8 Steps to Treating and Preventing Cancer from the Inside-Out

Cancer can only grow in an oxygen (prana) depleted body, according to numerous pieces of research as well as the sister science of yoga, Ayurveda. This ancient healing modality utilizes lifestyle changes, diet suggestions, and detoxification in order to prevent cancerous cells from having an ideal ‘host’ environment in which to grow.

Often, if cancer has already developed, these practices can even help to diminish cancerous cell growth, if not eradicate it altogether. What’s more, Ayurvedic practices are highly effective when practiced as a preventative measure.

Following are 8 suggestions from Ayurvedic medicine to help increase prana in the body and prevent diseases such as cancer:

1. Green Your Diet

Whole, fresh, non-GMO, organic, sun-ripened, enzyme-rich, alkalizing, and plant-based foods restore pranic energy and oxygenation to all cells. Fruits, greens, sprouts, and vegetables as the primary source of your calories can completely change your body and your Ph levels, creating alkaline blood. Numerous studies have shown that cancer cannot grow in an alkalize, or Ph-balanced body (levels between 7.35 and 7.45).

Here are 14 more alkalizing-foods that can help you to achieve a proper Ph.

2. Add Sea Vegetables and Algae

There is both historical and recent anecdotal evidence of successfully treating and preventing cancer in humans with traditional seaweed formulations. Harvard School of Medicine has found that sea vegetables and algae help to treat breast cancer. Additionally, in 1985, Dr. Yamamoto stopped cancerous tumor growth in rats using only kelp powder dissolved in hot water.

These foods cannot be overlooked as both cancer preventative and cancer-treating.

3. Eat Foods with a Low Glycemic Level or Low Sugar Content

Spikes in our glucose levels cause all sorts of havoc on the bodily systems. While it isn’t a simple correlation, eating high levels of sugar can also ‘feed’ cancerous cells. This was evidenced in research by the 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., who first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells. There is a bunch more recent research finding similar conclusions.

The typical American diet is often full of sugar and simple carbohydrates, which are cancer’s heaven. By eliminating these types of food, the body becomes less hospitable to cancerous cells. Sugar also has no essential nutrients, and basically takes up space in calories where you could have eaten something that rejuvenates and truly nourishes the body.

Glucose and fructose also overload the liver, which can make it harder for your body to detoxify itself. Having too much glucose in the body is highly toxic, and causes a number of diseases aside from cancer, including diabetes, hypoglycemia, and more.

4. Stop Overcooking Your Food

While you don’t have to go completely raw, important enzymes are destroyed above temperatures of 118 degrees F, so when you cook your food at high temperatures, you are destroying some of its cancer-fighting substance. Dr. Edward Howell explains:

“If the human organism must devote a large portion of its enzyme potential to making digestive enzymes, it spells trouble for the whole body because there is a strain on the production of metabolic enzymes and there may not be enough enzyme potential to go around.”

Furthermore, if you deplete your pancreas’ ability to produce its own enzymes, your cells become enzyme-starved. Cellular metabolism decreases, and this includes cellular respiration which requires oxygen. Cells then try to survive in an oxygen-poor environment by sucking up glucose and fermenting it – this is partly what leads to cancer.

5. Avoid Saturated Animal Fats, Hydrogenated Fats, Heated Oils, and Fried Foods

Otherwise known as trans-fats, these fats don’t occur naturally (most of the time). They are man-made. These fats clog your arteries while interfering with enzyme absorption – one of the ways the body fights cancer naturally. They also decrease immune function and lead to obesity, heart disease, and malfunctioning sex hormones. Do yourself a favor; skip them altogether, and instead eat healthful fats like Omega 3s and Omega 6s in a 2:1 ratio.

6. Detox. Detox. Detox.

In both yoga and Ayurveda, it is strongly suggested that we either fast or do liver and gall bladder cleanses, and utilize other natural methods of detoxifying the body. If your body is constantly trying to rid itself of toxic chemicals, pesticides, rbGH hormones, GMOs, heavy metals, and other unwanted substances, it cannot repair cells and prevent cancer as easily.

An eminent German oncologist says that cancer is caused by environmental toxins. For example, Aluminum toxicity is linked to breast cancer, and particles like barium and strontium are causing cancer and cognitive disorders, but they can be detoxed.

Here are also 5 key elements from an Ayurvedic detox.

7. Exercise

This is perhaps the simplest but most often overlooked way to prevent a whole host of diseases, including cancer. Exercise has been shown to prevent breast cancer while minimizing the effects of traditional cancer treatments. Exercise also increases the immune system by creating more T-cells, and helps to detox the body. Lastly, it helps to reduce insulin levels and prevents numerous types of ‘future’ cancers.

“If exercise indeed strengthens the immune system and potentially improves cancer surveillance, it’s one more thing we should educate patients about as a reason they should schedule regular activity throughout their day and make it a priority in their lives,” said lead researcher of a study presented at Integrative Biology of Exercising VI, Laura Bilek. “What we’re suggesting is that with exercise, you might be getting rid of T cells that aren’t helpful and making room for T cells that might be helpful.”

An added incentive? Exercise makes you smarter!

8. Reduce Stress

Ayurvedic science believes that the body cannot function as it should when constantly under high levels of stress. Dr. Esther Sternberg, director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program at NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), has been rediscovering the links between the brain and the immune system to discover that stress does indeed make us sick. Meditation, yoga, quiet contemplation, spending time outdoors, laughing at funny movies, hugging your loved ones, cuddling with your dog- these are all stress-reducing activities that just might save your life.