5 Ways Cancer Survivors Can Boost Their Health

Another Guest Blogger, Enjoy

It’s literally a trip to the fringes of hell and back, one that leaves you both physically and mentally drained. Surviving cancer is the equivalent of beating the devil by the skin of your teeth, and if you want to avoid the burning question of how much longer you can hold on and continue to be cancer-free, you need to take the bull by its horns and start boosting your health in small and large ways. It’s your second lease of life, so don’t let the chemo treatments or anything else get you down. Instead, look forward to each new day, take it as it comes, live for the day, and do all you can to live healthily by:


• Eating healthy food: Health professionals recommend that cancer survivors follow a healthy diet that includes lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in order to improve their health-related quality of life score, the test that determines how your health affects the quality of your life. The higher the score, the more quality there is in your life and vice versa. So make it a point to eat more fruits and vegetables and limit all that is unhealthy in the food category. That’s not to say that you need to become a vegetarian or eat only what’s healthy; rather, balance your meals and ensure that you’re getting the best nutrition possible.

• Exercising regularly: As a cancer survivor, you’re probably drained of all your physical and mental energy what with the stress and pain associated with the notion of cancer and the chemotherapy sessions. Exercise is perhaps the last thing on your mind right now, but there are advantages to working out that promise to boost the quality of your life and make you feel better physically and mentally. Start out with leisurely walks after consulting your doctor and then move on to something more active that invigorates and energizes you. Research has proved that hatha yoga helps boost energy levels of cancer survivors and also helps them sleep better without the aid of sleeping pills.

• Giving up addictions: The urge to throw caution to the winds and live life king-size is strong after you’ve survived a deadly disease like cancer, so you may probably go all out and smoke and/or drink like you never have before. But do remember that you’ve gone through a lot and put up with much pain and angst in order to survive. After driving away the disease, don’t welcome it back with open arms by smoking and drinking without a care in the world.

• Socializing with friends and family: The best medicine in the world is love and laughter, and these cannot be purchased at any drugstore in the world. When you’ve been given a second chance, boost your mental and physical health by surrounding yourself with loved ones and spending more time in their company. Relationships matter more than money or work, so get your priorities right and feel better about yourself.

• Staying positive: And finally, it’s important to look ahead and not behind at the road you’ve taken to come this far if you want to stay mentally healthy after beating cancer. Yes, it’s been a struggle, but by focusing on all the good things that lie ahead, it’s easy to move on and forge a good life for you, one that does not include the dreaded word cancer at all.

About the guest blogger:

 Susan White regularly writes on the subject of radiology technician schools schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com.

Exercise and the Cancer Patient – All You Need to Know

Another Guest Blogger Enjoy

It’s a horrible disease, one that makes you suffer even if lets you live. No one can claim to know what a cancer patient goes through unless they’ve had some form of this dreaded disease as well. The shock of the initial diagnosis, the pain of the chemotherapy and radiation therapy, the loss of dignity and control over your life, the fear of suffering and eventual death – the list of agonies goes on and on when it comes to cancer. Even survivors are battle-scarred – they’ve lost so much of their life and sometimes even lose the will to fight the disease even though they’re over the worst of it, simply because they feel too exhausted mentally and physically.


However, exercise helps make a significant difference in the lives of cancer patients; whether they’re part of the rehab procedure or a regular part of the survivor’s life, workout routines provide them with:

• An increase in strength: When you’ve been ill for a while, your muscles atrophy and your limbs and joints become stiff and clumsy. You find that you stumble when you walk and that even the most simple chores and activities are now strenuous exercises. When you exercise so that your muscles and joints become stronger and more nimble, you feel yourself returning to normal and feeling fine.

• A boost in confidence: Exercise boosts both physical and mental wellbeing; just the fact that you’re able to move your limbs and go through the workout routine your therapist had designed for you is a boost to your confidence because it proves that you’re fighting the disease with all you’ve got and not letting it get you down. When you’re mentally prepared to do all it takes to fight cancer, it makes a huge difference in your ability to recover.

• Lower complications: When you exercise, you reduce the side effects and complications caused by your illness. You don’t suffer from blood clots and bedsores because of being holed up in bed for too long, and your overall health improves even as you battle cancer.

• Overall improvement in health: Exercise helps you sleep better and sometimes even removes the need for pain medication. Your appetite improves and you’re able to eat nutritious food that boosts your heath. And you start to look and feel better as your energy levels go up and you feel stronger than before.

Your physiotherapist will probably give you a range of exercises to go through every day; based on the nature of your illness, it could be passive or intense. Some routines target your ROM (range of movement) – for example, if you’ve had breast cancer and had your lymph nodes removed as part of the surgery, your arms and shoulders are going to feel stiff and heavy. Your therapist will teach you the right exercises so that you’re able to use your arms again without feeling any pain.

Exercise has also proved beneficial in reducing your risk of a relapse – breast and colorectal cancer research has shown that survivors who exercise are less likely to be affected by the disease again. So if you’re affected by cancer and on your way to recovery, don’t forget to include exercise in your arsenal of weaponry when fighting the disease.



This guest post is contributed by Paul Hench, he writes on the topic of  masters in public health. He welcomes your comments at his email id: paul.23hench@gmail.com.

Preventing a Recurrence of Cancer

Another guest blogger.  Enjoy

According to the National Cancer Institute, there are over 12 million cancer survivors in the US today.  And that number is expected to grow, as the population ages, treatments improve, and tests find the disease earlier.  

Cancer survivors face a myriad of health challenges, not to mention the daunting fear the cancer will return.  However, once a patient is deemed "in remission," they are typically disconnected from care -- as well as any attending support -- and told to come back in three to six months where diagnostic scans or blood tests will determine if the cancer has returned.

We suggest a far more pro-active, empowered approach: a remission maintenance plan that offers cancer survivors a personalized program to regain control of their health, restore vitality and protect against the cancer returning. At the Block Center, once a patient has completed their treatment, we personally tailor a comprehensive Remission Maintenance program for them that includes: therapeutic nutrition, exercise, mind-spirit care, and anti-tumor therapies.

Understandably, after hearing that they are "in remission," patients may want to retreat psychologically to a "cancer- free" zone and never think about the disease again.  But this is why they shouldn't:  Cancer is as much a microscopic and molecular disease as it is a visible one. Thus, a patient in remission may still harbor malignant cells (ones that were resistant to chemotherapy or radiation, and therefore survived the attack phase). These cells unfortunately have the ability to show up with a vengeance, even when one least suspects. Not placing far greater emphasis on containing and addressing these cells from the get-go is a significant omission of mainstream treatment. But while preemptive treatment strategies may only exist in integrative clinics, when it comes to the diagnostic side, a new technology has begun demonstrating the relevance of these virulent escape cells.

Enter CTCs (circulating tumor cells)! Over a decade ago, the Block Center was one of a few that were performing bone marrow biopsies to evaluate for malignant cells in both the marrow and in circulation. It took several years, but eventually this evolving diagnostic technology made it into conventional care. While easier to perform today and more reliable as well, we continue to use this in our clinic. This technology allows us and others the ability to measure in our patients the number of these detached cells circulating freely from the main cancer mass.  Though not yet approved for all cancer, research studies have shown that an increase of these cells is prognostic of a patient's survival.

For instance, a CTC count may be a better prognostic indicator for survival among prostate cancer patients than a PSA level -- the test used presently to determine and follow the course of prostate cancer growth.

By comparing the levels of CTC in 37 men with metastatic prostate cancer, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University found that for the men with 5 CTCs or more, the median overall survival was only 8.4 months. Whereas, if these men were found to have less than 5 CTCs, the median survival was 48 months! 

The relevance of CTCs is also relevant to other cancers. For instance, CTCs were measured in 151 women with metastatic breast cancer. The MD Anderson Cancer Center's researchers found that those patients with 5 or more CTCs had a median survival of only 13 months, whereas those with less 5 survived over 29 months!

Controlling, preventing or overcoming these detached and disseminating cells is possibly the biggest conundrum facing cancer scientists. While these cells are generally addressed during treatment, the first steps of recurrence prevention should start with strategies to counter the survival of these residual cells and inhibiting their potential proliferation. In fact, CTCs that have gone through the onslaught of treatment and have nonetheless survived have the potential to evolve into more aggressive clones encouraging a more virulent malignancy. So what to do?

Aggressive Monitoring

We recommend regular monitoring of patients' status with lab tests and imaging to detect early signs of disrupted biochemistry or a recurrence of disease, especially in the year or two after remission.

Being "diagnostically aggressive" may allow us to be less invasive therapeutically. In the first years after remission, therefore, we recommend:

• Clinical visits with your oncologist, at least every three to four months in the first and second year and every six months for the next several years
• Scans and blood tests of tumor markers every three months.
• Complete blood count and chemistry test every three months.
• Nutrition status, including weight changes, body composition, and albumin levels, every three months.
• Internal terrain monitoring, every three to six months for the terrain factors that are most problematic.

While monitoring, there is no reason to wait anxiously for the other shoe to drop.  So immediately implement a full integrative program.

• Make sound dietary changes toward adherence of a whole foods diet.  Reduction in dietary fat has already been shown to cut recurrences in different cancers. Controlling refined flour, sugar and junk food is a necessary step to avoid the recurrence risk of elevated blood glucose and spiking insulin levels.
• Introduce aerobics, strength and flexibility training into your daily schedule. Yoga, pilates, chi gong or any number of fitness approaches is an essential step towards recurrence prevention. Considerable research supports that risk, response, recurrence and outcomes are tied to physical care.
• Mitigate stress through progressive relaxation, meditation, or simply easing the load on an excessive work schedule. Elevated cortisol levels are associated with poorer outcomes in breast cancer patients. So do what it takes to transform less healthy patterns.
• Get rest and adequate sleep. The more active you are in the daytime, the better you'll sleep at night. Few of us get enough sleep and the adverse consequences to an otherwise health promoting, cancer inhibitory environment can be devastating.

© 2010 Keith I. Block, M.D., author of Life Over Cancer: The Block Center Program for Integrative Cancer Treatment
Author Bio
Keith I. Block, M.D. is Director of Integrative Medical Education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine; Medical Director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Evanston, Illinois; and founder and Scientific Director of the nonprofit Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Education. He is also editor in chief of the peer-reviewed professional journal Integrative Cancer Therapies and a member of the National Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Editorial Board.

For more information, please visit www.lifeovercancer.com and www.blockmd.com. Become a fan of Life Over Cancer and the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment on Facebook.