{"id":4639,"date":"2016-10-06T12:18:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T16:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.willclower.com\/blog\/?p=4639"},"modified":"2019-05-30T16:31:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T20:31:11","slug":"no-you-cant-prevent-all-cancers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=4639","title":{"rendered":"No, You Can’t Prevent All Cancers"},"content":{"rendered":"

My wife’s diagnosis taught me a lot about the disease<\/h2>\n

October, as you certainly know, is Breast Cancer awareness month. Football players are wearing pink, little ribbons show up on lapels, and a slew of articles will no doubt arise about preventing cancer. But like millions of people each year, my experience with this month is a bit more personal.<\/p>\n

I know exactly where I was the moment my wife Dottie told me, \u201cThey got the results, Will. It\u2019s cancer. Outside the duct. Invasive.\u201d I lost my legs and the world collapsed in on itself like a scene from\u00a0Inception<\/em>. I sat there in the middle of a sidewalk outside\u00a0Starbucks<\/a>, lost to all else. As of today though, we are now on the other side of it and after 5 years of Tamoxifen, thank God are still cancer free.<\/p>\n

The disorienting process made us both reprocess the things we thought we had known, particularly around the language we hear around cancer. Specifically, articles, videos, and entire websites proclaim that you can \u201cprevent cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"prevent-cancer-image\"But stating that you can prevent cancer leaves the impression that if you do contract this disease, then you didn\u2019t do what it took to prevent it. It\u2019s your fault. You should have, could have done more of something or less of something else. If you had just eaten more kale, did a few more laps, or followed through on those yoga classes, you could have prevented this from happening to you.<\/p>\n

But the unfortunate truth is that you cannot prevent a lot of cancers or stop it, despite what the articles say: not by eating right<\/span>, not by exercising<\/span>, not by meditating<\/span>. You just can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

How many anecdotes have you heard of people who were super healthy, doing everything exactly right (much like Dottie) and yet they still contracted the disease? Conversely, someone\u2019s grandfather smoked all his life, was a junk food fiend, broke all the rules of health and still lived to the ridiculous age of 97. Living well no more prevents most cancer than living poorly causes it.<\/p>\n

And this sounds like an enormous bummer, but makes an important point for those going through this wrenching process and those who fear they may: Even though you can\u2019t turn it off or on with your behavior, you can change your risk probability. This may sound a bit academic, but the idea is quite simple. Think of it like playing dice, in which you have a certain chance of getting a good roll or bad roll. \u201cChanging your risk probability\u201d is like switching out the fair dice you were given with weighted dice.<\/p>\n

To weight them in your favor, eat right, exercise, and control stress levels. Doing those things doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019ll always come up in your favor, only that you have better odds that they will. To weight them against you, eat poorly, be sedentary, smoke, binge drink. Doing those things won\u2019t ensure you\u2019ll land a terrible roll, only that it\u2019s much more likely to happen.<\/p>\n

This explains the chain smoking octogenarian junk food-a-holic, who may have tilted their risk profile very far against them, but still improbably managed to roll a Yahtzee in 6s. It also explains how you can lower your risk levels by perfectly healthy habits, and yet still roll the worst Yahtzee roll possible. Both of these can very easily happen, though odds are very small.<\/p>\n

The most important piece of this is to not beat yourself up over the language suggesting you may have done something wrong. Dealing with the intense emotional and physical toll of the disease is plenty to manage without buying into the chatter that you could have prevented it in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife’s diagnosis taught me a lot about the disease October, as you certainly know, is Breast Cancer awareness month. Football players are wearing pink, little ribbons show up on … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7Qv5g-1cP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6225,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=6225","url_meta":{"origin":4639,"position":0},"title":"Cancer Awareness Month: Colon","author":"Will Clower","date":"October 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Colorectal cancer is the 2nd most commonly occurring cancer in women, and the 3rd most commonly occurring in men (source: https:\/\/bit.ly\/2xLYFEP). One key suspect in this particular cancer formation is processed meats, particularly those cured with nitrates and nitrites (current thoughts on cancer boosters and blockers here: https:\/\/bit.ly\/2IKBNcc.","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"Antioxidant poster showing foods high in antioxidant values","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week1.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week1.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week1.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week1.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6216,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=6216","url_meta":{"origin":4639,"position":1},"title":"Cancer Awareness Month","author":"Will Clower","date":"October 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This month, we are focused on cancer awareness. We'll do this by providing 2 infographics each week. The first will spotlight cancer fighting foods. The second will take a deeper dive into the data around certain prevalent forms of cancer. As always, looking forward to your thoughts! \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancerFightingFoods.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancerFightingFoods.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancerFightingFoods.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancerFightingFoods.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6229,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=6229","url_meta":{"origin":4639,"position":2},"title":"Cancer Awareness Month: Lung","author":"Will Clower","date":"October 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is stunning: Worldwide, lung cancer is the most common malignancy and the most common cause of cancer deaths in the past few decades. In 2012, a total of\u00a01.8 million new cases\u00a0were estimated, accounting for 12.9% of all new cancer diagnoses. (source: https:\/\/go.nature.com\/2xPytsH) And the single most important risk factor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week2.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week2.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week2.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/cancer_fighting_foods_week2.jpg?fit=933%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6233,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=6233","url_meta":{"origin":4639,"position":3},"title":"Cancer Awareness Month: Prostate","author":"Will Clower","date":"October 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"You've probably heard it said, \"If you live long enough, you'll get prostate cancer.\" That's because its onset is at least partially due to increased age, with the average age of diagnosis at 66 years old! (source: https:\/\/bit.ly\/2krh8jL). And now that we have a test for it (the PSA), it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=494"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/CloserLook_Prostate.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/CloserLook_Prostate.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/CloserLook_Prostate.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/CloserLook_Prostate.jpg?fit=927%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2370,"url":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?p=2370","url_meta":{"origin":4639,"position":4},"title":"Mediterranean Diet Better for Breast Cancer SurvivorsOlive-oil enriched diet helps breast cancer survivors lose more weight","author":"Will Clower","date":"June 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Mediterranean diet, rich in olive oil, seems to be a better diet for weight loss and weight loss maintenance. This article reports on a study in breast cancer survivors. Here's why that's important. For women with breast cancer, excess weight at the time of diagnosis, or even moderate weight\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mediterranean diet"","block_context":{"text":"Mediterranean diet","link":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/?cat=285"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bookmark and Share","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7272,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639\/revisions\/7272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mymedwellness.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}