WHO DOESN’T FEAR CANCER?

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WHO doesn’t fear cancer! Seeing how it is almost in every family today most of us always dread to hear the word cancer and say oh, you mean the Big C? I like to think the younger generation is taking note of it by maybe taking stock of their eating lifestyle at least…er…and including more organically cultivated farm-fresh local farm to table food in their daily meals. It’s happening but it’s happening too damn slowly if you’re asking me!
What’s happening? The idea that the more we waste our money and time on destroying Mother Earth, the more we destroy ourselves in a myriad ways! And needless to say our mainstream pharma-driven Allopathy healthcare systems proliferate from strength to strength and are becoming even more imperial, like we cannot stay alive without wasting our time in hospitals — utterly at the mercy of doctors good, bad and ugly!
THIS is to say I went to this high-level CME workshop on cancer genetics and counseling organised by the Gokarma Oncology Association in collaboration with Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai at the International Center Goa on April 13, 2026. It was very educative and I was surprised that despite all the evidence we have now our mainstream healthcare people rarely bring in the role of how post-cancer treatment (chemotherapy, surgery, radiation) patients can benefit hugely if they are enabled or facilitated into switching over to the right kind of food body beautiful is pining and dying of cancer for!
Healthcare and even alternative healthcare systems don’t like to talk of how the kind of food we put into our mouth makes a difference, or if they do and sometimes incessantly so at all the AYUSH celebrations…the ground reality is that in Goa at least we continue to wait for the bread man or poie-boy to come around every morning, evening to give us our daily dose of an array of refined white bread, meaning leavened baked bread loaves (a practice dating back to the times when baked bread was introduced by the Portuguese in Goa and India for they were in Bengal too and wanted their familiar baked bread; those days there was no refined to death white flour of course and no genetically modified wheat…just organically cultivated wheat which was ground in local mills for making assorted breads, including native breads of rice and millets).
I don’t want to go into the history of how bad has been consistently driving out the good in our eating habits over the ages. To stay with cancer here, do you know that nearly 3 per cent of all cancers are hereditary out of the approximately 14 lakh new cancer cases which present themselves in all the complexity of a much studied disease today (also the most expensive disease to treat with cancer drugs the most costly drugs, naturally)?
The GOA CME workshop was very educative. As Dr Shekhar Salkar, president of the Gokarma Oncology Association, says, “Cancer care is rapidly evolving with the integration of genetics into routine clinical practice. Early identification of hereditary cancers through genetic testing and timely counseling can significantly improve outcomes, enable preventive strategies, and guide personalized treatment….” The workshop saw quite a large number of young doctors from the GMC and other hospitals making time to listen to the crack team led by Dr Rajiv Sarin, in-charge, Cancer Genetics Unit, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. The subject was genetic testing and how it can help families with cancer in their genes. Most of us are so lacking in knowledge about genes and how they add or minus to the quality of health.

Also, never mind that only 3% of cancer patients are reportedly genetic in origin, that is in our family history. Mainstream Allopathy folk think it helps to know if you’ve got what is called any predisposition cancer genes such as BRCA1, BRCA2, MLH1,MSH2, TP53, APC and so on…oncologists can wax lyrical over genes with great dedication! Anyway, nowadays pharma labs are promoting genetic sequencing tests and this is a very complex subject and as Dr Rajesh Sarin himself shared there are many bad labs offering these genetic tests for anything from Rs20,000 to plus plus. At least I’m not aware anyone doing gene sequencing to pinpoint cancer in Goa. In Mumbai at the Tata Memorial Hospital they have a well-equipped Cancer Genetics Clinic dedicated to genetic counseling and screening services across the country, including Goa.
If it is found that several family members have the same a cancer gene which may or may not manifest at some point of time – you have to understand the challenge of counseling such patients. In fact, at the Cancer Genetics Clinic, said Dr Sarin, it has taken them 10 to 20 years to understand the need of genetic counseling and presently they have more than 4,000 to 5,000 patients who require screening and genetic counseling annually – whole families get involved and it can be very challenging…a Dr Aanchal Pandey spoke of three sisters with breast cancer who were being treated in such secrecy that each didn’t know the other too was suffering from breast cancer! Looking into family history can be very frustrating for in India there’s still a stigma attached to cancer for a whole lot of issues may arise from this.
ALL this and much more which requires more homework to be done but in my favorite health oriented health magazine from the US – the “Well Being Journal” – I recall how now there exist so many cancer detection breakthroughs. Also in treatments they are doing something called “liposomal vitamin C + fasting” as a novel approach in cancer therapy…vitamin C being an essential nutrient known for its antioxidant properties, it helps combat oxidative stressed inflammation in the body. High doses of vitamin C turn into hydrogen peroxide inside the cells, which can be highly toxic to many types of cancer cells. Such vitamin therapy is considered as a minimally toxic chemotherapy.

Breast and colon cancers are high on the list of patients brought up on eating processed meats and fats but can we remove them from our eating habits? We can’t even stop eating chicken meats despite knowing that most industrially reared chickens are pumped with all manner of drugs to make them fatter; there is chicken, chicken, chicken everywhere in our Goan menus and this does take a toll on our microbiome which has become the frontier of so much cancer research. At its heart is the kind of food we eat including in what kind of soil it grows and how it is farmed and processed…there are so many dimensions to why we suffer cancer as we get on in years; the young to suffer. One may prolong life on one hand and on the hand living longer…does it mean living life in sufferance?
IN the countries of the west now they’re conquering cancer by activating NK cells – looking at mind, body, spirit or soul! There is mind-body healing with neurotheology…by the way “NK cells are called “natural” because unlike other immune cells, they are programmed to pounce on virus-infected cells and cancer cells at first recognition. Other troops in your immune system need prior exposure to be activated – the principle on which vaccines are developed, and what happens when you build up immunity to a flu virus after previously getting it.”
Oh yes, my dears, what we put in our mouth plays a vital role even when it comes to the fountain of youth which is sought and it’s being said that with all the latest discoveries to do with body beautiful will soon have human being living 1,000 years! Depending the sunlight, salt and time spent on lifestyle changeovers….there is so much to cancer knowledge today and we don’t really have to be always a hundred years behind the times if we don’t want to be!
Read up healthy fats…hey, heat is healing, we know that (sauna mimics the effects of exercise and increasing body temperature is known to increase the number of your NK cells; read up sleep and the importance of melatonin as anti-cancer medicine! Honey, read up fiber to reboot your microbiome, probiotic tips to get rid of the army of bacteria courtesy perhaps all the drugs including antibiotics you stuff yourself with morning, noon and night…look at Jerusalem artichokes, asparagus, radish (we see them so much in our Goan market), the berry family, leeks, and some more.

Hey, want to live happily ever after qualitatively instead of quantitatively – I’m not saying don’t do those genetic tests if you are advised by some oncologist, do them by all means, but also check in with your age and whether it is less painful to go in for all of today’s radical cancer treatments of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation….or less painful to take the far cheaper and better way to death by disciplining your choice of food, just food. The bad news is good food is going out of reach while bad food is tempting us seductively all around courtesy our mod con living in excesses and orgies…
PS: A bit of consulting Dr Google and I have this information: Genetic testing costs in India vary on test type, ranging from Rs7,000 for basic health/wellness to Rs15,000-Rs25,000 for targeted NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) panels, to over Rs1,30,000 for comprehensive genome sequencing. Common tests are carrier screening, cancer panels, and ancestry DNA…there are several genetic testing packages and yes, not all gene tests are accurate. Make sure the lab you go to have NABL/CAP accredited. Don’t get carried away by tall cancer talk, okay. Interestingly, we humans have about 20,000 to 30,000 genes only, as much as an earthworm!

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WHO DOESN’T FEAR CANCER?

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