Public Enemy #2: Cancer

Cancer is the most feared and most expensive of all diseases. And for good reason. At least a million North Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. 50% of those will die within five years. That amounts to 1,500 people a day or one every minute of every day in America and one every 3 or 4 seconds somewhere in the world.

We've spent billions trying to cure it. Far from being conquered, the incidence of cancer has increased 44% since 1950. Breast cancer is up 6000. Prostate cancer is up 100%. At this rate, cancer will soon pass heart disease as the number one cause of death in America. Recently, the news on the cancer front in the U.S. has shown some improvement. After decades of steady increase, the rate of cancer death seems to have peaked and is dropping about 1/2% per year That's good news for about 2,750 people this year. But little comfort to the other 547,250 who won't make it.

What are your odds of developing cancer?
The National Cancer Institute says: "that one American in every three living today will get cancer, and one in four will die from it."

For women, the most feared cancer is breast cancer. In 1950,only one in twenty women got it. Today it's about one in eight. Only 18% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer will survive it for at least five years.18 About 45,000 women will die from it this year. According to Patrick Quillin in his book, Beating Cancer with Nutrition, even women who are lucky and beat it still lose an average of 19 years of lifespan.

For men, the most feared cancer is prostate cancer. Just about every man over 50 has an enlarged prostate. Doctors estimate that 30% of American men 60 years and older have prostatic cancer. Among men who live to 75, the number is over 50% That's one in two! And the older you get, the higher the risk. But don't panic! Prostate cancer usually grows very slowly and can be treated with great success. The ten-year survival rate from prostate cancer is over 86%.

If cancer is the most feared disease, it is also the least understood. Most of us think that cancer is something in your genes: some families get it, others don't. This is not necessarily so. Only 20% of cancer is attributable to heredity 80% is in your control.

So there is hope!
The development of cancer is not always a short, lightning strike event that's out of your control. It maybe a long process in the case of lung cancer 20-25 years. If you strengthen your immune system now, you can take back control and possibly keep cancer in check.