Lung Cancer

Lung cancer primarily involves two important aspects to address when thinking about prevention or remission.

1. Oxidative damage. The damage caused by years of smoking, partly due to the byproducts created from smoke itself reacting with your respitory system. Also partly due to the toxic ingredients added to modern cigarettes to make the brand more addictive, tend to be carcinogens on their own. Smoke in general, even in foods, tend to cause carcinogenic compounds such as heterocyclic amines and polycyclic hydrocarbons which are well documented carcinogens. Cigarette companies also add sugar to their product which when smoked can possibly create something known as "advanced glycation end products" which also seem to contribute to cancer and inflammation and are suspected to be a primary factor involved in heart disease. Quitting smoking will prevent further damage being done to your lungs but the damage can stay or continue to grow over time if the second part is not addressed

2. Antioxidant repair. Normally in healthy humans our body creates antioxidants from protein and vitamin compounds from the foods we eat which the body uses to repair oxidative damage such as what's caused from smoking and eating smoked or charred foods. Plant foods also contain special molecules that studies suggest might provide Antioxidant activity separate from our bodies own endogenous anti oxidant production. This includes vitamin c, vitamin e, catachins from tea,, glutathione, superoxide dismutase and a variety of other endogenous and exogenous antioxidants. 

Sugar and other high glycemic load carbohydrates as well as vegetable oils and other high omega 6 foods actually interfere with your bodies antioxidant system through multiple direct and indirect mechanisms. These foods also create oxidative damage which the body shuttles antioxidant resources towards repairing, which prevents those antioxidants from effectively repairing the oxidative damage caused by smoking in the respiratory system. Thereby allowing cancer cells to grow over time without being turned over (recycled into new healthy cells)

The thing is, if you stop smoking for 20 years, but you eat a high glycemic load diet or eat a diet high in omega 6, and low in protein and antioxidants, it's very possible to still get lung cancer even though you quit smoking 20 years ago.

However, if you smoke pure Tabacco and eat a low glycemic load diet low in omega 6 and high in healthy fats, high in protein and antinoxidants, then you could probably smoke twice a day for the rest of your life and never get lung cancer 

The key is having enough anti oxidants and not producing too much oxidative damage. Its a matter of overwhelming your antioxidant systems. If your body has high oxidative damage from smoking and a high sugar high omega 6 diet, it needs a ton of antioxidant support to neutralize the oxidation and reactive oxygen species.

I might have misspoke in this post, I wrote it all of the top of my head with zero checking first, so forgive my errors. Its been a long week of research, training and work but I want people to be healthy. Ask your questions and I'll be happy to answer

-Wolfgang Lizana