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Cancer In The 21st Century

Is cancer man made?

Many people do not realise it, but cancer is a modern disease of our own making. The fields of Egyptology, Archaeology and the resulting research have shown us that out of literally hundreds, (if not thousands) of mummified bodies studied, (many of which using modern imaging equipment) only a single mummy with cancer has ever been discovered. The causes of death have been well documented, and yet no cancer. In ancient Greek and Roman literature, cancer was virtually unheard of.

Research carried out at Manchester’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, and published in Nature Reviews Cancer was reported as follows:

“Cancer is a modern, man-made disease caused by environmental factors such as pollution and diet” – study review by University of Manchester scientists

Their study of remains and literature from ancient Egypt and Greece and earlier periods – includes the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy.

Finding only one case of the disease in the investigation of hundreds of Egyptian mummies, with few references to cancer in literary evidence, proves that cancer was extremely rare in antiquity. The disease rate has risen massively since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer – proving that the rise is not simply due to people living longer.

Professor Rosalie David, at the Faculty of Life Sciences, said: “In industrialised societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause [the current level of] cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.”

She added: “The important thing about our study is that it gives a historical perspective to this disease. We can make very clear statements on the cancer rates in societies because we have a full overview. We have looked at millennia, not one hundred years, and have masses of data.”

The data includes the first ever histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy by Professor Michael Zimmerman, a visiting Professor at the KNH Centre, who is based at the Villanova University in the US. He diagnosed rectal cancer in an unnamed mummy, an ‘ordinary’ person who had lived in the Dakhleh Oasis during the Ptolemaic period (200-400 CE).

Professor Zimmerman said: “In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialization”.

The team studied both mummified remains and literary evidence for ancient Egypt but only literary evidence for ancient Greece as there are no remains for this period, as well as medical studies of human and animal remains from earlier periods, going back to the age of the dinosaurs.

It has been suggested that the short life span of individuals in antiquity precluded the development of cancer. Although this statistical construct is true, individuals in ancient Egypt and Greece did live long enough to develop such diseases as atherosclerosis, Paget’s disease of bone, and osteoporosis, and, in modern populations, bone tumours primarily affect the young.” – Manchester University.

You can see evidence of the gradual increase in cancer rates across all cancers. For example, in 1940, approximately 1 in 20 women in the US would be diagnosed with breast cancer within their lifetimes, but more recently, it has been estimated as being approximately 1 in 8.

Cancer in today’s society

Currently, 1 in 3 people in the US will get cancer in their lifetimes and in the next 15 to 20 years it is predicted that this will increase to 1 in 2. The numbers have been drastically rising since the Industrial Revolution – which corresponds to the dramatic increase in pollution, the increase in population size and the resultant requirement for mass-produced, cheap sources of food (particularly in the last 50 to 60 years). Combine this with the 21st-century sedentary lifestyle and the massive commercialisation of the agricultural industry and you soon have a strong case that, as a society, we are fostering an environment conducive to the development of ill-health and cancer.

The Western world is now spending more money on healthcare than ever before, and yet our success rates have either remained the same since the beginning, or even decreased. I fully appreciate the dedication (and genuine drive to help patients) of your average medical practitioner, but the system is broken and perspective has been lost.

In fact, according to data from a range of peer-reviewed medical journals, and research by Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD and Dorothy Smith PhD, it is apparent that by 2001, the American healthcare system was the number one cause of death in America!

So much for Florence Nightingale’s maxim of “first do no harm.” That year, the US annual death rate from heart disease was 699,697 and the annual death rate from cancer was 553,251. But deaths brought about directly by the US healthcare system came to 783,936 that same year. (Adverse Drug Reactions 106,000, Medical error 98,000, Bedsores 115,000, Hospital infections 88,000, Malnutrition 108,800, Outpatients 199,000, Unnecessary Procedures 37,136, Surgery-Related 32,000).

So as heroic as individual doctors can be, the underlying system of Western medicine is failing in numerous areas.

How can you prevent cancer development?

“The doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.” – Thomas Edison

All those years ago, Edison, with his extraordinary ability to innovate and see directly to the heart of the problem, could see the direction that modern medicine needed to follow.

And sure enough, contemporary medical research across countless clinical studies, has shown that modifications to your diet can drastically reduce the chances of you getting cancer, whilst simultaneously increasing your likelihood of survival if you have already been diagnosed.

Perhaps this is simple logic: give your body the raw building blocks it needs to maintain a healthy immune system, endocrine (hormonal) system, and normal body weight, whilst avoiding the cancer-causing agents in our environment. Add regular exercise (which helps your lymphatic system to move its fluids around your body, boosting your immune system) and you have eliminated well over 85% of the causes of cancer.

Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry, the food industry, the chemical industry, (to name but a few), have extraordinary vested interests in promoting their products even at the expense of the consumer and the wider public interest, and this makes the avoidance of carcinogenic substances almost, (but not entirely), impossible.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell

If you enjoyed this article, then why not take a look at Cancer Uncensored – Your Step By Step Guide to Cancer Prevention, Early Detection and Cancer Survival.

Cancer Uncensored