There is nothing more “American” than the traditional hot dog served at ball parks, picnics and family events. Now a national medical group, The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, A Washington D.C. group that promotes preventive medicine and a vegan diet, unveiled a billboard Monday near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the advisory:  “Warning:  Hot dogs can wreck your health” all done to increase awareness of a link between colorectal cancer and hot dogs.

“A hot dog a day could send you to an early grave,” says PCRM nutrition education director Susan Levin, M.S., R.D. “Processed meats like hot dogs can increase your risk for diabetes, heart disease, and various types of cancer. Like cigarettes, hot dogs should come with a warning label that helps racing fans and other consumers understand the health risk.”

So what is in the hot dog that would cause such concern? According to Dr. Edward F. Group III, founder of Global Healing Center, “Hot dogs contain nitrites which are used as preservatives, primarily to combat botulism. During the cooking process, nitrites combine with amines naturally present in meat to form carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds. It is also suspected that nitrites can combine with amines in the human stomach to form N-nitroso compounds. These compounds are known carcinogens and have been associated with cancer of the oral cavity, urinary bladder, esophagus, stomach and brain.”

Another report, found at  www.dietandcancerreport.org states that no amount of processed meat is considered completely safe and found that there is more evidence than ever that a person who weighs too much is more likely to develop cancer.  Excess body fat increases the risk of cancer of the colon, kidney, pancreas, esophagus and uterus as well as postmenopausal breast cancer.  Karen Collins, a cancer institute nutrition advisor, stated that the body fat we carry around on the waistline and thighs is a metabolically active tissue that produces substances in the body that promote the development of cancer.  This can be  a scary thought considering our post about obesity growing in America.

The American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund gives us the following recommendations on how to cut cancer risks:

1. Maintain a healthy body mass index of 18.5 to 14.9
2. Limit consumption of red meat to no more than 18 ounces (cooked) a week
3. Eliminate processed meats such as bacon, ham, sausage and lunchmeat
4. Eat 5 servings or more of fruit and vegetables a day
5. Limit consumption of alcohol to no more than 2 drinks a day for mean and one for women
6. Exercise at least 30 minutes a day
7. Limit consumption of salt
8. Limit processed foods high in added sugar and fat

I would add to that list adding more fiber to our diets daily (fiber from plant foods act as a bulking agent to reduce carcinogenic concentration) ~ recommended intake for women is 25 gr per day and men 38 gr per day ~ as well as including antioxidants (Vitamin C, Vitamin E and Beta-Carotene).

The World Health Organization has stated that 85% of cancers are down to lifestyle with 50% being due to dietary choices.  Something to think about.

It seems like everyday I hear about another person struck down with cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, if you are male in this country, you have a 47% chance of getting cancer. If you are female, you fare a little better, but you still have a whopping 38% lifetime chance of getting cancer. Despite the greatly funded War on Cancer, it seems we have made little progress.

I just came across the film trailer about this very subject, based on the book, Living Downstream, by cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. Her mission with this amazing documentary film is to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links. The connection she makes between the health of our bodies and the health of our air, land and water is very powerful.

We often think that genetics play a role in this disease. According to the authors of a major review on diet and cancer, prepared for the U.S. Congress in 1981, genetics only determines about 2-3% of the total cancer risk.  Quite a few of Sandra’s family had cancer which indicated it was “in her genes.” However, Sandra was adopted. That began her own search into what else families had in common besides their DNA, which, of course, led to the environment around us.,

A story which breaks tonight on CNN, Toxic America , June 2 and June 3 at 8:00 p.m. ET, investigates the environment’s effects on our well-being as part of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s special.   It discusses the same issues that Sandra found, that pervasive chemicals are on the move, invading our land and our bodies.  I was fortunate enough to be introduced many years ago to safe, non-toxic household cleaners so have at least been able to eliminate the toxins from the inside of our home; however, both the CNN special and Sandra’s moving story is about industrial pollution, an issue we should all be concerned about.

In the book, The China Study, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, after a long career in research and policy making, believes it is not just the synthetic chemicals in our environment and in our food,  nor the genes we inherit from our parents that leads to diseases such as cancer, but that a good diet based on plant-based foods are the healthiest and tend to avoid chronic disease.  His “China Study”  produced more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease.

My own four steps to address this “war on cancer” include the following:

1.  Continue to use my non-toxic, environmentally safe household products.

2.  Educate myself by watching the CNN special on June 2, 3 (Join the live blog conversation starting at 8 PM ET on June 3rd:  http://www.enviroblog.org.) as well as seeing the documentary, Living Downstream.

3.  Seriously consider eating more of a plant-based diet and buy as much local food as possible.

4.  Continue taking whole food supplements to feed my cells.

What are your steps in fighting the “war on cancer?”

“One is not born into the world to do everything,
but to do something.” Henry David Thoreau