What is Cancer and What Causes It? Lifestyle and Environmental Factors: Diet, Toxins, Stress

What is Cancer and What Causes It? We’re often told that this is totally out of our control. Is it? Read this blog post to find out. I will discuss some very important lifestyle and environmental factors, including poor diet, toxicity, excessive stress, and many other factors that play a role in developing cancer. The purpose of this post is to show you how to never get cancer, or at least drastically reduce your chances of getting cancer, by removing all of the potential causes of cancer that are in our control. And for those of you who did get cancer, you’ll have a much better idea why, and know what you should do next.

 

 

Why is it Important to Talk about Cancer?

 

Many people receive a cancer diagnosis each day, with no clear explanation on why did they get cancer. It’s commonly seen as this inevitable disease with no clear cause. People of all ethnicities and ages, can get cancer. We know that around 50% of people will get cancer diagnosis at some point in their life. That’s every 1 in 2 people. It’s important to understand, what is cancer and what causes it, so that we could prevent it and effectively treat it.

 

As in any other disease, to successfully treat it, we have to first understand what causes it. Address the root cause, and repair as much damage as possible. And then make sure it does not come back in the future. And I’m not talking about conventional treatment, that doesn’t look into the cause, and only manages symptoms, gives you a quick fix, that might harm you in the long term. I’m talking about treating diseases by getting to the root cause. Functional medicine and holistic medicine is all about that.

 

 

Cancer is a multifactorial disease, that requires a holistic approach. We have to look at all the different things that affect our health. And, all the things, that compromise our health, and make us more susceptible for getting cancer. You can either read this blog post, or watch my video explaining What is Cancer and What Causes It? Lifestyle and Environmental Factors: Diet, Toxins, Stress.

 

 

Before Looking into Cancer Causes, What is Cancer?

 

Cancer is a condition where cells in a specific part of the body grow and multiply uncontrollably. Cancer develops when the body’s immune system doesn’t work properly and these changes stay unnoticed. Defective cells don’t die, and instead grow out of control, forming new, abnormal cells. These cells can form a mass of tissue, called a tumour. Cancer can begin in one part of the body, and end up spreading to other areas. This process is known as metastasis.

 

 

What causes cancer?

 

I’ll cover everything from the energy supply for cancer, factors that weaken the immune system, to things that might cause excessive toxicity, and cause you cancer.

 

Poor Diet.

Some of the most common cancer causes include poor diet, with too much sugar and other refined carbohydrates. Sugar weakens your immune system, promotes inflammation, and feeds cancer. With No sugar in your diet, you are very unlikely to get cancer. Most people tend to misinterpret what is sugar and what is a healthy diet in general. You might think, well, I don’t eat sugar. I don’t eat added white sugar, the most obvious one. But your rice, potatoes, pasta, bread, breakfast cereals, and even oats, and other similar high carbohydrate foods, are broken down into simple sugar glucose.

 

Does this glucose feed cancer? Yes, absolutely. It is advised to get 50% of your calories from carbohydrates. The only non-essential macronutrient. Meaning, you don’t need to eat carbs, to have stable normal glucose levels. That would certainly explain why so many people get cancer. As mentioned earlier, It is estimated that 50% of people will get cancer at some point in their life. Most of these cases could be prevented if everyone ate less carbs. But it’s much more than that.

 

 

 

Then next, Excess protein in the diet can lead to cancer. Excessive amino acids from proteins promote growth. Amino acids, such as glutamine, are involved in pathways that feed cancer cells and provide building blocks for cancer cell growth. We must eat the right amount of protein for our bodies, not too little, and not too much. Excess protein triggers the mTOR pathway, that promotes faster aging, and cancer. So, All the fitness people promoting low fat, high carb, high lean protein diet, will actually get you cancer if you listen to their advice.

 

 

Also, all the junk food, all the GMO foods, artificial sweeteners, refined vegetable oils, tons of food additives, pesticides, herbicides. If you look deeper at some of these food ingredients, and chemicals, you’ll find that most of them are carcinogens. They might say, you’re only getting a small amount of this carcinogen. It’s safe.

 

 

But then, what about the accumulative effect from the high processed food diet? Most people eat a highly processed food diet, where around 60% of their calories come from either processed, or ultra-processed foods. And that creates ideal conditions for cancer. Basically, if you eat mostly processed foods, like pizza, bread, and crisps, they are loaded with toxic ingredients that make you very likely to get cancer, and your immune system not being strong enough to destroy these cancerous cells, allowing them to overtake your body. Most of our calories should be coming from natural whole foods instead.

 

 

And it’s not only what you eat. How often you eat also matters. If you constantly eat throughout the day, you never stop digesting, you have elevated insulin, you don’t give your body time to go into autophagy. Which is self-eating. When you don’t eat, your body has time to heal itself, renew all the damage cells. Your immune system can function a lot better. Try to eat 2-3 times a day, with no snacking.

 

So, these are the dietary causes. Bad diet feeds cancer, promotes inflammation, intoxicates you, weakens your immune system, and prevents you from repairing the damage. Diet is very important.

 

Toxic Exposure.

But there are other things that can cause excessive toxicity, and cause cancer. Things like being exposed to something really toxic. You might be exposed to something that switches off your immune system, making you more susceptible for developing cancer. Something so toxic, that we will see a huge increase in cancer cases. A lot of people will be diagnosed with cancer. And those who previously were in cancer remission, will have their cancers coming back. It is extremely important to detoxify, and strengthen our immune system, so that we would have better chancer for preventing cancer.

 

 

Also, it’s important to use natural skincare products, shampoos, cleaning chemicals, deodorants, makeup. We need to reduce our toxic load as much as possible. Also, you should regularly detoxify from heavy metals. Watch my video or read my other blog post.

 

Stress. 

Then, another possible trigger of cancer is too much stress. Many people get cancer after a stressful life event, like losing a loved one. Stress can weaken your immune system. It was discovered by Yale researchers, that Stress induces signals that cause cells to develop into tumours. That just shows how unhealthy it is to be exposed to chronical stress. Make sure you find ways to relax and don’t allow your stress levels to get out of control.

 

Other causes of cancer include weakened immune system, lack of oxygen in the cells, lack of antioxidants from the diet, maybe you’re not getting enough of protective plant compounds, accumulation of toxic substances, such as heavy metals, exposure to radiation, and so on.