Grocott's Mail
  • NEWS
    • Courts & Crime
    • Features
    • Politics
    • People
    • Health & Well-being
  • SPORT
    • News
    • Results
    • Sports Diary
    • Club Contacts
    • Columns
    • Sport Galleries
    • Sport Videos
  • OPINION
    • Election Connection
    • Makana Voices
    • Deur ‘n Gekleurde Bril
    • Newtown… Old Eyes
    • Incisive View
    • Your Say
  • ARTSLIFE
    • Cue
    • Makana Sharp!
    • Visual Art
    • Literature
    • Food & Fun
    • Festivals
    • Community Arts
    • Going Places
  • OUR TOWN
    • What’s on
    • Spiritual
    • Emergency & Well-being
    • Safety
    • Civic
    • Municipality
    • Weather
    • Properties
      • Grahamstown Properties
    • Your Town, Our Town
  • OUTSIDE
    • Enviro News
    • Gardening
    • Farming
    • Science
    • Conservation
    • Motoring
    • Pets/Animals
  • ECONOMIX
    • Business News
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Personal Finance
  • EDUCATION
    • Education NEWS
    • Education OUR TOWN
    • Education INFO
  • Covid-19
  • EDITORIAL
  • Cue Media
    • Cue online
    • Cue Archives
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending
  • Do not try to time in the market, spend time in the market
  • Boxing Heritage Hero: Mzimasi ‘Stopper’ Mthana
  • Makhanda Heritage Day MMA tournament thrills fans
  • Amasango Career School premises handover in Extension 10
  • Gutters for the rain
  • Anti-Crime group murder trial postponed
  • Concern and condemnation of recent attacks on Grocott’s journalist
  • Bekushiyana OoMama ukondla kwi tumente yamagqiyazana
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Grocott's Mail
  • NEWS
    • Courts & Crime
    • Features
    • Politics
    • People
    • Health & Well-being
  • SPORT
    • News
    • Results
    • Sports Diary
    • Club Contacts
    • Columns
    • Sport Galleries
    • Sport Videos
  • OPINION
    • Election Connection
    • Makana Voices
    • Deur ‘n Gekleurde Bril
    • Newtown… Old Eyes
    • Incisive View
    • Your Say
  • ARTSLIFE
    • Cue
    • Makana Sharp!
    • Visual Art
    • Literature
    • Food & Fun
    • Festivals
    • Community Arts
    • Going Places
  • OUR TOWN
    • What’s on
    • Spiritual
    • Emergency & Well-being
    • Safety
    • Civic
    • Municipality
    • Weather
    • Properties
      • Grahamstown Properties
    • Your Town, Our Town
  • OUTSIDE
    • Enviro News
    • Gardening
    • Farming
    • Science
    • Conservation
    • Motoring
    • Pets/Animals
  • ECONOMIX
    • Business News
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Personal Finance
  • EDUCATION
    • Education NEWS
    • Education OUR TOWN
    • Education INFO
  • Covid-19
  • EDITORIAL
  • Cue Media
    • Cue online
    • Cue Archives
Grocott's Mail
You are at:Home»NEWS»Health & Well-being»Cancer as a lifestyle disease
Health & Well-being

Cancer as a lifestyle disease

Grocott's Mail ContributorsBy Grocott's Mail ContributorsOctober 8, 2019No Comments4 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

by JUDITH REYNOLDS

Last year I wrote a series of pieces for breast cancer awareness month where I described some of my experiences of being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer. This year I will be writing about cancer again during the month of October but I am shifting the focus this time to cancer prevention.

Although the specific cancer I had was breast cancer, I will be writing about preventing cancers rather than any specific type of cancer. And the same things that help to prevent cancer can also help reduce the chances of cancer recurrence for people like me who have already had cancer.

I don’t think cancer can be prevented completely. I doubt we could live in a world without any cancer. But I do believe that if we lived differently there would be different cancer rates. Part of the evidence for this comes from different cancer rates in different parts of the world. Australia has very high cancer rates, particularly of breast cancer and melanoma. Israel’s cancer rates are about half those of Australia.

Differences in cancer rates could be partly due to genetics, though both Australia and Israel are countries of immigrants, but the typical pattern is that when people move from a place that has a low cancer (or other disease) rate to another part of the world, they tend to develop diseases at the same rate as the people they are living among. This suggests that lifestyle has a big effect on rates of disease, including cancer rates.

There is also evidence that lifestyle changes in people who have been diagnosed with cancer can affect the course of the disease. In the book ‘Anti-Cancer Living: The six-step solution to transform your health’ by Cohen and Jeffries, there is information about two different studies that supports this idea.

One study was done on men with early stage prostate cancer who were at the ‘watch and wait’ stage. One group of men were taught and supported through a range of lifestyle changes. The other group just carried on as normal. PSA (prostate-specific antigen) levels went up slightly among the men who didn’t make any changes. But PSA levels for the group of men who had made lifestyle changes actually went down. The levels didn’t just not go up, they went down. And further research revealed that the more the men had made changes and stuck with them, the more their PSA levels had gone down.

Another study was done with women who had stage II or stage III breast cancer. After treatment for the cancer, one group of women received information about lifestyle changes and support implementing those changes. The other group carried on as usual. The group that had made lifestyle changes were less likely to have a cancer recurrence and they had higher survival rates.

So what were these ‘magical’ lifestyle changes? They included things like changes in diet, giving up smoking, regular exercise, learning to deal with stress and maintaining social support. Nothing very magical at all. Just everyday things that anyone can do.

The three main areas that I have made changes in, since I completed treatment in 2017 are nutrition (which for me includes focusing on gut health), stress resilience and reducing toxic load. The people in the two studies don’t seem to have been taught about reducing toxins (apart from cigarettes) but ‘avoid environmental toxins’ is one of the ‘mix of six’ advocated in the Anti-Cancer Living book and in most other books on improving general health.

We’re more used to thinking of things like diabetes and heart disease as lifestyle diseases. But an argument can be made that cancer is, to some extent at least, also a lifestyle disease. Genetics certainly plays a part in some cancers. But researchers are now learning about ‘Epigenetics’ which means ‘above genetics’. They are looking at what causes genes to behave in certain ways. We can’t change the genes in our bodies but our lifestyles affect what those genes actually do.

  • Judith Reynolds runs health workshops under the name, Eloquent Bodies. You can contact her at judith@eloquentbodies.co.za or 072 858 6895.
Previous ArticleMrwetyana family distances itself from Uyinene opportunists
Next Article How to teach your child about money
Grocott's Mail Contributors

    Grocott's Mail Contributors includes content submitted by members of the public, and public and private institutions and organisations - regular and occasional, expert and citizen, opinion and analysis.

    Comments are closed.

    Tweets by Grocotts
    Newsletter



    Listen

    The Rhodes University Community Engagement Division has launched Engagement in Action, a new podcast which aims to bring to life some of the many ways in which the University interacts with communities around it. Check it out below.

    Humans of Makhanda

    Humans of Makhanda

    Weather    |     About     |     Advertise     |     Subscribe     |     Contact     |     Support Grocott’s Mail

    © 2023 Maintained by School of Journalism & Media Studies.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.