How To Avoid Cancer - Part II

Anne Dunev, PhD
We tend to know something about blood, but what do you know about your lymph system? The average 150 pound person has 11.2 liters of lymphatic fluid in the body.

The lymph network transfers minerals and carbohydrates that have broken down into simple sugars and to the cells for energy and nutrition. The lymphatic system also transports waste materials from cellular metabolism away from the cells. Individual cells convert nutrients to energy in a process called “Cellular Respiration”.  Each cell is a tiny engine that requires many small steps to make fuel needed to perform the function of that type of cell.

When there is a build-up of waste material or excess sugar, fermentation occurs. Cancer cells love sugar. So, you can begin to see that keeping the cells healthy and nourished via the lymph system could be improve function and be cancer-preventative.

The primary culprits for sugar excess and mineral deficiencies are processed foods made of white flour, white sugar and chemical flavorings or other additives. Whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, dairy products and proteins all contain minerals. Plants draw minerals up from the soil and convert them into minerals that are bio-available to humans, which means they become easily utilized.

Cancer is a systemic disease that means there is a back up in your waste-disposal department. Waiting until there is a diagnosis means that the situation has progressed much too far. So, the time to take action to unclog your filters is now.  Ideally you should do a cleanse of your major organs every six months or yearly.

Changing life-style and eating habits may not only save your life, but give you a better quality of life. The snacks, breads, sweets, diet foods, alcohol and medications you may be using to get you through your day are a very temporary fix. Your mood, stress level and ability to cope are undermined by the bio-chemical changes that occur when you ingest substances that require nutrients to metabolize them.

Whole foods fill your nutrient bank. Snacks, breads, sweets, alcohol, excessive coffee, cigarettes, recreational and pharmaceutical drugs, artificial and chemical foods, all deplete your nutrient bank. That means that you are running on empty. If you don’t eat the foods needed for cells to function, and to replicate and form healthy new cells, mutant cells may start to grow.

Chances are your mirror will tell you when you need to make changes. Bloating, weight gain, rashes and blemishes, indigestion, constipation, menstrual irregularities, cravings for alcohol, drugs or sugar, fatigue, sleep issues, fogginess, allergies and asthma, depression and anxiety are all signs of a toxic overload.

Your medical doctor is not trained in prevention. Getting laboratory tests is not prevention. By the time your blood work indicates a problem, a disease state may have already set in.

Stay ahead of the game by changing your game plan. It is not easy to break the habit of snacking and grazing on crap-ohydrates and chemical foods. It starts with a decision to not only get healthier, but to look and feel better, too. If your body is crying out for better nutrition, don’t feed it chocolate until it shuts up!

In Europe and Asia lymphatic massage is far more common than in the U.S. The lymphatic fluid can be moved and stagnation decreased with massage and with moving the body. Rebounding (light jumping on a mini-trampoline) has been demonstrated to be useful for moving lymph. Walking, stretching and movement in general may be helpful. The human body was not designed to sit in a chair staring at a screen or fighting traffic. Get up and move. Drink the purest water you can find (and not distilled-remember you need minerals).

Good health can be yours, with a few simple decisions. The follow-through may be a challenge, so set realistic goals. In a short while you may be surprised to find that you ever craved some things you have felt you could not live without. Or you may find that you enjoy your favorite treat more when you only have it once in awhile. Your lymph is in your hands.

How to Avoid Cancer

Anne Dunev, PhD

One thing that comes up often as a health concern for my patients is how to avoid cancer. Many have lost family members and they are concerned about the genetic component. It is alarming how many people today have cancer, and yet cancer was relatively rare before 1900. And it was not just that people lived shorter lives then.  Consider the changes in the environment and the food supply just in the last 60 years since World War II.

But, let’s go back to a new discovery in the 1880’s that brought about a dramatic change in a staple food and how that may be affecting us today and contributing to cancer. Emperor Louis Napolean III offered a prize for anyone who could invent a substitute for butter to be used by the lower classes and armed forces. French chemist Mege-Mouries took up the challenge and invented oleomargarine in the laboratory. Since it was white in color, and the addition of yellow coloring was banned in many countries, including the U.S., for almost 100 years, margarine did not intially threaten the dairy industry and the use of real butter in the marketplace. For example, it was not legal to sell colored margarine in Australia until the 1960’s.

 In the mid 1880’s, margarine was taxed at 2 cents a pound in the United States, and in several states with big Dairy interests legislators passed laws demanding the addition of pink coloring to make margarine unpalatable to consumers.

In the 20th century bootleg colored margarine became common and yellow coloring was sold separately so that people could make their own white margarine appear yellow. What happens when you ban a product? Human nature seems to demand that it become desirable.  So, despite added taxes, margarine did sell.

World War I brought strict rationing of dairy products, and margarine consumption increased enormously, both in the U.S. and Europe.

Originally margarine was made from beef fat, until hydrogenation of plant matter was developed. This makes the melting point of plant oils higher, so that you get a solid spread at room temperature and not a pool of oil for your toast. And herein lies the problem with margarine. Hydrogenation is a process that takes place in a chamber so that heat and pressure can be applied to the oil, along with a metal catalyst of nickel or palladium, to force hydrogen into the chains of fatty acids. This creates trans-fats, which have been linked to cardiovascular disease. Newer methods of manufacturing have attempted to limit the risk of hydrogenation, but all spreads and margarines are still laboratory made, not natural foods.

My advice is always to stick to the Nature-made when it comes to food. Real butter is a fat that also contains Vitamins A and D, Vitamins E and K, anti-oxidants, selenium, conjugated linoleic acid for lean muscles, iodine, and other factors essential for human health. Margarine contains no nutrients and has the same calories as butter. All fats have about 100 calories per tablespoon. Altered, laboratory made, adulterated foods are a giant science experiment. We don’t really know the effects of these foods. But we do know that we have far more heart disease and cancer, obesity and Type 2 Diabetes and the numbers keep growing. There appears to be an inverse relationship to the consumption of Nature-made fats and heart disease. The more processed fats consumed the higher the rates of heart disease.

The first written reference to butter dates back to 4500, hammered on a limestone tablet that illustrated how butter was made. Humans have consumed butter as long as they have lived with domesticated animals, pre-dating farming and raising grains. There are many religious references to butter, both Biblical and Hindu.

Taste test? No contest! Look for organic butter, as many synthetic hormones and petro-chemicals are fat-loving. Butter is truly a health food.

Should you worry about saturated fat? There is no proof that saturated fat (fat that is hard at room temperature) winds up in your arteries. Sugar is probably far more dangerous, because triglycerides are made from sugar, not fat. We really don’t know why some people have clogged arteries and others don’t. All the studies are inconclusive. We do know that some people who die from heart attacks have clear arteries on autopsy and other people who do of other causes have completely clogged arteries but had no symptoms of heart disease.

We also know that indigenous people on native local diets of animal protein, fermented or raw dairy, natural fats and carbohydrates from vegetables and fruits had no Diabetes, Heart Disease or Cancer until they began eating the white man’s diet of white flour and white sugar.

The French have one quarter the heart disease of Great Britain. With their low incidence of heart disease but high butter and cheese consumption, the French also enjoy great tasting food!

By the way, ever wonder what shortening is? Often made from soybean or cottonseed oil, shortening is an hydrogenated fat that is used in baking because it is 100% fat. Butter and margarine are only 80% fat. It is called shortening because it “shortens” the gluten strands in bread, making the dough more elastic and yielding a softer loaf.

Nature-made fats are vital for human health and are referred to as “essential fatty acids”. Any nutrient that is vital for health is going to be cancer-protective, since human cells need the genuine, unprocessed fats for cellular metablolism, and they don’t need Frankenstein fats made in the laboratory.

In my next Health tip I will tell you more about certain fats that may help protect you against cancer.

Fishing for Compliments

Anne Dunev, PhD (Los Angeles Certified Nutritionist and Naturopathic Practitioner)
In our office we recommend fish oil supplements for many of our patients. When I had a practice in Ketchum, Idaho, I could barely keep fish oil caps on the shelf. Because of the dryness at that altitude, dry skin is a big factor. Dry skin equals discomfort and early wrinkles. Once a woman started on fish oil supplements, she would come back and buy more for her mother, daughter and friends.

With our current fat-phobia, fish oil supplements are a great way to add a controlled amount of fat into the diet comfortably. You will see on this blog that I am a big proponent of good fats, and I think that many of our current chronic disease conditions would improve drastically if we flipped our eating around to include plenty of healthy fat and jettisoned the breads and sugar.

But if you aren’t ready for such a drastic change, fish oil supplements have wonderful benefits, besides balancing your skin and improving wrinkles.

The brain is the only organ in the body that uses fat (fatty acids), so fish has been called “brain food”. Do eat wild caught fish, rather than farm raised, as often as you can, such as salmon, cod and halibut. If mercury is a concern, limit tuna, and particularly swordfish. Concerns about health risks from mercury in fish are not shared by all. Fish contain a less toxic form of mercury called methyl mercury cysteine. The ocean is rich in selenium and that binds some of the mercury, making it less toxic.

In Japan, the amount of mercury ingested from the high fish consumption greatly exceeds what is recommended as safe. However, Japanese children excel in school and out-perform American children. And there are no health issues apparent in Japanese kids that would indicate the mercury is poisoning them. So, mercury in fish does not seem to a reason to avoid eating fish a few times per week.

Pregnant women and very small children are more vulnerable.  Mercury poisoning from methyl mercury chloride is a concern at any age, so avoid silver dental fillings.

The best fish oil supplements undergo molecular distillation to remove mercury, and the benefits of fish oil outweigh the risk of contamination

Fish oil is anti-inflammatory, so helpful for joints, ageing, arthritis and autoimmune disease. Fish oil may lower cholesterol levels. It is helpful for dry eye symptoms and helps you maintain a healthy weight by keeping blood sugar more balanced, and cutting cravings. Fish oil helps depression and mood, and may help normalize blood pressure.

It is hard to find any supplement that offers so many health benefits and can be supplemented at any age. Look for fish oil supplements that do not repeat! There is nothing worse than burping fish oil.  Here are my personal favorites:

Tuna Omega Oil by Standard Process®-There is a regular gel cap and Tuna Omega also comes in a chewable gel cap that tastes like orange, so kid-friendly and great for anyone who does not like to swallow pills. Both the flavored and non-flavored capsules are very small, so helpful for anyone who has difficulty swallowing large pills. Also, no burping or after-taste. Standard Process is the gold standard of nutritional supplements and makes the best, and most tested, in the world.

Metagenics DHA-EPA , with higher potency DHA. Break this capsule open and the fish oil is not “fishy” but fresh smelling. Larger capsule due to higher concentration.

Both of these supplements are available at our office. Call 818-729-9149 to order.

I also like Nordic Naturals, available at your local health food store or online at Amazon.com  or at NordicNaturals.com  This company specializes in fish oil and offers a variety of fish oils for various needs. They offer both concentrated for higher potency and regular concentration. The lemon flavor is a good choice if you are concerned about burping and there are chewables for kids.

Please feel free to forward this to your friends. Receive $15 off your next consultation for any referrals.

What is Stopping You from Getting a Good Night's Sleep?

Anne Dunev, PhD CN
I have helped many, many people sleep better over years of clinical practice. The good news is that sleep problems are not just about “stress,” so there is something you can do about it. Sleeping well is the most natural thing in the world! If you cannot sleep, there is something going on physically — something that can be fixed.

The following are the main barriers I have found to a good night’s sleep.

Thyroid problems. The thyroid hormones can be out of balance and that may cause heart palpitations at night. Or the body may not be able to relax enough to sleep. Have your thyroid checked by a practitioner who really understands about the thyroid. Many doctors do not know how to test correctly for thyroid problems and you may be told that the blood lab work has come back “normal.” But if thyroid issues go undetected, it can have a serious effect on your over-all health, not just sleep.

Blood sugar problems. If you are sleepy in the middle of the afternoon, or fall asleep when sitting down, the problem may not be your lack of sleep, but your blood sugar. Try eliminating all sugar and bread or cereal products for 3 weeks and see if that helps. Eat only a small protein snack before bed, with some good quality fat. Be sure to eat a protein breakfast within an hour after rising. If you are not hungry in the morning and hate eating breakfast, your blood sugar is not on a normal cycle. Your blood sugar should fall at night so that you are ready to eat in the a.m. Eat small, frequent meals with good quality fat and protein at each. Good fats include real butter, unrefined oils, raw coconut oil, raw nut butters, organic dairy products.

Toxicity of liver/gall bladder. It is a principal of Chinese medicine that the organs detox at night. If an organ is very congested, that can cause wakefulness. If you wake up between 2 and 4 a.m. and find it difficult to go back to sleep, consider a liver/gall bladder detox. Truthfully, anyone can benefit from a “spring cleaning” for the liver and gall bladder, as the liver is the main detox organ for the blood. Allergies, obesity, cancer, aches and pains, constipation, flatulence, itching skin, skin eruptions like acne and eczema, bad breath, cravings for tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sweets, dry skin, worrying may all be signs of an over-burdened liver.

Adrenal fatigue. Fibromyalgia, asthma, allergies, muscular and nervous exhaustion, poor circulation, low blood pressure and anxiety may all be signs of adrenal exhaustion. These symptoms may interfere with restful sleep. See a practitioner who can test and treat adrenals. If you have thyroid issues, suspect adrenal problems, as well. The endocrine system works together like an orchestra. You can’t expect beautiful music unless all the instruments are being played.

Digestion issues. Eat lightly at night after 6 p.m. and take digestive enzymes and probiotics. Most of the patients I see who have a gastric reflux diagnosis actually have a hiatus hernia. Medical doctors don’t know how to fix it, but it is a simple adjustment by a Chiropractor or Naturopath. Don’t take medication that stops your digestion by lowering your stomach acid like the GURD medications do. Most of us need more stomach acid, not less, due to our high sugar and carb diets. But we need the stomach acid to break down proteins we eat. If indigestion is keeping you up at night, find someone who can actually fix your digestive ability, not mask the symptoms with drugs.

The bottom line is to consider insomnia as a symptom of a deeper problem. The answer is not sleep medication, or psychotropic medication, as the medications themselves are toxic to the organs, have side-effects, are often addictive and may be a short-term crutch that masks or worsens a long-term health problem.

If your medical doctor simply wants to give you medication without identifying the underlying problem, find a practitioner who can really help. Lack of sleep puts tremendous stress on the body. Sleep is a time of healing and repair, and if that is not taking place health can deteriorate rapidly. Life becomes burdensome when the body is exhausted. Treat insomnia as a secondary condition and know that your body is asking for help. Find the real cause of your insomnia and you will be able to correct a health issue that is demanding your attention.

Your body deserves to be rested and refreshed from a good night’s sleep. Sweet dreams.

This post first appeared in The Huffington Post.