Your Western medicine cancer doctor would always tell you that you haven’t done anything wrong that made you develop cancer. Is that true though?
It’s true that there wasn’t one particular thing that I did wrong that lead to the development of cancer in my body. There were actually multiple reasons that have contributed to the change of my healthy cells making them cancerous. Here I’m sharing with you my personal thoughts and observations on how and why at the age of 25, I ended up with stage 4 Blood Cancer/ Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
There are many factors that play role in our inner and outer healthy selves. From our hormones to our thoughts to the environment around us, each of these contributes to the state of our mitochondria. Through extensive research and a lot of self observation I learned that even though there might be multiple reasons our healthy cells could turn into cancerous ones, in my case there were just couple things that did it all.
Folic Acid supplements overdose:
When I first came to the US in 2015 I was a healthy 20 year old girl, who was just 42 kg eating whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. However, that did not last for very long after I arrived to the US. I immediately began gaining weight and that summer over the course of 4 months I gained 12 kg, which you could imagine how much it was for a tiny person like me. I literally blew up like a balloon! I also stopped having my period for the whole summer and several months after.
It turned out my hormones were completely out of balance and I was diagnosed with PCOS. Later on I learned that most of the meat and dairy in the US (especially the ones that the companies operating the national park hotels source to feed their employees ) is heavily processed and treated with hormones and antibiotics. No wonder PCOS shows up as a COMMON condition in the US and there are multiple cases where kids not even in school yet have their first menstruation. (Lots to talk about this topic but that’s for another post..)
After going to multiple doctors in hopes of figuring out how to reverse the damage American food did to me, I found a gynecologist willing to treat the cause (with supplements), not the symptoms (with birth control pills, which literally just mask the symptoms and do further damage leading to infertility). Here is where I completely trusted my doctor (WRONG) and began taking Folic Acid supplements which did miracles for me by promoting healthy weight, reducing facial hair growth, regulating my menstrual cycles and minimizing acne. However, at the time I had no idea that the Folic Acid I was taking is actually not the same as the one found in fruits and vegetables. Folic Acid which I thought was simply the Vitamin B found in foods was actually the manmade version of Folate, the naturally occurring supplement our body needs to function properly.
Little did I know that in the US, they even add Folic Acid to many foods in order to regulate Folate deficiencies in Americans or that if you are taking these supplements you should not exceed 8 months without a break. I took them for 3 years straight and studies show that Folic Acid supplementation in large quantities is linked to the development of cancer.
Pesticides:
It turns out it all revolved around the food I was eating. And if you know me well, you would know that since this first summer I spent in the US, I became very conscious of what I put in my body. I discovered that there is a certain diet that could help balance my hormones and therefore reverse PCOS symptoms.
With that in mind I stopped eating meat and dairy, particularly when I was in the US. I switched my breakfast to oatmeal and fruit instead of eggs and bacon. I stopped drinking coffee and instead I would get my caffeine dose from oat milk matcha lattes. I would eat very vegetable and fruit dense meals, limiting all high glycemic foods, such as bread, pasta, white rice and potatoes. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t understand the importance of buying organic and therefore I was exposed to huge amounts of pesticides and herbicides which are directly linked to cancer development.
Little did I know that 93% of the kale in the US has shown extremely high amounts of pesticide residue. I was thinking, “Eat tons of kale, it’s SO healthy for you!”… This would’ve been true had I been consuming locally grown and organic kale, otherwise I would’ve been better off eating bacon instead…
I have talked about pesticides and herbicides before, so I will try to keep it short this time. I would also like to mention that I believe my body has been extra sensitive to the bad food in the US because of the fact that I was born and raised in a small mountain town where I would eat anything but the majority of the food in our household was sourced from local farms, wild caught or self grown.
These are some of the healthy foods that could be extremely dangerous if not bought Certified Organic or from small farmers that guarantee the use of only organic feed for their crops or animals:
Nuts and seeds - Non-organic ones contain large amounts of pesticides because of their high fat content which makes them soak up many of the harmful chemicals.
Oats - Researchers straight call it “Breakfast with a side of Glyphosate!” because levels of the killer herbicide are so high that non-organic oats are extremely dangerous for children, which of course means they are equally dangerous for adults but in the longer term.
Seafood - Because of the crowded conditions in which farm raised fish are raised, they are routinely treated with antibiotics to help prevent infection.
I have always said that I really don’t understand how here in the US you can buy chicken for either $0.29/lb, $12/lb, or any price in between. In Bulgaria, there’s only one price for chicken and there aren’t so many options (which has maybe changed now, I haven’t grocery shopped in Bulgaria since 2015). Even though I was aware to buy only organic meat, dairy and eggs, I did not think that I should buy everything organic. I thought it was way too expensive while comparing organic to the conventional items. However, I ended up not just paying with my health but also paying a lot more in medical bills instead of spending on the right food the entire time.
Now I know to buy EVERYTHING ORGANIC and never trust American food that is not labeled with a USDA Certification because instead of putting money towards quality ingredients, they put money towards GREAT ADVERTISEMENT! Whole Foods is literally dangerous, so read your labels and make sure there is a USDA ORGANIC or “Wild Caught” sticker because “Sustainably Sourced “does not mean anything good for your health!
In times like these, your efforts would go beyond just caring for your body. Choosing to support your health also means supporting your community! From making sure your food has been grown in your town or county in a small family owned farm, to getting a seasonal farm share of dairy or meat to picking your fruits and vegetables, this all means you are helping out some really hard working people! Do it for you, so you do it for them!
I will end this post by sharing something that many of you will be surprised to hear and probably won’t agree with.
Vegan diet helped my cancer spread! Does that shock you? Are you wondering how I could claim something like this? Well, unless you have dug into the Integrative medicine approaches for managing cancer on its own or in addition to conventional treatment, then you probably don’t know that most Integrative Oncologists and more and more Western Oncologists encourage cancer patients to limit carbohydrates as much as possible, very often recommending the ketogenic diet which is almost the opposite of the vegan diet.
When I first shared with my Naturopathic doctor that I had been vegan for the past couple of months, she was explicitly clear that I needed to change my diet ASAP and recommended that I, “Eat a steak tonight! - grass fed and pasture raised, preferably local”. It took me a little bit before I understood why she wanted me to replace the oats for breakfast with sausage and eggs, but it makes so much sense now and unfortunately for my love to animals I am not going back to veganism EVER AGAIN!
Here is a short and simplified explanation why:
Vegan and vegetarian diets are generally composed of carbohydrates, which is after all what fruits, vegetables, grains and beans are and cancer feeds on carbohydrates or more so on what carbs turn into - glucose. Therefore what I thought was a healthy meal for me at the time - quinoa bowl with roasted sweet potato, beans and broccoli was actually not, unless it was mostly broccoli.
Even though it’s too scientific for me to even try to explain it, I also learned that the lack of animal protein consumption while on a vegan diet interferes with the body’s ability to create new healthy cells as well as properly synthesize DNA, which is directly linked to higher risk of errors in the DNA replication and therefore contributes to mutations in the cells which can lead to cancer. So this basically was the worst thing I could have done to my body at the time, since studies show that cancer patients (especially the ones undergoing conventional cancer therapy) require 50% more protein than usual. So after all, instead of providing my body with all the essential nutrients which could have helped my body fight cancer, I depleted it from them plus I added lots of what cancer needed to thrive.
But don’t get me wrong, everyone is different and every cancer is different. For example, no matter how good cow’s milk yogurt is for my gut health, it will never be good for my overall health, as I develop fibrocystic breasts when I eat it.
For me, a balanced diet IT IS. Mainly eating vegetables and fruits, the rainbow each week, some animal protein, lots of healthy fats, very little amount of grains and beans, occasionally a treat, like ice cream or pizza for a healthy mind and soul, as they are as important as your physical health. However you know yourself best and your body knows to show you what it needs. Mine did and probably in many different ways before I discovered the lump, but I guess I didn’t listen to it, I thought I already knew it all. I learned the lesson the hard way and my best word of advice now is to listen to your body and be mindful of what you consume and expose your body to.
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