Science now thinks that cancer cells use a very ancient mechanism when they invade a body: It seems cancer cells are descendants of single cells that integrated themselves into our genome. Whenever the whole organism is threatened by extinction, at least the cancer cells may have a shot at survival.
If one reverses the point of view: As long as your body is healthy, those ancient single cells have no business to stir and take over as cancerous growth. Let your body go to the dogs, however, and you give the cancer cells an edge.
This is what Natural Medicine has taught for a long time: That cancer is a degenerative disease, and that it develops in a pre-diseased body.
Not to get into the intricacies of genetic disposition to certain cancers (which can’t be disputed), it is nevertheless a fresh perspective on our old bodies in health and disease: Keep this temple of your well-being in good shape, and you have a chance at a long, good life. Run down your body with poor nutrition, hours in front of TV or computer, no exercise, too little sleep, lots of stress from relationships, work habits, drug use, and so on – and you might reap what you sow.
Of course, this is statistics speaking. For the individual a bad disease sometimes just means bad luck. Sometimes. More often disease stems from bad habits.
Get up right now and jump up and down twenty-one times – give no chance to those nasty single cells that are still asleep! Another way to put it: Love your body – it is the only one you have. Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Bike Friday
March 24, 2012
My car broke down – for good. A week before we wanted to give it away to a charity anyway. A still had the last car, my trusted sixteen-year old Subaru in the garage, but a had to go and register it. So, I reactivated my bike.
That’s not quite precise. I had never really used it because ten years ago, when it was brand-new, I worried it would be stolen. It is bright red, and folds to a rather neat parcel if needed. Because I am small and tend to topple with bigger bikes, this has small wheels; it fits me perfectly well. Now that it isn’t brand-new any longer, I dare leave it outside a store, locked of course, with an extra heavy lock.
Of course, this all happened when we had an eighty-five degree heat wave (in Boston, in mid-March! And there are still people who deny the reality of global warming …), and we live on a rather steep hill. Come to think about it: The hill was probably the other reason why I never quite took to biking regularly.
But now I am back into the swing. It is wonderful! I am getting exercise while I am outdoors. Within a day, I could feel the difference in toning my legs, and feeling more alive (not to mention PROUD!). I don’t take the fastest routes, but plan my way along beautiful streets. And not too steep hills, if possible. On a bike, you are closer to the street life than in a car: You see more, smell more, hear more, experience more! Other bikers smile at you because the recognize you as one of theirs: One of the people who want to make the world a better place.
The bike is called Bike Friday – that’s the brand name. Why I mention it? No, they don’t pay me. But there is also a movement called “Bike Friday(s)!” – meaning: On Fridays, instead of taking the car to work, bike to work – if possible. A brilliant idea – to give riding your bike a chance just once. After that, you might be hooked and will to want to ride your bike every Friday. Or every day. Think of the possibilities!
Same as with with running, I don’t do biking every day. Because of the really tough hill, I think I should not overtax my knees and give them a break. So, I bike only every other day. But if you live in flatter terrain, there is no reason to not bike daily. Unless it’s snowy.
Sure, I got a new helmet. I was not aware that the plastic foam of which helmets are made deteriorates rather soon in UV light, and that they should therefore be renewed every three years. Sounds rather excessive and expensive to me, but I am not a materials chemist, so I have to take the bike shop people (who, by the way, were extremely nice and patient) by their word. After a really bad bang you have to get a new helmet, too – the material is made for absorbing a good hit – but not several. Sounds
The only problem that I haven’t solved: Since this is a folding bike, there is no place to put a back rack or a front basket or pannier bags on it. For the time being, I am carrying my groceries in a backpack. Which doesn’t make it any easier to negotiate the hill. Anybody has an idea? Read More
To Mammogram, Or Not To Mammogram
January 31, 2012
About this subject I do write with trepidation – as the right answers are still not known – medicine and science have not advanced far enough to let us make rational decisions. In actuality, regarding mammograms, we are living in something like medieval times.
Do mammograms help prevent cancer? No, they don’t. They do find some cancers. But they also “find” an unacceptably high number of “cancers” that aren’t cancers - false positives. For which women then undergo unnecessary treatment.
Do mammograms prevent deaths from cancer? The answer is amazingly unclear: For the longest time – basically for the entire twentieth century - namely since the advent of radical mastectomy, breast cancer death numbers didn’t budge. In the last few years, we seem to make a little dent. But it is not clear to me if it comes from therapies, or from better lifestyles that women have adopted - similar to the improvement of cardio-vascular health that happened mostly in the kitchen and the gym, not in the doctor’s office.
For thirteen years now I have not done a mammogram. Not because I try to be reckless, but because I have my doubts. In a way, I am sticking my head in the sand (breast cancer runs in my family). On the other hand, I have a history of heavy radiation as a child, and mammogram certainly is adding to my risk to develop breast cancer. You could say that I made a decision rather to die of breast cancer than from breast cancer treatment. You don’t have to follow me here – or rather, I don’t want you to follow me here because I shudder of the responsibility I would take on if I talked you out of mammograms. In reality, I always encourage my patients to have their yearly mammograms – regardless of the personal doubts I am harboring.
Because of my childhood radiation history – I had bad tuberculosis as a child with tons of fluoroscopy - my decision not to add any more radiation (I also have myself padded down at airports rather than going through the screening machines) is not applicable to everyone. In addition, I had mammograms since age eighteen every year because of lumps (and twice had lumps removed that turned out to be benign. So, I had an unusual number of mammograms - enough for a lifetime, I think. My doctors, because of my history, are basically waiting for me to develop breast or thyroid cancer. But over the years I came to realize that the real causes for breast cancer - diet, exercise and environmental pollution, including radiation - are not addressed by physicians and authorities. But I want to encourage every woman to come to her own decision. Every case has different variables.
Lately I am also changing my thinking about cancer generally - not that one person has it, and the other person doesn't have it. Truth is, at a certain age, we probably are all always having cancerous cells in us, and keeping them at bay as best as we can we good lifestyle habits seems to be much more important. - I also have a body that would react badly to any kind of treatment - so I rather am putting my energy into a good lifestyle. And cancers in later years are often less aggressive than cancer in children and young adults.
And a last thought: Medicine is yet is unable to differ between "bad" cancer and "good" cancer - we don't know which one will explode and kill a patient. So we are working with big guns on all cancers. It seems to me that surviving cancer has more to do with which type your cancer is and how good your immune system works than with any treatment. This argument is also very applicable to prostate cancer in men.
If I would find a lump, I certainly would have it removed surgically. If I get "exploding" cancer, I hope I will die gracefully. Not knowing if I already have such a time bomb inside me, I make sure I walk every day during daylight to get my daily dose of vitamin D and exercise, I eat my veggies and drink my green smoothie, I keep my animal flesh consumption low (but I don’t advocate vegetarian or vegan lifestyles), I take a daily cold shower or cold sitzbath to strengthen my immune system, and I make sure I sleep long before midnight so that my body can catch bad cells and repair what is broken – before it explodes.
The rest is not in my hands. Read More