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.
The Here and Now
October 27, 2010
Yesterday at yoga, my wonderful teacher Carol Nelson encouraged us to be in the Here and Now.
A great suggestion!
But then I thought: Wait a second!
As a physician I know that the people most in the Here and Now are Alzheimer’s patients. First, in the development of dementia, one loses the future and dwells on the past. Later on even the past dims, and there is nothing there than the Here and Now – a sad state of affairs.
That is not to mean, when your thoughts are churning about a project at work or a past lover who jilted you, it is not a good idea to focus on the Here and Now, take some deep, slow breaths - always start with exhaling! – and feel your diaphragm move.
It only means one shouldn’t stretch a philosophical tenet too far. The Here and Now has it merits – but driven to exclusivity, it becomes hollow and ridiculous. Moderation also is a reigning principle in philosophy.
However - now look at “moderation”, as a concept. When you are falling a love, deeply in love, do you want to “moderate” yourself? Or do you want to live the most important moments of your life?
Questions, questions… Read More
Breast Health – and Breast Beauty
October 22, 2010
Remember the movie “Persepolis?”
My favorite scene was when the granddaughter asks her Iranian grandmother why she still has so beautiful breasts, at her age. The grandmother divulges her two secrets:
1. Wash your breasts with cold water every day. That can be part of a cold shower at the end of your warm one. Or you stand in front of the sink and wash your breasts with a cloth and cold water – about a dozen times.
2. Put jasmine flowers in your bra and carry the scent around you all day – it makes you feel beautiful.
I love that advice! From my experience, I have a few more bits to add for better breast health and more beauty:
3. Eat a diet high in fresh vegetables, with low meats, no dairy and little sugar.
4. Avoid all milk and dairy – they are causing breast pain and breast cancer. They contain growth hormones. Growth hormones are unnecessary and harmful beyond the infant stage.
5. Do not wear a bra at night. Your skin needs to breathe and your lymph needs to circulate. – Don’t wear a bra if you don’t need one.
6. For the same reason, do exercise: Let your arms swing. Brest cancer seems to occur more often in the left breast. Since 85 percent of people are right-handed, it stands to reason that we are not moving enough lymph around in the left breast and get less toxicity removed than on the right side (that is just a theory of mine – don’t listen if it doesn’t convince you).
7. Don't smoke or drink.
8. Find out if you are gluten-intolerant. Nearly all cancers are higher in celiacs than in non-celiacs.
9. Drink enough water – room temperature or warmer. Never ice-cold. Read More