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This depends on whether you are referring to preventing it happening in the first place, or stopping it once you have it - tho' the two answers overlap, tho' no-one can yet be certain, as the cause-and-effect of cancer is not known, just parts of this chain of events. The central factor is that a cell's DNA is changed such that the cell avoids death and proliferates increasing amounts of 'daughter' cells. Some things that cause this are radiation (including background radiation), substances that enter the cell and disrupt the normal cell processes and thus prevent the usual repair mechanisms, etc. Then there are things that prevent the immune system from recognising that a cell has gone rogue and thus getting rid of it before it proliferates.

Prevention: as cancers were rare in past times, it is now certain that there is something in modern Western lifestyles that has caused the explosion of cancer. The weight of evidence is that exercise, good nutrition (fresh fruit, veggies, low carbs, omega3 oils), avoiding carcinogens like smoking and asbestos, polluted water (arsenic) and environment (painters are at risk; enhanced background radiation from granite).

'Cure': presently thought impossible, only able to drive cancer into remission - where it may be dormant, but likely to return. There are 'standard' treatments - chemotherapy, surgery (cut out the cancerous parts and nearby tissue), radiation, and immunotherapy (BCG for bladder cancer, Provenge for prostate cancer). Each of these has its own dangers - chemo is inherently poisonous, but hopefully more to the cancer cells than the normal ones; surgery may spread the cancerous cells around the body; radiation will burn surrounding normal cells/organs - and thus shorten life on their own. So it is a balance of risk.

There are supplements that help make the standard treatments work better - enhance their efficacy and lower the side-effects, thus extending survival (vit.D3, Omega3, low-carb/avoid sugar and alcohol, etc).

The internet is awash with promises of cures. It is possible, tho' unlikely, that one or more may help. Some have more science behind them than most.

There is a problem that orthodox doctors are admittedly ignorant of the supportive enhancers (diet, supplements, exercise) and so are unlikely to adequately advise on them. There is little genuine double-blind trials of standard treatments (this is not to decry them), just lengthy experience - but which means it can often be decades before it is known whether a new treatment is better than earlier ones.

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14y ago

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