Cancer Warnings, Coffee and Common Sense

Here we go again: New statistics and new lists of all the myriad of things that cause cancer, or more correctly, things that are linked to cancer, are making the news. Cell phones and coffee are two of the additions to possible carcinogens. This is the 2B list, which is only stating that there may be a risk, or, in other words, instances of cancer of certain kinds increase with the ingestion of coffee or use of cell phones. The worst thing we can do in response to such news is become fearful. As FDR said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear and stress are the biggest culprits in the causation of disease. This is because you get what you most fear; there are chemical reactions in the brain that set up the conditions for bringing on these things that seem so important to a person. This is a simplistic way of trying to explain the process – books have been written about it, so this is not the place to prove the point. Regardless of whether or not you accept this, there is still a lot of question concerning the link between drinking coffee and getting cancer. As blog poster Elizabeth Landau wrote this week, coffee, among all the items on the list, is a little complicated. It has been linked with preventing certain cancers as well as being linked to incidences of cancer of the large bowel. The common sense way to approach the problem is to minimize the negatives and accentuate the positives. If you enjoy coffee, continue to enjoy it in moderation and with the thought that it will help you keep healthy. In addition, do the things that are proven to help fight cancer. As Landau says, pickled veggies are on the same list, but fresh veggies are cancer fighters. Other writers have pointed out that the acidity of coffee makes it more of a cancer problem, while alkaline foods are a preventer of cancer. So make sure that you get that balance between acidic and alkaline foods. Toxic cleansing is another way to help maintain health of the digestive system. For every coffee drinker who comes down with cancer, there are many others who never get it. There have to be reasons for this. Getting plenty of water, vitamin D, exercise, raw fresh foods, fresh air and reducing stress are all linked to good health. Coffee has more healthful antioxidants than almost any other food. So, continue to enjoy your brew, in good health.