Most cancers grow very slowly, silently eating away at your body,
before they manifest themselves.
In spite of claims by the National Cancer Institute of successful
treatment, after a cancer emerges, medicine is usually powerless.
Every time you are set at ease by statements of the cancer industry,
remember the rapid death of Jaquline Kennedy Onassis of
lymphoma and Michael Landon of pancreatic cancer.
If there was an effective treatment anywhere in the world, don’t you
think such enormously rich people would have bought it?
So if a little of the right exercise can prevent cancer, it’s worth more
than all the gold in Fort Knox. And like all other good things in life…..
it’s totally free!
In my article about exercise to lower cholesterol, I referred to the
study of Dr. Kenneth Cooper who followed 13,344 men and women,
for fifteen years. After eliminating interfering factors, incidence of all
forms of cancer was closely correlated with lack of physical fitness.
Unfit men and women had 300% more change to develop cancer.
The fitter the subjects were, over five levels of fitness, the lower
their risk of cancer. But the best finding from this study is that you
have to move only a fraction out of couch potatoland to prevent
cancer big time.
“You don’t have to be a marathon runner. A half hour of exercise
four or five days per week can drop cancer risk dramatically,”
according to Dr. Carl Casperson of the Centers For Disease
Control in Atlanta.
There are numerous new studies showing that exercise inhibits
specific cancers. So I will restrict to two prominent examples,
one for women and one for men.
Breast cancer is the most common female cancer and the third
biggest cancer killer in America. More women are developing
and dying from breast cancer today than in the 1960’s, including
all other cancers of the female reproductive organs, like uterine
cancer and ovarian cancer.
Together they make 220,000 victims among the American women
ech year. It will be a winner for every woman if simple exercises
can help prevent such disaster.
In a major study , Dr. Rose Frisch and colleagues at the Harvard
School of Public Health, followed 5000 women college students.
Those who exercised from high school on had many fewer breast
cancers and reproductive system cancers than their inactive
class mates.This evidence is clear. Regular exercise can stop
female cancers cold.
The regulation of estrogen and other sex hormones is the major
mechanism, by which exercise prevents these cancers.
If left unchecked, can cause uncontrolled cell proliferation in the
female reproductive system.
It seems that women who exercise regularly are simply activating
an essential health mechanism in their bodies, designed to be
activated in just that way by the Almighty hand that created all
life on earth.
What about exercise and cancer in males? I like to use examples
of colon and rectal cancers, although these are also a leading
cause of cancer in women. Colo-rectal cancers are the second
leading caner category , with more than 155,000 new cases
every year. Red meats and animal fats are major causes, but
so is inactivity.
A large study measured the exercise levels and the resting heart
rates of 8000 men over 21 years. As I mentioned in my previous
articles, resting heart rate is a good measure of fitness and
provides a good check on reported exercise. The risk of colon
and rectal cancers was directly correlated with heart rate.
An even larger study tracked 17,000 Harvard students for 25 years.
Subjects who were highly active, burning 2500 calories or more
i exercise each week, showed only half the risk of colon cancer
as their inactive fellow students.
The mechanism by which exercise probably prevents colo-rectal
cancers is simple and also part of the human design.
Exercise naturally promotes regular bowel movements and
increases the speed of excretion of food wastes.
As a result it reduces time for carcinogen formation and also
prevents prolonged contact between carcinogens and intestinal
walls. In our constipated society that spends a whopping
$700 million per year on harmful (oops! “gentle, safe and soothing”)
laxatives, this kind of evidence should be a wake up call to exercise.
These studies are just a fraction of the mass of intense research
in respected medical journals, proving that exercise prevents cancer.
But nowhere in any of the public advice hand-outs from the National
Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society mention exercise
as a means of preventing cancer.
Unlike pharmaceuticals and medical treatment, exercise is free
of course and available to everyone. So it garners no grants,
solicits no ads and makes no obscene profits.
In the American Cancer Society’s professional journal, called CA
for example, a new analyses of risk factors for breast cancer
includes everything. From residence in northern states to socio
economic class, except couch potatoism.
Anyone less trusting than I might suspect that geniuses who
populate our health agencies, are either far too brilliant to bother
with lowly scientific research, or they dance to more moving music.
“One-step, two-step, I’ll scratch you-step, if you’ll scratch me-step,
Tee Hee Hee-step.”