Cancer is a tough thing to talk about, and almost every family in the world has been through one of these tough illnesses. A lot of people still get cancer wrong. On the internet and other places, there is a lot of information that it can be hard to tell the difference between truth and lies.
This can, at best, make patients, their families, and friends confused and open to getting bad information. It might even make them want to try harmful “treatments” and “cures.” A little over three years ago, I busted six popular cancer myths. I thought it would be fun to start the year by busting some new myths and some that just won’t go away. That’s because facts change and new myths appear.
There Are Some Foods That Can Help You Fight Or Avoid Cancer
It’s amazing to think that the food you eat can directly affect your risk of getting cancer. Receiving a cancer diagnosis can be scary, so the thought of being able to make some decisions is reassuring. In the past few years, social media has been full of posts about “cancer-beating” diets. People know that the alkaline diet is a good way to “fight cancer.” Some people believe that an acidic diet can cause cancer and that an alkaline diet is the best way to avoid getting it.
When cells are healthy, they get most of their energy from breathing air. But when cells are sick, they use glucose more quickly and inefficiently than healthy cells. Anaerobic glycolysis breaks down glucose into energy and makes acidic waste. The area around cells that use this method is now more acidic because of this. Although there is enough air around, cancer cells need glucose more than usual. This is known as the Warburg effect.
It was Otto Warburg who said in 1924 that this change in metabolism to glycolysis could be what makes cancer happen. The switch comes from the changes that cause cancer, according to more studies. That is, it is a result of cancer and not the cause of it.
In other words, a food that is high in acids can’t hurt cells that are risky. For the same reason, it’s not true that food can change how acidic or basic cells are, even if it could. Things we eat can’t change how acidic our cells are because our blood and brains do that for us. One thing that food can do is mostly change how acidic our pee is.
People also often tell false stories about how certain foods, especially sugar, “feed” cancer. A bigger body mass index does make you more likely to get cancer, but sugar does not cause cancer. Glucose is a simple sugar that all cells, even stem cells, need. Anything that has carbs in it, like sweets or vegetables, can give you glucose. It’s not true that “sugary” carbs stick to cancer cells more than other carbs.
If You Eat Too Much Red Meat, It Might Increase Cancer Risk
The ketogenic diet for cancer says that cutting out carbs can stop the body from making glucose, which kills cancer cells. Few people say that ketogenic diets are necessary for cancer care, while others say that they are not. There is no proof for this claim, but it makes sense that this sounds good. Realistically, there isn’t a lot of solid evidence to support the diet claims. David Gorski, a professor, wrote a lot about this subject.
Good nutrition is important for everyone’s health, not just those with cancer. But no diet can fix cancer, no matter how appealing the pictures are in a diet book or on Pinterest.
Cannabis Oil, Homeopathy, And Natural Medicines Can All Help Treat Cancer Is That True?
Instead of treatment, some people with cancer wonder if there is a more “natural” way to treat their illness. Alternative treatments like homeopathy, cannabinoids, or plant supplements may be able to cure cancer without the harmful effects of chemo and radiation. A “natural” product may also work better than a drug company product, which is likely because drug companies only want to make money (more on this later).
For a “treatment” that doesn’t involve medication, cannabis and its products, like cannabis oil, are pretty much the best candidates. Not a surprise, since people have been smoking weed for hundreds of years for fun and health reasons. Cannabis has THC, which is known to help sick people stop vomiting. For decades, drugs made from THC have been used to treat pain and sickness.
Besides this, though, a new large-scale US study found that claims that weed can help treat cancer are not with evidence. These very thorough reviews from the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research UK also show that there isn’t enough proof right now to support cannabis as a way to treat cancer.
THC may not be able to cure cancer, but it can help in some ways. That’s not at all how homeopathy works. Numerous tests have demonstrated that homeopathy does not function whatsoever. Its main ideas are certainly not true and go against everything we know about science. People still like homeopathy, though. There is a good chance that patients will hold on to the fake hope they offer and refuse medical help that could be helpful, which can be fatal.
Is It True That Cell Phones, Deodorants, And Fake Sweeteners Can All Cause Cancer?
In fact, some things do raise the risk of getting cancer. Most people are familiar with the link between smoking and lung cancer, which accounts for about 90% of all lung cancers. Cancer does, however, happen to people who don’t seem to have any clear risk factors. This makes it seem random, and people try to figure out why it does.
Not having a clear bad guy can make people suspicious of many common household chemicals. In this case, deodorants are often a worry since they are close to the skin that is easily hurt. People began to think that antiperspirants might cause breast cancer more often in the 1990s. This supposed link is not real at all, despite the scary tales.
For a long time, people have also said false things about artificial sweets. They were not neurotoxic drugs, but a famous email scam said they were. Even the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the story was not true. This kind of talk is still going around after more than ten years. Pepsi took aspartame out of its products in 2015 because activists put so much pressure on the business. But in 2016, they changed their minds in a quiet way. Someone was bound to say there was a link to cancer at some point. A number of studies on sweeteners like sucralose, neotame, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium, on the other hand, do not find such a relationship.
Power Lines, Microwaves, And Cell Phones Are Often To Blame For Cancer
People worry about a possible link between electromagnetic radiation in the home and cancer because they don’t understand the word “radiation” and think it means radioactivity. I’ve talked about this in more detail before. High-energy electromagnetic radiation can damage DNA, but low-energy light can’t. This is why X-ray therapy for cancer uses this feature. A lot of tests and studies over many years have shown that microwave energy from most home appliances can’t hurt cells or change DNA.
