From the desk of Dr Sam Shohet
BDS MGDS RCS(Eng) LiAc MBAcC ICAK
DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DYING FROM CANCER?
Multimillions for What You Already Know
Five years in the making and at a cost of £25 million, the findings of a group of scientists on cancer were published early this month amid a fanfare worthy of an Olympics finals result.
Food and Drink
The report places the eating of meat, the drinking of alcohol, obesity and the lack of exercise as absolute no-noes if we are to reduce our chances of contracting the dreaded disease and dying from it.
Family Ties
In another independent study that was revealed at the same time, cancer survival rates were compared among individuals who had a parent with cancer and the individual then went on to develop the same cancer.
Let Us Play the Percentage Game
These latest reports aside, it is universally accepted that 30% of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking, 30% to diet, 20% to lifestyle, 15% to heredity or genetics and 5% to environmental factors.
SCIENCE LOGIC
Gene Expression
We also know that heredity, or the expression of our genes, is influenced by diet, lifestyle, environment and emotions so we can safely take heredity out of this list, which makes the second report irrelevant.
This leaves smoking, diet, lifestyle, environment and emotions as the influential factors in cancer.
Smoking
We already know that smoking is not only a lifestyle choice but also an environmental pollutant, so we can discount that from the list also.
Adverse Factors
This leaves us with diet, lifestyle, environment and emotions as the factors which would adversely affect our chances of contracting the disease and dying from it.
Another Look
Let us now take these four factors and once again look at the latest £25 million report on cancer.
Meat and Alcohol
Meat and alcohol may be lumped together as diet. Alcohol may be judged to be a lifestyle decision, as is exercise, so now we have diet, lifestyle and obesity from this list.
Obesity
Obesity has been closely linked to excessive eating and drinking – diet and lifestyle decisions with a definite emotional component.
This brings us in line with the universally accepted factors for cancer: diet, lifestyle, environment and emotions.
Lifestyle
Lifestyle affects our emotions directly and indirectly, which leaves us with diet, environment and emotions as the factors which not only influence our contracting the disease but also affect our chances of survival once we have contracted it.
Environment
Our diet is very closely affected by our environment with toxins in our soil and in our water, herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used in animal husbandry, the frequency of floods in the last four decades which wash off the topsoil with its rich mineral content and so on.
This leaves us with environment and emotions as the two main factors influencing contracting and surviving cancer.
Chemicals
The chemicals in the environment affect us physically by creating an imbalance in our enzyme systems. Enzymes are key to the way our body functions including the creation of the neurotransmitters – the body’s mode of communication.
These neurotransmitters, adrenaline, noradrenalin, histamine, serotonin, dopamine being just a few examples, in turn indirectly create our emotions.
We are now left only with emotion as the sole factor in cancer.
Emotions
Our emotions however, are also created directly by our thoughts so it would be safe to assume that the chances of contracting cancer in the first place and eventually dying from it are governed entirely by our thoughts.
It's All In The Mind
All those millions of taxpayers’ money, the thousands of hours of research by hundreds of eminent scientific brains, all those rainforests destroyed to produce the reams of paper for the reports, the thousands of tons of CO2 emissions from the fuel required to power the equipment and computers used, the inevitable depletion of our ozone layer and the potential increase to global warming.
All this just to tell us that it is all in the mind. We only think we have cancer, or not, and that we only think we are going to die from cancer, or maybe not.
Where To Now?
‘OK’ I hear you ask, ‘so where does that leave us? Do we eat meat? Do we drink alcohol? Do we smoke? Do we do any exercise? Do we snort cocaine? Do we change our genetically defective parents for a genetically sound pair?’
Q.E.D
These are all very good questions my friends but, from all the evidence it seems that none of this is really relevant. The most important thing you must do is simply to stop thinking. Or not.
Warm regards,
Sam Shohet