Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.
3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors. 
4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system. 
6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc. 
7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction. 
9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.
10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.
    
    CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
    
    
    • Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.
    
    
    • Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.
      
      
    • Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
    
    
    • A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
    
    
    • Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
    
    
12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup. 
13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells. 
14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.
16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.
    

CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL , U S - PLEASE READ

1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer. 
3. No plastic wrap in microwave.
   

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.

This especially applies to foods that contain fat.

He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body.

Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life

One Life to Live

"I tell you the solemn truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain."
(John 12:24 NET)

She had a professional qualification in accounting and had worked in one of the Big 4 accounting firms for a while. But deep down she knew she was a teacher with a special love for preschoolers. And so she resigned from her accounting job and became a kindergarten teacher in her church. The drop in salary was drastic. She had to take another job to make ends meet. But her faith was strong. And her joy was real. Her story moved me profoundly.

If you are a regular reader of this column you will know that I do not divide jobs on the basis of whether they are secular or spiritual. If you are a regular reader of this column you will know that I champion the call for Christians to understand that God calls us into all sorts of work and not just into church related work. And we definitely need God's people in the Big 4! But what moved me about my friend's decision was that she had the courage and the faith to be true to her heart's call.

There will be those who will call her decision a waste. What a waste to give up a job of such earning potential. What a waste of her had earned expertise in accountancy. And doesn't she know how expensive it is to live these days? Doesn't she know the crushing effects of inflation on those of us who are not rich?

I heard the same arguments when I came to understand that God wanted me to leave dentistry to be a full time minister of the Word. I had expected that non-Christian friends would have found it difficult to accept such a
counter-cultural decision. What I didn't expect was that most of the resistance to my leaving dentistry to go into a church related vocation came from Christians.

I would have thought that Christians would be the first to understand that our lives are not our own and that we are all but stewards of the lives we have received. I would have thought that Christians would understand that their security lies ultimately in the Lord and not in the monthly pay cheque, and that the most secure place one can be is walking in the will of the Lord wherever that journey takes you. I was wrong.

It seems that many churches are not places that encourage people to discover their vocations, and support them as they embark on their God-given adventures. And it seems like this reluctance to think of life in vocational
terms is not new.

At the age of 30, Albert Schweitzer decided to leave his position as principal of a theological seminary to enter medical school to prepare to be a missionary doctor to Africa. He talks about the resistance he received.

"My relatives and friends reproached me for the folly of my enterprise. They said I was a man who was burying the talent entrusted to him and wanted to trade in false currency. I ought to leave work among Africans to those who would not thereby abandon gifts and achievements in scholarship and the arts...

In the many adversarial debates I had to endure with people who passed for Christians, it amazed me to see them unable to perceive that the desire to serve the love preached by Jesus may sweep a man into a new course of life. They read in the New Testament that it can do so, and found it quite in order there.

I had assumed that familiarity with the sayings of Jesus would give a much better comprehension of what to popular logic is not rational."
(Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1998, pp. 81-95.)

We cheat the world of the Schweitzers in our midst by not encouraging our people to find and pursue their vocations. And we cheat ourselves and our children from living lives of meaning and significance.

How do we discover our vocation? I believe discovering our vocation is a life long journey. A good starting place is to consider the primary calls on our lives. We have been called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves (Mark 12:29-31). With my abilities, burdens and opportunities how do I best love God and neighbour at this point of my life?

And here is Frederick Buechner's oft quoted advice:

"By and large a good rule for finding out (your life calling) is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to do is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b) but if most of the time you're bored and
depressed by it, chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren't helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
(Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, New York: Harper &
Row, 1973, p.95.)

I also believe there is no ideal time to pursue one's vocation. Some of us carry heavy financial responsibilities --- aged parents to care for, children to feed etc. The Lord knows that. We may have to do one job to put food on the table while pursuing our vocation outside of work time --- and striving to do our best in both responsibilities. Others may have to wait for another season in their lives to pursue their vocation full time.

The Lord knows the details of your life and will work out everything in the end. Nothing will be wasted. We are to follow God in the realities of our life and not in some romantic never-never land.

But what all of us need is the courage and faith of my young friend who became a kindergarten teacher. At some point we need to choose the security of obeying God over the security that comes from popular logic. And when we do that we find life, life for others and life for ourselves.