Cancer Fighting Foods

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Cancer Seed

          Precancerous and cancer cells are so common that nearly every one by middle age is riddled with them.  Nearly all cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the transformed cells.  It usually takes anywhere from 1 to 40 years for the “seed” of cancer in the form of cellular abnormality to become a detectable and dangerous cancerous tumour in humans.  For example, it is estimated that in breast cancer, it takes an average of seven years from the first cancer cell to awareness of lump.  This seed is more commonly born in a healthy cell due to poor diet; exposure to radiation, chemicals, toxins and infectious agents or other carcinogens such as benzo (a)-pyrene from cigarette smoke. Other less common cancer-promoting genetic abnormalities may be randomly acquired through errors in DNA replication or are inherited and, thus, present in all cells from birth. The factors contributing to cancer are so numerous and varied that no one should ever blame themselves or feel guilty for developing this disease.  In most cases, cancer is what doctors call “multifactorial”: that is, several factors add up over time to trigger it.  No psychological factor by itself has ever been identified as being capable of creating that cancer seed.  However, certain reactions to psychological stress can profoundly influence the soil (environment) in which the seed develops.  Usually the stress stems from an ordeal that creates a terrible feeling of helplessness.  Many of us have been confronted with a chronic conflict that seems insoluble or with overwhelming obligations that give a feeling of suffocation.  These situations don’t spark off cancer but they can give it an opportunity to grow faster. 

Cancer Cell Warriors

In cancer’s grip, the whole body is at war.  Cancer cells really do act like armed bandits, roving outside the law.  They are unhindered by any of the restraints a healthy body respects.  With their abnormal genes, they escape the mechanisms controlling normal, healthy tissues.  For example, they lose the obligation to die after a certain number of divisions.  They become “immortal”.  They ignore signals from surrounding tissues that tell them to stop multiplying.  Still worse, they poison these surrounding healthy tissues with the particular substances they secrete. These poisons create a local inflammation that stimulates the cancerous expansion even more, at the expense of neighbouring territories. Finally, like an army on the march seeking fresh supplies, they requisition nearby blood vessels. They force them to proliferate and furnish the oxygen and nutrients needed for the growth of what will soon become a tumour.