Being that I am in remission now for 10 years (this month makes it my 10th year). My doctors say that I am the best health wise I have ever been. Natural healthy living through a Paleo lifestyle has changed my life. I am only getting better. So I say hogwash to all the anti-paleo hype when I am living proof of a paleo improved cancer survivor success story.

Gonna ruffle a few feathers here, but I get annoyed by the people who say "we are surrounded by all sorts of chemicals everyday, therefore cancer is inevitable". Such defeatism. Sure, we are hit by all kinds of carcinogens everyday, and cells turn "cancerous" everyday even in a healthy body. But the human body has a mechanism for noticing these damaged cells and dealing with them. A healthier body can most definitely deal with these cells easier.

I am a strong believer that diet, specifically a paleo diet, plays an absolutely crucial role in the prevention of cancer. In the presence of high inflammation, chronically raised insulin and blood sugar (aka cancer food), unbalanced hormones and nutrient deficiencies, the body will have a harder time dealing with cancerous cells before they multiply to a point where the person has "cancer". From what I've researched, a paleo-esque diet corrects all of these issues.

Two people very close to me had cancer. The first passed away because of it. The second, upon being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, immediately went on a high-fat, low-carb, nutrient-rich paleo diet. Almost a year later, and they haven't been able to find the primary, and the metastatic site is now cancer free. Correlation does not equal causation, obviously. But still, pretty cool!

Now, there's the issue of the effects protein consumption has on the mTor pathway, which has been said to be a factor in cancer development. Hopefully Dr. K writes about this.

Sorry for the rant!

Do I hope it helps the "ravishes"? No. Do I hope it helps the ravages of cancer? Yes.

In seriousness, I think the links between sugar/chronic high levels of insulin and tumors is compelling.

Does it matter what anyone here or elsewhere "thinks" might happen? The reality is that we live in a chemical soup regardelss of food, with vinyl flooring, polyurthane coatings, BPA in food cans, cash register receipts and nearly every thing else, polluted air (even polar bears have PCBs in their blood), heavy metals in fish, etc., etc., etc., so regardless of diet, we have carcinogens and who knows what else at every turn.

There is no silver bullet. In the end, we're each just dirt, sooner or later. Dirt.

I'm only concerned about quality of life at this point, and feeling good, and being able to function highly enough to take care of myself and do the things I enjoy like gardening, cooking, learning and a bunch of other things.

I heard something on an NPR program over the last few days about cancer... they had a Dr. on who has done a lot of research, etc. on cancer. What stood out was when he said that when he has a breast cancer patient come to him and say "but I did everything right - I didn't smoke, I ate all the right foods, I did A, B, C, and I still got breast cancer" and he said that it isn't much help to those patients to tell them "Well, at least you reduced your risk."

My approach is to live a healthy lifestyle and not worry about things like cancer, because Sh** happens and it might be you or it might be me, and I might live through it or not, and you might live through it or not, but getting cancer or not getting cancer is no longer what defines living or dying, as it did even just 20 years ago.

And living is fragile and we're all headed for the dirt nap eventually. Or tomorrow.

That said, I'm not going to live in such a way that invites cancer, but I'm not going to worry about it, either. If my number comes up to have it, then I'll deal with it. If I live through it, I'm still going to eventually die.

We all die.

Does it really matter if it's cancer or getting hit by a bus or dying ion a car crash? Aren't those scenarios about the same, anyway, in terms of chance of survival?

Live. Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving (hint: that quote has nothing to do with food).

When I don't know of any studies giving me a reason to think so? No.

I do choose to opt for screening as often as I can because early detection is something that I do expect to bee helpful.

There is some evidence that cancer is linked to inflammation, and the Paleo diet is all about reducing and trying to eliminate internal inflammation. Based on this I think it is a good diet to help prevent cancer.

I think that being generally happy, content and feeling good is also a great way to fight cancer. You don't hear about this in the medical journals because "happiness" is hard to quantify. But that doesn't mean it isn't important. If the Paleo diet gives you energy, confidence, and allows you to do the things in your life that you want to do, I think that is also a huge benefit.

I have a lot of cancer in my family, both parents died of it, several aunts and uncles, and even some in-laws. In almost all cases it was smoking-related, which in a way makes it hard to know what I should watch out for (besides not smoking obviously). But having most of my elder generation die of cancer in the space of about 5 years certainly heightened my awareness.

Funny how the poster depicts cancer as something that can happen to anyone. And implicitly implies that cancer is primarily caused by outside sources (not food), even though there's no evident to support that cities with higher level of air pollution have higher rates of cancer versus cities with less pollution.

As Phenix stated, even a healthy body can develop cancer. But it's VERY hard for cancer to survive in a low sugar environment (i.e. a low-carb/paleo diet), because cancer needs glucose to survive.

Another thing that's interesting, as the poster states, cancer has gone up 44% since 1950 and cancer will be the leading cause of death in 5 years.

How did Americans eat in 1950 versus today? It was a meat and potatoes diet. People were not cooking with PUFAs, eating whole grains, eating high carb, eating as much processed foods as they are today.

I like to get information from a lot of sources. Here is an interview Dr. Mercola Interviews Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez on Cancer. Part of the information comes from a dentist named Kelly who cured cancer by diet. I just post this in case it helps someone. One idea is that the pancreas helps prevent cancer if we do not over eat protein...

It is in 7 parts. If someone needs help finding the other six I would be happy to chase them down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWTHbGu8JSY

Cancers do feed on sugars, so if you starve a cancer cell, that is a good thing. I knew a lot of people in the Raw Vegan community--many fighting cancer. Many opted for a very low sugar diet (almost no fruits). Almost entirely vegetable (and veg juices), such as with the Gerson method.

Being Paleo, and eating nutrient-rich foods and lots of anti-oxidants is also helpful in strengthening the immune system and overall health. Keeping inflammation down is also a benefit.

Paleo is definitely a better option compared to the mainstream modern-day diet.