Several years ago, I heard a statement that I didn’t quite believe.
Cancer may grow undetected for a decade or more.
At the time, I thought that was wild. Isn’t cancer a “thing” when you feel the lump or the diagnostic test comes back positive?
Nope, it starts way before that, and we now know it can be over 10 years in the making because researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine can prove it.
What I understand now, that I didn’t back then, is this: every day, our body creates cancer cells.
Mainstream media presents cancer as this chance thing that you may or may not get, however, it happens every day in every person. You develop one million cancer cells in your body every day. And, every day, your body kills off one million cancer cells.
Cancer cells are mutated cells. You can think of them as mistakes. But they’re usually no big deal because through your immune system / lymphatic system, your body gets rid of them.
What happens when you begin to feel symptoms is that your body didn’t get rid of the mutated cells and they reproduced into more mutated cells and that continued happening. Eventually, you develop a tumor or some other indication big enough to be detected and diagnosed.
Nobody wants cancer so there’s a lot of money and time put into learning everything we can about it with the hope of eventually eradicating it.
The thing is, there are two sides to the “coin” of every disease: prevention and cure.
Almost all of the money and time in cancer research goes into cure and hardly any into prevention. Personally, I’d rather not get it than have to be cured after I’ve been diagnosed. That feels way too late.
So, what can you do to reduce the risk of getting cancer in the first place?
The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research got together, analyzed data from 51 million people and developed a global blueprint for preventing cancer called Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer: a Global Perspective.
One of the findings that ya’ll know I’m all about is, “basing our diets around plant foods (like vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans), which contain fiber and other nutrients, can reduce our risk of cancer.”
There are 7 other findings that pertain to women over the age of 50 that I want to share here (I left out what we don’t do, like breastfeed).
- Be a healthy weight
- Be physically active
- Limit consumption of fast foods and other processed foods high in fat, starches or sugars
- Limit consumption of red and processed meat
- Limit consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks
- Do not use supplements for cancer prevention (This is about getting your needed nutrients from whole foods, not isolates and supplements. If you “hear” that Vitamin C prevents cancer, get it from food. Only supplement a vitamin if your lab work shows you are deficient in that vitamin even after you’ve tried from food.)
- Limit alcohol consumption
- Eat a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits and beans (already mentioned above).
As we’re still in January, I wanted to bring this info to your attention in case you’re in the mode of shifting to healthier habits.
Honestly, we have so much power in our daily choices and as we age, our decisions become even more important to keep our body’s daily hygiene routines up and running to their maximum potential.
And if you didn’t know it already, you’re a cancer killing machine!
