1. Coffee - or caffeine
Studies for many years from all sorts of academics have come to the conclusion that coffee is a miracle drink - practically a cancer cure in a bean. Don't believe me? I assure you it's true. Coffee no only stimulates the brain, and the occasional bowel movement, it first appeared to help prevent skin cancer. Our skin is in fact layer upon layer of dead cells, but below those layers is the basil lamina, or stem cells. Caffeine enhances the cellular reproduction of stem cells while effectively destroying cells before they can be affected by existing cancer cells. As it relates to the Breast, Cervical, and Colon health program, studies in recent years have shown to prevent colon cancer, and as recently as last week studies have shown that coffee improves the overall treatment outcome of endocrine or hormone based treatment for breast cancer, essentially preventing breast cancer from developing in many ways as well as reducing recurrences with cancer patients. I say we toast to coffee - with coffee!
2. Avoiding burnt meat
You'd think something as nominal and annoying as burnt meat was harmless and as natural as can be, but tests show a very interesting comparison between the chemicals found in burnt meat and the chemicals in car exhaust. We all know car exhaust should not be inhaled, but how does it have anything to do with burnt meat? According to scientists when something is burned it's physical and chemical properties are completely changed - thus producing very elaborate and confusing chemicals that exist in both burned foods and burned car exhaust.
3. Working a day job
So it seems working during the day is ideal, but not all professions are that reasonable. The health benefits of sleeping during the night and doing whatever during the day is unquestioned, but for doctors, nurses, janitors, and other laborers of the night are stuck literally on the "graveyard" shift. There is a reasonable theory that suggests screwing up our circadian rhythm (our natural ability to sleep at night and awake again in the day) produces severe health risks, including cancer.
4. Going vegetarian - or just having a mostly vegetarian diet
Processed meats you find at the deli are freaking delicious even though we know they're made from sick animals hyped up on meds, grinded into a paste and injected with salt water to make it seem like it's fresh and juicy, and whipped up with some nitrates to preserve that "oh so fresh" taste. If that doesn't make you take a second look at the packaging maybe this will: carbon monoxide. That stuff that smells like rotten eggs and you're supposed to run out of the house as soon as you get a hint of it? So we're not supposed to breath it in, but it's perfectly ok to eat it for lunch? Deli meats and meat in general is treated with carbon monoxide to give it that bright red color when raw - which is exactly the color your face turns when you breath it in.
5. Smoking MJ
Oh yes . . . the Mary Jane is reported by some health officials as a lightly effective tool for reducing the growth of cancer cells. Although, I am not condoning or suggesting anyone drop their cancer treatment and move to Washington - the Evergreen State - but a large number of cancer patients utilize medical marijuana as a pain reducer, appetite stimulant, and it reduces nausea.
6. You sleep in complete darkness
There is something strange going on between our bodies and darkness. We have sleep hormones, which naturally are highest at night. If our sleep is disturbed and these hormones are aggravated the physiological response is an unnatural dose of estrogen in which accumulates and feeds rapidly growing cancer cells. This obviously mostly pertains to women or people taking any kind of hormone therapy. What out for that estrogen or you can just buy an eye mask for starters.
7. You do all your laundry and dry cleaning at home.
Every once and a while you wear one of those quirky frocks that require professional dry cleaning. It turns out most dry cleaners still use a chemical that has long been scorned as a carcinogen. Called Perc, it is one of those things you need to breath in to get the full cancer effect. It lingers on clothes, especially if your dry cleaning is in a plastic bag. So, immediately after returning home from the dry cleaners take your clothes out of the bag and let them air out in a large open room.
8. You don't straighten your hair
It's all the rage, but few people realize the chemicals put in our hair for straightening our hair with an iron is actually loaded with carcinogens, primarily formaldehyde - which is what we use to preserve dead bodies, so imagine what that's doing to ourselves as it sits on top of our heads? Yeah, makes me uncomfortable too.
9. You gave birth young - and breastfed.
Lots of women opt to have children later in life, and by later I mean after age 30. Others by chance don't get pregnant for whatever reason until after age 30, some have none at all, and others have had one or more prior to age 30. However, prolonging pregnancy may be a great idea financially and emotionally, but it does take a bizarre toll on the uterus. Doctors and scientists are not quite sure why women who have their first child after 30 are more likely to develop sexual or female organ cancers, but it is an increasing trend. Some speculate that women who wait to have children use more estrogen from birth control than women who had children earlier, and estrogen is a carcinogen. Also, tagging along with hormones, some doctors believe pregnancy hormones are healthy for the female body and promotes cellular repair and breakdown of old and useless cells. However, none of that will matter if you do not breastfeed. Likewise, milk glands need to be used or they may become sitting ducks. Using organs for their intended purpose is like exercising any muscle - you use it or lose it.
10. You had a hysterectomy
Sounds weird, right? After women are diagnosed with breast cancer another sex organ becomes vulnerable to the cancer: ovaries. Both breasts and ovaries are gender specific hormone powerhouses and when one is affected the other is likely to get somewhere down the road, possibly never. Doctors have found a very clear positive correlation between cases of breast cancer and ovarian cancer, which prompts many surgeons to remove the ovaries or to do a full mastectomy and hysterectomy to reduce chances of both cancers. You may remember a few years ago Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy and full hysterectomy because she found out she had both breast and ovarian cancer genes. However, doctors believe for breast cancer patients that it may be best to remove the ovaries whether or not ovarian cancer is present since that disease has very few symptoms and cannot be detected as easily as breast cancer.
