary and secondary
prevention in the reduction of cancer morbidity and
mortality. Eur J Cancer, 2001, Suppl 8:118-127. Yu PB, et
al. J Gerontology, 1982;37:130. Roe FJ. Nature,
1983;303:657. Ames BN, Gold LS. Environmental pollution,
pesticides and the prevention of cancer: misconceptions.
FASEB J, 1997;11:1041-52. Montesano R, Hall J,
Environmental causes of human cancers. Eur J Cancer, 2001;
37, Suppl 8:67-87. Lichtenstein P et al. Environmental and
heritable factors in the causation of cancer. New Engl J
Med, 2000;343:78-85. Josefson D. Obesity and inactivity
fuel global cancer epidemic. Brit Med J, 2001;322:945.
Adami H. Primary and secondary prevention in the reduction
of cancer morbidity and mortality. Eur J Cancer,
2001;37;Suppl 8:118-127. This is an excerpt from Dr.
Colgan’s forthcoming book, Prevent Cancer Now, 3rd Edition.
_________________
Maree McGoldrick
www.bodiorganic.com