Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, let’s spread some real cancer awareness. Western medicine’s approach to cancer treatment is based on profit, not safety and effectiveness.

Let’s recap just a handful of the numerous deadly conventional cancer drugs on the market, and then I’ll share with you the best cancer-avoidance techniques I know.

Cancer Drugs – All Hype, Very Little Substance

Prices for new cancer therapies have skyrocketed. Cancer drug costs rose nearly 16 percent in 2006, while other prescription drugs averaged a 3 percent price increase.

But are they worth it? The fact is, these expensive medications often give patients just a few more months of life – and sometimes they kill people prematurely.

Take a look at these examples.

• AVASTIN – Avastin, when used to treat colorectal cancer, sold for $50,000 per year. However, once it was approved to treat breast and lung cancer as well, Genentech announced a new price tag: $100,000 per year, even though it may extend your life by no more than a few months. 
• ERBITUX – Another colorectal cancer drug, with a price tag of nearly $10,000 per month, even though there is not a single study showing it helps colorectal cancer patients live longer. 
• EVISTA (Raloxifene) --  This Eli Lilly drug was found to prevent breast cancer by one-third in a study of more than 10,000 postmenopausal women. Your true cost? Trading your breast cancer prevention for a 50 percent increased risk of fatal strokes and blood clots. Ironically, Evista was once sold as an osteoporosis drug, being illegally promoted for treating cardiovascular disease back in 2002. 
• GLEEVEC – Also sold under the name Glivec. This cancer drug, used to treat leukemia, unfortunately also kills heart muscle cells, which may cause fatal congestive heart failure. 
• ABRAXANE – A new version of an old cancer drug, Taxol, sells for $4,200 per dose. The older version, which has similar effects, costs 25 times less. 

The financial sacrifices you might make in order to afford a “miracle” cancer drug can be staggering. But what you need to know is that these exorbitantly priced drugs do not in any way, shape, or form, treat the cause of your problem, and pharmaceutical companies earn billions of dollars on this deception.

It seems that the more serious and life threatening the disease, the more expensive your drug solution is. The very vocal former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell, sums up the situation brilliantly: "It's really exploiting the desperation of people with a life-threatening illness."

So, how can they get away with charging such astronomical prices that only the very wealthy can afford? In case you were not aware of it, it’s a very specific strategy. The trick is to have your insurance company pay for it, or their main backup, YOU, through the federal government and your taxes.

This kind of behavior is the reason why the United States spends more than $2 trillion every year for healthcare, and it is ruining the American economy in the process -- all due to corporate greed.

Making matters worse, as soon as a drug company comes out with a more expensive alternative, that’s the pill they’ll promote to both you and your physician. Suddenly, they want you to believe the older drugs are virtually worthless even though just a few years prior, when they were the new kid on the block, they were being heavily promoted as your latest and greatest must-use approach.

How to Prevent Cancer

Is it possible to prevent cancer? Yes. It is possible. But not by swallowing a chemical cocktail.

A more sensible, safer, and less expensive approach is to simply make some lifestyle changes. Even the American Cancer Society – which is as traditional as medical organizations come -- now suggest you can achieve a 62 percent risk reduction with simple lifestyle changes, including:

• Make sure you get adequate sun exposure as that will not only reduce your risk of breast cancer by 50 percent, but ALL other cancers by the same amount. Remember that one million people die EVERY year due to lack of optimal sun exposure.
• Eat healthier (ideally based on your body's unique nutritional type)
• Incorporate more exercise in your daily routine
• Stop smoking today
• Perform monthly breast self-examinations

But, one of the skills my father drilled into me from early childhood was: “Never settle for second best.” Why would you settle for a meager 62 percent reduction?

I believe you can VIRTUALLY ELIMINATE your cancer risk if you follow these risk reduction strategies, even though they have not been formally "proven" yet by conservative researchers, including:

1. Control your insulin levels: Make certain that you limit your intake of processed foods and sugars as much as possible.

2. 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.

3. Get appropriate 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.

4. Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure, or use a safe tanning bed. Alternatively you could use oral vitamin D and carefully monitor blood levels to prevent overdose.

5. Eat according to your nutritional type. The potent anti-cancer effects of this principle are very much under appreciated. When we treat cancer patients in our clinic, this is one of the most powerful anti-cancer strategies we have.

6. Have a tool to permanently erase your neurological short-circuiting, which can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by 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. If you are a carb nutritional type you may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than a protein nutritional type.

   Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. However, please understand that, frequently, fresh conventionally grown vegetables are still healthier than old and wilted organic ones. They are certainly better than no vegetables at all.

8. Maintain your ideal body weight.

9. Get enough high-quality sleep.

10. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners, and air pollution.

11. Boil, poach, or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.

Save your health and your money. You work too hard to waste either one on man-made "miracle" drugs and cures.