Pay heed to these early warning signs
There's one factor that has a huge impact on your chances of avoiding or surviving cancer. You can figure out in mere seconds whether you've got it. I'm talking about your waist size.
But a "cluster" of three or four or all five of these symptoms can be much worse than having just one. For example, has your doctor ever told you that you have any of these?
- High Blood Pressure — greater than 130/85
- Fasting blood sugar (glucose) — 100 mg/dL or higher
- Triglycerides — 150 mg/dL or higher
- Low HDL cholesterol
- Men — under 40 mg/dL
- Women — under 50 mg/dL
- Large waistline
- Men — 40 inches or more
- Women — 35 inches or more
If you have three or more of these, take heed. You have Metabolic Syndrome — also called Syndrome X. And it's recently been tied to cancer.
Extra weight around the middle and upper body is a key characteristic of Metabolic Syndrome. Sometimes called central obesity, it can also be described as an "apple shaped" profile. I've also heard it called a "pear shape," which seems more accurate to me, because the weight is around the middle and tapers off toward your neck.
This profile is also associated with insulin and leptin resistance… where your body has trouble "hearing" the signals that tell it to burn fat. I'll explain more on this in a moment.
Other warning factors include aging, genetics (a parent or grandparent with diabetes or metabolic syndrome), hormone changes, and lack of exercise.1
Don't put yourself at greater risk
of prostate cancer
Recent studies show that metabolic syndrome symptoms are linked with an increased risk of death from prostate cancer.
In a nutshell, these results suggest that the same lifestyle that helps you prevent heart disease and diabetes may also slash your risk of dying from prostate cancer. The University of Sweden conducted a study dubbed the "Metabolic Syndrome and Cancer Project".
They followed 289,866 men over a period of 12 years. During that time, 6,673 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 961 died from it.
The men with the highest categories of body mass index (BMI) had a 36 percent higher risk of dying from the cancer. And those with the highest blood pressure had a 62 percent increased risk. When the study's authors used a composite score of all metabolic factors, men with the highest scores were most likely to die.
The study did not find a link between the indicators of metabolic syndrome and thelikelihood of developing prostate cancer — just a greater risk of dying from it. If two men have just been told they have prostate cancer — one with metabolic syndrome, the other one thin and with low blood pressure, low cholesterol, etc. — the one with metabolic syndrome is less likely to defeat his cancer. Researchers concluded that overweight and hypertension must be able to stimulate prostate cancer progression.2
Women beware — the news may be even worse
for breast and endometrial cancers
Most of the signs of metabolic syndrome, considered separately, have been linked to the development of cancer, but few studies have been conducted that actually link cancer to the whole complex of markers called metabolic syndrome.
However, research published by
breastcancer.org found that postmenopausal women with metabolic syndrome are at increased risk of
breast cancer — both invasive and non-invasive.
3
This study was a small part of the large, comprehensive Women's Health Initiative (WHI). The researchers followed 4,900 postmenopausal women for an average of 8 years. Of those, 165 developed breast cancer, most of which was invasive.
Breast cancer was nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed in women who had developed metabolic syndrome during the previous three to five years.
Three symptoms of metabolic syndrome -- elevated glucose, triglycerides, and blood pressure -- were each independently linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. Researchers think increased insulin may promote the development and growth of breast cancer.
But that's not all women should be concerned about.
Various studies also directly link
endometrial cancer to separate aspects of metabolic syndrome.
4
It promotes colon cancer, too
Two studies link clustered metabolic syndrome components to colon cancer and showed the syndrome increased mortality compared to just individual components.
5
Researchers who conducted this University of Alabama study propose that metabolic syndrome should be considered a high-risk state for "certain cancers" — and that this relationship should be systematically explored across
all cancer types.
Long-time readers of
Cancer Defeated already know this. Check out
Issue #256 if you'd like to know more about the diabetes-cancer connection.
The big takeaway here is that you need to take action if you have any of these five symptoms.
But what to do?
What you can learn from conventional medicine
The National Institutes of Health suggests these things for metabolic syndrome:
- Lifestyle changes or medicines to help lower your blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, and blood sugar.
- Lose weight. The goal is to lose 7 to 10 percent of your current weight, which they suggest means slashing 500 to 1000 calories per day. (If only it were that easy. But more on this in a moment.)
- Get 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, 5 to 7 days per week.
- Take low-dose aspirin. (I do not agree with this. I think it's dangerous. Take natural anti-inflammatories instead, such as omega-3 oils, curcumin and proteolytic enzymes.)
- Quit smoking.
While I certainly cannot argue with the wisdom of smoking cessation, getting exercise, and losing weight…
I do not agree with going on dangerous medicines to lower your risk markers. You'll merely be trading one problem for another, and not addressing the core issue. And the advice to "lose weight" makes it sound more simple than we all know it is. But one of our Cancer Defeated contributors, Carol Parks, has some helpful ideas about losing weight. . .
Shun conventional wisdom
and lose weight this way
Contrary to popular belief, all calories are not the same, according to Carol's research.
To lose weight once and for all and avoid the "inevitable" yo-yo's, it matters a great deal which kind of calories you eat. And unfortunately, you've been fed a bill of goods for the past 40 years — while nearly everyone has become fat and fatter, sick and sicker.
Here's a quick primer on the little devil that sits on your shoulder and screams for food… and why you've been forced to listen and eat, listen and eat.
If you are the unfortunate owner of an apple-shaped body, you must get your hormones functioning correctly to lose weight.
Hormones are little messengers that direct your body's activities, including what you eat and whether you cling to fat or burn it.
The wrong foods trigger those hormones to crave food.
Have you ever eaten a Big Mac extra value meal (at 1,060 calories) and then felt hungry again in 60 or 90 minutes? Or eaten junk during an entire football game, only to go out for a big bowl of ice cream to "celebrate" after the game?
The key hormone that regulates appetite and weight loss is leptin. Your doctor may have never heard of it… but it's produced by your fat cells and it signals your brain when to eat — and more importantly, when to STOP eating.
The leading expert on leptin, Dr. Ron Rosedale, author of the books The Rosedale Diet andMastering Leptin, says he always measures his patients' leptin levels with a simple blood test.
Low levels of fasting leptin show that it's doing its job well, and that it won't sabotage your weight-loss efforts by making you constantly hungry. High leptin likely means you're a sugar-craver, and always feel hungry.
Leptin also regulates your body's FAT burning. (And for sure you do NOT want to burn muscle and bone!)
"Burn fat" is one of the most critical messages your body must hear for good health. And this is precisely the signal that gets lost in the "noise" if your leptin signaling is malfunctioning.
High leptin levels equal high fat
Without getting too long-winded or technical here…
If your leptin levels spike too high, too often, then your cells stop listening to its message — kind of like the boy who cried "wolf" too much. Because it's not getting the message, your brain tells you to eat and store more fat for a rainy day.
Not only are you hungry all the time, but you will crave SWEETS! And that's a real spiral to poor health.
The more sugary foods you eat, the LESS likely you are to perceive sweet tastes, so you "need" increasing amounts of sugar to feel satisfied… the law of diminishing returns. I've said many times before in issues of this newsletter: sugar is addictive. The stuff is irresistible, you need the fix, and you need higher and higher doses to get the effect. You find yourself craving ever greater amounts of cakes, donuts, soda, and ice cream.
For more info about sugar addiction, see
Issue #77. That's where we first broke the leptin story.
Similar to leptin-signaling problems, insulin resistance occurs when your body makes plenty of insulin but your cells fail to recognize and utilize it effectively.
Likewise, most overweight and obese people are not leptin
deficient. They actually produce too much! So it takes more and more to tell your brain to stop eating. Meanwhile your brain frantically signals for more and more fat to be stored…
Foods that actually make you hungry
Certain foods feed this cycle and hype up that little demon on your shoulder by triggering a gigantic surge in leptin production. (But don't expect to hear this from USDA dieticians or your doctor.)
Non-vegetable carbohydrates — including all breads, grains, cereals, pastas, and starchy vegetables as well as desserts and soda — sabotage your leptin and insulin signaling.
What's more, these foods all break down into simple sugars the moment they hit your tongue! Dr. Rosedale says your body will always burn sugar before it burns fat. So if you eat sugar, your fat stays lodged exactly where it is.
But (surprise) a high-protein diet is not the answer
Sorry to say, you can't solve the problem by just replacing carbohydrate calories with protein calories because your body has limited use for protein, and will convert any extra into sugar and store it as fat.
Being a chronic sugar-burner leads you to metabolic syndrome, and by extension to the diseases linked to it, including cancer and heart disease.
The answer is: You must retrain your body to listen to leptin. You do that by avoiding the sugars that interfere with its signals. In turn, your hunger will come under control, you won't crave sugar, and you can finally get the trim, well-toned, healthy body you dream of.
But you must strictly limit your sugar and all products that become sugar, including grains, most fruits, and even protein. In order to not feel deprived you'll want to VASTLY increase your intake of vegetables, healthy fats (such as avocado and coconut oil), and nuts. Find a few you like and build from there.
According to Joe Cross's riveting documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, the diet most Americans eat is just 5 percent fruits and vegetables… the rest is mostly processed grains and protein. Ask yourself what could happen to your health if you ate 60 percent vegetables (and I don't mean potatoes) instead of all the sugar, carbs and meat?
Rosedale recommends you get rid of all the foods that turn into sugar in your body. Doing so certainly seems to have some far-reaching consequences, and being cancer-free is one of them.
Plus, it takes a mere 21 days to build a new habit and retrain your taste buds.
If you don't think you have that much willpower, why not buddy-up with a health-minded friend and hold each other accountable?
After all, if the two young men in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead — one weighing in at 309 pounds and the other at 423 pounds and both of them sick — can "juice" themselves from sickness to health and lose a few hundred pounds between them, why can't you?
