I’ve had kids home the last couple of weeks almost every day for one reason or another so it’s taken me time to get this post out to you.

Before I get into the topic, since it’s the first day of Chanuka and every year people ask me for my recipe for doughnuts, I’m linking it here for you so you don’t need to search. It’s heartwarming to know that some of you have been making this recipe since I first posted my recipe here thirteen years ago!

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I’m going to continue to respond to questions asked about doing screenings for cancer. I’d like to start by addressing an underlying attitude towards screenings that you may not have considered.

The thought behind the need to do screenings, is that there are all of these scary things that can happen to us, to any of us, any time, randomly, and we need to take every precaution to catch them before they bring us down. Inherently, that leads you to think of yourself as a potential problem waiting to happen.

For me, thinking in this way would lead me to living in a perpetual state of low grade anxiety and fear, worrying that something could be wrong with me and running to get tested to reassure myself that I’m okay. Instead, I choose the baseline position that I’m a healthy person. This is not from a place of denial, but I actively choose to view myself as strong, healthy and capable; it’s empowering and psychologically healthy .

>> sometimes it is important to do preventive testing. My 40-year-old sister-in-law decided to go for a mammogram only because her close friend was diagnosed with breast cancer and it scared her. My SIL had no symptoms whatsoever and was healthy and energetic. Sadly, she was also diagnosed with breast cancer. Boruch Hashem after chemo and double mastectomy and oophorectomy, she is in remission, but had she not done that mammogram, things could have been very different. <<

I am so glad to hear that your sister-in-law is doing well, and I’m not questioning in any way if this was the right decision for her to make.

I’m going to share some thoughts for you to consider – I’m asking you to not reflexively respond but to let the points sit with you for a moment.

I’ll begin with briefly referencing a summary by the American Cancer Society of concerns with the effectiveness and accuracy of mammograms that include false negatives, false positives, overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

You can read the link, but I’ll sum it up more briefly here: One in eight breast cancers aren’t picked up by the mammogram, leading to a false negative. That means there are women who have done the testing who think they’re fine who actually have cancer.

Over a ten year period, half of women having mammograms will get a false positive – they will be told they have abnormal results when they don’t have any cancer whatsoever. That leads to further testing and treatment, as well as stress and anxiety.

Finding a cancer that wouldn’t cause problems is referred to as ‘overdiagnosis’. There are cancers that wouldn’t be found and wouldn’t grow or spread if there hadn’t been a screening for them; they will not become life-threatening. It is possible to be completely unaware of the presence of the cancer, and live a long and healthy life, untreated.

Treating cancers that wouldn’t cause any problems is called ‘overtreatment’. When a cancer is found, a doctor can’t know which will cause problems and which won’t, so he will advise treatment for all of them. That means that a lot of women will unnecessarily undergo cancer treatment.

And finally, just because they find a cancer when it’s small doesn’t mean it can be treated successfully.

Mammograms also expose women to radiation. While the phrasing that is consistently used for all sorts of medical procedure is ‘the benefits far outweigh any risks’, there are a number of reasons for a woman may question if this is a screening that is actually to her benefit to participate in.

If you’re interested, here’s an article from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: Mammography is dangerous and should be abandoned.

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Let’s say that you do testing that shows you have cancer, and now you have to do something about it. Now what?

The standard of care is chemotherapy and radiation, and this is what doctors are obligated to recommend. It’s considered malpractice for them not to suggest that.

Chemotherapy is poison. The goal is for the chemotherapy to be more toxic to the cancer cells than the human receiving it, and kill the cancer cells before it kills the human. That’s how it works. It’s brutal, and the person who is ‘cured’ is one who can survive chemo. One day we’ll look back with horror on this barbaric treatment but currently this is our standard of care.

Another aspect of standard care is radiation therapy. According to the American Cancer Society, radiation therapy used to treat cancer is linked to the further development of cancer. So it’s a treatment that contributes in the long term to what it’s supposed to be eliminating in the short term.

Here’s an emotionally charged point to consider: When a person is diagnosed, treated for cancer and then dies, we make the presumption that it’s the cancer that killed them. We don’t question if the treatment contributed to their death, and if they would have lived longer and with less suffering without the chemo and radiation.

According to the genetic disease model, there’s not much to do in the way of prevention other than screening and preemptively removing body parts. People do what they feel they need to do to save their lives, and if this is the best option presented to them, then of course they’re going to do that.

Are the only ways to treat cancer with chemotherapy, radiation and the removal of affected body parts? Is there anything more effective and less toxic that can be done? Are there any preventative steps that can be taken?

Cancer researcher Dr. Thomas Seyfried has written extensively about cancer being a metabolic disease. This is counter to the prevailing view of cancer as a genetic disease. Metabolic therapies that lower blood glucose and elevate ketones will quickly reduce tumor growth, extend lifespan and in some cases cause complete remission.

Several years ago I was on a group hike with a bunch of women, and got to chatting with someone I hadn’t met before, who mentioned she doesn’t give her children sugar. Naturally, I asked her why. She told me as a lab researcher she’s seen what happens to cancer cells in a petri dish when they are given sugar- the cancer explodes. And she just can’t give that to her children to eat.

What fuels cancer cells? Glucose and glutamine. That’s sugar. Glucose immediately goes into blood stream and into the tumor cell. A tumor cell is one that has out of control division. The only way to shut down growth of these cells is to get rid of their fuel and transition the body to a fuel that the cancer cells can’t use to grow. Starve the cell and the cancer can’t continue to grow.

Unfortunately, cancer patients are generally told they can eat anything they want, and cancer wards tend to be filled with sugary foods. It’s interesting to consider the ethics of giving a patient chemo to kill the cancer cells, giving them no dietary guidance to reduce or eliminate sugar, and then following up their treatment with a hospital tray of sugary foods.

The highest risk factor for cancer are processed carbohydrates in your diet; the constant barrage of these foods is the highest risk factor for all of the most common diseases. Elevated blood sugar leads to systemic inflammation. Yet not only is that the standard diet, the dietary pyramid recommends high carbohydrate consumption as the foundation of a healthy diet.

***Edited to add – I am not suggesting that if someone is diagnosed with cancer, all that is necessary to treat it is a dietary approach. Not at all. There are other alternative therapies that I would personally look at in that case. What I am stating is that prevention is better than the cure and it would be wise to take a preventative and preemptive approach to minimize the development of systemic inflammation in our bodies that leads to all kinds of diseases. As such, diet is an important preventative factor to be aware of.***

Massive amounts of money have been spent on the ‘war on cancer’ but it doesn’t seem to me that it’s doing much good. Cancer rates are steadily rising – right now it’s predicted that one of every two people will develop cancer by the time he is 85. That’s downright scary, and if you believe it’s screening that will save your life, those statistics will probably send you running to do some testing to be assured you’re not one of those two people.

Though previous generations of my family had a high cancer rate and that would seemingly dictate that genetically I’m at high risk, I take a different approach. We live in a world of toxins and eating well won’t eliminate the poisons in our foods, air, and all the products that are part of our every day lives (for example, microplastics in just about everything). However, if I can change my diet and eliminate the highest risk factor, it makes sense to me to do that.

I’m not a passive victim waiting for cancer to strike me. There are things I can do to make myself less of a likely target, and I’d rather do them than participate in screenings and the follow-up treatments with all of the risks they entail.

Avivah

In this post I’m going to give a broader view of my perspective, my reasoning and thinking behind my decision to decline routine health exams at this stage of my life.

The first reaction to me choosing not to do routine health screenings may be to think that’s somewhat reckless and irresponsible.

What I think is irresponsible is handing over your health and the quality of your life to someone else. I want to use resources thoughtfully and judiciously, not just because someone from the doctor’s office calls and tells me because of my age it’s time to do something.

I’m not giving medical advice to anyone else. I’m certainly not denying the value of accessing those with more experience and knowledge as partners in your health. I advocate and practice a preventative lifestyle in which education and knowledge are central, and don’t believe in being oblivious to or ignoring issues.

If you have a concern, go get it checked out. Then if a health concern is revealed that you need to address, research and make a decision based on all of that knowledge as to what is best in your situation.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to take responsibility for your own health. That is part and parcel of my mindset and how I live. I appreciate any and all help from others, but try not to expect others to save me from myself.

>>As for having health checks such as blood tests, mammogram over age 40, blood pressure and more, unfortunately they are vital and save millions of lives daily. It would have been so easy and ideal if health was all about how we feel, though many illnesses begin silently and erupt suddenly, without the person ever having previous noticeable health issues or discomforts. If those tests are available and don’t provide side effects, we should be grateful for them…<<

Please don’t think I’m picking on the person whose question I am responding but since people often make statements like this – are you certain that millions of lives are saved daily as a result of these checks? Statistically it’s hard for me to believe that claim is true.

Here are some questions I would suggest you consider:

• Is it possible that sometimes these tests are inaccurate or flawed?
• Is it possible that these tests/or treatments have side effects?
• Is is possible that the treatment for whatever has been diagnosed may cause a worse outcome than taking a different approach?
• Do you assume that if the doctors are doing it, it must be right, it must be documentably the best course of action, and it must lead to the best results?

Perhaps some of your presumptions as to the benefit of widespread allopathic testing and treatment may be flawed.

The third leading cause of death in the United States is medical error. It is preceded by cancer and heart disease, both strongly impacted by diet. Based on those brief facts, doesn’t it make sense to: 1) invest a lot more time learning about and implementing proper nutrition so you can take a preventative approach and minimize the chances of dying of cancer and heart disease, and 2) stop using the medical system as the first stop for every question or concern so as to minimize the danger of medical error and prescription drug misdiagnosis or contraindication?

When it comes to routine tests, I want to know what the purpose of the screening is, how it works, what the accuracy rate is, and then consider what steps will be taken if a health condition is uncovered.

The screenings are generally for signs of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Here are more questions: What leads to cancer? What leads to heart disease? What leads to diabetes? None of them suddenly or randomly pop up, even if a sudden diagnosis may lead us to believe that.

Are any of those things you can control? Are there any things you can change about what you’re doing to lower your likelihood of getting them? What are those changes? Can you proactively make those changes before getting a hard diagnosis?

There is so, so much that you can do to improve each area of your health. You can participate in testing, or preempt the testing and take proactive actions before there’s a reason for concern, which is what I do.

I believe you can pay attention to how you feel and you don’t need to rely on someone else to tell you how you’re feeling, any more than a woman in labor needs someone else looking at the monitor to tell her she’s having a contraction.

>> I am not sure that not going to health care clinic just because we feel good and healthy. I did not know I had high blood pressure until I had to go to doctor. So how safe, by not going, will be?? I prefer to be checked as I’m getting closer to 60’s. <<

If you feel comfortable doing these screenings, then by all means, do them! Again, I’m not telling anyone not to do something they think is important.

I’ll address the point about not knowing you had high blood pressure, but first, some things to consider.

Here are questions I would ask about high blood pressure/hypertension: What causes high blood pressure? What are symptoms of high blood pressure? How can you treat high blood pressure? What happens if you don’t treat high blood pressure?

I’ll help you out and save you some research time 🙂 -primary hypertension is caused by hyperinsulinemia, the excess of insulin in your blood stream.

Here’s a link to a typical cardiologist’s recommendations for lifestyle changes if you have high blood pressure. What does it say?

“Avoid smoking.
Eat a heart-healthy diet, especially one that is low in salt.
Exercise under the directions of your doctor.
If you’re overweight, talk to your doctor about weight loss options.
Limiting alcohol consumption to 1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men.
Manage stress.”

These are standard guidelines that are telling you, if you don’t smoke, drink alcohol in larger quantities, if you move your body, manage your stress and eat a nutritious diet (important to note that the diet recommended in the link on that site will not improve high blood pressure so obviously all ‘healthy’ diets aren’t created equal and in my opinion avoiding salt isn’t a good idea), then it’s highly unlikely you’re going to have high blood pressure.

As someone who follows those healthy lifestyle recommendations, is it irresponsible for me to not regularly get my blood pressure tested? (In case you’re wondering, my blood pressure has always been on the low side of normal.)

Back to not knowing you had high blood pressure – eventually, a person with high blood pressure will show symptoms. That goes back to my comment in my last post about being in touch with yourself and noticing if something changes in the state of your health.

Now that you know you have high blood pressure, what are you going to do with that information to empower yourself and become a healthier version of you?

>>I have the same question. Aren’t there health conditions that are easier to treat if caught early, and that don’t present symptoms at early stages? I’m curious to understand your perspective<<

Absolutely it’s easier to treat something if you learn about it sooner than rather than when it’s more advanced. I am one hundred percent a proponent of being proactive and not waiting for issues to show up, or treating something when it’s small rather than waiting for it to get bigger.

The question might better be asked, is screening the only way to be proactive and careful about your health? Is screening really the best way to be careful about your health?

Let’s think about diabetes (which is reversable), for which we do screening. What are some subtle signs of blood sugar that’s getting too high? Weight gain, moodiness/anxiety, rising blood pressure, cavities/dental infections, frequent infections. There are signs that something isn’t right before you get diabetes. It doesn’t suddenly happen.

If I stop eating foods that raise blood sugar, is it irresponsible of me to not screen for pre-diabetes? If I rarely get sick, have stable moods, no dental issues or infections of any kind – am I being neglectful not to do this screening? Or am I doing something that others can also be doing to take meaningful preventative action?

Is there something that concerns you about your health, something that is a low-grade worry but not something serious enough to check out? Pay attention to that. Don’t ignore that inner voice. Ignoring things doesn’t make it go away. What are you worried about?

You’ve seen me share the kind of questions I ask to get clarity about what steps to take. You can ask yourself those same questions, and then do something proactive to improve your health. I want you to feel empowered to take action to help yourselves, not to put the power onto a health provider or a test and certainly not to pretend everything is fine and ignore symptoms you may be experiencing.

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Now the final question that I listed in the beginning is, what if a health issue is revealed? What will you do?

Hopefully all your scans and testing will come out just fine. But there’s a possibility that they won’t at some point in your life. Then what?

Then you’ll really need to take the time to ask some questions and learn, because the traditional allopathic choices will be medication that invariably comes with side effects or a medical procedure that you might want to avoid. These are valid options if you’re comfortable with them, but since my goal is health and wellness and not the management of disease, those aren’t the first line strategies that I would adopt.

That doesn’t mean declining treatment and wasting away. Fortunately there is always more than one way to treat a health issue, and some will be more effective and less toxic than others.

However, to be able to say, ‘thank you for the information and I’ve chosen a different way to address my health concern’ isn’t easy to do. Not at all. You’ll really need to be confident in the information and resources you’ve gathered to stand your ground, and at the core, you need to believe in yourself as a competent and capable person. You need to be able to trust yourself as able to make good choices for yourself.

As you can see, I don’t reflexively say ‘no’ and refuse to participate in standard medical screenings. Seeing myself, rather than my doctor, as responsible for my health puts the onus of responsibility on me. A lot of people feel that that’s too heavy a responsibility for them to take on, but whether you actively accept the responsibility or not, it’s your life and it’s therefore your responsibility.

Avivah

PS – I’ll address some other questions asked relating to cancer in my next post.