M.D. Argues Cancer Treatment and Prevention are the Same

If you’ve noticed an odd lump in the shower that you later find is breast cancer, it is possible that it started to develop over 20 years ago. The same rogue cells that decide to become cancerous seem to be caused by the identical abnormal functioning of the body.

In fact, all epithelial cancers — breast, colon, lung, pancreas, prostate, ovarian, and others – can usually be avoided. What’s more, sometimes the treatment for cancer is the same thing as the prevention for cancer, at least according to Michael Gregor, M.D., a physician, author, and international speaker.

By the time that breast lump is finally noticeable, it has likely spent many years growing, maturing, and acquiring hundreds of new cancer cells to join in with its mission of making you sick. It has essentially been muting while you have been going about your business in a work-a-day world. But is there a way you could have stopped that lump from growing before you even realized it was the dreaded ‘C’ word?

What is called ‘early detection’ in the form of mammography, and even your doctor doing an annual breast exam, is really ‘late detection,’ not prevention. We are often considered ‘healthy’ simply because we, or our health practitioners, can’t detect cancer cells starting to grow.

Read: 8 Steps to Treating Cancer from the Inside Out

In fact, the American Cancer Society states that the signs and symptoms of cancer include fever, extreme tiredness (fatigue), or weight loss, but how many of us have a fever now and again or experience ongoing fatigue for numerous other reasons? We often ignore these ‘signs’ and go about our lives. Other symptoms can be as simple as coughing or a headache – certainly not anything to sound the alarm about.

This is the irony of cancer prevention. Those of you who eat better, incorporating cancer-fighting foods, taking herbal supplements, or incorporating lifestyle changes like exercise into your habits, are likely killing cancer cells before they can even grow. This is why the prevention of cancer is arguably the same as the ‘treatment’ or “cure” for cancer.

Since ‘early’ cancer detection all to often leads to a last-ditch effort to kill cancer with chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation, the choices we make now are likely much more effective than anything we could do once we found out we actually have cancer.