Dana Reeve, the widow of Christopher Reeve, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. But she doesn‘t fit the typical profile of a lung cancer patient; she is 20 to 30 years younger than most who get the disease, and she has never smoked.
The number of nonsmokers with lung cancer is growing, especially among women. Right now, 10 percent of men with lung cancer have never smoked, but 20 percent of women who have the illness are nonsmokers.
Possible causes may include:
Lung cancer kills about 15,000 non-smoking women each year, and the disease remains as deadly now as it did 30 years ago. Only about 15 percent of lung cancer patients survive as long as five years,
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Coming on the tail of Peter Jenning's and her husband's recent death, this was really a sad news note. My guess is that the emotional loss of Dana's husband was a factor here. In Chinese medicine, sadness and grief are associated with the lungs, and I suspect that was a factor in her development of lung cancer.
Unfortunatley, cancer is now the leading killer in the United States. An astonishing 175 people are diagnosed with cancer in America every hour. And as the toxins in your environment and your diet continue to increase, you're probably going to see more and more cancers in those who do not seem to be in traditional "at-risk" groups--such as lung cancer in nonsmokers.
If you are a smoker, your habit doesn't just affect yourself. Second-hand smoke accounts for as many as one-quarter of cases of lung cancer in non-smokers.
If you smoke around your children, they are not only at a higher risk for lung cancer, but also are more likely to get asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, and other lung diseases. Smoking endangers lives other than your own, and I urge you to stop not only for your own health but for the health of your loved ones.
But even if you are not a smoker, and don't live with one, you are not completely safe. There are, however, steps you can take to greatly reduce your cancer risk. Let me take this opportunity to remind you of my 11-step checklist for cancer risk reduction:
1. Control your insulin levels.
2. Get appropriate amounts of exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
3. Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure.
4. Get appropriate amounts of animal-based omega-3 fats, and make sure you use cod liver oil if you don't have regular access to sun exposure.
5. Eat according to your nutritional type. The potent anti-cancer effects of this principle are very much underappreciated. When we treat cancer patients in our clinic, this is one of the most powerful anti-cancer strategies we have.
6. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by your emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. Energy psychology seems to be one of the best approaches and my particular favorite tool, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
7. Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. However, please understand that, frequently, fresh conventionally grown vegetables are healthier than organic ones that are older and wilted in the grocery store. If nothing less, they are certainly better than no vegetables at all. If you are a carb nutritional type you may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than a protein nutritional type.
8. Make sure you are not in the two-thirds of the population who are overweight. Maintain an ideal body weight.
9. Get enough high-quality sleep.
10. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, electric air fresheners, and air pollution.
11. Boil, poach, or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.
Related Articles:
Second-Hand Smoke Kills Your Kids!American Cancer Society Now Believes Obesity is as Dangerous as SmokingSunshine Increases Survival Rate of Lung Cancer
Second-Hand Smoke Kills Your Kids!
American Cancer Society Now Believes Obesity is as Dangerous as Smoking
Sunshine Increases Survival Rate of Lung Cancer