Inflammation, Cancer + The Problem With Conventional Cancer Treatments
Inflammation profoundly impacts the development of cancer and our overall health. Unlike acute inflammation, which is a temporary and vital response to injury or infection, chronic inflammation is a persistent state of immune activity that over time, undermines and silently sabotages your health. This ongoing inflammation has been linked to virtually every chronic health condition, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune conditions and you guessed it, cancer. In fact, it's a key driver in the initiation, growth, and spread of cancer, making it essential to understand what it is, what causes it, and how to manage it.
Acute inflammation is a healthy, normal response to a wound or invader, like the throbbing sensation you feel from a sprained ankle or a cut. Your body sends immune cells to the affected area to repair damaged tissues and ward off pathogens, resulting in temporary redness or swelling until healing occurs. This type of inflammation is a healthy response and not a problem.
Chronic inflammation, however, is insidious and a hallmark of cancer. It's a long-term, systemic issue that wears away at healthy cells, tissues, and organs. When the immune system continuously receives false signals without a genuine threat, immune cells mistakenly attack healthy parts of the body leading to DNA damage and cell mutations - both of which play a crucial role in the development of, and progression of cancer. To make matters worse, chronic inflammation also weakens immune function, making it less efficient at dealing with genuine threats, including cancer cells. This is a huge problem when you consider that cancer is a symptom of poor immune function.
A critical point about chronic inflammation is that it's often a lifestyle issue, whether we realise it or not. This is encouraging because it means we can bring these inflammatory responses under control, or even extinguish them entirely simply by making specific changes to our lifestyle, detoxifying and regularly cleansing our bodies, and learning how to manage and better deal with the inevitable stresses that come our way in life.
Inflammation, Toxicity and Deficiency
Broadly speaking, inflammation is a result of toxicity and deficiency. There are many things that can have a toxic effect in the body aside from the obvious environmental toxins, just as there are many that we can lack and be deficient in. Let's look at some of the more obvious factors now.
THE ROLE OF THE GUT
Gut health plays a significant role in inflammation. Toxins (including medications, certain foods and alcohol) can disrupt the gut barrier, causing intestinal permeability, which is often referred to as "leaky gut." This is a major source of inflammation because undigested food particles, toxins, and bacteria can leak into the bloodstream, activating immune cells to deal with these "invaders." Continuous stimulation of immune cells due to high levels of waste in the bloodstream leads to systemic inflammation.
Intestinal permeability is one reason why simply transitioning to an anti-inflammatory diet is generally not enough to put out the flames of inflammation. It truly requires a multi-pronged approach.
In addition to this, toxins can disrupt the delicate balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut microbiome, leading to what is known as gut dysbiosis. This impairs nutrient absorption, vitamin production, and generally our overall health, and contributes to widespread chronic inflammation. To make matters worse, the body requires extra nutrients to mount an immune response, and so the inability to properly absorb nutrients combined with chronic inflammation further degrades overall health. It’s a viscous cycle.
ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS
Everyday we unwittingly come into contact with synthetic chemicals, many of which have never been tested for human safety, and many that are known carcinogens. Some of the most common sources of toxins are found in food in the form of pesticides and food additives, whilst others are found in cosmetics and household products. The problem is, every single toxin we come into contact with adds to our body's 'toxin bucket'. We can only have so many toxins in that bucket before it begins to overflow. An overflowing bucket leads to a toxic body, weakened immune function, hormonal imbalances and an environment where cancer cells can thrive.
When toxins enter the body—through inhalation, ingestion, transdermally, or intravenously—the immune cells recognises them as foreign invaders and initiates an inflammatory response. This is the normal order of things and in years gone by, this wouldn’t have been a problem. The modern world however, has seen an unprecedented increase in environmental toxins, and when toxin exposure is continuous, the body's elimination organs become overwhelmed, the inflammatory response becomes prolonged, and this results in chronic inflammation. The longer this is allowed to continue, the greater the risk of cancer development and progression.
PARASITES + CANDIDA
Additionally, the presence of parasites such as intestinal worms, flukes and protozoa can have a toxic effect in the body, and further exacerbate chronic inflammation. Parasites indirectly fuel cancer growth by suppressing immune function. They take up residence in the gut, burrowing into tissue and organs, compromising gut integrity, in addition to depleting their host of nutrients, on top of excreting their waste into the bloodstream, all of which creates a state of persistent immune activation, resulting in an inflammatory response.
Overcoming a parasite infestation was a key way I helped my body to heal from a cancer recurrence ten years ago, and today, a variety of anti-parasitic drugs such as ivermectin and fenbendazole are often a key feature of many integrative cancer protocols. The link between inflammation, cancer and parasites cannot be ignored - You can read about my experience here.
Similarly, candida albicans, a type of yeast that can overgrow in the gut due to an imbalance of good and bad bacteria in the microbiome (gut dysbiosis), releases toxins that promote inflammation and also disrupts overall health. This interplay creates a vicious cycle: inflammation leads to dysbiosis, which in turn allows for further inflammation through these opportunistic pathogens.
DIETARY CHOICES
It should come as no surprise that dietary choices including alcohol, excessive sugar and certain fats also significantly impact inflammation. The modern diet of processed, nutrient-poor foods is deficient in key anti-inflammatory nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and magnesium, further fanning the flames of inflammation. In addition, many additives in processed foods, such as preservatives, flavor enhancers, and colorings, are not recognised as food by the human body (because they’re not foods), and are thus treated as toxins.
If the rate of toxins coming into the body exceeds the body's elimination capacity, those toxins are stored in fat cells and tissues to protect vital organs. Short-term, this is a brilliant protective measure, however this long-term storage leads to weight gain, (a known cancer risk factor) and is a major contributor to chronic inflammation.
EMOTIONS + STRESS
The gut and the brain are connected. The tissues that make up the brain are the same tissues from which the digestive system develops, and they communicate with each other via the nervous system. Due to these close connections, what we feel and what we think have a direct link to our digestive system. Long term stress causes changes in the gut, and also to immune function, leaving our body open to developing cancer and other illnesses.
When we perceive a situation as stressful, our sympathetic nervous system is activated and as a result, our body releases cortisol and adrenaline. These stress hormones travel along the gut-brain highway, shutting down digestion, immune function and a range of other processes to conserve energy and prepare the body to act; to stay and fight, or flee to safety. This isn’t a bad thing per se, but chronically elevated levels of these hormones can result in widespread inflammation and immune dysregulation.
Managing stress and processing emotions so that they do not continue to cause toxic physiological effects in the body is a key pillar of the Heal Inside + Out Framework.
SLEEP
Chronic inflammation and sleep are intricately linked. Sleep problems exacerbate inflammation, and inflammation can disrupt sleep patterns. Poor sleep, including sleep deprivation and disrupted sleep can lead to increased levels of inflammatory markers in the body, further escalating an inflammatory state, and an inflammatory state can disrupt sleep.
Suffice to say, sleep is one of the most underrated natural healing remedies there is, and physiologically critical for vibrant health. When we sleep, the majority of the body’s healing occurs including the different phases of muscle repair, detoxification, memory enhancement, regulating the metabolism, and the release of the potent anti-cancer hormone, melatonin.
INACTIVITY
It’s no secret that one of the keys to maintaining good health is exercise. Prolonged periods of inactivity, sitting or lying down is strongly linked to chronic low-grade inflammation. Physical activity is known to have anti-inflammatory effects, and a sedentary lifestyle lacks these protective mechanisms. Inactivity can also cause negative changes in the gut and lead to weight gain which fuels inflammation.
CHEMOTHERAPY + RADIATION
There's no sugar coating it. Both chemotherapy and radiation directly damage cells and trigger inflammatory responses, leading to the release of inflammatory molecules that contribute to cancer development. Chemotherapy not only further damages DNA and mutates cells, but it also destroys immune function. This is a major flaw of the treatment, as not only does damaged DNA and mutated cells play a crucial role in the development and progression of cancer, but it is also the immune cells that ultimately surveil and deal with cancer cells.
Standard of care cancer treatments create an inferno in an already inflamed body.
The unpopular truth is that many of the conventional treatments cause that which they are said to be the solution to. If the inflammation remains unaddressed following treatments, the fires will continue to burn out of control ultimately leading to more and different cancers down the track.
How one thrives following conventional cancer treatments really does come down to three things:
Detoxification of the physical, mental and emotional body,
Healing the gut and rebuilding immune function, and then
Addressing the lifestyle factors that ignited the original fire and eventually led to the development of cancer.
If these three things are ignored, the odds of a recurrence remains high. Unfortunately, for most people who go through conventional cancer treatments, they are given little, if any support when they finish. They are discharged in a highly toxic and depleted state (those two key drivers of inflammation, toxicity and deficiency), and told to return in six months for a follow-up appointment, with nothing other than a prescription for anxiety and the inevitable PTSD of going through such a harsh and life-altering experience. A more forward-thinking oncologist may give some generic guidance to 'eat healthy and exercise' or to 'try meditation' but nothing meaningful or helpful, and certainly no plan for recovery.
Meanwhile, the inflammation rages on as they desperately try to resume their normal way of life. It is one of the greatest failures of the healthcare system, and the reason why I created my coaching programs.
READY TO DETOX, DE-STRESS AND DEMYSTIFY HEALTH?
In my online program, the Heal Inside + Out Framework, as well as in my 12 week coaching program, the Cancer Recovery Roadmap, we focus on putting out the fires in every form that they come: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
It would be my absolute honour to guide you on your journey back to natural, vibrant health.
