Participants: Agatha Thrash (Host), Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000217
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00:01 We are exposed to risks for cancer almost all the time
00:05 and it's the kind of thing that everybody hopes that they 00:09 will never hear a doctor say about them. 00:12 We're going to talk about some of the risks for cancer and 00:16 how you can minimize your risks in this program, 00:19 we think it will be very beneficial to you, we hope 00:21 you will join us for the program. 00:43 Welcome to Help Yourself To Health 00:45 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 00:49 and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 00:52 We all understand that the immune system is involved 00:58 in our getting cancer, sometimes we don't quite understand how, 01:02 we may have led an exemplary life so far as our immune system 01:07 is concerned, we have done everything we know, 01:10 we've been very faithful about exercise, we've tried to 01:13 minimize our stresses, we have eaten a proper diet and still 01:18 we get cancer. 01:19 We don't know everything about how to avoid cancer but 01:24 there are a number of things that we do know and we'd like 01:27 to talk with you about some of these, that the immune system 01:30 is involved is very clear and all of those things we can do 01:35 to keep the immune system functioning at a high level 01:38 that will give us a resistance against the cancer that we know 01:43 is certainly a plague in our population. 01:47 Cancer rates are going up and chemicals in our society are 01:52 going up, things that injure the immune system in some way 01:57 these are increasing, so as we understand these things that 02:01 can make us so that maybe I shouldn't even go out of doors. 02:04 Well we don't want to get that attitude about life we can 02:08 indeed participate in everything that goes on around 02:13 us and still have a resistance against cancer. 02:17 We know that we are not going to live forever unless the Lord 02:22 comes soon and we are translated and so with the fact that 02:29 we need to live in this life, we need to learn how to protect 02:34 ourselves from the world, with this we can then begin some 02:38 research with more concentrated and crystallized effort. 02:42 Now with the immune system we know that exercise boosts 02:46 the effectiveness of the immune system, we know that simply 02:49 staying warm, having warm extremities, warm arms, 02:53 a warm neck, the face we can have it cold, the face is on a 02:59 different circulatory system and doesn't affect the immune 03:04 system at all, but the legs, the feet need to be warm 03:09 if they are not warm then it reduces the effectiveness of the 03:12 immune system. 03:14 It is also a fact that a plant based diet is effective 03:19 in keeping the immune system in peak functioning condition 03:23 and that animal products a number of them have been 03:26 associated with certain cancers. 03:29 A high fiber diet strengthens the immune system and also 03:33 lessens the number of cancer producing agents that we keep 03:38 in our bodies. 03:40 Now I have Dr. Don Miller with me this morning and he is 03:44 going to tell you about food and how food is involved 03:51 in the production of cancer, Dr. Miller! 03:54 - Well first I'll say that rather than try to study 03:57 what is cancer and what causes cancer 04:00 is the best thing to do is to find out how 04:03 not to have cancer in the first place and so I get to have this 04:06 little piece of talk in about five seconds; fruits, 04:08 vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, that should be 04:10 enough said, that is an anti- cancer diet for the most part 04:14 now let's take it one step beyond there because 04:18 even with that there is a danger in sometimes 04:21 the foods that we have and so I'm going to go through four 04:23 simple steps once you have fruits, vegetables, 04:26 whole grains, nuts, and seeds, how do we prepare and 04:29 take these things in. 04:30 The first thing is you select them carefully, we realize that 04:34 sometimes and almost all the time in many places the foods 04:38 have been sprayed with herbicides and pesticides 04:41 and whatever else, and these themselves can be carcinogenic 04:44 so we have to make sure that our foods have been well washed 04:48 and as much as possible taken from places where we have 04:52 carcinogens in the very things that are being put 04:55 on these foods. 04:56 So we get our foods from the most healthful source, 04:59 we find that foods that already started to decompose themselves 05:04 are themselves unhealthy and could be carcinogenic, 05:07 and so what we want to do is get foods in it's best shape 05:10 as we can, second step is we want to prepare them carefully, 05:14 how do we do this? 05:16 As I've already mentioned, we clean them, make sure we got all 05:18 those things that might have been on the surface off 05:21 of them, we're talking about the grapes, we're talking about 05:24 the bananas, the apples, the carrots, everything needs to be 05:27 washed, wash your lettuce these are very good things. 05:30 Next step is ask God to bless it, if you've done your part 05:34 He will do His part, and then the fourth thing is just eat it 05:38 and quit worrying about it because if you think it's 05:39 going to hurt you, it probably will. 05:41 There's other things about the foods that we need to be 05:44 concerned with, Dr. Bruce Ames a number of years ago, 05:48 he is a bio-chemist, I don't know whether he is still there, 05:51 he was at the University of California in Burkley. 05:53 He came up with a list of things that were carcinogenic, 05:58 food carcinogens that we have in our society that are quite 06:02 common and some of these might surprise you: 06:05 one is burned foods, if you scorch your foods, as soon as 06:10 you scorch the food it has become carcinogenic and it needs 06:13 to be rotated into the compost bin, you burn your toast, 06:17 you are cooking some cereal and you burn it at the bottom 06:21 of the pot, what I do if I ever do this is usually use a 06:25 crock pot, but if I do burn my cereal I will put the pot 06:28 immediately in cold water which will draw these things that 06:36 are causing the flavoring down into the burnt part and if you 06:41 taste the top part and you do not taste the burn it's 06:44 probably ok, so stay away from burned food. 06:47 Second thing he mentions is damaged potatoes, 06:52 as strange as that may sound, when I first heard this 06:56 I said I am not going to do that any more, I used to go 06:59 to the store and buy the 10 pound bag, the 15 pound bag 07:03 of potatoes, now when I go to the store to buy potatoes 07:06 I pick each one up and I examine them all around because often 07:11 in the harvesting process they are damaged by the 07:17 harvesting tools and if they get that cut in there 07:20 the cut will somewhat heal because see the potato will try 07:24 to heal, but what's happening inside the potato when it gets 07:28 invaded by that hoe or whatever it is that hit that, 07:32 it thinks it's a foreign invader of a live type and 07:36 it starts producing some types of chemicals that will 07:39 kill that thing that's invading it. 07:42 Well after three days it's carcinogenic and it can 07:45 get you too, and so it's best not to get damaged potatoes. 07:49 Another thing he mentioned was mushrooms, I think he said 07:54 two out of three of the most common forms of mushrooms 07:57 in the markets are carcinogenic. 08:00 Now we're not saying if you eat a mushroom it's going to 08:02 give you cancer, or eat a piece of burned toast 08:04 because we've done these things all of our lives, but for some 08:08 people these things can lead to cancer so beings the fact that 08:14 we are getting older or we are in a more polluted world 08:17 and our immune systems are getting weaker, 08:18 it's the very best thing to do is to do everything that we know 08:23 to stay away from these problems. 08:25 We also realize that back in the 1800's a little old lady was 08:30 talking about cancerous germs, this was before viruses were 08:34 discovered, now we realize that cancer is often viral 08:40 related, that it's a virus being transmitted into the body 08:44 and basically those viruses many times come from animal 08:47 products, and so again to protect yourself from cancers 08:52 fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, stay away from 08:57 the animal products because they are a teaming laboratory 09:03 of viruses and bacteria's and other types of organisms that we 09:07 really don't need to fight in these already weakened bodies. 09:10 So a little bit of things about the foods there of course 09:13 keeping the sugar content down as we take sugar Dr. Thrash 09:17 just mentioned the immune system, sugar suppresses the 09:20 immune response and many other things in our environment do but 09:24 just eat a good healthy clean diet and Dr. Thrash I think 09:27 if we do this we will probably not have to meet our appointment 09:31 with cancer. 09:32 - I certainly hope not, then another thing that's a big 09:36 factor in some areas is the water, we know that certain 09:41 big water supplies for prominent cities like Chicago and Atlanta 09:47 and Los Angeles, that the fish living in those rivers and lakes 09:55 have cancer, how did they get cancer? 09:57 Well it's probably from agricultural runoff or big 10:01 feed lots of animals or some other place that pollutants 10:07 can get into the water supply, and then the second thing 10:12 that makes the water so that it can be cancer producing 10:16 is that the very purifiers themselves put into the water 10:22 to purify it to make it so that it is alright for people 10:26 to take into their homes, these things also can in some 10:30 instances apparently be involved in increasing one's risk of 10:35 cancer. 10:36 Whatever it is about water, every municipal water supply 10:40 has been tested in many of these areas, most of the big cities 10:45 just ten miles outside of the water supply district of the 10:50 municipal water supply the cancer rates are lower except 10:55 where there are farmers who are using various kinds of 10:58 chemicals on their crops, so water can be a serious 11:03 problem for us. 11:04 But then another thing that we find that's a serious 11:08 problem that increases one's risks for getting cancer 11:12 is lifestyle and Dr. Miller will talk with us about 11:16 lifestyle now. 11:17 - There are various lifestyle factors that we find are 11:20 more promoting for cancer, whether it's the lifestyle 11:23 of the occupation that you have, lifestyle in what you do for 11:27 recreation, various things are going to cause us to be more 11:31 prone to get cancers. 11:33 I have in my mind right now, when I was a child I went to a 11:37 place that's called Coney Island in Cincinnati, and I remember 11:40 seeing a man laying there and he was as brown as my shoes 11:45 and just shriveled up, he probably wasn't all that old, 11:49 but all that sunshine was setting him up... 11:53 Now a little bit of sun is not that bad, matter of fact it's 11:55 not bad to get a sun tan, but these people who lay out there 11:59 and get the sun burns... A sun burn sets you up sometime 12:03 in your life for cancer, now I'm not saying that you're going 12:06 get cancer if you've been sun burned because most of us 12:08 have been, but one sunburn in your whole life will leave 12:12 you open for melanomas, so what we want to do is protect 12:16 the skin, so those people who have either through their 12:19 recreation get to much sun or through their occupation 12:23 gets to much sun, we need to learn how to protect ourselves. 12:28 Wear a hat, wear the glasses, wear the clothes that cover 12:31 the body and you can take care of that one. 12:34 The two probably highest occupations for cancers are 12:40 dairy farmers and poultry farmers, now whether that's 12:43 because they are so much of their own products or they are 12:47 just around these different animals, I don't know which 12:50 one it is, probably a little bit of both, this is a potent 12:54 form of certain types of cancers so stay away from these things. 12:58 Radiation, one of my first patients at Uchee Pines 13:02 had worked for the Savannah River Plant, where there was 13:05 lots of radiation somewhere along the line and he got cancer 13:10 basically it was an oral cancer. 13:12 So radiation whether it is through the sunshine during 13:17 the peak times of the day basically between 10:00 in 13:19 the morning and three in the afternoon we have more of the 13:22 harmful rays it could also be in the medical type of an 13:26 experience, if you have ever gone to the hospital or the 13:30 doctor's office and they were going to give you an x-ray 13:33 what do they do, they come out and they wrap certain parts 13:37 of your body in this lead jacket and they skittle out of 13:42 that room, they are not going to stay in there with you. 13:43 they wear this little tag with them, this little thing that 13:46 absorbs x-rays, and they have it tested periodically to see 13:50 how much it is absorbed because if it has absorbed it, 13:53 he has absorbed it. 13:55 Once you get x-rays those x- rays are with you in your 13:58 body and so the deal is limit the amount of x-rays 14:02 that you get, some people to and get x-rays all the time, 14:07 dental x-rays and x-rays for the most innocent causes. 14:11 I would not get an x-ray unless I really felt like I really 14:15 needed this x-ray. 14:16 I've know people with broken bones that said look you 14:17 can tell the things broken, just fix it I don't want an x-ray, 14:22 so those are the causes of one of those things. 14:26 Pollution, there are different types of pollutants that are 14:29 carcinogenic, now one that we know very well from 14:33 30- 35 years ago was Agent Orange that they use a lot in 14:37 Vietnam, those people who were sprayed with it were in 14:40 the area where agent orange was are now coming down with 14:44 many problems. 14:45 Asbestos, now they are trying to get it out of all the 14:47 buildings, but you know it is interesting when the 14:50 World Trade Centers were destroyed, that was some of the 14:55 last buildings built that used Asbestos inside the building. 15:01 I heard recently, but I have to check this out, upwards of 50% 15:07 of the policeman and fireman who were in the area who survived 15:11 now are out on disability because of the asbestos that 15:14 was in the air, and asbestosis leads to cancer of the lung, 15:19 they could have never smoked a cigarette in their lives 15:22 and this could be a problem. 15:23 Cigarette smoking there is another one, whether it is 15:25 active or passive these things are potent forms of cancers 15:29 in the body so we need to stay away from any form of cancers 15:33 alcohol can precipitate cancers of the mouth, of the throat, 15:38 of the stomach, stay away from the alcohols. 15:41 Dress, lifestyle, the way people dress, people who 15:46 bundle up, you know lots of people in the cold weather like 15:49 to wear these big down vests and leave their arms hanging 15:53 out, if you don't have much covering on your arms 15:56 or your legs, it causes the blood to shunt to the trunk 16:00 and when you conjest the trunk it leads to more breast cancer 16:05 so we find that women who live in colder countries 16:09 seem to have more breast cancer, probably because of the 16:12 fact that we are slaves to fashion, we want to sit there 16:14 and look all this neat because of our whatever it is, 16:18 I don't know what drives a person to live an unhealthy 16:20 lifestyle Dr. Thrash because I've seen some of these people 16:22 dying of cancer and it's not a pretty site. 16:24 - Yes! We do have a lot of knowledge that can help us 16:29 in these areas. 16:31 Concerning overheating, not only overheating the chest 16:35 but also overheating the pelvic area in men can lead to 16:39 cancer of the testes. 16:41 For decades we have know that if a little boy was born with 16:47 his testes not down in the scrotum but up in the canal 16:52 then that testes that was in the canal, that never did 16:56 come down is something like 60 times more likely to get a 17:02 cancer in it than the normally descended testes into the 17:09 scrotum, so what urologists do is at about the age of 17:13 seven years, or certainly by the age of 15 years, a little boy 17:17 whose testes has not descended properly, that testes will be 17:23 simply removed. 17:24 Most of the time the other testes is quite capable of 17:28 performing all the needs, all the functions that the 17:32 young man would need ever. 17:35 Now another thing that we don't know much about but has been 17:39 implicated in cancer is exposure to high tension electric lines, 17:45 this has not been proven yet and some studies seem to refute 17:49 the idea that electricity is involved in the production of 17:54 cancer, but from the very first study there was enough evidence 17:58 to make me feel that we should try to locate our homes away 18:03 from these high tension power lines believing that if it could 18:08 interfere with the radio reception or TV reception 18:12 that it might be able to interfere somewhat in the 18:15 electrical impulses that the body has and thus interfere 18:19 with the immune system. 18:20 There are some infections very clearly shown to be involved in 18:27 cancer, one of those is hepatitis C, hepatitis C is 18:34 common and getting to be more common, and we need to learn 18:38 as much as we can about that so that we can avoid getting 18:42 hepatitis C, Dr. Miller would you talk with us some 18:45 about hepatitis C and what to do to keep from getting it 18:49 and so forth. 18:51 - Well hepatitis C as we understand is transmitted 18:54 through blood and body fluids, and the problem with Hepatitis C 18:59 is it's incubation period, it incubates in about 6 months 19:03 and all during that time a person who has been infected 19:06 with the hepatitis C virus is infectious and they can 19:10 pass it on to other people in their environment and so it's 19:13 very important to be careful, and how are you careful 19:18 you don't know who has it out there. 19:19 Well for the most part, those people who are at risk, 19:23 and I'm not going to try to classify all those people who 19:26 are at risk for hepatitis C, but certainly those who get 19:30 blood transfusions if somehow or other the blood bank has 19:33 been polluted with this particular virus, those who are 19:39 intravenous drug users, those who engage in risky sex, 19:45 anything outside of marriage is risky sex, those things can 19:49 be a major problem with transmitting it and if someone 19:51 doesn't know then it passes it on down the line, so we need to 19:55 learn how first of all not to get hepatitis, it's a serious 19:58 problem that a person has it attacks the liver and when a 20:03 cell gets weakened the cell opens itself up, or it's cell is 20:09 opened up, it is exposed to the opportunity of becoming 20:12 invaded by cancer, becoming cancerous itself. 20:15 So we find that people who have hepatitis C, down the line 20:19 they are set up for things like cirrhosis of the liver or 20:23 cancer of the liver, so what we need to do is first, 20:26 don't get it, but if we do get it there are some simple 20:28 things that we can do to take care of ourselves. 20:31 One, we need to take care of the liver that's where it's 20:34 going to attack, we can do hot fomentations, just a hot 20:37 compress over the liver and leave that there for awhile 20:41 and do a cold sponging after that and then you take a shower 20:45 you might even do a series of hot fomentations and then cold 20:50 rubs, hot fomentations, cold rubs, what this is going to do 20:54 is bring some more circulation and some healing into the 20:58 liver area. 21:00 The diet has to be as clean as it can be, you have to stay 21:04 off the sugars, you have to stay off the fats, you have to 21:06 stay off the animal products and eat a pure diet, 21:10 as pure a diet as you can find. 21:12 Grapefruit Seed Extract would also be good for recovering 21:16 the liver, I like to for patients who have liver problems 21:20 or want to sit there and rejunivate their liver take some 21:22 lemon juice in some water each day, lemon juice is extremely 21:26 good liver tonic and it will be good for the liver. 21:29 Garlic, extremely good for the liver and I would recommend 21:32 somebody with hepatitis to eat a lot of garlic, it may come out 21:39 of their pores a little bit and make them a little bit 21:41 anti-social but I'd rather... If I had hepatitis you 21:45 don't need to be all that close to everybody in the neighborhood 21:47 any way. 21:48 There a few herbs that you can take, you can take Milk Thistle 21:52 one of the best herbs for the liver, you can take Bilberry 21:55 another nice herb for the liver, Goldenseal, and then of course 22:00 doing the hot and cold treatments I have 22:01 already mentioned. 22:02 I knew a person a few years ago who all of a sudden out of the 22:08 blue it seems, developed hepatitis C and immediately 22:13 went to work on it, doing these simple things you've got that 22:18 diet right, did the hydrotherapy right, took the herbs right, 22:22 and within 6 months she was negative for the hepatitis C 22:26 and I saw her a few years ago in Austria and she has been 22:29 completely well now for awhile, it's been seven or eight years. 22:32 So if we grab the reigns immediately if we do get out 22:37 of control, grab the reigns immediately, bring this thing 22:40 under control, it's a good chance that you could even 22:43 beat this terrible disease Dr. Thrash and that's what I 22:46 recommend. 22:48 - Yes! Hepatitis is a very serious disease and we can 22:52 combat it, we've had some cases at Uchee Pines, 22:56 we have advised their treatment and they have gone through 23:01 the herbal things and the lifestyle factors and they have 23:07 had a reduction in the liver enzymes that they have had, 23:12 I personally have not had a case that has become negative to 23:17 the serology tests for the virus. 23:19 The stresses that we are subjected to all the time 23:25 these can weaken the immune system and make it so that we 23:28 are more likely to develop cancer. 23:31 People who have mental illnesses, especially those who 23:35 are institutionalized, they tend to get more cancers 23:38 than do people who are not institutionalized, I don't know 23:42 why that is whether it's the medications that they take 23:45 it may have some cancer promoting activity or whether 23:50 this may be some innate feature of being mentally ill 23:55 that weakens the immune system, whatever it is just as a 23:59 class of patients they do tend to get more cancers and to die 24:04 a little earlier than other people do. 24:07 Perhaps some of the inflammatory substances which produce many 24:13 chronic progressive illnesses, maybe some of these are involved 24:18 in the shortened life span of people with severe 24:24 hospitalizable types of mental illness. 24:26 Now there is sexually transmitted diseases that are 24:29 known to be associated with cancer, one of those 24:32 is syphilis. 24:33 When I was in medical school I remember that the man who 24:38 taught us eye, ear, nose, and throat diseases said that 24:43 there were three causes of cancer of the mouth and throat 24:48 and those were syphilis, and poor oral hygiene, and carious 24:54 teeth, so I have come to believe that many of the sexually 25:01 transmitted disorders or diseases can be associated with 25:06 an increased risk of getting a cancer. 25:10 Cancer of the cervix may be classified as a sexually 25:15 transmitted disease, there is the human Papillomas virus 25:20 and it can be transmitted from one sexual partner to another 25:24 and especially when there are multiple partners in the life 25:29 of an individual, we do know that there is an increase in the 25:33 number of cases of cancer of the foreskin and cancer of the 25:38 cervix, the human Papillomas virus is one that is a virus 25:42 that's involved in that. 25:44 Then we know that the Burkitt's Lymphoma, this lymphoma that's 25:52 characteristic of people with AIDS and people who live in 25:56 countries such as Africa, this is also apparently somewhat of a 26:02 sexually transmitted disease, that matter is not entirely 26:08 clear yet but certainly there are some indications 26:12 that it is true. 26:13 Thyroid disorders, maybe because of a weakening of the immune 26:19 system possibly because of the taking of a hormone on a 26:26 long term basis, this could also be a feature in the 26:30 formation of breast cancer, not much has recently been 26:34 presented in that in the medical literature but a number of 26:38 years ago there was an indication that in women who 26:42 did not need to take thyroid hormone but were taking it 26:47 just because of some symptom that was apparently related to 26:52 some other problem such as being chilly in mild weather 26:57 or having some lack of energy, or some other symptom that was 27:08 just general that these individuals would take thyroid 27:13 over a long period of time to boost these functions and they 27:18 tend to have a slightly higher risk of getting cancer 27:21 of the breast. 27:23 Now with studying all of these things we see that infections 27:27 are involved, that pollutants in our surroundings are 27:32 involved, that certain lifestyle factors and food 27:35 factors are involved in increasing our risks for getting 27:38 cancer, there are many others we've only scratched the surface 27:42 of the known risks for cancer, we invite you and encourage 27:47 you to study about these matters and to make yourself 27:50 knowledgeable so that you can resist these increasing numbers 27:55 of cancer risks in our society. |
Revised 2014-12-17