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| These foods are naturally good medicine. |
Although cancer is an ancient disease, its incidence and mortality have skyrocketed in the 20th Century.
Every February 4th we observe World Cancer Day.
The slogan this year is:
"Create a future without cancer. The time to act is now."
The IARC, the research arm at the WHO that looks at cancer and its causes, released a list of 116 things that have been proved to cause the disease.
The items on the following list are considered by the IARC to definitely cause cancer. To create a future without cancer, we are going to have to get rid of these.
1. Tobacco smoking
2. Sunlamps and sunbeds
3. Aluminium production
4. Arsenic in drinking water
5. Auramine production
6. Boot and shoe manufacture and repair
7. Chimney sweeping
8. Coal gasification
9. Coal tar distillation
10. Coke (fuel) production
11. Furniture and cabinet making
12. Haematite mining (underground) with exposure to radon
13. Secondhand smoke
14. Iron and steel founding
15. Isopropanol manufacture (strong-acid process)
16. Magenta dye manufacturing
17. Occupational exposure as a painter
18. Paving and roofing with coal-tar pitch
19. Rubber industry
20. Occupational exposure of strong inorganic acid mists containing sulphuric acid
21. Naturally occurring mixtures of aflatoxins (produced by funghi)
22. Alcoholic beverages
23. Areca nut – often chewed with betel leaf
24. Betel quid without tobacco
25. Betel quid with tobacco
26. Coal tar pitches
27. Coal tars
28. Indoor emissions from household combustion of coal
29. Diesel exhaust
30. Mineral oils, untreated and mildly treated
31. Phenacetin, a pain and fever reducing drug
32. Plants containing aristolochic acid (used in Chinese herbal medicine)
33. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – widely used in electrical equipment in the past, banned in many countries in the 1970s
34. Chinese-style salted fish
35. Shale oils
36. Soots
37. Smokeless tobacco products
38. Wood dust
39. Processed meat
40. Acetaldehyde
41. 4-Aminobiphenyl
42. Aristolochic acids and plants containing them
43. Asbestos
44. Arsenic and arsenic compounds
45. Azathioprine
46. Benzene
47. Benzidine
48. Benzo[a]pyrene
49. Beryllium and beryllium compounds
50. Chlornapazine (N,N-Bis(2-chloroethyl)-2-naphthylamine)
51. Bis(chloromethyl)ether
52. Chloromethyl methyl ether
53. 1,3-Butadiene
54. 1,4-Butanediol dimethanesulfonate (Busulphan, Myleran)
55. Cadmium and cadmium compounds
56. Chlorambucil
57. Methyl-CCNU (1-(2-Chloroethyl)-3-(4-methylcyclohexyl)-1-nitrosourea; Semustine)
58. Chromium(VI) compounds
59. Ciclosporin
60. Contraceptives, hormonal, combined forms (those containing both oestrogen and a progestogen)
61. Contraceptives, oral, sequential forms of hormonal contraception (a period of oestrogen-only followed by a period of both oestrogen and a progestogen)
62. Cyclophosphamide
63. Diethylstilboestrol
64. Dyes metabolized to benzidine
65. Epstein-Barr virus
66. Oestrogens, nonsteroidal
67. Oestrogens, steroidal
68. Oestrogen therapy, postmenopausal
69. Ethanol in alcoholic beverages
70. Erionite
71. Ethylene oxide
72. Etoposide alone and in combination with cisplatin and bleomycin
73. Formaldehyde
74. Gallium arsenide
75. Helicobacter pylori (infection with)
76. Hepatitis B virus (chronic infection with)
77. Hepatitis C virus (chronic infection with)
78. Herbal remedies containing plant species of the genus Aristolochia
79. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (infection with)
80. Human papillomavirus type 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59 and 66
81. Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-I
82. Melphalan
83. Methoxsalen (8-Methoxypsoralen) plus ultraviolet A-radiation
84. 4,4′-methylene-bis(2-chloroaniline) (MOCA)
85. MOPP and other combined chemotherapy including alkylating agents
86. Mustard gas (sulphur mustard)
87. 2-Naphthylamine
88. Neutron radiation
89. Nickel compounds
90. 4-(N-Nitrosomethylamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK)
91. N-Nitrosonornicotine (NNN)
92. Opisthorchis viverrini (infection with)
93. Outdoor air pollution
94. Particulate matter in outdoor air pollution
95. Phosphorus-32, as phosphate
96. Plutonium-239 and its decay products (may contain plutonium-240 and other isotopes), as aerosols
97. Radioiodines, short-lived isotopes, including iodine-131, from atomic reactor accidents and nuclear weapons detonation (exposure during childhood)
98. Radionuclides, α-particle-emitting, internally deposited
99. Radionuclides, β-particle-emitting, internally deposited
100. Radium-224 and its decay products
101. Radium-226 and its decay products
102. Radium-228 and its decay products
103. Radon-222 and its decay products
104. Schistosoma haematobium (infection with)
105. Silica, crystalline (inhaled in the form of quartz or cristobalite from occupational sources)
106. Solar radiation
107. Talc containing asbestiform fibres
108. Tamoxifen
109. 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin
110. Thiotepa (1,1′,1″-phosphinothioylidynetrisaziridine)
111. Thorium-232 and its decay products, administered intravenously as a colloidal dispersion of thorium-232 dioxide
112. Treosulfan
113. Ortho-toluidine
114. Vinyl chloride
115. Ultraviolet radiation
116. X-radiation and gamma radiation
Wow! Congratulations if you made it all the way down here.
Things like red meat that only "probably cause cancer", are not included in this list. If they were, it would have taken you many more minutes to get through.
A cancer-free future will not be attained until we also get rid of probable cancer causing agents.
And we will not be able to invent and manufacture new cancer causing agents ever again.
We will need a whole new way of doing things if we are going to get cancer numbers down, because our entire system is cancer causing.
That is why they are focusing on treatment - because we can't really avoid the cancer in the world we presently live in.
Plus, the profit is in treatment, not prevention. And profit is more important than a bunch of people dying.
All you have to do to keep the profits pouring in is steer responsibility away from the sick system by blaming people for their "poor lifestyle choices".
But really, shouldn't "capitalism" be on that list of 116 Things That Definitely Cause Cancer?
I take auto immune drugs that cause cancer, but I can walk and live a normal life with them. Without I would have dies a while ago. I am grateful,but it is a little scary.
ReplyDeleteLife is a fine balance. We are glad you are still with us.
DeleteWow! That is quite a list!
ReplyDeleteLinda
Way too huge.
DeleteI looked into cancer a while back and there are few things that come out. The first is that cancer is systemic disease and will metastasize before it is ever detected - if I remember rightly tumor cells double every 28 days. Cancer is a 2 step process - firstly damage to the DNA by a carcinogen and then a physical environment to promote tumor growth. Promoters include: obesity, estrogen, growth factor hormone,acidic environment, TMAO which is produced from animal foods by bad gut bacteria, casein protein and cooking oils. Celluar DNA is damaged all the time in the body and the immune system mostly kills them off. Breathing in oxygen is a huge factor in free radicals through oxidation.
ReplyDeleteThere are loads of problems with current medical practice which includes surgery which is not evidence based - for example in breast cancer there is no benefit except for removing the tumor which surgeons have to inform patients of, by law in Hawaii and the usual tricks - such testing drugs on less sick patients that you would see in real life - with expensive new drugs with questionable benefits. Life expectancy has not changed since the 1950's, but early detection has improved thus giving the false impression of better outcomes.
The best ways to prevent cancer are whole food plant based die, exercise, reducing stress and good sleep.
Anecdotally - so please feel free to ignore - I treated my aunt for stage two liver cancer with a strict low fat plant based diet where the tumor was too close to the artery to operate and radiotherapy and chemotherapy were ineffective and the tumor shrunk and died off with the change in diet. Interestingly, psychological support was needed as she had intense craving for cooked meat as the tumor was shrinking.
Peace,
Alex
We are 100% on board with your assessment of the situation, especially prevention.
DeleteI find it concerning that woodworking and painting are on that list. While I avoid voc paints as much as possible, I truly cannot avoid these things. I'm just grateful for sea breezes and not being downwind from the major factory town along the bay, and being able to avoid animal products entirely.
ReplyDeleteAvoiding solar radiation is difficult. I have to choose between constant plastic bottles of mineral sunblock, or sun protective clothing that can shed microfibers (although the smooth, tight weave makes shedding minimal).
Finding balance, doing the least amount of harm to both myself and the planet... I don't think it'll ever get easier, at least not in my lifetime, with the way western society is.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to avoid entirely. I often wonder what comes up here from major population centres along the eastern seaboard during a south wind. Lots of nuclear reactors down there. Troubling.
DeleteThanks for that compilation of cancer causes. It's good to be reminded of these dangers. Unfortunately, many people are stuck in neighbourhoods, stuck in jobs that are killing them. Many people also choose to ignore the warnings about smoking and smoked foods and have an attitude about a short and merry life. Since big chemical, big agriculture and big pharma are one and the same companies, we need not expect to have a reprieve from cancers. When a person is facing death they are inclined to wish for more time by whatever means. Considering the obscene cost of treatment and drugs, it's a pity one couldn't take a cash payout instead of care cost and have a final fling or whatever. I've heard so many older people say that they wished they'd never had chemo or radiation as it made their last days a misery.
ReplyDeleteSo true - we often make the end of life miserable by denying death, which is a natural part of life. Medical care should never be a for-profit undertaking because like in other areas, bad things happen.
DeleteI love the idea of a cash payout instead of care cost. We thought about this very thing A LOT when LInda was on drugs that cost the system $30,000 dollars per year.
Giving her the option of the drugs OR a cash payout would have inproved her quality of life in ways those ineffective drugs never could.