The best approach to treating and preventing cancer

In 1999, when I wrote Say No to Cancer, I predicted that, by 2014 a person’s risk of developing cancer in their lifetime would be one in four. In fact, it is one in three already. And by 2020, experts are now predicting this will have increased to one in two. The tragedy is that most of this risk is completely avoidable by simple changes to both diet and lifestyle factors which expose us to a plethora of carcinogens, which promote cancer cells and also suppress the immune system.

While we are told that great strides are being made in cancer treatment, the truth is that nothing substantial has changed. For example, in 1999 a committee of top cancer experts in the US said: “Over the last decade some 5 million Americans have died of cancer and there is growing evidence that a substantial proportion of these deaths was avoidable.” In 2009 there were 560,000 deaths. Do the maths. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there has been less than a 1% decrease in the rate of new cancer diagnosis. Neither the death rate nor the incidence of new cases has changed. The best approach to treating and preventing cancer Treatment is one thing but for prevention – both before and after diagnosis – to be effective, it has to respect the fact that the cancer process is multifactorial. It depends on:

a) Reducing exposure to carcinogens, of which there are thousands in our modern environment and diet;

b) Improving one’s ability to repair damaged DNA;

c) Controlling factors that stimulate cell growth, which include common ‘insulin resistance’ and drinking milk; and

d) Diet and lifestyle habits that strengthen immunity – from vitamin D and sunlight exposure to eating berries and upping antioxidants.

If a person has cancer, or early-stage cancer risk, these prevention factors have to be applied aggressively, not just as advice to ‘eat a well balanced diet’. I think the main problem is that conventional medical thinking has a hard time processing multi-factorial ’causes’. These don’t lend themselves to simple treatments. Conceptually, cancer treatment hasn’t changed. Surgical procedures have slightly improved and, while reducing the cancer load on the immune system, don’t actually address the underlying cause.

Also, many cancers are inoperable. Radiation, again, can lessen the cancer cell load, but at a cost. Chemotherapeutic drugs, in most cases, have low success rates, and greatly weaken immunity. Vitamin C and salvestrols show promise But there have been real strides in nutrition-based anti-cancer strategies that both kill cancer cells and boost immunity, rather than weaken it. Two that are most promising are intravenous and/or megadose vitamin C and salvestrols, both of which I discuss in the new edition of my book Say No to Cancer. Vitamin C you are more than likely familiar with, although perhaps not for its anti-cancer properties. But salvestrols are not as well known. These are a group of naturally-occurring plant compounds present in certain fruits and vegetables, discovered in 1998 as a result of the combined research of Professor Dan Burke, a pharmacologist, and Professor Gerry Potter, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Cancer Drug Discovery Group at Leicester’s De Montfort University.

Salvestrols contain substances which can be changed by an enzyme, present in both pre-cancerous and cancerous cells, to produce a toxic chemical which brings about ‘cell death’ (apoptosis) and therefore destroys the cancer cells. Salvestrols are also highly selective and only active in cancer cells, so are non-toxic to other cells. You can read more in my Special Report: Salvestrols – a major breakthrough in cancer prevention. Or as above, in the new Say No to Cancer book. The great news about nutrition-based strategies, both for treatment and prevention, is that they can be done alongside conventional approaches, improving the odds substantially. In the last decade there has been so much positive research showing how to make yourself cancer-proof that I’ve completely rewritten Say No to Cancer, which is now more than double the size, and am doing a nationwide tour, both in the UK and Ireland, to help you learn the simple tricks to boosting your body’s own defenses against cancer, and also infections, and how to stack all the odds in your favour to never get cancer. Click here to find out more about the tour.