Why are cases of cancer increasing?
Cancer is on the rise worldwide, increasingly affecting younger populations and challenging conventional medical models. For decades, cancer has been viewed as a random enemy, an unlucky strike that suddenly appears in the body.
The conventional medical model focuses almost entirely on the seed: the tumor itself. Cancer Standard of Care (SOC), established by conventional medicine, aims to remove, shrink, or poison the tumor or the “seed” (and we might add, poison the rest of the body) through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.
While these treatments can be lifesaving, they often have a significant impact on the person’s overall health, AND these approaches are missing something BIG, the “soil,” the body’s internal terrain that allowed cancer to flourish in the first place.
It’s like ripping out the weeds without attending to the environment in which they grow.
Some questions
What if the way we have been going about treating cancer was all wrong?
What about the soil, the often-overlooked but crucial factor in cancer development?
What about the terrain inside the body that allowed that seed (the cancer) to grow in the first place?
What if we shifted our focus to the internal environment of the body that allowed cancer to take root and grow?
If the soil remains disrupted, cancer is likely to have the perfect environment to germinate and grow.
When we talk about the “soil”, it encompasses:
- Immune health
- Inter- and intra-cellular metabolic function
- Inflammation levels
- Hormone balance
- Inter- and intra-cellular communication, drainage, and detoxification capabilities
- Systemic deficiencies
- Toxicities
- Energetic and generational influences
If conventional medicine’s Cancer Standard of Care (SOC) “removes the seed,” this imperative variable of the “soil” or ecosystem has not been restored, and the cancer is absolutely more likely to recur or spread.
Prevent, manage, and reverse cancer by focusing on the body’s terrain
At in2GREAT, we believe that understanding and healing the body’s terrain is key to preventing, managing, and even reversing cancer. That is why we take a terrain-focused approach to cancer.
Tumors don’t grow due to bad luck. In fact, a fraction of cancer is genetic in etiology, accounting for only about 5%.
This means that the health of the soil —the terrain of the body — determines whether a seed can take root, germinate, grow, and spread. Healing the soil means creating an inhospitable environment for cancer cells and supporting the body’s natural defenses.
Our integrative approach combines advanced testing, targeted therapies, and personalized care to address not only the tumor(s) but also the whole person, encompassing the entire “terrain” or “ecosystem” of the whole body.
When this ecosystem or terrain is working in pure synergy, it is an amazing and beautiful symphony with absolute healing power!
is caused by genetics
So what cause is more than genetics?
This means that the health of the soil — the terrain of the body — determines whether a seed can take root, germinate, grow, and spread.
In this article, we’re going to touch on several topics. You can read from top to bottom, or click on the button below to jump to a particular section.
Why Are Cancer Rates Rising?
The increasing incidence of cancer, especially among younger people, raises many urgent questions. A few that come to mind immediately, as we ponder this for just a brief second, are:
Why do we get cancer in the first place?
Why does the terrain of the body permit cancerous growth?
What in today’s modern world is fueling this trend?
What lifestyle changes have occurred and are occurring that have allowed for disruption of the terrain?
What mechanisms within the cellular framework are triggering these mutations?
What is happening to our immune systems so that they do not recognize cancer cells?
Let’s consider the root causes of cancer
What disrupts the terrain?
While genetics play a role, many more factors contribute to creating a body environment conducive to cancer development. Leading to a systemic betrayal where the body’s own terrain, its internal metabolic and bioelectric environment has become permissive and even to support to host the disease itself.
Cancer is never caused by just one thing. It is multifactorial.
The soil is disrupted by a wide range of influences, including:
- Environmental toxins include chemicals, pollutants, heavy metals, plastics, EMFs, and biotoxins, among others.
- Nutritional deficiencies: Depending on physiology and lifestyle exposures, numerous deficiencies can alter cellular function and detoxification, as well as immune support for proper modulation.
- Chronic infections and parasites: hidden stressors on the immune system.
- Chronic inflammation: the spark that keeps the terrain ignited..
- Unresolved trauma and emotions can be stored in tissues and organs, silently altering physiology, and even generational trauma can contribute to the body’s total stress load until resolved, and can continue to impact past and future generations.
- Medical interventions that impair DNA repair and immunity, such as certain pharmaceutical exposures and mRNA shots, can disrupt immune surveillance and activate oncogenic pathways.
- Lifestyle imbalances include poor diet, lack of sleep, disrupted circadian rhythm, and sedentary habits.
All of these factors shape the body’s terrain, either creating an environment that resists cancer… or one that allows cancer to grow.
of Americans suffer from at least one chronic illness
Chronic dysfunction creates an environment suitable for cancer
Bringing us to our foundational question:
Why does the terrain of the body permit cancerous growth?
It is the insult, disruption, confusion, and toxicity of the soil that is the prerequisite for the seed to flourish.
The Cellular Story:
Health or Disease
We cannot discuss the body’s terrain or cancer without discussing cell and mitochondrial health. Our bodies are made of trillions of cells. Each one is either maintaining health or moving toward degeneration and disease.
Every cell in the body has a bioelectric command-and-control system. We are electrical beings. This bioelectric command is not a static charge; it is an active, continuous signal that provides biological instructions to cells.
When a bioelectrical break occurs in the signal, it promotes uncontrolled growth. When cancer is at play, this electrical gradient has shifted.
There’s an estimated 30+ trillion cells in an adult human body
Essentially, at the foundation, here is the difference between a healthy cell and a cancer cell:
Healthy Cells:
Maintain a high intracellular potassium (K⁺) and low intracellular sodium (Na⁺) concentration. This creates a membrane potential of about -70 millivolts (mV), which is a stable, active bioelectric signal.
This negative potential acts as a biological “command signal” that instructs the cell to maintain its specialized function, remain orderly, and prevent uncontrolled growth.
Cancer Cells:
Experience a collapse of this membrane potential to around -50 mV (depolarization). Sodium floods into the cell, disrupting the ion balance and collapsing the electrical gradient. This depolarized state acts as a “reset button,” causing the cell to abandon its specialized role and revert to a primitive survival mode focused on consuming, proliferating, and growing uncontrollably.
This bioelectric failure is a key driver of cancer progression and metabolic chaos.
The mitochondria
And let’s not forget one of the most important guardians of cellular health, which controls the cell’s metabolic function: the mitochondria—often called the “powerhouse of the cell,” an absolutely true title. However, mitochondria do far more than produce energy —aka ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Another responsibility of the mitochondria is to regulate apoptosis, or programmed cell death.
Apoptosis is the body’s built-in safety mechanism:
- It balances out normal cell division.
- It removes cells that are no longer needed.
- It destroys damaged, stressed, or faulty cells.
When apoptosis is faulty, unhealthy cells are left to proliferate and grow indefinitely, continuing to divide, which can lead to the cancerous process: an abnormal, persistent mass of tissue that grows unchecked.
In short, when mitochondria are impaired, mitophagy (mitochondrial clean-up), autophagy (cellular clean-up), apoptosis (programmed cell death), cell-to-cell communication, and cellular bioelectrical signaling are all compromised, and the body loses its ability to eliminate unhealthy cells. As a result, the soil becomes primed for tumor growth.
Metabolic Flexibility:
Fueling Cells the Right Way
Healthy cells are metabolically flexible, meaning they can switch between glucose and fatty acids (Ketones) as fuel, much like a hybrid vehicle switching between gas and electricity.
But in cancer, this flexibility is broken. Cancer cells rely almost exclusively on glucose (sugar) for fuel. This phenomenon, known as the Warburg effect, was discovered in the 1920s (over 100 years ago) and helps cancer cells grow and spread. It’s why people often say, “Sugar feeds cancer.”
Restoring metabolic flexibility—through nutrition, lifestyle, and targeted therapies—helps strengthen the soil so that cancer cannot thrive.
Shifting the focus on cancer prevention and treatment:
Healing the soil
When we address cancer only by attacking the seed, we miss the bigger picture. At in2GREAT, we see this all too often. Patients who have previously been given a report of “cancer-free” or in full remission, and yet they are now showing up in our office with “the cancer is back” after a short period of time. Proper prevention, remission, recurrence prevention, and healing come from restoring the soil.
This is the heart of the seed-and-soil approach. By making the soil inhospitable to cancer, we give the body its best chance not only to heal but also to stay healthy in the long term.
- Supporting mitochondrial health and proper apoptosis
- Encouraging metabolic flexibility
- Detoxifying environmental burdens
- Healing infections and calming chronic inflammation
- Working through stored trauma and emotional stress
- Rebalancing the immune system so it can once again detect and destroy abnormal cells
The Future of Cancer Care:
Healing the Whole Person
By focusing on both the seed and the soil, we open new possibilities for cancer prevention, treatment, and long-term wellness. Cancer doesn’t appear overnight, and remission doesn’t mean the work is over. Cancer is not just a disease of rogue cells—it is a signal that the body’s terrain has been disrupted. The soil that allowed the cancer to grow must be addressed—biologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
When we shift the focus from just destroying the seed to also healing the soil, we move from fear to empowerment. We begin to understand that health isn’t just about avoiding disease—it’s about creating an internal environment where life thrives and cancer cannot.
At in2GREAT, we don’t just treat cancer; we study it, map it, and rebuild the body’s terrain so that health becomes the natural outcome.
About the author
Eli Priest is a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (FNTP), a Master Restorative Wellness Practitioner (MRWP), 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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