A recent study found that cancer grows astonishingly slowly – at least some cancers. It can take twenty years to full-blown cancer disease.
What does that mean for us? It means that instead of staring at the future and spending your life dreading the bad diagnosis, you can do something today to suppress developing cancer cells. It means that instead your oncologist becoming the heroic cancer fighter – be your own hero! Today, and every day!
Cancer cells are generated in our body all the time, by error and by damaged DNA. A healthy immune system will pick them out and gobble them up, effectively destroying them before they get out of hands.
What have you done today to ward off those tiny enemies? Exercise protects from cancer. So, go in the yard, rake some leaves (I have done that yesterday – looks good so far – before the rest of the leaves will come down). Or go for a walk. Remember that some light also protects from cancer, via vitamin D that is created under your skin when you are expose to light.
It might help to eat some cod liver once a month, also for a good dose of vitamin D. But not more often: I would be worried about pollution of fish – and pollutants might be especially high in fish liver. Alternative: Get a good old-fashioned cod liver oil.
And then: veggies. Eat cabbages and greens and roots and salads – everything you can put your hands on. A few days ago, we had our first killing frost. The day before I harvested everything from my garden in pots (did I mention earlier that this year I grew vegetables in pots on the terrace – because the flowers in my garden have not left a speck of soil for vegetables.
Was a mixed result: The vegetables are smaller than I hoped for. But when I harvested the last red cabbages, kohlrabi, mustard greens, chards and dinosaur kale, I got two big plastic bags full of greens - and we had eaten some all summer.
Right now I am slow-cooking oxtail with cabbage in the oven. The smell is delicious.
Oxtail might not sound like health food, but everything from the Brassica (cabbage family) is. And what is the best health food worth if you don’t eat it? The secret is to eat a small portion of meat, and a good helping of brassica.
Broccoli is in the cruciferous family (another name for the cabbage family). Most of them are edible and contain cancer-fighting compounds. Horseradish belongs here, and Brussels sprouts, Savoy cabbage, bok choy – and so many more. It does not have to be boring. And in sauerkraut you get the goodies of the cabbage family with the health benefits of fermentation – it can’t get healthier. And sauerkraut is cheap food, as are many of the cabbages.
If you have already cancer: Eat as many vegetables as you can. You might prolong your life that way. Veggies also gives you better skin.
If you can’t cook: Throw a veggie in a pot with a little water and a lot of olive oil. Add plenty of garlic (preferably fresh), and pepper and salt. Simmer on low heat under a lid until done. I still have to find a vegetable that manages to taste bad with this recipe … Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Totally Unproven Pet Theories of Mine
September 9, 2010
Yesterday I refuted some of medicine’s pet tenets. Today I tell you some of my private unproven theories (hypotheses):
1. If you eat a lot of berries and cherries during the summer, it gears up your immune system and you make it through the winter healthier. - We know that berries are healthy because of their antioxidants – but as far as I know there has been no study done if the effect lasts for the whole next winter.
2. Similarly, if you smell a lot of roses (or other flowers) you get through the winter less depressed. No study here, either. But the nose and the olfactory part of the brain are closely linked to the “feelings” part of the brain (limbic system). – Besides, what other reasons would there be that we like so much to smell good things than to ward off depression? Aromatherapy uses that connection, too – but I am not sure there solid studies exist.
More to come! Read More
1 Comments
Do As James Bond Does …
April 25, 2010
… and take a cold shower!
In thorny situations, James Bond might not get a good night’s sleep (not to mention a decent meal – most often a Scotch has to do), but he always takes a shower. He starts with a nice hot one, ending with a cold one.
Every time, he steps out of the shower refreshed and ready to take on the world’s enemies again.
Of course, you wouldn’t know this juicy tidbit about James Bond from the movies. But if you read Ian Fleming’s books, you'd find that a cold shower is James Bond’s heal-all.
What is it about a cold shower?
Among other things, it brightens your mood and strengthens your immune system – making you less likely to catch a cold. James Bond seems to use it to clear the brain fog of a hangover. Or smell good for the next beautiful woman. I do it for health benefits and beautiful skin.
Contraindications: Uncontrolled high blood pressure (if you are on medications and your blood pressure is reasonably controlled, you will be fine). Any kind of narrowing of the arteries like atherosclerosis and Raynaud’s. - There are no negative side-effects of a cold shower if not overdone.
You start with a warm/hot shower. Stepping out of the stream, you turn the handle on cold. Begin with your feet, then your hands, then splash your face. For your first time, this might be all you can tolerate. Later you go on to legs, arms, chest and back. Leave out the scalp if you tend to have sinus problems.
The cold shower never takes more than a few seconds (thirty at most. If you don't feel on top of the world when you step out of the shower, but cold and shivering, you overdid it and have to scale back. Read More