5 Natural Ways To Prevent Cancer

5 simple, yet powerful ways to optimize your body’s ability to prevent the most common cancers.

By Cory Couillard — Written on May 18, 2012

Your body is built to sustain itself. It regulates temperature, destroys foreign bacteria and heals wounds without any conscious instruction from you. Your body also naturally kills cancer cells throughout the body with its amazing healing ability.

Your lifestyle choices serve to fuel or diminish your immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells and keep them from multiplying.

Here are five simple, yet powerful ways to optimize your body’s ability to kill cancer.

1. Coffee, Tea, Sweetened Drinks

Bad choice: Sugar, aspartame (Nutrasweet), high fructose corn syrup

Cancer cells feed on sugar: too much can weaken your immune system and fuel cancer’s development. Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and high fructose corn syrup come with a laundry list of side effects. High fructose corn syrup promotes fat storage and feeds cancer cells. Aspartame has been linked to brain tumors, lymphoma, leukemia and peripheral nerve cancer. Take the time to read nutrition labels and choose not to add them to your morning beverage.

Better choice: Stevia or Xylitol

If you absolutely need a sweet morning beverage, use a sweetener made from the herb stevia. Most stevia-based sweeteners contain no calories or carbohydrates. Xylitol—a carbohydrate naturally found in fruit, birch bark and fibrous vegetables—is also a safe option. Xylitol is as sweet as sugar without the calories, carbs and resulting spike in blood sugar.

Best choice: No sugar added

Don’t fuel cancer cells. This is the first step in overcoming a sugar dependence, which most Americans have thanks to the abundance of high fructose corn syrup. Use an organic half-and-half to dull the bitterness of your coffee.

2. Dietary Choices

Bad choice: Pre-packaged or canned meats

Processed meats like bacon, sausage or sandwich meat are usually made using sodium nitrite, an additive to help preserve a reddish, “fresh” color. This process produces cancer-causing compounds called nitrosamines. In 2009, the World Cancer Research Fund said “processed meats are too dangerous for human consumption.”

Better choice: Fresh lean beef, chicken or turkey

Toxins are absorbed into fatty tissue. Choosing the leanest beef—and eating it in moderation—can greatly reduce your level of toxicity. The leaner the beef, the fewer toxins in the portion. Your best beef choices are ground round, ground sirloin and ground chuck, in that order. Chicken and turkey typically qualify as lean.

Best choice: Grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, cold-water fish

Unfortunately, industrialization has replaced farms with “confined animal feeding operations” that promote faster production of cattle and other food animals. The animals in these feeding operations are often fed chemically sprayed grains and are injected full of antibiotics to counteract unsanitary living conditions. The cattle get sicker, but the meat still goes to market. Labels such as “grass-fed” or “free range” denote proper feeding and natural growth, rather than toxic meat. Grass-fed beef provides high quality healthy fats with low toxin accumulation.

3. Toothpaste

Bad: Any with fluoride

Fluoride is the reason for the poison warning on toothpaste tubes. Toothpastes containing fluoride can actually cause discoloration of your teeth, may contribute to periodontal bone loss and may contribute to bone cancer.

Better: Organic toothpaste

For the same price as toothpaste containing fluoride, you can purchase a healthier organic option. Organic toothpaste does not contain artificial chemicals that can be absorbed or inhaled. This prevents harmful toxins from invading your body. Xylitol toothpastes are also available, and can prevent cavities.

Best: Organic toothpaste, combined with a detox agent

Using an organic toothpaste helps prevent your intake of harmful toxins, but that’s only half the battle. Your body encounters toxins every day. Removing these toxins— pesticides, mold and more—is vital to maintaining a healthy, cancer-fighting immune system.

Supplements that provide the building blocks of glutathione are the perfect complement to your organic toothpaste. Glutathione is a naturally occurring substance that acts as an antioxidant, a detoxifier and immune system booster all at once. It empowers your body to kill off cancer cells.

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4. Vitamin D3 Intake

Bad: Work inside, play inside

Vitamin D is commonly associated with the sun, and for good reason. Sunlight teams with your skin to produce it. Unfortunately, vitamin D3 is not commonly found in foods, so if you work inside, play inside and don’t take a supplement, you’re probably not getting enough vitamin D3.

Better: 10-15 minutes of midday sun each day

This is the minimum amount to avoid a vitamin D3 deficiency. If you lack vitamin D3, you may be more susceptible to cancer, depression and insulin resistance. Take a walk during your lunch break to ensure you get enough time in the sun.

Best: Get some sun and supplement

A vitamin D3 supplement, along with midday sun and lots of vegetables, keeps your digestive system on track and boosts your immune system’s ability to regulate your naturally occurring cancer cells. Vitamin D3 has been shown to have the same effect as a drug used for breast cancer treatment.