In the early years of our work, we looked to the cellular biology of cancer as the starting point.  It was the tumor model.  And while cancer certainly involves cell biology, genes and genetic mutations, that is not the prime starting point to recovering from cancer.

The best starting point is the state of your health.  Even the preeminent leaders in cancer research concur that lifestyle has massive influence on disease prevention and treatment.  Our health choices can control and even reverse a variety of genetic predispositions.  You and I posses the ability to switch on and off the “expression” of those genes.  And we can accomplish this naturally.

Here’s today’s critical point of understanding: your lifestyle choices readily trigger changes in your internal biochemistry.  These changes can assist you in resolving most cancers and preventing recurrence.

Let’s be clear.  The starting point is not genes gone haywire; it is your state of health.  So how healthy are you?  Step back.  Take a fearless inventory.  Observe.  You will find many variables of body, mind and spirit impacting your health.  That inventory is your starting point.

“Integrated cancer care” is term we coined in the late 1980’s.  My wife and I were just starting what would become the Cancer Recovery Group of Charities.  We came to understand a profound truth that I want you to grasp:  surviving cancer is not simply about treating illness.  It is primarily about creating wellness.

I have come to this deeply held belief based on extensive surveys and interviews with over sixteen thousand cancer survivors.  We studied what went right with cancer patients—what led to survival.  Today I can emphatically state: orthodox medical treatment alone does not maximize one’s opportunity for cancer survival.

So in addition to, not in place of, conventional medical care, integrate the nutritional, exercise, mind/body, social support and even the spiritual strategies found in our work.  The evidence is clear: when patients combine complementary and alternative approaches into a biomedical treatment program, it is very likely to result in beater outcomes, reduced side effects, a greater sense of contrail and much-improved quality of life.

Being physically active significantly boost the odds that you will prevent and survive breast cancer.  In fact, we now have a wealth of studies that show exercise improves the prospects of beating any malignancy.  It is important you move daily.

I recommend you find a type of exercise you enjoy.  Then practice that routine just to the point where you feel the increased heart rate along with a greater sense of energy.  This is your only goal.  Do the same tomorrow.  Keep extending the duration as you build strength and stamina.

Make exercise central to your plan to prevent and survive breast cancer.  No matter how incapacitated or depressed, there are exercises you can do.  So do them—today!   Yes, you can.  I believe in you!

The first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month starts a blog series based on my new book BREAST CANCER: 50 ESSENTIAL THINGS YOU CAN DO.  And the first message I wish to communicate is, “Take your vitamin D.”

We now have studies that indicate that most people who live above the thirty-fifth-degree parallel are deficient in vitamin D.  In North America, that line runs roughly from Los Angeles through Atlanta.  In Europe, the line is from Gibraltar through Athens.  In India, it’s anything north of Kashmir.  In China, any place north of Tibet.  Plus virtually all of Japan is north of the 25^th degree parallel.

Vitamin D deficiency is now correlated with a host of disease, most notably breast and prostate cancers.  I stand by our ground-breaking recommendations of 1999:  supplement with vitamin D.  And as the research has become more definitive, Cancer Recovery Group recommendation healthy adults supplement at the rate of 2,000 IU per day.  For cancer patients, supplement at 5,000 IU daily.