Dear Health Conscious Reader
Cancer. Just the word evokes fear.
The medical journals and newsletters I get are often filled with articles about cancer. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Once someone mentions it, it’s all you can think about.
And if you’re a regular reader, you probably won’t be surprised that most of the cancer-related articles in medical publications are only about drug treatments.
I’ve even read research on whether or not aspirin prevents cancer. I wonder who’s sponsoring those studies … Are they really trying to tell us that people are getting cancer because of a deficiency of aspirin?
The truth is, cancer rates are not rising because we’re deficient in man-made painkillers. Cancer is increasing because of our man-made toxic environment.
Here’s something positive about cancer that most people don’t know…
Cancer was almost unknown in ancient times.
Why is this good news? Because it means you don’t need any scary science to prevent it.
In a study completed just recently and published in the journal Nature, researchers looked at tissue samples from hundreds of Egyptian mummies. There should have been evidence of cancer in all of them, according to modern cancer statistics. And mummification would have preserved any sign of tumors.
But instead of finding cancer in nearly every mummy … they found only a single case. The hundreds of other mummies showed no sign of cancer at all.1
These results would be impossible if cancer were not an entirely modern plague. Statistically, it could not happen.
And it wasn’t because Egyptians didn’t live long enough to get cancer. The mummies had evidence of age-related problems like brittle bones and hardened arteries.
What we should be doing today is trying to mimic the environment we had back then. That’s what we should be paying attention
to.Researchers from some of the largest institutions in Texas are trying to help. They recently revealed how cancer begins. It starts with weakened cells.
Strands of DNA sometimes get broken through your body’s natural processes. Your cells then send signals to your body to repair your DNA. If the response is deficient, or no help comes at all, those cells become vulnerable to cancer.2
What happens today that did not happen in out native environment is that those breaks occur a lot more often. They’re caused by things like environmental pollutants and chemical ingredients in food. Our bodies haven’t adapted to the huge increase in these man-made toxins over a very short period.
So let me be as clear as I can: Cancer isn’t a “normal” part of life. Toxins and chemicals are interfering with your natural ability to defend yourself.
The most important thing you can do is to strengthen your cells, so they’re more disease-resistant. And that means making sure your body has the energy and the nutrients to repair and maintain those cells.
The three most important nutrients you need to keep your cells strong are also the ones chronically deficient in today’s world. They are vitamin C, vitamin D and CoQ10.
1. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that disarms damaging free radicals before they can attack healthy cells and stimulate tumor growth.
We also now know that the protective caps on the ends of your DNA, called telomeres, are very sensitive to this kind of damage. The shorter your telomeres, the older your cells act and the more susceptible they are to becoming cancerous. The new, exciting discovery about vitamin C is that it’s very effective at defending you against this process and protecting your DNA.
We get some vitamin C from our food, but not nearly enough. The foods with the most vitamin C include dark green, leafy vegetables, and “superfruits” like the acerola cherry. Also, you probably don’t think of them this way, but peppers are the kings of vegetable vitamin C. Watercress is also a little-known but rich source of vitamin C. If you choose to supplement, try to get 1,500 mg twice a day if you’re healthy. If you’re under a lot of stress, or if you are sick, you can take as much as 20,000 mg per day.
2. Low Vitamin D levels are strongly linked to cancer. A report out of a university in Nebraska showed that vitamin D has the potential to lower the risk of all cancers in women by 77 percent.3
Researchers at the University of California San Diego found you can lower your risk of breast cancer by 50 percent, and colon cancer by more than 65 percent, simply by boosting your vitamin D levels through sunlight, diet or supplements.4,5
A Harvard-sponsored report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute revealed that when men raise their vitamin D intake, they can lower their overall risk of cancer death by 29 percent, drop rates of “digestive tract” cancers by 43 percent (throat, stomach and colon), and reduce death rates from these cancers by 45 percent.6
The best source of vitamin D is sunshine. Your skin produces vitamin D when the sun’s rays shine on you. Ten to 20 minutes of sun gets you a full day’s supply of it. To supplement with vitamin D, make sure you take the natural form, D3. I recommend at least 2,000 IU per day.
3. CoQ10 is one of the most overlooked nutrients. The government doesn’t even have a recommended daily intake for it. But it’s the fuel your cells use to make energy. That means it’s the primary source of energy for the immune cells that get suppressed by cancer. CoQ10 restores their ability to fight back and attack cancer cells. Like vitamin C, it’s also a powerful antioxidant that blocks free radicals from damaging your DNA.
Besides helping to prevent cancer, there are many clinical trials in which CoQ10 helps heal people who already have cancer. In one, researchers in Denmark studied a group of breast cancer patients. They gave them CoQ10, plus a combination of other antioxidants and essential fatty acids.
The entire group had a partial remission of the cancer. Two of the patients received larger doses of CoQ10 (390 mg) and their tumors disappeared.7 In no way am I saying stop your cancer treatment and only take CoQ10. What I am showing you is the power of this important nutrient against cancer.
The best way to get CoQ10 is by eating red meat from grass-fed animals. Grain-fed meat is not a good source of CoQ10. If you want to supplement, the form you get is very important. I recommend 50 mg of the ubiquinol form, which is 8 times stronger and is better absorbed than the old form.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 David, A. Rosalie, Zimmerman, Michael R., “Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?” Nature Reviews Cancer Oct. 2010;728-733
2 Nicolette, Matthew L., et al, “Mre11–Rad50–Xrs2 and Sae2 promote 5′ strand resection of DNA double-strand breaks,” Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Oct. 2010; 17: 1478–1485
3 Lappe, et al, “Vitamin D Status in a Rural Postmenopausal Female Population,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 2006; 25(5):395-402
4 Garland, et al, “Vitamin D and prevention of breast cancer: Pooled analysis,” Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2005; 97(1-2):179-94
5 Gorham, et al, “Optimal Vitamin D Status for Colorectal Cancer Prevention: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32(3):210-216
6 Giovanucci, et al, “Prospective Study of Predictors of Vitamin D Status and Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Men,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2006; 98(7):451-459
7 Lockwood, K., Moesgaard, S., Folkers, K., “Partial and complete regression of breast cancer in patients in relation to dosage of coenzyme Q10,” Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. March 30, 1994;199 (3):1504-8
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