This blog is not really about hand washing but I am going to start there. This blog is about what happens when the medical community becomes locked into a mind-set of agreed upon assumptions and its refusal to consider alternatives. And what it takes to move the status-quo and how we can play a part….
Medical professionals did not always wash their hands. And they fought hard against it.
Biologist Ignaz Semmelweis is considered the father of hand washing. Yet getting his peers on board to wash their hands in 1840 cost him his life. While Chief Resident at Vienna General Hospital, his doctor led maternity ward was faced with dreaded childbed fever (called by women “The Doctors Plague”) at significantly higher rates than the midwife run clinic at the same hospital. He alone was willing to ask why….he racked his brain for clues, leaving no stone unturned….
Germs were not yet discovered. It was believed that disease was spread by bad smells in the air. End of story…..Doctor trainees at the hospital would work on dissecting corpses first thing in the morning, then pop up to the maternity ward to deliver babies afterwards without washing their hands.
When Semmelweis began to connect the dots, he ordered his doctors to wash their hands and instruments in a chlorine-lime solution. The rate of mortality for new mothers dropped to about 1%.
Despite his great success, his ideas faced Great Resistance. Most doctors came from the monied elite and they were offended by even the suggestion that they could be causing infection. They were insulted that their hands could be considered “dirty”. Changing minds was a long uphill effort for the next 40 years as the battle raged on about hand washing.
As for the heroic Semmelweis: He lost his job and career, had a mental breakdown from all the blow back, and died at 47 in an asylum.
But the truth prevailed. Today, no one would argue for your doctor to perform an operation with their bare unwashed hands.
BREAST CANCER: 50 YEARS LATER.
ARE THE WALKS REALLY WORKING?
In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a “War On Cancer”. Fifty years and billions of dollars later that ‘war’ is far from won. Childhood cancers are on the rise and the incidences of other cancers have gone up 25-30% over this time period.
This is all the more significant because this is “Breast Cancer Awareness Month”….Races and walks for ‘cures’ are scheduled all month and for many years into the future. The “Walk For The Cure” was started by Susan G. Komen, a fashion model who, after nine operations and three courses of chemo and radiation, lost her three year battle. The yearly walks have indeed changed everything. Breast cancer is an embarrassing diagnosis. The Western treatment for breast cancer can be even more embarrassing. So the walks have brought breast cancer out of the closet.
But walking for ‘The Cure’ has misled a generation of women into believing that a magic pill needs to be discovered and make the whole nightmare go away. However, this is not close to how cancer works.
NEW RESEARCH:
NEW WAY TO LOOK AT CANCER
I have been listening to a podcast by Dr Thomas Seyfried, an American professor of biology, genetics and biochemistry at Boston University. His findings shake the whole foundation of cancer research. He is part of a gathering community of medical professionals willing to ask questions….to bravely step out of the standard belief that cancer is a ‘genetic condition’ attributed to a ‘faulty gene pool’, and inherited from your family.
The gene theory holds us hostage because it keeps us believing that we play no roll in prevention and keeps us believing that we have no control of the outcome..
Dr Seyfried’s findings show over and over that 90% of cancers do not stem from genetics but are attributed to Metabolic Syndrome—a cluster of conditions that, when they occur together, raises one’s risk for most cancers. This makes it impossible to fight cancer without looking at it as a wholism. This has led him to take on the study of how diet and lifestyle change can contribute to the healing process.
Like my hand washing story, he explains that the reason cancer care has not changed in the last 50 years, is because most of the medical community is locked into the accepted thought process that cancer is genetic. He explains that the narrow mis-understanding of cancer keeps researchers from experimenting with possible toxin free recovery, low-dose combos of drugs or radical diet education instead of the present mono standard for every cancer case: surgery, chemo, radiation.
He says the reins are held so tight in keeping the status-quo that researchers will lose their grant money (100’s of millions of dollars) and doctors will lose their licenses, if they don’t tow the company line. And in most cases the company line is set by pharmaceutical companies.
And I know it is Pig Pharma that pays oncologists huge kickbacks every time they administer chemo to a patient, an incentive to make sure they are less likely to ask questions.
THESE FINDINGS ARE PERSONAL TO ME
These findings by progressive researchers are not an abstract to me. My mother, myself and, recently, my daughter have had cancer. Because of these three cases of cancer in one family, the assumption would be that we have a faulty gene pool. A family inheritance that we are powerless over….that the only thing between us and ‘it’ is a wing and a prayer.
Yet, Dr Seyfried’s research has discovered that cancer cells don’t have the same genes from one person to another. For example, one persons brain cancer cell genes will be very different from someone else’s breast cancer genes. This may begin to explain the unknown as to why, with over 100 types of cancer, one person may get blood cancer and another breast cancer.
And of course most doctors refuse to move the needle in their overall belief system even as more and more evidence points to our very, very broken food system as a main culprit.
Summary: Progressive researchers are discovering that this disease is not an isolated group of errant cells waiting passively to be annihilated by a wonder drug. Instead it is caused by a cascade of glitches in the body, often caused by us. That is why cancer does not, and never will, present a single target for a magic bullet that will “Win The War”.
THE HEALING POWER OF TERRAIN
I was struck by these discoveries when reflecting on fighting my own uterine cancer 18 years ago. I could have had the suggested hysterectomy, the standard first line of treatment, followed by chemo and radiation…..
But this would not have addressed the biological imbalance in my body that allowed cancer to grow in the first place: my high fat dairy diet, (latte’s with whip cream), my overboard love of pastry, my ignorance of how important it was to eat an alkaline diet free of chemicals. My lack of knowledge as to how my years of constipation was contributing to creating a toxic environment allowing for cancer to take hold.
I would have missed the wealth of knowledge I have gathered over the years from pioneering educators as to the power of using Food As Medicine to help me fight and win. I would have never discovered the importance of creating an environment in the body that is hostile to malignant cancer cells.
I WOULD NEVER HAVE DISCOVERED THAT:
> Commercial Dairy: Modern dairy products are swimming in the hormone estrogen which acts like a fertilizer, fueling the growth of breast cancer as well as uterine cancer, as both are hormonal cancers. The average American consumed over 600 pounds of dairy in 2021, predominantly in the forms of milk, cheese, butter, yogurt and ice cream.
> Cancer Is A Sugar Junkie: The biggest discovery over the years is that cancer cells have a “sweet tooth”. Their natural tendency to guzzle-up huge amounts of sugar from the bloodstream allow it to multiply unchecked. The Western diet is laden with overt and hidden sugars. The average American is consuming 150 lbs of sugar a year, contributing to the perfect habitat for cancer.
> Modern Wheat Turns To Sugar In The Bloodstream: In 1971 Big Agriculture mutilated our wheat seed to increase yields. The new ‘modern’ wheat, also called “FrankenWheat”, is 75% starch, which turns to blood sugar within 10 seconds in the body. To a wheat eating culture, this has been nothing short of criminal.
> Our Bodies Can’t Handle A Diet Drenched In Man-Made Chemicals: The 3,000 chemicals allowed into our Food System are no friend of the body. A daily diet of food additives, contaminants, carcinogens and mutagens has created a population where one out of two Americans will experience cancer in their lifetime.
As Healers Of The Future, I know we know we cannot wait for Western Medicine to get on board. It is up to us as Nutritional Coaches and Cancer Coaches to keep on learning and keep on sharing. We will become the change we want to see in the world. I’m on board, I hope you will join me….
Much Love And Support To All Our Efforts
To Reclaim Our Precious Health
Paula Diana, Founder Of Diet For Living School
Certified Holistic Nutrition Coach/Cancer Coach
Food As Medicine Educator
#foodasmedicine #cancer #genes #breastcancer #DrThomasSeyfried #walkforthecure #SusanGKomen
#dietforlivingschool #hormones