Nature's Answer to Cancer

Girl, 10 years old, gets breast cancer

They say it's a rare cancer.....but it's not. It's just that it rarely happens in females as young as Hannah Powell-Auslam, a fifth grader in California.

Hannah was diagnosed with breast cancer, at the age of 10, had a double mastectomy and now the cancer has recurred.

While most would be shocked at the news, some would say it is expected. Nutrition and lifestyle experts have been warning for years now that if our children don't change what they are eating now, they will be diagnosed at younger ages with diseases that usually affect older Americans. Kids the age of 12 have the beginning stages of hardening of the arteries and women as young at 17 years old have been stricken with breast cancer. And now a 10 year old girl.....

It is my sincere hope that the family of this girl realizes that external factors (diet, exercise, environmental toxins) may be contributing to Hannah's "growing environment for cancer" and that they support Hannah to make changes in what she eats and how she lives. In addition to traditional cancer treatment, it's time to take out all the tools of the healing toolbox.

Kim Dalzell, PhD, RD, LD

www.naturesanswertocancer.com

Sleep = Better Health and Wellness

A study published in the latest Archives of Internal Medicine has something to say about sleep….or the lack thereof.

For 14 consecutive days, 153 healthy volunteers tracked the number of hours they slept and their sleep efficiency (not time in bed, but time actually sleeping) during the previous night. The participants were then given nasal drops containing a rhinovirus, were quarantined, and monitored for 5 days for the development of a clinical cold (infection in the presence of objective signs of illness).

Those individual averaged less than 7 hours sleep were nearly 3 times more likely to develop a cold than those with 8 hours or more. Those with less than 92% efficiency were more than 5 times more likely to develop a cold than those with efficiencies of 98% or greater.

I see this all the time—people who routinely don’t sleep well, are stressed out much of their day, and don’t eat right typically are sick more often. Our bodies need rest in order to recover from the insults of the day.

How’d you sleep last night? Are you supporting your growing environment or stripping it bare of the very essentials you need to thrive?

Dr. Kim Dalzell

www.naturesanswertocancer.com

Hopefulness leads to Healthiness

The July 2008 issue of The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management published research from the Michigan State University in East Lansing that proved that cancer patients with more optimistic outlooks were better able to manage their cancer pain, while those patients who had a strong sense of mastery, or control over their environment, experienced less severe fatigue on top of being able to better manage their pain.

Participants of the study were put through a 10-week symptom control intervention program, with the help of a nurse. They were interviewed three times – at the start of the study, after 10 weeks at the end of the intervention program, and again after 16 weeks, to get a sense of their emotional states. Researchers found that those participants who had higher levels of mastery reported feeling less severe pain as well as lower levels of fatigue.

Cancer patients and their loved ones need to do more to help improve the emotional outlooks of cancer sufferers. Read jokes, watch comedies, laugh, hang out with and talk to positive people, pray, meditate, go for counseling – do anything to raise your positive outlook. Taking control of your healing journey is a major key to health—and making better nutrition choices falls right in line with this goal.

Dr. Kim Dalzell

www.naturesanswertocancer.com

A Sad Day on the Radio

Today, quite by happenstance, I plugged into a medical doctor radio talk show.

"I've been to five doctors and they all can't explain it," started the caller. "After I eat a meal, I shiver."

I thought to myself...this is basic physiology! What kind of medical doctor would not know that in responde to a meal, the blood housed in the extremities is shunted into the digestive tract to accommodate the process of breaking down and absorbing foods?

I was relieved when the doctor on the talk show agreed with me. Then, something interesting happened. He said, "If you don't always want to cover up with a sweater after your meal, there is some evidence that taking a beta blocker would help redirect the blood elsewhere and even out your internal temperature.

A beta blocker? Drugs......for feeling a bit chilly? Now I've heard of everything! How sad that for a little bit of comfort we are told to use prescription medications at the cost of countless side effects.

Shame on you, MD on the radio! Maybe you should spend a bit more time out in nature so you realize man doesn't always have the best solution to every problem. 

Are You Skipping a Step?

When I saw a television ad for a new drug to help lower cholesterol, I was reminded that the traditional medical model continues to skip a step when it comes to sending health and wellness messages.

The ad was enticing—featuring a split screen with one side showcasing easy-on-the-eyes men and women (I guess the point was that even beautiful people have high cholesterol!) while the other side alternated pictures of heart-smart meals. The voiceover announced: “Eat right, take this drug and you’ll combat those pesky lipids that clog your arteries.”

What confounds me is that most people will go straight to prescription drugs for a number of ailments known to be reversed or positively affected by adjusting dietary and lifestyle habits. I can’t imagine that they want to invite the negative side effects that accompany these medications. More likely, they blindly follow the advice of their physician. Others who are more educated about health may try to make better food choices or begin a walking program only to be discouraged by all the effort that is required to live and be healthy. So after giving it that old college try, they relegate themselves to standing in line at the pharmacy and feeling like a failure.

And therein lies the problem. People are not told about all the available options, choices, and alternatives. As I tell my cancer patients, “if you are receiving chemotherapy or radiation and not getting nutritional counseling, you are only getting half a treatment plan.”

There has to be a better way. Natural medicine to lower cholesterol, reduce blood sugar levels, or combat arthritis should be offered as part of a multi-step process. I wonder when we are going to realize that no one person, or one drug company, has all the answers—that the journey to healing and health must involve a number of choices.

When it comes to health, there should be no short cuts.  Don’t you agree?

www.naturesanswertocancer.com

Her name was Miracle

After nearly two hours of shopping frantically for a cocktail dress that I was told I needed to get for our upcoming trip to Vermont this Thursday, I found just what I was looking for. I placed my chosen outfit carefully on the sales counter.  The clerk, a young woman with cornrows darting left and right on her head collected at the nape of her neck with a big yellow band, was wearing the most beautiful white smile I had seen in a long time. I was struck by her presence. She cheerfully said, "Is this all?"

No, I decided, it wasn't all. She was wearing her name badge - a white rectangular plate with the red letters M-I-R-A-C-L-E written on it. I had to know.

"Your name is beautiful," I said. "I bet there's a great story behind it."

"Yes," she said, as she looked down so as to divert my attention to other things. I was not willing to let this one go, so I asked, "Would you care to share your story with me?"

There was the bright smile. "Okay", she said as she worked on our transaction. She began to tell me that when she was in her mother's womb the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around her neck (the doctors were unaware of this at the time). The cord was so restrictive that she stopped breathing. The disheartened medical team could not get her out of the womb and could not hear her heartbeat. She was pronounced dead. For five minutes they consoled the mother who would not have this beautiful girl child. For five minutes little Miracle lay inside, not being able to breathe. Quiet. Still.

"For some reason," she said very quietly now as she continued her story, "one of the nurses checked my mother's belly one more time with her stethoscope and heard my heart beating, faintly." Her mother was rushed into the operating room and a C-section was performed. Little Miracle was lifted out of the womb, the cord unwound and everyone waited for the blue baby to scream as she was welcomed into the world.

Miracle screamed. And today, twenty years later, little Miracle was smiling, brightly. I thanked her for her story and extended my hand saying, "It was very nice to meet you, Miracle."

Miracle was taken aback. "My, you are making me feel so special," she said as I walked away with my cocktail dress in hand. Her comment made me turn around and I said, "Well, you are special."

I walked out of the door of the store that night, passing many people. Nameless people. But knowing one thing: whatever we are called, wherever we came from, we are all special in our own, unique way. And our story will mean something to someone.

Have you shared your story yet?

www.naturesanswertocancer.com