I got an interesting eMail today based on John Hopkins research on cancer. Now I usually don't read these, especially when their forwarded (because often their laced with rumor and innuendo instead of facts) but this one made sense.

I became so interested in what I read that I decided to do my homework and see if these claims have been substantiated and I come to find they actually are. I want to share this information with you and elaborate on what I read so I hope you find this information useful. I invite you to link this hub to anyone you think could use this information.

The main points of this hub were not consolidated by me, they were part of some John Hopkins research someone put into an email and sent it out virally (no pun intended). The opinions are mine and the extra facts are what I found in my research.

Everybody alive and breathing has cancer cells in their body. "Having cancer" in the most widely accepted form is not about "getting" cancer, its about having those cancer cells in your body replicating at a rate that is dangerous.

I'm not sure if they are there all the time or if they pop in and out but one friend of mine who had beaten cancer says that cancer is the result of cells dividing with errors due to carcinogens and toxins in the air etc.. I'm by far no expert in this field this hub is just information I found that I want to share for your benefit.

Having cancer doesn't mean you have something in your body that everyone else doesn't have, having cancer is the OVER ABUNDANCE of cancer cells. (Defined based on having dangerous levels one is said to "have" cancer).

The way it should be stated is one has too much cancer or dangerous levels of cancer. The reasons they say you have it or don't, are in remission or not is based on how they test for dangerous levels of cancer. If you don't have enough cancer cells to generate a dangerous condition it doesn't show up thus you don't have it.

To get a visual imagine the difference between one molecule that makes up the chair your sitting in and the trillions upon trillions of molecules that are compacted to "manifest" that chair. If you look at the chair collectively (molecules) then you have a chair but if just one million molecules of the chair are there (spread out this would be a literally physical chair but would be as dense as air molecules thus invisible thus you don't have the chair (but you do) confused? It is all very simple really.

Honestly I never knew any of this and I'm 34 years old (in January 09). Lack of awareness luckily hasn't affected me because as I'll show you later in this hub I had been careful (intuitively?) not to give the cells enough "food" to replicate out of control and I've always had a phenomenal immune system.

It just scared the hell out of me that I could have missed something as I'm sure many have and could have put myself in danger.

I thought cancer was something caused by negative thinking (and I was part right actually but its about the immune system which I'll get into in a moment here) or by asbestos, bad air (directly not as a result of the air destroying immune function), and so on but even thinking this I had no way to quantify "why".

Cancer is like any virus, it replicates and when the immune system is overwhelmed it is vulnerable to attack, not to mention it is like having the United States Military picked off 100,000 at a time until we don't have enough troops in our military to protect the country, this is what cancer is to the body.

For another visual the body is the United states, cancer cells are those "bad" people scattered all over it (although comparing their are less cancer cells in the body compared to bad people in the usa) the military and legal forces (the cops, fbi, cia, private eyes, etc etc) are the immune system, although the bad people are constantly trying to scam people, hurt people, etc.. The "immune system" or police, military etc.. Are always one step ahead of them.

Like cancer cells it's not about them not being there its about keeping them in check (prison?), new cells/bad people are born everyday, although with people unlike cancer cells its not about being born bad (nobody is born bad) people become bad where by cancer cells are born bad.

Now take 911 and realize that with this fear based event cancer in the form of homeland security has entered the scene under false pretences (protect us? right) with the intent of implementing new laws that give the government more power to break the constitutional laws under the guise of "protection from terrorists" when the reality is it is really about control (ok I won't get into this but I wanted to use this example as most people can relate this to cancer).

The cancer spreads and before long the "immune" system becomes weaker and the body (United States) becomes weaker. Now with most people the cancer cells are always in check, but with a poor immune system which is caused by sugar over indulgence or dioxins (will explain later in this hub) and a range of other things like no exercise, bad air etc etc.. (more below on all this)

The body (bad people in the United States metaphor) are less governed and put in check thus the "cancer" has more power to weaken the fabric of the body. At some point the body cannot protect itself from even the car thieves (ride the metaphor lol) and you find yourself "having" cancer. With people bad "cancer" cells/groups replicate through mentality (good becomes evil) with cancer cells they simply replicate because they are not being controlled by the immune system thus are allowed to feed on the sugar in your body (and more).

Cancer cells can't duplicate if they can't eat, but if they can eat, they massively duplicate (think of that movie Gremlins and feeding them after midnight, Gremlins mimic very closely to cancerous activities although they aren't "sweet" before they eat like Gremlins, but the body keeps these Gremlin Cancer Cells so to speak, from eating after midnight thus they are starved and cannot replicate out of control, however neglecting your health, stressing out all the time, smoking, etc are all things that weaken the immune systems ability to make sure the Gremlins don't eat after midnight (I pray you've seen the movie or you will not know what the hell I'm talking about, I think in metaphors).

The reality of "chemotherapy" is akin to in the USA metaphor of nuking a city of bad people to try to save the rest of the USA from terrorism. It's not only ridiculous but it ends up making things worse. Why would you radiate (negative radiation) a body to get rid of cancer if the problem is the weak immune system? Now your weakening the immune system further causing the cancer to get a hold of MORE power.. Get it? Moving on. (There are new ways now by the way to treat cancer that don't involve damaging the immune system in the process)

Cancer cells are very toxic to the body as they feed on you, eating you alive then reproducing Gremlins. Cancer doesn't have to take over your entire body to kill you, it just has to take down your immune system and even benign illnesses like a cold or flu will kill you. It's a horrid death when you really start to see how powerful something as simple as the common cold is to the body and how much we take our immune system for granted!

In the normal healthy states of the body, cancer cells are kept in check by the body's immune system and thus cannot attack the body, if they try its like the thick elephant skin is to an ant's "bite" and the body gets a red flag to destroy the threat. They sure try but the immune system picks them off when they attack the body in any way. What cancer does is attacks the body in every way from blood cells, white/t-cells and so on. There are as many "types" of cancer as their are different things, functions, etc in the body!

To give you a great visual that is exactly what happens only at the microscopic levels Imagine a fire ant (with teeth) and an elephant.

It would be like an ant trying to attack an elephant. The elephant has a thick skin (which in the metaphor of our body is the immune system)

The ant alone cannot kill or really harm the elephant. The elephant probably doesn't even feel it or know it's even there! But if the ant were an army of a million (which is apx the ratio between cancer cells overwhelming the body in scale) it could take him down like we've all probably seen on the discovery channels special on "killer ants".

We'll revisit this in a moment.

At the levels cancer cells are in the average healthy persons body the immune system can keep up with them and their constant replication (which is very slow and benign because to put it bluntly, in a healthy body cancer cells are like those starving people in Africa, suffering famine and poor living conditions (healthy body = poor living conditions for cancer).

For cancer cells to hurt you they have to become billions of cells, overwhelming the immune system and cause tumors. Unless the microscopic cancer cells have multiplied into a few billion cells they will not show up in standard tests and thus your considered as not having cancer, or if you had cancer your considered in remission. This does not mean that being healthy and "not having cancer" means you do not possess cancer cells. If you want to be literal were ALL in remission but can become cancerous at any time.

This is important to realize because ignorance of this fact can cause problems. Let me explain. You will have cancer cells in your body till the day you die, and that will be the only time you don't as when the body dies so does everything else in it.

Although maybe with the immune system not functioning when you die cancer can actually thrive and maybe that's what causes decomposition (or is the very reason we even have cancer cells?) I don't know, interesting thought though that gives closure to why the dam things are there in the first place.

If you want to be technical we ALL have cancer, but the amount of cancer cells we all have is so tiny it is about as harmless as bad water (not the kind that makes you sick (like in Mexico) but the kind that doesn't help).

The reason I want to be clear on this one point is that not knowing this and thinking cancer is some sort of externally created, health hazard that comes from asbestos or something tends to make you think that the only way one can get cancer (have dangerous levels of cancer cells) is by protecting yourself externally. You can use all the external protections you want but cancer is not caused externally (although it is fed that way but we'll get to that in part two of this hub).

Bottom line if you don't understand what cancer is, you will not actually do the right things to prevent it.

---- John Hopkins Alert! (what started this hub)

This is quoted from an email, unknown author but the information is based on research done at John Hopkins Institute: Very important things to know about cancer:

1. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

2. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

3. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

4. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

5. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

6. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

7. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

• Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. are made with Asp artame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

• Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.

• Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

• A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily y absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

• Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

8. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.

9. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells an d allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

10. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

11 Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

12. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters.

This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies.

• Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.

This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body.

Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food.

You get the same results, only without the dioxin.. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

• Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

• Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

---- snip end John Hopkins quoted email

• When we don't exercise we don't force enough oxygen into our lungs and ultimately into the blood stream which is like kryptonite to cancer (oxygen kills cancer!)
• When we don't eat right we cause cataclysmic problems in our body including overwhelming the body's toxin neutralizing organs the liver, appendix, kidneys, and so forth causing them to spill-over and not filter effectively or at all. These toxins get into the blood stream and mess up the immune system which is like taking down America's military and letting the bad guys roam free to destroy whatever they want ungoverned.

• The things we do EVERYDAY that are preventable and based on modern science that are killing us should be stopped such as the saran wrap and Tupperware/plastic containers in the microwave! due to the dioxins!

• Lack of education What you don't know CAN kill you/hurt you, the plastic containers in the microwave and the popular freezing water bottles in the summer is proof!

• Negative thinking causes stress hormones as well as toxic neuro-peptides to flood the body. The brain generates chemical cocktails for every thought in your head based on your perception of the thoughts meaning. Negative thoughts, depression, anger, etc all generate toxic chemicals/neuro-peptides in the body which can weaken your immune system. Emotions are the end result of those chemicals in your body, emotions are a reaction to the neuropeptides. Negative thinking can kill you by weakening your body and immune system allowing cancer cells to multiply.

• Smoking itself doesn't cause cancer directly but the toxins and carcinogens cause cell mutations that create cancer cells and weaken the immune system making it harder for your body to fight off cancer reproduction. When cancer cells reproduce to a certain extent they overwhelm the immune systems armies and this can kill you very painfully and slowly.. your literally being eaten alive from the inside.

Feel free to add any links on cancer awareness in the comments box, this is all I have for now. Hope this helps. Pass this info along.

another good page of information on cancer with plenty of links out is here:

http://hubpages.com/_opp/hub/Finding_a_Cure_for_Cancer__Several_Opinions