John Maynard Keynes has a terrific line: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” For me, the mark of a truly innovative scientist/health care practitioner lies in the ability to alter their way of thinking when present-day ideas/facts evolve from old paradigms. We are witnessing this presently with exciting new information about COVID-19 and its supposed “vaccine.” We could and hopefully will see this same phenomenon with regards to cancer prevention.

I had an interesting “brain wave” walking in the forest this morning: cancer cells speak a different language than our healthy human cells and our even more prevalent microbiota. So, to prevent and treat cancer, we must be so lucky as to decipher cancer’s uniquely original language.

By learning cancer’s language, you gain the ability to understand what essentially defines who it is and what constitutes its strengths and weaknesses.

We Were Soldiers is an excellent Vietnam War movie that accentuated the above strategy. Mel Gibson played Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, who commanded US forces at the Battle of La Drang in 1965. The movie shows Col. Moore, before he was sent to Vietnam, reading about the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 – in which the Vietnamese, led by Viet Minh commander Nguyen Huu An, decisively beat the French and drove them from Indochina. Moore had discerned the strategy the Viet Minh general had used to defeat the French. Because of this understanding, he was able to predict the same general’s moves at La Drang and make successful counter moves that saved some of his men and caused the general to withdraw.¹

For me, preventing cancer means addressing key areas in our lives whose healthy, optimal “language” could be co-opted into a dysfunctional, pro-cancer “dialect” that fuels cancer growth.

To me, these key areas are the types of food consumed, stress reduction, introducing continual daily movement into a person’s life, modification of genetic SNPs in the body, and identifying the emotional and chemical toxins to which each person is inevitably exposed. Keeping these areas humming with vitality can prevent their language from being subverted by cancer and used to fuel its growth. For sake of brevity, I will focus on the seemingly simple topic of food.

In an article many moons ago for The Townsend Letter, I penned my mantra for optimal, individual food consumption: eat local, photon-rich, nutrient-dense, fiber-rich food—not too much—according to your genetic make-up, in a calm, relaxed manner. I find that following these simple food rules is one basis for chronic disease prevention, including cancer. Next, I will proceed to look at a few sections of my mantra and their relationship to cancer prevention.

I have a favorite line I use with patients: your genes are smarter than you; try not to get in their way. Referencing my “according to your genetic make-up” above, the Inuit represent a society where this idea seems to hold true. Their genetic make-up had been virtually unchanged until about seventy years ago, but their lifestyle was about to undergo a dramatic transformation.

Descriptions from 1923 suggest that cancer was essentially nonexistent in their population² and a report from 1949 discovered 14 cases over a 10-year span.³ In the years following WWII, many Inuit were forced to relocate to large urban centers, which converted their traditional, low carbohydrate, high fat, and high protein diet of mostly fish and sea mammals into one that consisted mainly of grains and sugars. This resulted in an age-adjusted rate of traditional cancers that almost quadrupled from 1975 – 1981.⁴ Thus, their genetic blueprints, which appeared to prevent cancer, were manipulated dietarily to accommodate cancer cells as their lifestyle and, as a result, their internal milieu had changed.

Another direction in which to probe from my mantra is “nutrient–dense food.” Much food consumed in America today is calorie rich. These excess calories originate mostly in neocarbs: white and whole wheat flour and sugar. Neocarbs strongly stimulate insulin secretion. Insulin is a highly potent growth factor. A prospective cohort study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey of 1999-2010 found that among all participants—obese and non-obese—cancer mortality was significantly higher in those with hyperinsulinemia.⁵ Another study found that hyperinsulinemia was a significant risk factor for postmenopausal breast cancer, which was independent of adiposity. It also found that insulin may be driving the development of breast tumors.⁶

Let me end by fleshing out the “in a calm, relaxed manner” portion. With regards to the health of your gastrointestinal system, stress is beginning to be appreciated as a linchpin to optimal working order. With patients, I always ask them if they have been through a carwash. The vast majority say “yes.” I then convey to them that their GI tracts can be similar to a great carwash: having their cars vigorously sprayed and shaken, not stirred around a little. I tell them this is what happens when their GI tracts are happy and every integral GI part is functioning full on. They are hosing down the food with digestive enzymes and mixing in those secretions utilizing peristaltic waves and segmentation. What makes a GI tract happy/functional? It lies being in parasympathetic nervous system/relaxation mode during meals more than sympathetic nervous system/stressful mode.

Before modern civilization entered the fray, stressful situations tended to be short, sweet, and hopefully survivable. However, when one partakes in a stressful situation, human bodies need to make specific physiological adaptations so that a ravenous tiger doesn’t eat them or an inhospitable human doesn’t spear them. This requires blood being diverted to the skeletal muscles and heart and away from the GI tract, in particular. (This is why your parents told you not to swim out into the lake after a heavy meal.)

What happens if your GI tract does not receive sufficient, positive attention/blood flow?

• The gastroesophageal/cardiac sphincter doesn’t close fully → reflux.
• Stomach acid secretion is reduced → suboptimal protein digestion and lower liver, gall bladder, and pancreas secretions.
• Lower liver/GB secretions → impaired digestion of fats.
• Lower pancreas secretions → lower neutralization of acid and substandard digestion of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
• Decreased peristalsis/segmentation → longer overall transit time, especially in the large intestine, which leads to prolonged contact of the colonic mucosa with carcinogens.
• Altered Microbiota → barrier dysfunction/leaky gut which has systemic pathological consequences.⁷

Every one of the above negatives lead to a GI system out of balance. This adversely alters the language of every system of the body, which can make it vulnerable to an invasion of cancer. Hippocrates has an excellent quote: “Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small, daily sins against Nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear.”⁸ So, to really prevent cancer, one must be vigilant daily and take the preventive steps to ensure that our defenses resemble a medieval castle with impenetrable walls and a 100-foot moat around the castle laced with a plethora of hungry crocodiles. Having a healthy and optimally functioning GI tract is one part of this extremely intricate puzzle known as cancer prevention.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_Soldiers
2. Rabinowitch LM. Clinical and Other Observations on Canadian Eskimos in the Western Arctic. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 1936;34:487
3. Schafer O, et al. The Changing Pattern of Neoplastic Disease in Canadian Eskimos. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 1975;112: 1399-1404
4. Fribort JT, Melbye M. Cancer Patterns in Inuit Populations. Lancet Oncology. 2008;9: 892-900
5. Tsujimoto T , et al. Association between hyperinsulinemia and increased risk of cancer death in nonobese and obese people: A population-based observational study. Int J Cancer. 2017 Jul 1;141(1):102-111
6. Gunter MJ, et al. Breast Cancer Risk in Metabolically Healthy but Overweight Postmenopausal Women. Cancer Research. 2015;75 (2): 270-74
7. 30 years experience of teaching physiology
8. https://quotefancy.com/quote/829227/Hippocrates-Illnesses-do-not-come-upon-us-out-of-the-blue-They-are-developed-from-small