Everything is Medicine, and You’re Not a Pharmacist

Food is Scary!

You know those fears you have about too much salt, too much red meat, too many preservatives, etc. etc.  Those fears are real, but they probably don’t mean much unless you’re eating a half pound of beef 3 meals a day over a prolonged period of time.  If you’ve had a surgery and are in recovery, the doctors are telling you to maximize protein. The high levels of choline and cholesterol in eggs can be scary.  Fish and seafood which are supposed to be healthy can also appear scary because of contamination from oil spills and traces of mercury.  There are pesticides on fruits and vegetables, and the organic ones carry the risk of various bacteria and fungi.  It feels as though nothing is safe.

The Research is Confusing

On top of all these “risks” there is the conflicting research.  You hear people talking about the benefits of thyme and how it kills cancer cells and then you hear that the FDA has banned myrcene which is the main constituent of the essential oil of wild thyme.  Does thyme fight cancer or is it a carcinogen?  Only through relentless research will you find the answer.  

Thyme & SULT1a1

In the case of thyme and myrcene, the answer comes in the form of the SULT1a1 gene.  The rationale for banning myrcene is that it causes cancer in the liver of rats because they carry a form of the SULT1a1 gene that metabolizes flavonoids into carcinogens.  Up until the 1990’s, many anti-oxidants that are now considered cancer fighters were being studied as carcinogens due to rodent studies (such as Quercetin / rat kidney cancer).  What we have learned is that the SULT1a1 gene in humans is routinely different from the one in rodents.  We have also learned that the activation of the SULT1a1 gene is much higher in rodents and it produces 30 times the amount of enzymes in the liver.  Myrcene is being banned because it causes cancer in rat livers at extremely high doses.  While there is a very small chance that genetic variations in humans could make some people more susceptible to liver cancer, the probability of getting liver cancer from consuming thyme is extremely low.  This represents a real problem with the FDA’s approach to banning so many of these naturally occurring compounds.  While a small population may be at risk, it removes something potentially beneficial to the larger population.  As cancer fighting components are continually reduced in our food supply we become more susceptible to cancer.    

Natural vs Processed Foods

This leads into whether processed or natural foods are better.  The processed foods have only FDA approved additives while the natural foods contain many banned substances.  The evidence appears to suggest that natural foods, in general, are healthier and provide a better defense against cancer than highly processed foods.  That doesn’t mean that every natural food is beneficial or that every processed food promotes cancer.  What it means is that our understanding of nutrition and cancer are so horribly flawed that efforts to make us safer have the potential to do just the opposite.  Even the best dietitian can only help you so much.  The person at checkout in the grocery store probably isn’t going to play pharmacist and explain to you the pros and cons of eating a banana.  

The Unknown Odds

Assume you can split a given cancer into a 50/50 success to failure ratio and only 10% of failure is due to genetics.  That leaves 40% of people who don’t recover due to outside variables such as environment, age, stress, mistakes, and poor diet.  Despite our best efforts there will always be unknown factors.  There are some things we do know for certain, such as smoking increases your risk of getting lung cancer or having it recur.  At the same time, not everyone who smokes gets cancer and not everyone who is cured of cancer quits smoking.  Our goal should always be to achieve a 100% success rate, but to achieve that goes far beyond the capabilities of medicine alone and leaves a lot to chance.  In order to improve our odds we need to approach everything in our life as though it were medicine.

Life As Medicine (The 3 Essentials)

#1 Strength

In order to approach life as medicine we need to focus on 3 main areas.  The first is strength.  No matter what approach we take we need our body to be strong enough to endure treatment.  That requires us to remove unhealthy stress, get adequate nutrition, and to pay attention to what the body is telling us.  If you look at the typical advice from doctors (don’t stress, get plenty of protein, and get 7 hours of sleep) it is centered on keeping your body strong.  Basic nutrition is the starting point and something that cannot be taken for granted.

#2 Exertion / Recovery

The second area of focus is exertion.  Having a strong body will only get you so far.  You also need your body to fight.  If all the doctors cared about was strength they wouldn’t put people on chemo.  We’re given vaccines to train our body to fight off viruses. Just as your body builds muscle in response to exercise it will also build healthy tissue in response to the right stimulus.  The challenge is that exertion and strength can often appear to be opposites.  Some forms of exertion only reduce our strength temporarily and result in increased strength over time.  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  Even something as unorthodox as fasting does have some evidence showing it can improve health.  We “break” our fasts in the morning, but there is research that indicates fasting can be beneficial to human health.  A lot of research is being done on intermittent fasting and there is a lot of disagreement on what is optimal.  Unfortunately this leaves you in the position of a guinea pig.  Be prepared for a lot of trial and error to determine what helps and what doesn’t.

#3 Environment

The final area to focus on is environment.  This is both internal and external.  If you live in a house full of toxic mold the quickest way to start feeling better is to get out of the house.  If you want a place to sleep, the next step is to get the mold out of the house by eliminating the moisture it feeds on.  When it comes to our body, the same can be applied to things like inflammation.  Cancer feeds on inflammation like mold feeds off of humidity.  Mold also likes oxygen, but you can’t live without oxygen.  Cancer also loves sugar, but so do healthy cells.  There is a myth that sugar is bad for you.  What science shows is that too much sugar creates an environment where cancer can thrive.  If your blood sugar is already low then cutting out carbs isn’t going to benefit you and could potentially make things worse.  This is why every plan must be tailored to the individual based on their unique circumstances.  Anything and everything you bring into your home or put into your body could potentially be medicine and the only ones who can fill the prescription is you and your loved ones.  

Defy the “Odds” and Beat the Unbeatable

There is no pharmacy you can go to and no pharmacist that can fix your home and diet for you.  You might not be a pharmacist or a doctor, but you are the greatest advocate for your own health and the health of your loved ones.  It can be scary and frustrating, but it can also be liberating.  Knowing that medicine doesn’t have all the answers is why some people defy odds and beat the unbeatable.  Hope is something that you have to give yourself.  Working for a healthy home is something both the patient and their support group can do together.  Everyone needs to be in the fight in order for the patient to “not be alone” in the fight.  People love to say, “You can do this!”  Perhaps we should all say “We” instead of “You”. No one truly knows what one can or cannot do, but that is all the more reason to believe and cheer on each other.  This all ties into a stanza of my poem “Pulling Weeds”:

Keep pulling weeds

Keep hope alive

We believe, We succeed,

We Survive