Collage of mixed fruits and vegetables, MRI, by Wellcome Images.
Cancer. It’s one of the few diseases with a personality. The F*ck Cancer meme is much stronger than the F*ck Heart Disease meme, even though both kill a similar number of human beings. While both diseases can develop with no obvious warning signs, cancer is perceived as a sneakier, meaner disease.
Maybe that’s because cancer is mysterious. There are more than 200 different types, and risk factors and causes are multitudinous: genetics, chemical exposure, radiation exposure (including sunlight), age, certain viruses, smoking, alcohol abuse, lack of exercise … the list goes on.
But cancer isn’t a death sentence. As several of the older members of my family have experienced in the past few years, cancer can be successfully treated. Though my family members used both conventional treatments and lifestyle changes, sometimes cancer goes away with lifestyle changes alone.
About half of people in developed countries will be diagnosed with some kind of cancer in the course of their lives. 100% of middle-aged or older people will have small pockets of abnormal cell growth — microcancers — most of which will be either too slow-growing to ever cause a problem, or will be eliminated by the immune system. And if you get cancer and beat it, the only way you know for sure you are “cured” is when you die of something else.
Nobody is totally safe from cancer, but there are things we can do to improve our chances of not developing the disease in the first place. While genetic risk factors play a significant role, so do environmental (lifestyle) factors. The clinical research is there to prove it. We can prevent cancer (or at least improve our odds) in at least seven ways:
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For about a year I had noticed a very small (about 2mm by 4mm) patch of rough, scaly skin under my right eye. Sometimes it would heal up, but mostly it was slightly rough and red. I was pretty sure it was a small patch of acitinic keratosis, a skin condition that can develop into skin cancer if untreated (pretty common in the over-40 blond/blue-eyed set). I’d had them several times before in the same general area, and each time I’d gone to the doctor I’d been treated with cryotherapy (a tiny spritz of liquid nitrogen). After the treatment, the area would scab up, and when the scab fell off the skin would be pink and smooth underneath.