The truth about cancer

‘The truth about cancer’…that is a headline that is bound to catch the eye these days unfortunately! And that is the title of the book by Ty Bolliger that I skimmed through a few months back which drew my attention to what alternative views were out there about cancer, some views of which I don’t agree to 100%. But Ty is quite passionate about this work and is a great source for information on cancer.  You can check him out on you tube:

The truth is, a few years ago, someone like me would not have personally bothered to read any book with such a title, the truth about cancer. As far as I was concerned, I come from a family of ‘sturdy stock’. My almost 100year old grandma in Africa is still alive and kicking well. She walks to the town market by herself to shop because she doesn’t want to get ripped off by people that sell food produce near her house at exorbitant prices as she complains. The journey to and from the market is at least 10 miles. My grandma still goes by herself to pay her electricity bills at the end of the month, another journey of at least 10 – 15 miles return. Thinking about cancer was completely alien to me till my family got a rude shock last year and someone very much loved and close to me was diagnosed with the disease. That is when I realised that the best time to learn about something is not when your life depends on it. And learning about it, is not for any reason but to understand how to prevent the problem. Often times when one is desperately ill, it becomes a bit difficult to know which option of treatment to go for and whether it is best to go for conventional treatment or to try out an unorthodox approach. And by the time the person has tried the conventional route and it fails, then the person may also realise it is perhaps too late to go the unorthodox route. And if you went unothordox first and something goes wrong, then people wonder why with all your education, you went unorthodox instead of the orthodox way! Add to the mix a long list of quacks who will sell you anything if they think you are desperately ill and I’m sure you’ll agree with me that as they say, ‘prevention is better than cure’. And so is learning what you can about it when you have the time and opportunity on your hand and you can make rational decisions. This is why I have decided to write this article today, hoping that somehow, it will be of benefit to you my readers.

From my own personal research of both conventional and unorthodox medicine, I have realised that both streams of medicine agree that cancer like many diseases today is caused by toxins in the body. We all just have to accept the fact that the world our parents and grandparents lived in is very much different to the world we are living in today. The threshold for how much toxin you need in your body system and why it plays out as a particular disease (high blood pressure? Diabetes? Cancer?) is still a big question waiting for an acceptable answer.

Please look around you. Do you think you have regular exposures to sources of toxins? What are these ‘toxins’ and where do they come from? I would not be able to answer all the relevant questions you may ask in this article as it would take forever to write. But you could also take some time out personally to do some searches and educate yourself. There is a wealth of information online so ignorance is no longer blissful especially when it concerns one’s health and wellbeing. Some people already know a lot about this and many perhaps may even know more than I do. I can only encourage you to continue to practice the healthy living tips you may have picked up during the course of your research.

And I hasten to add here that I am in no way trying to cast any aspersion on conventional medicine. No not at all. I have friends and family who are medical doctors and I have seen how they work very hard to help the sick.  No, the point I am making is that, in this day and age, there are things we can do to keep ourselves healthy and give the medical doctors less work to do.  This may be a bit simplistic but I think all the different advices, tips and research work done by both conventional and herbal medical practitioners on how to maintain optimal health and keep diseases like cancer away, can be summarised as follows:

1 Regular Exercise – the British Medical Association and The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK recently revised its advice and said two and a half hours of moderate exercise (works out at an average of 21 minutes daily) was recommended for an adult to keep healthy. Better still, ‘moderate exercise’ we are adviced can include things like fast walking, gardening, cleaning and other forms of vigorous housework! I have never been  fanatic with body exercise so I sure heaved a sigh of relief when I read the revised guidelines. Again, I remember my grandma. She never jogged all her life! It was not fashionable in her days. But walking was; gardening was; and doing house chores was. Perhaps my grandma, bless her, and hopefully she doesn’t die tomorrow just to make a point, may have something to teach many of us! You can check out the nhs guidelines here: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults.aspx

2. Detox – The importance of this cannot be overstated. In my opinion, I think even with our best endeavours to be healthy, there are two major sources of toxins that we cannot get away from -toxins from the food we eat and also toxins from the environment we live in. What foods do you eat regularly? Do you know what preservatives, colourings and flavours are in the foods? What about the pesticides used in growing them? And your environment – any pollutants around? Today on BBC Radio 4 news, there was a discussion about how diesel car manufacturers were supplying cars to the UK (and the EU) that give off unacceptably high toxic fumes when the weather temperature drops below 16 deg C. Last year we were told that on average in the UK, the temperature was below this threshold for 315 days out of 365 days. Below is a 'toxic car list' developed by the University of Denver.

How much of those toxic fumes do you think we inhale daily? Never mind the smokers around us, genuinely nice people who we wouldn’t want to hurt during our socials but who smoke while they are chatting with us? Whether we appreciate it or not, there are toxic agents all around - from chemicals that we use daily at home; toxins from waste burning; toxins in the air freshener…there could even be toxins in that lovely perfume you love to wear! It is difficult to get away from all these sources of toxicity. What I have found that works is to use a good body detox regularly. Apparently, daily detox is favoured in Asia, many parts of Africa and the Nordic countries. Not surprisingly, these cultures have recorded some of the longest groups of living people on earth. For people with blood type A, if you are eating like everyone else is, and you are not detoxifying yourself regularly, we are told you would likely be experiencing problems like unexplained weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc by your forties. This is just one of the many reasons why there is need to detox.

3. Vitamins. Having had an aversion to taking medications from when I was very young, it is still a surprise for me when I catch myself recommending vitamins to people. But the truth is, we need vitamins to replenish and regularise our body system. How much benefit we get from using certain vitamins is still debatable, some researchers suggest we should not even bother with taking daily vitamins but rather eat good food. They are correct. We do need good food. But when it becomes difficult to know how good the food you are eating is and how to make sure you get all the recommended vitamins and minerals you need daily from the diet, taking vitamins as supplements is really the only good choice left.

In summary, I would like to suggest to us all that we do take some few minutes out of our daily work and grind to review our lifestyles. How healthy is it? What are you waiting for to happen before you start making the right choices for your health? You may not be able to change everything that would happen in your life. But you can choose to eat healthy, eat right and live healthy.