Questions Answered

In this BLOG, I answer three questions that are causing a lot of confusion and making it more difficult to understand (or accept) reality.

1) Do you think that obesity is self-inflicted or genetic?

• For many years, the medical profession has studied and tried to find ways to combat obesity.

• These measures have mostly met with failure.

• Earlier attempts told patients to reduce their intake and eat healthier foods.

• However, they never came up with an effective plan for reducing their intake or made a clear definition of eating healthily.

• The commercial industry did in the way of diet plans, supplements, and exercise programs.

• It is obvious that these efforts have also failed in light of the worsening obesity and health problems.
  

• Medicine is now trying to blame obesity on genetics.

• It's not your fault that you are fat.

• The problem is your genes which cause you to consume large quantities of cake, cookies, potato chips, soda pop, candy, pasta, white bread, crackers, breaded greasy deep fat fried foods, etc. (I think you get the idea).

• Sure genetics plays a role in obesity.

  • Your genes control how you process your food

  • Where you store your fat

  • But not your eating habits

    • These are learned from your parents, siblings, relatives, friends, and by engaging in eating your favorite foods.

The answer to this question is that obesity is self inflicted.

2) Is your greatest cancer risk genetic or from controllable influences?

• Cancer is a very interesting disease and also very devastating.

• Much research has been performed and is being performed to figure out how to prevent, manage and cure it.

• There has been varying degrees of success in treating it depending on the type of cancer.

  • Some forms of leukemia can be completely cured

  • Early detection of breast cancer can be treated successfully without mastectomy

  • More and better chemotherapy drugs are available with fewer side-effects, etc.

  • Prevention is always the primary objective.

    • The old adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is still very relevant today, only I would add that an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.

• Some cancers are directly linked to certain things.

  • It is well documented that a woman's risk of developing breast cancer is related to the number of first degree relatives (mother, sister) that develop breast cancer.

  • The number 1, 2, 3, ... causes of lung cancer are smoking.

    • I know that it is not the top three causes, this just emphasizes that almost all lung cancers are caused by smoking.

    • Asbestos is another cause as we are constantly reminded by the infomercials.
      

So what really causes cancer?

• No one knows for sure and there are probably several inciting factors

  • Something happens to cells that causes them to grow uncontrolled by normal mechanisms.

  • The unfortunate thing is that your body recognizes these cells as normal.

  • Therefore, they are not destroyed by your immune system but allowed to grow without limit.

• Eventually they destroy a vital organ resulting in death.

• There are certainly genetic differences which allows a certain individual to do something for an extended period of time without apparent harm where someone else engaged in exactly the same behavior develops cancer after a short time of exposure.

  • One example is cigarette smoking.

  • Some people live into their '80s to '90s having smoked since their teenage years

  • Someone else may have only smoked for a few years before developing cancer.

Is this genetic or nutritional?

• In the early 1980s, I took a genetics class.

• The instructor was heavily engaged in cancer research.

• I asked him how much emphasis was placed on nutrition in their studies.

• His reply was that very little emphasis was placed on nutrition, but the more emphasis that was place on it, the more effect it had on the outcomes.

• With this knowledge, you would think that nutrition would be given a very high priority in cancer research.

• It continues to be a low priority.

• Part of this is due to the impossibility of knowing how healthy someone is based solely on their reported diet and there is no way to test for health.
  

One thing that is definitively known is that your body cannot function at the best it is capable of without proper nutrition.

• Knowing how nutritionally unfit most of our society is, is it any surprise that some cells malfunction or are unable to tolerate interference by foreign chemicals due to nutritional deficiencies and could therefore grow abnormally?

• Would it be any surprise that your immune system could not function normally if it did not receive the proper nutrients?

So the answer to this question is this.

• Cancer risk is partly genetic

• Mostly from controllable factors such as smoking, eliminating exposure to asbestos or chemicals that are known to interfere with normal cellular function, etc.

• The biggest controllable factor is YOUR DIET.

  • Without eating properly,

    • your body cannot function as it was designed

    • deal appropriately with unavoidable exposures to harmful things.

• Eating properly is the one most controllable cancer prevention strategy that is not emphasized.

3) Do you think that there is a health/nutrition problem in your area?

The answer to this question is yes.

• Health and nutrition problems are ubiquitous.

• Although most people are "health conscious," their ideas of health are developed from ideologies promoted by the diet and supplement industries.

• Lots of very good health information is available but is being supplanted by misinformation.

• This leaves you confused as to what proper nutrition is and how to achieve it.

I hope that this discussion is enlightening.

Please leave your comments below. If you have any questions, you can email me at drmeline@ss-health.com or select the chat tab.

Thank you for taking your time to read this blog.