Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• If we’re going to get cancer, our 60s are the most likely decade to get that diagnosis (but anything can happen at any age, of course)

  • Today’s main feature takes note of integrative oncologist Dr. Jenn Simmons’ advice for minimizing our cancer risk, or minimizing our cancer if we already have it

  • Key factors include an anti-inflammatory diet, and intermittent fasting if possible, as well as some perspective adjustments!

• Muscle loss is normal as we get older, but normal does mean good—or necessary.

  • Today’s sponsor, XWERKS, have a high-protein low-carb solution, which extra branched-chain amino acids too (that’s good).

• Today’s recipe is a superfood tabbouleh, full of nutrients for your body and brain. Check it out down below!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Mom On The Spectrum: What People Miss

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Tuesday’s Expert Insights

Get Abreast And Keep Abreast

This is Dr. Jenn Simmons. Her specialization is integrative oncology, as she—then a breast cancer surgeon—got breast cancer, decided the system wasn’t nearly as good from the patients’ side of things as from the doctors’ side, and took to educate herself, and now others, on how things can be better.

What does she want us to know?

Start now

If you have breast cancer, the best time to start adjusting your lifestyle might be 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. We realize our readers with breast cancer (or a history thereof) probably have indeed started already—all strength to you.

What this means for those of us without breast cancer (or a history therof) is: start now

Even if you don’t have a genetic risk factor, even if there’s no history of it in your family, there’s just no reason not to start now.

Start what, you ask? Taking away its roots. And how?

Inflammation as the root of cancer

To oversimplify: cancer occurs because an accidentally immortal cell replicates and replicates and replicates and takes any nearby resources to keep on going. While science doesn’t know all the details of how this happens, it is a factor of genetic mutation (itself a normal process, without which evolution would be impossible), something which in turn is accelerated by damage to the DNA. The damage to the DNA? That occurs (often as not) as a result of cellular oxidation. Cellular oxidation is far from the only genotoxic thing out there, and a lot of non-food “this thing causes cancer” warnings are usually about other kinds of genotoxicity. But cellular oxidation is a big one, and it’s one that we can fight vigorously with our lifestyle.

Because cellular oxidation and inflammation go hand-in-hand, reducing one tends to reduce the other. That’s why so often you’ll see in our Research Review Monday features, a line that goes something like:

“and now for those things that usually come together: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and anti-aging”

So, fight inflammation now, and have a reduced risk of a lot of other woes later.

See: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

Don’t settle for “normal”

People are told, correctly but not always helpfully, such things as:

• It’s normal to have less energy at your age

• It’s normal to have a weaker immune system at your age

• It’s normal to be at a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, etc

…and many more. And these things are true! But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for them.

We can be all the way over on the healthy end of the distribution curve. We can do that!

(so can everyone else, given sufficient opportunity and resources, because health is not a zero-sum game)

If we’re going to get a cancer diagnosis, then our 60s are the decade where we’re most likely to get it. Earlier than that and the risk is extant but lower; later than that and technically the risk increases, but we probably got it already in our 60s.

So, if we be younger than 60, then now’s a good time to prepare to hit the ground running when we get there. And if we missed that chance, then again, the second-best time is now:

See: Focusing On Health In Our Sixties

Fast to live

Of course, anything can happen to anyone at any age (alas), but this is about the benefits of living a fasting lifestyle—that is to say, not just fasting for a 4-week health kick or something, but making it one’s “new normal” and just continuing it for life.

This doesn’t mean “never eat”, of course, but it does mean “practice intermittent fasting, if you can”—something that Dr. Simmons strongly advocates.

See: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype

While this calls back to the previous “fight inflammation”, it deserves its own mention here as a very specific way of fighting it.

It’s never too late

All of the advices that go before a cancer diagnosis, continue to stand afterwards too. There is no point of “well, I already have cancer, so what’s the harm in…?”

The harm in it after a diagnosis will be the same as the harm before. When it comes to lifestyle, preventing a cancer and preventing it from spreading are very much the same thing, which is also the same as shrinking it. Basically, if it’s anticancer, it’s anticancer, no matter whether it’s before, during, or after.

Dr. Simmons has seen too many patients get a diagnosis, and place their lives squarely in the hands of doctors, when doctors can only do so much.

Instead, Dr. Simmons recommends taking charge of your health as best you are able, today and onwards, no matter what. And that means two things:

1. Knowing stuff

2. Doing stuff

So it becomes our responsibility (and our lifeline) to educate ourselves, and take action accordingly.

Want to know more?

We recently reviewed her book, and heartily recommend it:

The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons

Enjoy!

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

You May Have Missed

• White Noise vs Pink Noise

• Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World (book)

• Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes (book)

This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate—they’re both great, but ultimately we picked the citrate (click here to read about why), as did 46% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Recipes Worth Sharing

Tasty Tabbouleh with Tahini

Tabbouleh is a salad, but it’s not “just a salad”. It’s a special kind of salad that’s as exciting for the tastebuds as it is healthy for the body and brain:

Click below for our full recipe, and discover how tasty it is:

A Quick Question

One-Minute Book Review

The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline – by Dr. Dale Bredesen

This one didn’t use the “The New Science Of…” subtitle that many books do, and this one actually is a “new science of”!

Which is exciting, and/but comes with the caveat that the overall protocol itself is still undergoing testing, but the results so far are promising. The constituent parts of the protocol are for the most already well-established, but have not previously been put together in this way.

Dr. Bredesen argues that Alzheimer’s Disease is not one condition but three (medical consensus agrees at least that it is a collection of conditions, but different schools of thought slice them differently), and outlines 36 metabolic factors that are implicated, and the good news is, most of them are within our control.

Since there’s a lot to put together, he also offers many workarounds and “crutches”, making for very practical advice.

The style of the book is on the hard end of pop-science, that is to say while the feel and tone is very pop-sciencey, there are nevertheless a lot of words that you might know but your spellchecker probably wouldn’t. He does explain everything along the way, but this does mean that if you’re not already well-versed, you can’t just dip in to a later point without reading the earlier parts.

Bottom line: even if you only implement half the advice in this book, you’ll be doing your long-term cognitive health a huge favor.

Click here to check out The End of Alzheimer’s, and keep cognitive decline at bay!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you the best of health today and every day,

The 10almonds Team