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Most cancers grow very slowly, silently eating away at your body, before they manifest themselves. In spite of claims by the National Cancer Institute of successful treatment, after a cancer emerges, medicine is usually powerless. Every time you are set at ease by statements of the cancer industry, remember the rapid death of Jaquline Kennedy Onassis of lymphoma and Michael Landon of pancreatic cancer. If there was an effective treatment anywhere in the world, don't you think such enormously rich people would have bought it? So if a little of the right exercise can prevent cancer, it's worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox. And like all other good things in life..... it's totally free! In my article about exercise to lower cholesterol, I referred to the study of Dr. Kenneth Cooper who followed 13,344 men and women, for fifteen years. After eliminating interfering factors, incidence of all forms of cancer was closely correlated with lack of physical fitness. Unfit men and women had 300% more change to develop cancer. The fitter the subjects were, over five levels of fitness, the lower their risk of cancer. But the best finding from this study is that you have to move only a fraction out of couch potatoland to prevent cancer big time. "You don't have to be a marathon runner. A half hour of exercise four or five days per week can drop cancer risk dramatically," according to Dr. Carl Casperson of the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta. There are numerous new studies showing that exercise inhibits specific cancers. So I will restrict to two prominent examples, one for women and one for men. Breast cancer is the most common female cancer and the third biggest cancer killer in America. More women are developing and dying from breast cancer today than in the 1960's, including all other cancers of the female reproductive organs, like uterine cancer and ovarian cancer. Together they make 220,000 victims among the American women ech year. It will be a winner for every woman if simple exercises can help prevent such disaster. In a major study , Dr. Rose Frisch and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health, followed 5000 women college students. Those who exercised from high school on had many fewer breast cancers and reproductive system cancers than their inactive class mates.This evidence is clear. Regular exercise can stop female cancers cold. The regulation of estrogen and other sex hormones is the major mechanism, by which exercise prevents these cancers. If left unchecked, can cause uncontrolled cell proliferation in the female reproductive system. It seems that women who exercise regularly are simply activating an essential health mechanism in their bodies, designed to be activated in just that way by the Almighty hand that created all life on earth. What about exercise and cancer in males? I like to use examples of colon and rectal cancers, although these are also a leading cause of cancer in women. Colo-rectal cancers are the second leading caner category , with more than 155,000 new cases every year. Red meats and animal fats are major causes, but so is inactivity. A large study measured the exercise levels and the resting heart rates of 8000 men over 21 years. As I mentioned in my previous articles, resting heart rate is a good measure of fitness and provides a good check on reported exercise. The risk of colon and rectal cancers was directly correlated with heart rate. An even larger study tracked 17,000 Harvard students for 25 years. Subjects who were highly active, burning 2500 calories or more i exercise each week, showed only half the risk of colon cancer as their inactive fellow students. The mechanism by which exercise probably prevents colo-rectal cancers is simple and also part of the human design. Exercise naturally promotes regular bowel movements and increases the speed of excretion of food wastes. As a result it reduces time for carcinogen formation and also prevents prolonged contact between carcinogens and intestinal walls. In our constipated society that spends a whopping $700 million per year on harmful (oops! "gentle, safe and soothing") laxatives, this kind of evidence should be a wake up call to exercise. These studies are just a fraction of the mass of intense research in respected medical journals, proving that exercise prevents cancer. But nowhere in any of the public advice hand-outs from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society mention exercise as a means of preventing cancer. Unlike pharmaceuticals and medical treatment, exercise is free of course and available to everyone. So it garners no grants, solicits no ads and makes no obscene profits. In the American Cancer Society's professional journal, called CA for example, a new analyses of risk factors for breast cancer includes everything. From residence in northern states to socio economic class, except couch potatoism. Anyone less trusting than I might suspect that geniuses who populate our health agencies, are either far too brilliant to bother with lowly scientific research, or they dance to more moving music. "One-step, two-step, I'll scratch you-step, if you'll scratch me-step, Tee Hee Hee-step."
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