According to new research two-thirds of cancer incidence are from random mutations and not heredity or risky habits like smoking. If that is in-fact the case, then what can be done to help prevent or reduce the chance that these mutations happen? The answer may lie in epigenetics.

The researchers said that random DNA mutations accumulating in various parts of the body during ordinary cell division are the prime culprits behind many cancer types.

They looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 of them, including leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, could be explained largely by these random mutations. Overall, they attributed 65 percent of cancer incidence to random mutations in genes that can drive cancer growth.

“When someone gets cancer, immediately people want to know why,” said oncologist Dr. Bert Vogelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who conducted the study published in the journal Science with Johns Hopkins biomathematician Cristian Tomasetti.

Tomasetti said harmful mutations occur for “no particular reason other than randomness” as the body’s master cells, called stem cells, divide in various tissues.

Epigenetics studies how your lifestyle can affect your genetic expression. The study supports what others have claimed; that changing one’s lifestyle and habits like smoking to avoid cancer risks may help prevent certain cancers.

In the book The Cancer Fighting Diet, authors Dr Johannes Coy and Maren Franz fully support the concept that changing your lifestyle can weaken cancer cells and improve treatment results.

The course of cancer can be altered say Coy and Franz by changing your life. The following five strategies will support beating cancer:

1- Follow the Cancer-fighting Diet described in the book. The diet advocates:

• Turning off your sugar supply that feeds the cancer.
• Eating the right fats
• Consuming high quality protein, fiber and phytochemicals
• Gentle deacidifcation by eating plenty of lactic-acid fermented foods such as cheese, yogurt and sauerkraut.

2- Get moving to breathe to improve oxygen supply, and empty glycogen stores. Use weights in your yoga workouts.

3- Get Professional to help you deal with all aspects of having cancer including mental and spiritual help.

4- Try complementary medicine to support conventional treatments. Yoga, aromatherapy and other modalities can help you cope.

5- Relax the right way using yoga, massage therapy as examples help you consciously unwind doing good to your overall well-being.

If you have been following my posts, you know that I have been fighting multiple cancer diagnoses for about a year now. I found myself following a diet very close to the Cancer Fighting Diet. I believe that my diet and yoga lifestyle are why the cancers have all turned out as benign. There is hope that we can beat cancer through epigenetics.