Avoiding Cancer

It is automatically assumed that cancer, being a degenerative disease, is a natural consequence of growing old and that this is the reason for its prevalence in the elderly. This is wrong because it equates ageing with cancer.

There are two interdependent causes for the high incidence of cancer in old age. The first is a genetic one. As already explained, the probability of any cell suffering a mutation increases in proportion with time, the oddities of lifestyle and careless attention to diet, smoking, etc. So, the longer we live, the greater the probability will be that even our efficient genetic repair processes will eventually start to break down in one after the other of the controlling genes.

The length of time it will take for such mutations to become established in all the controlling genes will largely depend on the availability of oxygen. Our arteries can be kept young and clear (ensuring a quick, thin bloodstream and thus an excellent oxygen supply for all body tissues) by careful diet and exercise, and mutations have less chance of becoming established when the body cells are oxygen-saturated.

As a direct result of habitual physical inactivity and gluttony, fatty cholesterol-plaques form on the arterial walls, causing, with advancing years, the arteries to harden and the bloodstream to become sluggish and oxygen-depleted. As a result the oxygen-starved cells, which can no longer find enough energy for their continuing healthy survival from blood-oxygen, will try to get this energy from fermenting sugar, a process requiring no oxygen. Normal body cells are obligate aerobes (oxygen-requiring cells) and they usually meet their needs by breathing oxygen gas. All cancer cells are partial anaerobes (not requiring oxygen for their survival) and their energy needs can be met in great part by fermentation. Although cancer has countless secondary causes, one of these is the replacement of respiratory oxygen gas in normal body cells by fermentation of sugar. This fermentation provides the impetus for carcinogenesis and only occurs when the blood is oxygen-depleted. Therefore, maintenance of an adequate oxygen supply is of great importance at all ages, but particularly so with advancing years.

Clean arteries without fat deposits are achievable only by regular vigorous exercise, because physical activity has dramatic, almost spectacular effects on the body. These are the results of a steadily rising stroke-volume (beat) of the heart with regular exercise. The volume of blood pushed out with each heartbeat continues to increase and this has a number of beneficial effects: the bloodstream's speed increases and it gets thinner. By this, oxygenation throughout the body is improved, and there Will be no need to meet the cells' energy requirements through fermentation.

During exercise, two substances are released: the prostacyclins and the endorphins. The prostacyclins are fibrolytic, which means they prevent the formation of the fatty plaques on the arterial walls. The endorphins promote a sense of well-being and counter depression. Vigorous exercise also prevents obesity, which is one of the most important contributory causes of cancer.

In short, being lazy is basically being sick and those who do not find time for exercise early on in life will later have to find time for sickness.