Good News & Bad News On Family Cancers

I like to start with good news first (of course). Since removing of the scar tissue in my brothers colon, he again has returned to better health. He's gained weight back and is beginning to look like himself. He's become much more active (even playing volleyball).

There's still a long process of healing for him to again go through another surgery to re-connect everything again, but in the meantime he is managing everything quite well and his spirit is good.

Now the bad news:

Two weeks ago, I was informed by my siblings that my dad (93 years old), was rushed to the hospital due to unbearable pain in his chest. Of course, your first thoughts are "a heart attack".

After extensive testing and x-rays, it was found that he has two spots on his right lung. They think it might be cancer and that is what's causing his pain.

The doctors feel because of his age surgery would not be an option anyways. So there's no real way to determine if the spots are cancer or not without a biopsy, but they were suggesting radiation.

My dad, being the age he is, has refused any type of surgery or mainstream medical treatment. He said he has lead a long and healthy life up to this point and can see no reason to go through all those arduous procedures at this time.

He has stated to the family, a number of times, that he is tired and is ready to go.

The good news:

My older sister has made him some of the Essiac tea and he takes a shot glass full three times a day. We will see, as time goes on, whether this helps him or not...I believe it will but time will tell.

They also have him on some form of steroids to deal with the pain, although it was found that he also had some kind of infection, and once the medication for that kicked in and cleared up the infection, he was doing much better as far as pain management.

It is his belief that once the pain is manageable, he will wean himself off the steroids gradually to see if the pain comes back...if not, he'll stop the steroids (which I'm all for).

It should be understood that this wonderful man still lives by himself and at this point, doesn't always eat the way he should. If there is someone there to make him meals....he'll eat! But most of the time, since it's just himself, he won't take the time or effort, to prepare himself a meal.

My sister who lives by him, does make sure when she cooks, she also makes a plate for him and usually drops it off to him (almost daily). But that's one meal a day...and he should be eating more than that. So, needless to say, the majority of the time he's just eating one meal a day!

I love him dearly and at this point, respect whatever way he chooses to address his health.

The good news:

My younger sister with the breast cancer is doing well after having gone through all the chemo and radiation (at this point). Her hair is growing back and she has a good outlook on life. Hopefully, it will not return Only time will tell. She has not adjusted her diet, so she still is eating all the unhealthy stuff.

My older sister who has had two breast cancers and thyroid cancer, at this point, is still going strong. Although she makes sure to get more veggies and fruits in her diet, she still has far too many unhealthy food choices. I believe, had she made conscientious food choices after the first cancer surgery, there would have been a good chance she would not have gone through a second and third surgery. Remember...these surgeries (second and third), were within five years of each other.

Well, that's my update for now, and I continue to gently inform them of their "bad" choices and what they should be doing to increase their chances of not having the cancer return. That's all I can do...the rest is up to them. I love them all!

Vital Steps For Fighting Breast Cancer

Whether you've been diagnosed with breast cancer or just want to prevent it, there are steps you should be taking to improve the terrain of your breasts. Self-examination is always advisable, and in most instances will find any "lumps" just as soon as a harmful mammogram will.

Add to that, a HEALTHY diet--which means at least six servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Eliminate sugar from your diet. Stevia is an all natural sweetener and, in most cases, can be found at your local grocery store. Eliminate white flour from your diet (which includes any white bread...a whole grain bread with no preservatives is much healthier and can be found in the frozen foods section).

Drink green tea instead of coffee...eliminate carbonated drinks from your diet. Green tea has EGCG, which has an anti-tumor effect on breast cancer cells (sweeten with Stevia or organic honey). Incorporate broccoli into your diet...the more the better. If you can not stand broccoli, opt for a supplement of a "super greens" food from your local health food store. One or two tablespoons added to fruit juice will give you the same benefit with additional healthy vitamins. Be sure your "super greens" incorporate chlorella and spirulina in them. Get all the information you need on these two super greens by reading Super Foods For Optimum Health.

I would also take a selenium supplement. Selenium is a mineral that is normally found in our soil and is passed onto us through the foods that are grown in that soil. Unfortunately, much of our soil is depleted of selenium and therefore, our foods are also. Selenium has been found in numerous clinical trials to reduce breast tumor sizes by as much as 44 percent. It also has reduced the size of prostate tumors.

Up your lignan intake, either by supplement or through food. Studies have shown that those countries that have a higher daily lignan intake, also have lower breast cancer rates. A great source of lignans is flaxseed. Do you think Johanna Budwig and her Budwig diet which incorporated low fat cottage cheese and flaxseed oil might have had some merit? Dr. Budwig was nominated for six nobel prizes, yet when she cured many cancers through her non-mainstream medicine methods, she was ridiculed.

Incorporating the above suggestions into your diet (with plenty of water to expel toxins, etc.), should put you well on your way to stopping and/or eliminating breast cancer as a threat to your health.

There are additional steps you should be taking depending on the stage of cancer that has been diagnosed. Detailed steps with exact amounts of supplementation as well as the Budwig recipe can be found in Cancer - Step Outside The Box.

The "Easy" Road To Cancer Treatment

I've yet to understand, after reading numerous medical reports on the "cure rates" of conventional medical treatments for cancer, how anyone could decide to take that route. I believe that the only explanation can be that it is the easiest way to deal with a cancer diagnosis.

Stop and think about it...after diagnosis, going by the options from the mainstream medical industry...you subject yourself to surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments. There's loss of hair and appetite, being tired during the whole process, destruction of your immune system, and a host of other side affects. All told, going by this precarious method of treatment, hopefully at the end of one or two years, the cancer is no longer found in your system.

On the other hand, if you had to adjust your eating habits, exercise, and make changes to your environment and normal everyday products...perhaps for the rest of your lifetime...the 1-2 years of conventional therapy and treatments, is a cake walk, right?

What most people fail to understand is that even though they take the easiest way, and even if two years down the road after the treatments, tests show that you no longer have cancer...that doesn't mean if you don't adjust your living and eating habits that cancer is not going to re-appear in some other part of your body! I can attest to this happening in most instances just from my family alone!

Remember that there are some types of cancer that have only a 15 percent 5 year survival rate (oral cancer being one of them). And a 5 years survival rate where you have half of that time feeling tired, sick, and hairless...is not quality of life.

If my survival rate is going to be less than 2-3 years, I'm going to take my chances with dietary adjustments before I let them slash and burn me so that I'm so ill, I can't enjoy what time I purportedly have left. Many people who have chosen to take this route rather than go with what their doctors suggested, are alive today to tell about it. It's not hard to find many documented cases on the internet that supports this theory, and many are willing to discuss it with you, either via email or phone contact.

But the plain truth is...poor dietary choices are what caused the problem and good dietary choices for the rest of your life is what's needed to ensure you continue to live! Most people just don't want to give up the junk food, junk beverages, sugar, white flour, preservatives, TV dinners, etc. You have to remember, at one time, we didn't have all these convenience foods available. It's only been since they have become available, that the cancer rate has risen.

Perhaps it's past time for people to start to get back to basics. Growing up in a large family, we ate what was on our plate...period. Vegetables and all! Microwaved TV dinners with a few carrots or peas, is not a healthy choice. There's a reason why fresh, raw vegetables are to be eaten. Our bodies require them in order to do all the processes it does for ridding our body of all hosts of toxins and bad bacteria. Without those vegetables, not only are you becoming nutritionally deficient in vitamins, but you are also not getting the numerous enzymes you need for absorption of those vital vitamins.

We use to have "good" milk that had no additional hormones in them. Since they are now injecting most cows with hormones in order to get higher production rates out of them, those hormones are now passed on to us through the milk we or our children drink. Is it any wonder young girls are starting ministration as young as nine years old? And some researchers are also beginning to think that the hormones in milk contributes to the number of breast cancers found each year from the increased estrogen women receive by drinking it.

Get dairy, most red meats, sugar and white flour out of your diet. Eat lots of raw fruits and vegetables. Take pollutants out of your environment, exercise, and drink lots of "good" water--for LIFE! The hard way of living without cancer? Perhaps. But I believe if more people applied themselves to one to two months of adjusting their eating habits to a more healthy one, they would probably stick with it just because they felt 100 percent better!

Researchers Finding Fruits & Veggies To Show Promise Towards Treating Cancer

More studies are proving the efficacy of a blackberry extract to be a powerful cancer fighting agent. It has now been found that black raspberries may protect against esophageal cancer. Findings are showing positive results for the reduction of oxidative stress in patients with Barrett's esophagus (BE), which is a pre-cancerous condition that is usually due to gastroesopageal reflux disease.

Research has found that BE patients have a 30-40 fold increased risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). This is one of the fastest growing cancer incidences in the United States today. There is currently only a 15 percent survival rate of five years for this type of cancer.

Researchers at Ohio State University, using animals that were chemically induced with oral, esophageal, and colon cancers, showed the berry extract reduced oxidative stress, slowed proliferation rates, decreased DNA damage, and reduced the amount of pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus and colon.

The greatest finding was that it doesn't seem to matter at what stage the disease is at, benefits are the same. Not only that, there are no side affects since it's just a food item that is being applied.

There were also findings of a blackberry gel used in a trial by Ohio State University for treating pre-cancerous oral lesions. Research has found that more than a third of pre-cancerous lesions will develop into oral squamous cell cancer. There are a reported 35,000 cases of this disease reported each year with approximately 7,500 deaths resulting per year from this type of cancer. Even if treated successfully, oftentimes the surgery required leaves a patient permanently disfigured.

After six weeks of testing on 30 participants, 35 percent of the lesions showed an improvement, and another 45 percent showed their lesions had stabilized. The gel was applied 4 times a day...once after each meal and at bedtime.

It was determined that more trials need to be implemented to determine that it was indeed the blackberry and not the gel itself or its application method that was the determining factor in the improvement of the lesions. This study was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Either way, it certainly would not hurt anyone who has oral lesions to start implementing this berry into their diet. If they are out of season, there are resources on the internet where you can buy these berries freeze-dried to get you through the months when you can't get them fresh.

Researchers from Rutgers University are also showing encouraging findings on the polypenols in green tea for preventing the growth of colorectal tumors. Their study was done on rats injected with human colorectal cancer cells. After 34 weeks, rats given the green tea extract developed 55 percent few tumors then the group that did not receive the green tea. The amount given to the rats on a daily basis would be an equivalent of 4-6 cups of green tea consumption. given a and other "natural" products that everyone who has cancer or knows a loved one who has cancer should be adding to their knowledge base.

Then you have the Roswell Park Cancer Institute findings that broccoli sprouts help to prevent bladder cancer. Again, using a rat model with chemically induced bladder cancer, a freeze dried extract of broccoli sprouts proved to significantly inhibit cancer cell growth. The extract from the broccoli sprouts appeared to have increased the enzymes in the bladder that are known to protect against oxidants and carcinogens.

.Anyone who reads this information should be very encouraged that the mainstream medical industry is finally taking steps to research protocols that could be added ammunition to the "cancer fight" and has the added benefit of being less harmful than many of the drugs and toxins that they use as treatments for today's cancer patient.
All of these news releases can be read at the American Association for Cancer Research.