Over 26,000 new cases of stomach cancer are diagnosed in the United States every year. Unfortunately, many people rely solely on conventional medicine to address their cancer…once they are already diagnosed.
But what if you knew how to prevent stomach cancer naturally by taking the necessary steps starting today?
Diet and lifestyle changes are often overlooked in the healthcare system, but they are KEY. That’s why the Functional Medicine approach we use here at in2GREAT, puts an emphasis on these. These two factors (which you can control), can prevent stomach cancer naturally and even support and accelerate conventional stomach cancer treatment when used together.
Today’s article will cover how to prevent stomach cancer naturally, so you or a loved one doesn’t have to suffer.
How to Prevent Stomach Cancer Naturally?
The first question we have to ask ourselves is what contributes to stomach cancer in the first place? Once we know that, we can take the steps to avoid or fix those contributing factors.
Stomach cancer develops when people have “unhealthy soil.” Similar to how a plant can’t thrive in bare soil, your body can’t thrive in an unhealthy cellular state.
Poor diet, lack of exercise, environmental toxins, and even an unhealthy emotional state can all influence the growth and spread of cancer by creating “poor soil”. Eventually, these lifestyle factors lead to underlying imbalances, deficiencies, or dysfunctions…which lay the perfect foundation for cancer to thrive.
So if “poor soil” allows cancer to grow, what if creating a healthy soil within your body can inhibit cancer from thriving in the first place?
The good news is, it can!
When you address a slow metabolism, immune dysfunction, inflammation, poor detoxification, nutrient deficiencies, and hormone imbalances, you can transform your body’s cellular state and prevent stomach cancer from manifesting.
Here’s how you can do that.
1. Enhance Your Diet
A diet high in sugar can increase your risk of cancer since high sugar intake is associated with higher rates of obesity and insulin resistance…both risk factors for cancer.
To prevent stomach cancer naturally, avoid consuming highly processed foods, artificial ingredients, and added sugar.
Instead, focus on eating a whole food, plant-based diet. This way, you’ll consume more vital nutrients per meal and more fiber, which are key to cellular health, detoxification, and digestion.
A whole food, mainly plant-based diet, will help encourage daily bowel movements which is vital for optimal health. In fact, patients with a diagnosis of constipation had elevated risks of colorectal and other GI cancers, so let’s make sure to address constipation before it turns into a more serious health issue.
2. Optimize Gut Health
Your gut microbiome has a significant influence on your overall health including your risk of numerous cancers and chronic illnesses, including stomach cancer. Let’s make sure your gut is staying happy and healthy!
Not only can a balanced microbiome help prevent cancer, but it helps when treating stomach cancers as well.
Imbalanced gut microbiota can mess with the efficacy of anticancer drugs. A poor gut microbiome is associated with resistance to chemo drugs or immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, when new bacterial species are introduced to the gut through supplementation, it can actually restore the appropriate response to the anticancer drugs.
So how do you keep your gut health in check?
- Eat a wide array of nutrient-rich whole foods (more food variety means your gut will be introduced to more bacteria. A high variety of gut bacteria is key to optimal health).
- Take prebiotics and probiotics
- Avoid taking antibiotics, as this wipes out all bacteria (good and bad)
- Eat more fermented foods like sauerkraut, Kimchi, miso, and kefir to increase gut microbiome diversity
- Avoid inflammatory foods that cause inflammation in your gut (gluten, food sensitivities, and pro-inflammatory oils, like sunflower, vegetable, and canola oil)
3. Reduce Inflammation
Cancer is a common consequence of chronic inflammation in the gut. While diet is one of the driving factors in inflammation, there could be hidden drivers of inflammation occurring in your body.
Bacteria overgrowths like H. pylori, chronic infections, environmental toxin exposure, and leaky gut, can all contribute to an inflamed gut and increase your stomach cancer risk.
Implement the following to reduce your gut inflammation.
- Address underlying infections using functional medicine lab testing
- Increase anti-inflammatory foods and spices (berries, turmeric, olive oil, dark leafy greens)
- Use an infrared sauna regularly
- Consider therapies like NAD+, Ozone/UBI, and more. (Check out the therapies we offer at our Functional Medicine Clinic in Kansas City)
- Avoid toxins by using non-toxic household cleaning products (all-purpose cleaner, laundry detergent, hand soap), personal self-care products (shampoo, conditioner, body soap), and beauty products and filtering your water. The EWG is a great website to learn more about how toxins impact your health and what products are safe.
4. Prioritize Stress Management
Do you often experience gut symptoms during stressful weeks or months? You may find yourself struggling with more bloating, constipation, or running to the bathroom more frequently. This is because stress can cause distress to your digestion. This chronic stress can even lead to inflammation and chronic conditions and cancers.
If you want to know the best way how to prevent stomach cancer naturally, you need to confront and address your elevated stress levels. For many people, this may mean slowing down, realizing where your stress is coming from, and avoiding it if possible.
If not, you need to work on changing your reaction to stress through mindful techniques and breathing exercises. You can’t always control the environment you’re in, but you can learn how to respond differently.
*Don’t forget the power of basic health hygiene. Get proper amounts of quality sleep, get in daily movement, and prioritize community and laughter.
5. Know the Signs of Stomach Cancer and the Risks
When you know the signs of stomach cancer and the risks, you’ll be more well-equipped to take the necessary action steps to prevent it from progressing. Look out for:
- Changes to bowel movements: constipation, diarrhea, blood in the stool (especially if it progressively gets worse, or even if it periodically comes and goes)
- Belly pain, feeling bloated after eating
- Not feeling hungry when you would expect to be hungry
- Heartburn, indigestion, and nausea
If you notice these symptoms occurring, we recommend meeting with a Functional Medicine practitioner near you. If they are truly practicing functional medicine, they should be able to identify the root cause of your symptoms, and develop a personalized treatment plan to help address and reverse those symptoms. They can set you up for success and empower you on how to prevent stomach cancer naturally while addressing the root cause.
Book an Appointment with Our Functional Medicine Clinic near Kansas City
Want to learn more about how to prevent stomach cancer naturally? Schedule an appointment with us, and together we will optimize your gut health, help you implement healthy diet and lifestyle changes, and address underlying imbalances and dysfunctions, so your body can thrive.
References
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/stomach-cancer/about/key-statistics.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6503315/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4789109/
https://gut.bmj.com/content/69/10/1867
About the author
Eli Trave is a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP), a Level 3 Restorative Wellness Practitioner (RWP), and one of Kansas City’s most passionate minds when it comes to the subject of how nutrition plays into an individual’s health and wellness.
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