Exercise may prevent, and treatment made easier with Cancer – Good advice by Harold Gunatillake

Cancer is a dreaded disease on the increase globally, a disease we do not want to have, even our enemies.

Did you know that one in three people in Denmark develop cancer? In 2014, around 267,500 Danes lived with cancer diagnosis.

The WHO age standardized incidence of breast cancer in Sri Lanka was observed to have increased from 9.2 per 100,000 in 2001 In a population of 20 million people, 23,530 new cases of breast cancer, and 14,013 cases have died, in a survey done in 2018. The incidence of cancer seems to be high in Sri Lanka due to the poor lifestyles, consuming processed foods much cheaper and tastier on the taste buds, than un-processed foods, and having no time for exercise.

The incidence of colorectal and prostatic cancer among males, seems to be very high in Sri Lanka.

When your doctor tells you., you have cancer the degree of shock and self-devastation is self-implicit and further description is not required. You think of your self and your loved ones you leave behind soon, in most situation causing extreme depression and helplessness.

You can avoid this situation.

The conventional treatment, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy that your oncologist plans is not an absolute cure, it is all temporizing regimes to prolong your agony of extended living. This opens the avenues for the charlatans to boast of cancer cures and extract money from the distressed victims.

There is one avenue to prevent and make therapy easier, and that would be daily exercise.

Flexibility exercises (stretching), resistance training (lifting weights or isometric exercise), which builds muscles, or just walking daily 20,000 steps (with smart health watch in your wrist) is all that you need to do. The smart-health watch is an encouragement and impetus for your daily walks.

A new study shows that exercise is an effective way to prevent cancer. Adrenalin released during intensive training prevents the spread and development of metastases elsewhere in the body. This not only restricts the spread of cancer but also makes it easier to treat.

Exercise lowers blood estrogen, it helps lower a woman’s breast-cancer risk. Exercise also reduces your insulin secretion from your pancreas, being a cancer growth factor, reduces its resistance. Even old women after attaining menopause do produce estrogen in their fat cells. So, staying slim reduces fat (triglycerides) in your fat cells and your risk of cancer is lowered.

There are other factors we do not know, but analysis showed that an “exercise-dependent induction of adrenaline accounts for all the beneficial molecular mechanisms.

Red meat and cancer risk Beef, lamb, and pork are all red meat. Pork looks white, but it is red meat. Researchers do not know yet how red meat can cause cancer of the breast colorectal and pancreatic cancer.

One known factor is that red meat has no fibre, and high fibre diets seems to lower the risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, among others. Gut microbes play an important role by fermenting fibre to produce short chain fatty acids and butyric acid that prevents damage to the inner lining of the gut that may be a factor in cancer development. Eating high fibre diets consuming less red meat reduces the risk of Colo-rectal cancer.

Bottom line: Do some form of exercise daily, find the time for it, focus on a vegetarian diet and be a winner in life.