What Causes Cancer?

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I’ve been answering your questions about cancer (Ok, I know October is over. But these are great questions so let’s just call this Breast Cancer Awareness Month afterburn.) I received two great questions that a lot of people are curious about, 1) What Causes Cancer? and 2) What Natural Treatments are Available?

Before I answer these questions, let me preface by saying I am not an expert in cancer. I’m not even an expert in breast cancer. I am an expert in my cancer. I have zero training or education in any medical field whatsoever. I mean, I was a theatre major for goodness sake, that’s like the easiest major you can get besides underwater basket weaving. That being said, I will freely share the knowledge I did gain from my crash course of experience.

What I never knew before I was diagnosed is that not all cancer is the same. I always thought cancer was this one big scary thing that could be found in your lung or your colon or your breast or wherever. But breast cancer is not the same disease as lung cancer and that’s not the same as colon cancer. And if that weren’t confusing enough, there are even different types of breast cancer with different characteristics and treatments. So asking “what causes cancer” is a little bit like saying “what caused you to be sick?” The answer would be “well it depends…are you sick with heart disease or are you sick with the flu?” Because depending on what you are sick with determines what caused it and how it’s treated.

Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to find reliable information about what causes cancer, because a study that might show that sugar could cause cancer, well that’s just too vague. What kind of cancer would it cause? What were the factors of the participants, were they young? Old? Overweight? Did cancer run in their family? There are a lot of theories, with varying degrees of research behind them. Theories about sugar, red meat, dairy, sunscreen, deodorant, alkaline environments, cosmetics, plastics, the list goes on. The short answer is, we just don’t know what causes cancer. If we did, it wouldn’t be so confusing!

The fact that cancer is so complicated is actually good because it means we know more about it and how to treat it individually. Years ago, there were very few treatments – everyone got the same routine and you hoped it worked for you. Today, treatment is incredibly personalized; doctors take into account the type of cancer, aggressiveness, size, age, genetics, health history, all sorts of factors. But that’s also what makes it hard to point to one specific cause. It sure would be great if we could definitively say what causes cancer so we could just avoid that thing, but we simply can’t yet.

As treatments go, there’s not a great answer for this one, either. I wish there were more natural options for treating cancer than chemo and radiation, I really do. And maybe one day there will be. One of the reasons this isn’t available yet is because cancer is not just about external factors like sugar or what’s in our cosmetics. Believe it or not, most breast cancers have are actually about hormones! A whopping 85% of breast cancers are hormone-positive. This means that estrogen and/or progesterone is what fuels the cancer cells.

If you know my story, you know I lived a pretty crunchy granola lifestyle before cancer. I did all the right things – I ate the veggies, I worked out, I drank the water. But I still got cancer. (And no, I do not carry the breast cancer gene either!) And the thing is, if I ate the world’s most perfect diet from the world’s most organic foods and lived on a homestead where I made all my own products derived only from the earth and my two hands…if my body was working perfectly…it would still make estrogen. And for the majority of breast cancers, estrogen is tumor food.

So what’s a girl to do? Well to start with, you should definitely take care of yourself and live as natural of a lifestyle as you desire. Just because we don’t know what causes cancer doesn’t mean you can’t take steps towards a healthy lifestyle, and anytime you make steps towards a healthier you that’s a win, and not just in the cancer category. A natural lifestyle is still a priority to me too! But these are methods for prevention, not perfection. I believe God created our bodies in amazing ways and there are lots of natural remedies on this earth that I will always gravitate towards first. But, we also live in a fallen world, and we know the things on this earth are not the paradise and perfection that God intended for us to live in. To expect our bodies to live up to a standard of perfection in a world where we don’t expect perfection anywhere else simply doesn’t make sense. By our very nature, our bodies are expected to decay and pass away from this earth. So alongside the natural world, He also provided us with the wisdom and knowledge to create synthetic medicines to help us when the natural can’t. Sometimes those synthetics even come from the natural environment…I had to take Benedryl to prevent an allergic reaction to one of my chemo drugs, because it was derived from an extremely high amount of cedar…who knew? So yes, live your natural life, benefit from the synthetic when you need to, and allow grace in your theology of health when none of these are perfect.

I’m not thankful I had to go through treatment for cancer, but I am so thankful they exist because they are the reason I can stand here today and say I am cancer-free. I certainly wish there were more options with the same success that carried less toxins, fewer side effects, and more natural alternatives, and I believe one day there will be. In fact, one day we will discover the cause of cancer so the treatments will be irrelevant! But this is why we need the research. The Breast Cancer Awareness, the pink ribbons, the walks, this is why they are important. I haven’t loved the reminders that Pinktober has brought, but I do love that because of it, one day we will know the answers to these tough questions about cancer!