Beverly Monical

I want to alert you to a very interesting study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine – it’s a study that underscores just how important nutrition and dietary supplements are to health. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., and is threatening to overtake heart disease as the number one killer. With all the press about the mapping of the human genome, it’s easy to get the impression that genetics is the root cause of all disease and there really isn’t much you can do on the front.

Well this study tells a completely different story – that genetics plays only a small role in the development of cancer. Researchers obtained data from almost 90,000 twins. Identical twins have the exact genetic makeup so that if cancer is something that is really hardwired into our genes, you would expect that if cancer occurred in one twin it would also occur in the other. What researchers found is that if one identical twin had cancer, their twin sibling had about a 90% chance of NOT getting the same cancer as his or her affected twin.

What this finding means is that genetics is not the all-powerful determining factor for cancer. Instead, it points to environment as a much more common cause. That’s good news because we can’t change who our parents are, but we can change our environment.

Our environment includes the foods and supplements we consume, the fluids we drink, the air we breath, the chemicals that we come in contact with, and the physical fitness of our bodies. Poor diet, exposure to toxic household chemicals, and lack of exercise were singled out by researchers as environmental culprits that put people at risk for specific types of cancer. So use this study and the publicity surrounding it as an opportunity to reinforce the message that our health is something we control.

Marianne Cooper
Muscles In Motion

Since this article was written Cancer has now moved into the number one leading cause death in the United States. I continue to be shocked at how most people assume a helpless position when it comes to prevention of a disease so common. Recommend that you take a difference stance and learn as much as you can about what you can do to support your bodies ability to heal and repair and prevent disease including cancer.

Make Healthy Choices!
Beverly