Invest in your health now to ward off cancer and other chronic issues later in life, says Dr Leigh Erin Connealy
We are living in unprecedented times. One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, the age of those diagnosed continues to decrease, and I predict that cancer rates will rise 30 percent in the next five years.
Once upon a time, cancer was a disease that affected mostly “old” people, but that simply isn’t the case anymore. I used to use the analogy of car maintenance in relation to health. I would tell patients that our bodies have a kind of warranty until around age 40. That’s when all the screenings and early testing should start.
But the toxic world we live in—polluted by heavy metals, pesticides, smog, electromagnetic fields, hormone-disrupting chemicals and the like—is causing cancer rates to skyrocket in people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.
Less-than-perfect lifestyle choices are also a contributing factor. Now more than ever, it’s crucial for younger people to take control of their health and start protecting this miracle we call life. We must shift our focus to prevention and self-care.
Look at it this way: You can pay for healthcare now or pay for disease care down the line.
No matter how old you are, there are steps you can begin taking today that will positively impact your health and help ward off disease. If you’re on the younger side, even better.
Deciding right now to implement lifelong, sustainable changes in the following areas can go a long way toward cancer prevention and improve your chances of living a long, disease-free life.
Hippocrates famously said, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” Fueling our bodies with the proper nutrition is essential for preventing disease and engendering health.
Behave as our ancestors did; if you can’t kill it or grow it, avoid eating it. (There’s no such thing as a cookie tree or a bagel bush!)
Eat plenty of protein-rich lean, organic, grass-fed and grass-finished meat and poultry; sustainably raised, wild-caught fish; organic, raw dairy products; and organic eggs. Choose a variety of leafy green, non-starchy vegetables and low-glycemic fruits and fill your plate with the colorful blessings of Mother Nature’s bounty.
Consume healthy fats from nuts, seeds, avocados and coconut oil. Avoid added sugars, starchy carbohydrates and processed foods, and use stevia or monkfruit as blood sugar–friendly sugar substitutes.
One helpful tip is to shop mostly the perimeter of your grocery store (meats, produce, dairy). The aisles are filled with shelf-stable processed items with impossible-to-pronounce ingredients and chemicals.
Shopping at your local farmers’ market is another great option if you have access to one. Additionally, consider growing your own garden. The fruits and vegetables you nurture and harvest will taste even better—and be pesticide free.
We live in a sleep-deprived world, and it’s damaging our health in multiple ways. Lack of sleep can cause drowsiness and irritability in the short term and, over time, contribute to more serious conditions, including cancer.
Many of us stay up too late or use blue-light-emitting devices before bed that halt melatonin production, delaying sleep. Erratic sleep, disruptions in the sleep-wake cycle and altered melatonin levels are particularly troublesome.
A review published earlier this year in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences found “Disruptions to the circadian rhythm can promote abnormal cell development and tumor metastasis, potentially due to immune system imbalances and hormonal fluctuations.”1
Our bodies thrive in a homeostatic or balanced state, and good sleep hygiene is an integral part of keeping ourselves leveled out. Try to go to bed around the same time every night, stay off your phone and don’t watch TV in the hour before you go to sleep, don’t drink caffeine in the afternoon or evening if you’re sensitive, and make sure your room is cool and dark to promote restful slumber.
Aim for at least seven hours of sleep each night and try a natural sleep aid, such as melatonin, valerian root or 5-HTP, if needed.
It’s been said that “sitting is the new smoking,” and research continues to prove that being sedentary and not getting enough exercise is hazardous to health. As Professor James Levine from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine warned, “Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV, and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”2
While sitting for eight or more hours a day is decidedly detrimental to health, the great news is that inactivity can be offset by exercise. In an analysis of studies that included over 1 million people, researchers concluded that 60–75 minutes of daily, moderately intense exercise could counter the effects of prolonged sitting.3
You don’t have to run marathons or do vigorous workouts to be active; you just need to get up and move your body daily. Take five-minute walks after meals to aid digestion and stabilize blood sugar. Do yoga or tai chi, or take an exercise class.
Walk around the house or outside when you take phone calls. Meet friends or co-workers for group hikes or play an outdoor sport like tennis or pickleball to stay active and soak up a little extra vitamin D. Just do something physical every day for at least 30 minutes if you’re able.
Nearly every patient I’ve treated at the Cancer Center for Healing has had some form of significant stress or unresolved conflict in their lives. These traumas range from divorce, death and estranged relationships with friends and loved ones to chronic stress due to finances, illnesses and other causes.
They have a monumental and detrimental effect on health. The long-term strain on the body created by these toxic emotions has been linked to cancer and other serious conditions, which is why you must get a handle on them and focus on healing.
One excellent therapy for unresolved trauma is a perception-reframing treatment called EVOX. It uses the energy, tones and inflections of a person’s voice to determine their feelings about certain topics.
This information is plotted on a Perception Index graph, which an EVOX specialist uses to determine which frequency signatures are best suited to a patient’s unique stressors. A specially designed hand cradle transmits these healing frequencies to the patient to help “remap the brain” and relieve stress, anxiety and past trauma.
Proper hydration is essential to regaining and maintaining health and keeping disease at bay. After all, our bodies are made up of 60–70 percent water.
Being well hydrated ensures optimal circulation, delivering oxygen and nutrients to the cells and carrying away metabolic waste. Your brain is like a sponge; when you’re dehydrated, its tissues shrink and don’t function normally.
Dehydration thickens the blood, increases blood pressure and negatively impacts your liver and kidneys. Thirst also often mimics hunger, so dehydration can cause you to overeat.
Aim to drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of purified water or other (mostly) clear beverages each day to stay adequately hydrated. Green, black and herbal teas; sparkling water; and lemonade made with fresh lemon juice, purified water and a little stevia or monkfruit are all excellent thirst-quenchers.
Even if you eat a perfect diet, nutritional supplements are often warranted. Let’s face it: Our food is not as healthy as it used to be.
Crops are bathed in pesticides, and the soil has been depleted of nutrients and contaminated by dirty groundwater. Animals are fed unhealthy diets and treated with a slew of antibiotics. And most people, despite good intentions, are simply not eating as well as they should.
A good blanket recommendation of basic supplements is listed below. However, I strongly suggest you work with a functional medical practitioner to determine which supplements will meet all your individual needs.
Vitamin C: Taken orally, vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant, immune booster and anti-cancer supplement. Used intravenously at high doses, it’s also a known cancer fighter.
Suggested dosage: Up to 10,000 mg (10 g) daily, starting with 2,000 mg and working your way up until you have a C-flush (a runny bowel movement); the dose just before the C-flush is your ideal dose
Vitamin D3: Vitamin D3 positively influences more than 200 genes in the body and is a potent ally in cancer prevention. It boosts the immune system, reduces inflammation, and can inhibit cancer cell growth and encourage cancer cell death (apoptosis).
Suggested dosage: Follow label instructions or, ideally, have your blood level tested and adjust the dosage to aim for 50–70 ng/mL
Probiotics: Every year, research continues to link a healthy gut microbiome to a strong immune system. Populating the gut with healthy flora is an integral piece of the overall health puzzle. The microbiome is constantly under attack from environmental toxins, overuse of antibiotics, poor diets and pathogens, so it’s essential to replenish the “good bugs” daily.
Suggested dosage: Choose a high-quality, multi-strain formula and follow label instructions
Inflammation is a normal bodily response to any injury or infection. But chronic, systemic inflammation is a warning sign that something is out of order.
Chronic inflammation is at the root of nearly every disease, including cancer. As the months and years of inflammation go on, cellular function is compromised, and organs and body systems begin to fail. Fortunately, a simple blood test can measure levels of C-reactive protein to determine whether inflammation is present.
In healthy individuals, very low levels of CRP should be present at any given time. Usually, levels under 0.3 mg/dL are deemed normal. CRP levels in the 0.3–1.0 mg/dL range are considered a normal or minor elevation resulting from conditions such as obesity, pregnancy, diabetes, a cold, gum disease or a sedentary lifestyle.
Moderate elevations, 1.0–10.0 mg/dL, suggest systemic inflammation caused by an autoimmune disease, cancer, heart disease or serious infection.
Levels higher than 10.0 mg/dL signal acute bacterial or viral infections, systemic vasculitis or major trauma. Excessive levels of 50.0 mg/dL or more arise from potentially lethal bacterial infections, like sepsis.4
Many lifestyle changes, such as losing weight; supplementing with omega-3 fatty acids, curcumin and vitamin C; getting regular exercise; and consuming an anti-inflammatory diet can be tailored to your individual needs by your integrative physician and/or nutritionist.
While it’s impossible to turn back the clock, you can take control of your health moving forward, regardless of your age. Partner with an integrative practitioner you trust who believes in health care instead of disease care and encourage the younger people in your life to do the same. The earlier you can join forces with a functional medicine doctor, the better.
In addition to yearly checkups and annual comprehensive bloodwork, I strongly suggest finding a practitioner near you who can conduct a bio-immune survey. Using acupuncture points, the bio-immune survey assesses the meridian pathways to determine how energy is flowing through the body.
Blockages in specific areas indicate issues in corresponding organs and body systems. This type of testing can reveal cancer in early stages and is a crucial tool for helping us fine-tune prevention and treatment protocols for various diseases.
If we want to survive and thrive, we must shift the collective focus to human optimization, early detection, and prevention of cancer and other chronic illnesses. Come see me and my team at the Center for New Medicine in Irvine, California, or find someone like-minded near you via the American College for Advancement in Medicine (acam.org) or the Institute for Functional Medicine (ifm.org).
Paying for prevention now will help you avoid paying with your health later.
For more peace of mind and to be more proactive about early cancer detection, I suggest further screening. One blood test we do on nearly every patient is called the liquid biopsy from a lab called Research Genetics Cancer Center.
Liquid biopsy detects circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating free DNA in the blood. CTCs and free DNA break off from tumors and travel through the body, looking for new places to “nest.” The liquid biopsy can accurately determine whether certain cancers are present long before any mass is visible on a PET scan or MRI.
Early detection allows many cancers to be caught in their early stages, when treatment outcomes are improved and patients typically have a better prognosis.
We also use a variety of tests from Datar Cancer Genetics. These tests help screen for, diagnose and monitor a wide variety of cancer types.
Like the liquid biopsy, some of the Datar tests measure CTCs, while others test the efficacy of different chemotherapy drugs, repurposed drugs and nutritional supplements on specific cancers. This type of individualized testing leads to personalized, fine-tuned protocols that give our patients the best chance of fighting and overcoming cancer.
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