A Lifestyle for Cancer Prevention

How food & stress affect cancer

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In 1924, Otto Warburg described a phenomenon where cancer cells developed a different method of generating energy.

He proposed that cancer cells rely primarily on the fermentation of sugar rather than using oxygen and aerobic respiration to produce energy.

This process is now called the Warburg effect, in which nearly all tumors take in large amounts of glucose and release lactate. Since then, numerous studies have investigated ways cancer is affected by lifestyle.

Our first article in this series looks at what we know about our environment and how it affects cancer cells and enables their growth and development.

THE EXPOSOME

In health, as well as disease, it is not one single thing that determines how well we are, but a combination of multiple factors.

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It's about the exposure you experience over your lifetime and how those exposures affect your health

The exposome has been defined as the totality of exposure individuals experience over their lives and how those exposures affect health.

Let's consider an individual’s exposome beyond diet, including environmental exposure, hormone balance, medications, body composition, amount of daily physical activity, and any underlying inflammation.

Each element exerts influences on health and risk of disease independently and through interaction with other elements. For example, inflammation is a known risk factor for cancer, as it is for other diseases.

To reduce cancer risk, we can target chronic inflammation by eliminating inflammatory triggers and also support the body so that it can remove inflammation-causing substrates in the body.

DIET, NUTRITION & INFLAMMATION

Chronic inflammation is further triggered by two conditions directly related to diet and nutrition. Obesity and metabolic syndrome are often the result of a diet of sugar and highly processed foods, combined with poorly managed stress and lack of sleep.

These all combine to systematically increase insulin levels in the body. This is fertile ground to cultivate adipocytes, which are the fat cells. Adipocytes are not just storage tanks for fat but also act as an active endocrine organ that secretes cytokines and hormones that trigger chronic inflammation.

Increased inflammation leads to local tissue damage, which, like a local wound, induces an influx of immune cells and growth factors, and triggers tissue remodeling and new blood flow to the area.

A MICROENVIRONMENT FOR CANCER

The resulting microenvironment provides tumor cells with everything they need to grow to take over the mechanisms to support their own growth and tissue invasion.

TO STOP THE PROCESS

To stop this process of chronic inflammation at the source, we must address diet, as well as sleep and stress. The basic tenets for keeping inflammation in check include meditation, movement, proper sleep, and a proper diet.