How to Prevent Cancer
I personally must admit I am guilty of this. It’s hard: I’ve been blessed in my life, like many of you, with a wonderful marriage, my own home, and a college degree. I eagerly anticipate having children within the next few years, and I have many other aspirations. I still have a lot to learn and look forward to in my life. In short, I am just one example of every person who’s ever existed and had dreams; I am just the vocalist of universally shared experiences.
There have never been any major health problems within my family. It’s always been a rule-of-thumb to check every box on a medical survey “no,” and health insurance was just for the paranoid or the elderly. If your genetics were good; what was there to worry about?
With many illnesses, this may be true, but “out-of-the-blue” cases do occur, hence the reason the phrase exists. It’s when you find out that your friend’s or relative’s, (or maybe even your own,) sore or tumor is cancerous that you really step out of invincible, everyday routine life and take an objective look at the real world around you. You learn to appreciate your never-faltering, or at least non-life-threatening health as your mourn for your friend. If it’s a relative, even if there is no other incident of it ever occurring within any of the rest of your family, you begin to wonder if it could affect you or your children or grandchildren someday.
The good news is, there are as many ways of preventing cancer as there are types of. If you prefer alternative (or natural) healing/medicine, I recommend reading James A. Duke’s The Green Pharmacy, as he has many remedies I myself have found helpful for various illnesses and afflictions. Otherwise, some general guidelines for preventing cancer besides regular checkups with your doctor are:
�Eat more vegetables and fruits, and less fats and red meats
âÂ?¢Have a vast variety in your diet and less monotony (one type of vegetable or fruit all the time isn’t going to do the trick)
�Eat more cereals and whole grains, and less processed sugars
�Avoid artificial food coloring or flavorings and pesticide-ridden foods
�Use a waterproof sunscreen of SPF 30 or higher, and reapply often, whenever in direct sunlight
�Use estrogen-like chemicals, like phytoestrogens from plants, rather than synthetic hormones
�Avoid alcoholic beverages
�Eliminate smoking or exposure to it, as well as polluted air
�Take time to relax-cut out as much stress as possible
âÂ?¢Exercise regularly, and avoid as many pharmaceutical (synthetic) “magic bullets” as possible
�Perform periodic self-examinations:
âÂ?¢Breast, (The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, “How to do Breast Self-Exams (BSE),” http://www.komen.org/bse/) with animation or (American Cancer Society, “How to Perform a Breast Self-Exam,” http://ww3.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6x_How_to_perform_a_breast_self_exam_5.asp) without animation
âÂ?¢Vulvar, (IVF.com, “What Every Woman Should Know,” http://www.ivf.com/vse.html)
âÂ?¢Testicular, (SoYouWanna.com, “SoYouWanna Perform a Testicular Self-Exam?” http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/testexam/testexam.html)
âÂ?¢Oral, (Floss.com, “Oral Cancer Self-Examination,” http://www.floss.com/oral_cancer_selfexam.htm)
âÂ?¢Skin, (Skin Cancer Foundation, “How to Spot Skin Cancer,” http://www.skincancer.org/self_exam/spot_skin_cancer.php)
Cancer, like our dreams in life, is also a common experience among our American society, and something to be aware of, no matter if it’s in your family blood or not. Cancer can be caused by variants other than your genes, as we all know well too much sun can, for example. Regular check-ups are the best way to tackle cancer-catching it early on will benefit you greatly. I can’t stress enough how important it is to be examined for cancer. It is, after all, a life-threatening illness. With all the medical opportunities there are today, including the various beneficiary services for those in financial need, there is no reason a simple checkup can’t be done in conjunction with the regulation of your health and diet. It may save your life.
