How Can Cancer be Prevented?

Author: Michaela Gloeckler M.D.
Issue: Summer 2007, issue #48
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Broadening the Scope of Preventative Medicine Through Anthroposophy

Prevention of illness— a science of health
Preventative medicine in our time falls into three categories:
Primary prevention: avoiding or excluding the factors that are responsible for an outbreak of illness. For example, in the case of lung cancer, smoking or inhaling toxins which have proven to be carcinogenic. In stomach cancer, factors such as malnutrition, in particular protein deficiency, chronic infections and other preconditions play a strong role. Food preservatives used in smoked or salted foods have also been found to be carcinogenic. And a strong causative factor in colon cancer has been found with the consumption of high levels of animal fats, proteins and refined carbohydrates which affect the intestinal flora and alter the stomach acid in the intestines. This can lead to a splitting off of carcinogenic biliary acid derivatives. If there is insufficient fiber in the diet it slows down the passage of waste through the colon, and this is considered to be a contributing factor in that cancer-causing agents have more time to take effect. Cholesterol is also considered as a strong factor in the cause of cancer. Cancers such as breast cancer, uterine cancer and prostate cancer do not allow for primary prevention since the causative risk factors are not known. Only vague indications are offered for support in the illness. In the case of leukemia, however, ionic rays as well as chemicals such as benzene and chloramphenicol are contributing factors.
Secondary prevention: Early detection of the various kinds of cancer through regular check-ups or good self-examination. Health education is important here, for example, taking a stomach problem seriously or taking note of a change in the stool such as an increase in diarrhea or constipation as a possible sign of a developing colon cancer.
Tertiary prevention: Treating an illness that has already begun, the goal of which must be to prevent or avoid the progression or relapse and to give strict guidelines to the patient in regards to lifestyle and preventative measures.
A great deal of literature about these three areas of prevention is available. What has not been described up to now, however, is the constitutional disposition of the individual. Why, for example, tobacco causes bronchial cancer in one person, but not in another. What health really is, and the laws that underlie it, has barely been researched. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the last few decades more and more articles deal with just this question. Over time, it is becoming more obvious that the health of a person is not merely a physical problem, but is decidedly influenced by his psychological and mental state. Modern neuro-immunological research, psycho-oncology, and research into psychosomatic illnesses have already produced far-reaching results—particularly in the English- speaking world. There has been enough thorough research to make it quite clear that research into health and illness can only be fruitful if the psychological and mental health of the human being can be as seriously considered in prophylaxis and therapy as laboratory results and physical symptoms.
Already at the beginning of the 1980s, Meinrad Scher offered the following observation: “What has up until now remained very much on the periphery in the treatment of cancer (and in the realm of prophylaxis is not at all integrated), are the theories that stress the psycho-social components of the causes of cancer. However, since there is a greater demand for a more unified view of the ill person, one can hope that this realm of peripheral medicine will come to deal with prophylaxis, early detection and the treatment of malignancies.”
It becomes quite clear that a certain disposition for health or illness is something particularly individual, and to make a comparison between two people is only possible from a highly abstract level. For example, if two women aged 44 years develop breast cancer, this can be considered comparative fact. Yet how much of each person’s biography, development, circle of close acquaintances and so on, can be compared? Do any of their physical, psychological and mental characteristics have anything in common? The more closely one investigates such matters, the more pronounced the differences prove to be.
It becomes immediately clear that just in the last couple of decades, treatments such as psychological counseling, psychotherapy and biography work have shown themselves to be just as important and relevant as surgery and radiation within the context of acute care.
This is still not given enough credence in the field of preventative care. It becomes ever more urgent to begin to estimate just how psycho-social preventative care could be formulated, as we find more and more how limited the therapeutic possibilities are for the treatment of many forms of cancer. The following sober conclusion is repeatedly drawn by professionals during medical conferences: “Despite considerable scientific progress, a true breakthrough in the fight against this much-feared illness is still lacking. Should more effort be put into prevention rather than merely in diagnosis and treatment?”
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the industrialized western nations, after heart disease. In the US more than half a million people die annually and in Germany more than 200,000. Statistics in the US show that the fight against cancer, legally sanctioned since 1971, as well as all the preventative measures against cancer, have done nothing to lower the death rate. On the contrary, the statistics rise continuously from 1950 onwards.
It is an astonishing fact that in Germany the death rate from cancer continues to rise in males, but it continues to decrease for females since 1950. (Tim Beardlsey in “Spektrum der Wissenschaft” March 1994 page 49)
Does this declining mortality rate in women relate to the fact that for women in our present society more opportunities for a satisfying and freer lifestyle have been created?
The intention and purpose of this article on preventative medicine is intended to try and make the causative factors of cancer and the ability to overcome it understandable from various points of view. Anthroposophy can be primarily considered as a science of the healthy human being and one’s conditions for development. It can make an essential contribution from different perspectives in the debate on preventative medicine.
The following excerpt will give an illustration of this. It deals with a modern researcher in the psycho-social field, whose article is representative of many related endeavors which have appeared in this realm in recent years. Medical psychologist, Rolf Verres describes the following in his book on the relationship between cancer and the psyche:
“In my experience 80 to 90 percent of the adult population personally knows at least one person affected by cancer —either in the immediate fa