An interesting study followed cancer survivors for seven years. Looking specifically at later causes of death, the findings answer the question each one of the patients asked themselves after the initial treatments and operations: “Even though I have initially survived, will my cancer cause my death sometime down the road?”
And if you’re a cancer survivor, you may be asking yourself, “Will I die from that cancer or will I die from ‘something else’? And if I have survived the cancer, can that ‘something else’ be prevented?”
There would be nothing worse than to beat cancer and then get defeated by something other than the cancer—especially if that something other was preventable. The cancer survivors in this particular study had the most prevalent cancers men and women get: lung, breast, prostate, and colon. The question the study raised was, Did they die from their cancer or something else?
Here are their numbers: 51 percent died from their cancer, but 49 percent died from something else. Now listen to this next statistic: two-thirds of those who didn’t die from their cancer died from heart disease. The sad part of this story is that the damage to the arteries in their heart was preventable!
If you have gone through the furnace of being treated for cancer and come out of it, begin thinking of the benefits a proper lifestyle can offer you for the extra days you have been given. Follow the steps of the Prescription for Life plan—getting regular exercise, eating the right foods, avoiding the wrong foods, and sustaining an ideal weight, as well as not smoking.
The big question in everyone’s mind pertains to what can be done to prevent cancer from ever developing. The answer is “yes.” The American Cancer Society’s recommendations provide the findings and impetus to put the “Prescription for Life” plan into action today.
“Cancer” photo courtesy of dreamdesign at www.freedigitalimages.net
