Can we prevent cancer? My answer wants to be yes, but for legal reasons I’ll just say maybe. I think this will ramble a bit, so let me start with something positive: Vitamin D reduces your risk of cancer, dramatically. Perhaps not to zero, but it helps. The following study gave high marks to D levels near 40ng/ml, while I suggest at least 60 with optimal being near 80. A level of 55 and above was shown to be a bulletproof vest against covid, so there’s that as well, with a strong correlation between low D and serious outcomes.
It is an undeniable fact that nutritional content of our food has diminished and perhaps there are other vitamins that could help here, and shield us from other maladies, not by curing them, but by reversing deficiencies that make us more vulnerable. I’m not guaranteeing you perfect health but I am guaranteeing that you’ll reduce your risks. Better not to smoke than to find yourself in chemotherapy, and better to take a few vitamins if it keeps you healthy.
Mission Creep and an apology…
When I started this project, the book followed by the blog, it was all about health, nutrition, and exercise. My goal was in providing the best guidance to keep you healthy and vibrant, my goal being to (eventually) leave the world a bit better than I found it. Unfortunately, a global pandemic intervened and keeping you healthy became secondary to keeping you alive — mission creep, as my priorities were diverted. As a result of tilting at that windmill, three things have occurred.
First was a deep-dive into the dark side of the Pharma-Industrial Complex, and the another was relocation to Arizona, to escape the insanity and deterioration of my former home state of California. The third was losing some readers who are tired of hearing about either covid or politics. My apologies for that.
Consequently, much of my recent writing borders on the political, although not in the traditional sense of politics, elections, and parties. It’s about logic and looking at who exactly is running our lives, and finding ways to take back control of things that govern our lives, our health, and our freedom, control that used to be entirely ours and guaranteed by our Constitution, a document that doesn’t seem to mean much anymore. I had always known that Big Pharma, like Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Big Fast Food, were happy to lie to us and compromise our health for profits, but the extent to which this was exposed during covid truly made me feel that I had fallen through the looking glass. I hope you understand my reaction. I’ll try to stay more on basics, but when I see red flags, I may not be able to stop myself.
One thing that living in what is essentially a semi-rural retirement community has brought up is that, unlike the mega-wealthy communities of Marin, Contra Costa, and San Mateo Counties where I had spent most of my life, folks where I’m living now aren’t going to take a double-handful of vitamin pills without having a high degree of certainty that it is worth it and maybe not even then. People in Corte Madera didn’t flinch at the cost of organic products and grass-fed meats. Here, it’s difficult to find those items because the general public can’t afford them. That has changed my focus a bit, in terms of looking at priorities, which supplements are the most important. So let me give you two that are free (the first one) or nearly so in the second instance:
Sunlight, along with bee propolis, may be the world’s first medicines. While most people in western society think sunlight causes skin cancer, the truth is far more complicated. SunBURN is dangerous, sunTAN is healthy. Sunbathing was the first available cure for tuberculosis, and a very effective one. It was also the best cure, as well as the best defense, against the Spanish Flu and perhaps covid. Sunlight was our body’s principal source of vitamin D in the past and as I showed in a prior article, vitamin D status above 55 ng/mL was the surest guarantee of a minimal encounter with covid, while levels below 20 were a near death sentence. You can take vitamin D in capsule form, but even with that, UV exposure is still needed for full conversion, and enough D in capsule form to reach my recommended level of 80 could be expensive.
Next up, lack of sun exposure is the principal cause of Seasonal Affective Disorder, a type of depression that besets a lot of folks, especially in the cold northern hemisphere, but can be alleviated by a few trips to the tanning parlor if you can’t get outside. SAD, or any form of depression or stress can rob your body of nutrients. For my friends in warmer climates, just take daily brisk walks or jogs wearing minimal clothing. And barefoot if you can (grounding).
As to cancer, a recent study, Vitamin D for cancer prevention: global perspective, revealed that: Higher serum levels of the main circulating form of vitamin D, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), are associated with substantially lower incidence rates of colon, breast, ovarian, renal, pancreatic, aggressive prostate and other cancers… It is projected that raising the minimum year-around serum 25(OH)D level to 40 to 60 ng/mL (100-150 nmol/L) would prevent approximately 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer each year, and three fourths of deaths from these diseases in the United States and Canada. That was over 750,000 deaths in 2023, with nearly three times that many new diagnoses.
As I’ve shared previously, I’ve had far more than my fair share of UV exposure from competitive swimming, lifeguarding and training for triathlons by cycling ~400 miles a week and running ~70. Not only is my 73-year-old body free of any cancer, I don’t have the wrinkles typical of most my age. Put me in a lineup with my 65- to 80-year-old friends, and I look like I don’t belong.
And sunlight costs nothing!
Bee propolis may be the world’s first antibiotic while simultaneously having probiotic traits. This makes it a good and relatively inexpensive prophylactic, and you can up your dose if you feel something coming on. I found a great supplier, Beekeeper’s Naturals, that gets all its honey and bee byproducts from specialized locations outside of the US, where they are fairly certain the bees aren’t interacting with all the chemicals, especially glyphosate/RoundUp that have impacted American honey. They have various forms of propolis, as well as royal jelly. The air here in the desert is very dry and I’ve found their propolis nasal mist to be a veritable life, or at least sanity, saver.
Due to the depletion of our soil, the virtual explosions of toxic chemicals, as well as allegedly beneficial chemicals (e.g., fertilizers, pesticides, artificial seed oils, aluminum nanoparticles to prevent global warming, etc.) it is undeniable and well documented that the nutrient value and distribution in our food supply has diminished and that the number and quantity of toxic chemicals in our environment is truly frightening. Because of that, my next two recommendations are detoxing and stabilizing the gut microbiome.
My two favorite detox products are one called Bind, which incorporates activated charcoal along with baobab fruit and a few other binders to help remove toxins, and high silica mineral water (not Perrier). I buy the Fiji brand, which is helpful for chelating aluminum, a deadly but slow-acting neurotoxin.
When it comes to the gut, there is a lot of conflicting information, but I’ve seen no wrong approaches; anything is better than nothing, because nearly all Americans have some level of dysfunction. I would simply recommend going the diversity route. Most probiotics are predominately lactobacillus formulas, which isn’t bad, just incomplete. Very few included lactobacillus reuteri or Akkermansia muciniphila, both of which have been shown to help minimize weight gain (fat, not muscle) and both of which appear to be deficient if not outright missing in studies of Americans. So I recommend a “standard” probiotic taken occasionally, but I further endorse finding those two components. And it’s not that I think these probiotics will solve obesity, just that their actions in that regard underscore that the current obesity epidemic is more than just people eating too much. A number of phytoestrogens, like unfermented soy, and modern chemicals, including some artificial sweeteners, act as obesogens, chemicals which assist our bodies with both synthesizing and holding onto fat.
Moving from low-cost to not-so-low-cost supplements, I think there is significant merit in a) only taking what will benefit you, and b) not taking all of your supplements every day for life. Only taking what benefits you means not taking everything that some “expert” is recommending. Is it possible that overindulging in supplements could be harmful? The idea has been suggested, but to date not supported by evidence. But how do you know if a supplement is benefitting you and do you want to spend money on it if it doesn’t? I’ll get into that next time.
I’m going to end here, and do part 2, 3, et seq, because I tend to go on too long, or so I’ve been told!
Peace, love, and health to you all. Please read and share.