Your immune system usually recognizes wayward cells that do not function as they are supposed to, i.e. Cancer. The immune system then sends out signals to those cells to self-destruct. Most of the time, this self-destruction occurs, but sometimes those initial cancer cells resist the signal and begin multiplying.
Strategy: Public education for avoidance of cancer-causing agents such as tobacco and removing known cancer-causing agents from foods, the air we breathe and the water we drink, limiting exposure to sources of radiation including sunlight and the development of cancer vaccines similar to HPV, preventing or controlling chronic inflammation in the intestine, liver and lungs should be taken up on a war footing.
Shortcomings: To prevent an illness one needs to know how it starts. For the most part, we don’t really know whether precancerous cells are already there hiding somewhere in the body, waiting to multiply when the conditions are right.
In addition, cancer cells can appear in the body at random with each cancer cell capable of developing more complex and different biomolecules, making it difficult to use the same strategy to screen, detect, classify, and prevent the same type of cancer in another person. This predicament with cancer is no different than what we experience with each new epidemic of influenza that arises from a new virus created by mutation, making it difficult to prevent despite using the vaccine made from the previous year’s viruses.
Cancer Containment
The primary reason for considering cancer containment is to reduce the intensity and/or incidence of treatment side effects such as cardiovascular disease, dental problems, increased risk of other cancers, infertility, loss of taste, lung and nerve damage and osteoporosis.
To understand how we could live in harmony with cancer, we have to look at how we do that with our intestinal bacteria, both good and bad. The colon contains millions of useful bacteria per gram of intestinal content. These bacteria provide nutrients that cells lining the intestine need to survive. They also produce vitamin K that is absorbed into the body to save us from bleeding to death when we sustain an injury.
But among these beneficial bacteria also reside harmful bacteria that could threaten our lives, if allowed to multiply. However, the beneficial bacteria far outnumber the harmful and so they appropriate most of the available nutrients for their own growth. Their survival alone curtails the availability of nutrients to harmful bacteria.
Strategy:
A cell is an independent living unit in the body. Except for muscle and nerve all human cells undergo continual death and replacement. For example, intestinal lining cells are replaced within a few days, and skin cells are replaced within weeks. In each instance, new cells are created by “stem cells”.
Every cell activity is controlled by a gene composed of two copies, one from each parent. There is one gene to initiate cell division and another to stop it. If both copies of the growth-inhibiting gene are damaged by mutations, stem cells can continue to produce new cells leading to cancer. Mutations can happen every time a cell divides or from exposure to cancer-causing agents, such as radiation, infections and chemicals.
The finding of cancer remaining dormant for many years suggests that the human body can continue living while being a host to it.
The key appears to be preventing the appearance of cancer cells that can resist the existing capabilities of the immune system. The best way to accomplish this is by limiting the multiplication of any cancer cell in the body so that new variants that resist immune attack do not emerge.
Cancer cells are formed in the body at random. However, our immune system is always on the lookout and is successful in destroying cancer cells. This means that by keeping rate of cell multiplication within a manageable level, the immune system could keep cancer contained.
Some of the current approaches that are being considered to do this are:
Modifying the dose of medications being used to a level that permits the cancer cell to live but not threaten it with destruction that could actually prompt further mutations that would enhance cell division.
Identify the molecules that prompt apoptosis or self-destruction in a particular cell type.
Block a known growth promoter specific to a cancer.
Control inflammation in the body so that cells in distress do not release molecular messengers that prompt stem cells to divide.
Similar to living with bacteria in the body, as mentioned above, we can control the growth of cancer by limiting the availability of their most important fuel, glucose that in the present-day diet comes mostly from grains and grain-flour products. In my next article, we will discuss this.
As a best-selling author and Nationally Syndicated Columnist, Dr. John Poothullil, advocates for patients struggling with the effects of adverse lifestyle conditions.
Dr. John’s books, available on Amazon, have educated and inspired readers to take charge of their health. There are many steps you can take to make changes in your health, but Dr. John also empowers us that we must demand certain changes in our healthcare system as well. This article is an excerpt taken from “Diabetes: The Real Cause and the Right Cure”, now available in a second edition.
Follow or contact Dr. John at drjohnonhealth.com.
