An Ounce of Prevention…

I know we’ve all heard the old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.   

It took me being diagnosed with cancer to know I would try everything to prevent it from ever happening again, including no more Diet Coke for breakfast. For almost 5 years, I’ve tried a combination of strategies that have personally worked for me. 

So recently I stumbled across the results of a study printed in Frontiers in Aging. In this study, 2,100 participants from five different European countries, all of them cancer free and all over the age of 70 were tested on the effectiveness of combinations of prevention strategies for getting cancer. It was a 3-year study and they focused on Omega 3s, Vitamin D, and exercise.  All these methods were known to possibly slow the growth of cancer cells, and alone none of them were shining stars and a means to prevent cancer.  Each of the participants was contacted every 3 months regarding signs of cancer.

So, at the end of the trial, they found that each of the three individual interventions showed a small preventative benefit. So small that they didn’t know if it was just by chance.

In the group that got all three interventions, participants were 61% less likely to develop invasive cancer than the group that got the placebo. 

These results suggest that it may be helpful to think of cancer prevention as a combination of strategies that interact to lower your risk, rather than a single strategy that works alone.

I found this really encouraging because as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been using this collective strategy for almost 5 years, and I’ve taken Vitamin D and Omega 3 supplements, along with several others, including jumping on a mini trampoline and earthing.

So, I guess I subscribe to the thinking that, several ounces of prevention is worth many pounds of cure!