Can Your Daily Choices Influence Cancer Risk and Recovery?
Posted: June 27, 2026 Filed under: behavior, Breathing/respiration, cancer, emotions, healing, health, lifestyle, Nutrition/diet, Pain/discomfort, self-healing, stress management, Uncategorized | Tags: diet, endocrine disregulators, environmental toxins, glucose monitors, health, Immune function, mental-health, nutrition, pollution, Quality of life, regeneration, resilience, social support, wellness Leave a commentWhat if the way you eat, move, sleep, manage stress, and connect with others could influence your body’s ability to prevent disease and support healing?
Most of us have been taught to think of cancer primarily as a genetic disease. Yet an expanding body of scientific research tells a more hopeful story: while genes matter, they are only part of the picture. Our environment, lifestyle, immune system, and even the quality of our relationships can profoundly influence health.
These are the questions explored in the newly published book Cancer Reconsidered: Why Environment, Lifestyle, and Immunity Matter More than We Thought, by Erik Peper, Robert Gorter, and Nancy Faass.
Written for people living with cancer, their families, healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in optimizing health, the book translates decades of scientific research into practical, evidence-based strategies that readers can use in everyday life.
Rather than viewing cancer through a single lens, Cancer Reconsidered brings together insights from conventional medicine with evidence-based complementary approaches. The authors explore how nutrition, physical activity, stress, sleep, environmental exposures, immune function, and social support interact to influence both cancer risk and the body’s remarkable capacity for repair and resilience.
One of the book’s central messages is both simple and empowering: although we cannot change our genes, we can often change the conditions in which our genes are expressed. Daily choices matter. Healthy habits can strengthen the body’s natural defenses, reduce inflammation, support immune function, and improve quality of life.
A particularly practical chapter explores blood sugar regulation and metabolism. Using continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) together with smartphone apps, readers can observe in real time how different foods, exercise, stress, and sleep affect their glucose levels. Instead of following one-size-fits-all advice, they become active investigators of their own health, discovering what works best for their unique physiology.
Throughout the book, the emphasis is not on fear, but on possibility. Scientific evidence increasingly shows that hope, meaningful social connections, regular movement, nourishing food, restorative sleep, effective stress management, and resilience are not simply “nice ideas”—they are biological factors that can significantly influence health and well-being.
Cancer Reconsidered invites readers to move beyond the question, “What causes cancer?” and instead ask, “What can I do today to create the best possible conditions for health?” It offers a thoughtful, scientifically grounded roadmap for anyone seeking to answer that question.
Cancer Reconsidered: Why Environment, Lifestyle, and Immunity Matter More than We Thought is now available on Amazon in paperback and and affordable ebook Kindle editions. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cancer+reconsidered
Corporations: The new(old) disease vectors as they choose profits over health
Posted: February 24, 2026 Filed under: Breathing/respiration, cancer, health | Tags: cancer, environment, environmental toxins, food, health, herbicides, investigative reporting, nutrition, pollution, public health, smoking, wellness 1 Comment
“We can invest in preventing illness now by reducing our exposure to environmental toxins — or we can pay a far higher price later trying to treat the resulting chronic and often debilitating diseases.”
Ever since the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, which documented the harm environmental pollution caused, government has, often reluctantly, set limits intended to protect Americans from exposure to harmful chemicals in our food, air and water (Carson, 1964). These regulations did not emerge easily. As the governmental regulations were being proposed and implemented, they were consistently challenged by the very large corporations that manufactured and profited from these chemicals.
History reminds us how slowly public health protections can unfold. Consider how long it took for smoking to be prohibited in public spaces even though the harmful effects had been documented since the 1950s (Doll and Hill, 1954; Doll & Hill, 1964; Wynder & Graham,1985). For decades, the science was clear, yet policy and governmental actions were delayed. Only in the early 2000s did many states began banning smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. The shift in public policy saved many lives and the reduction in smoking has been the major reason for the decrease in cancer mortality over the last twenty-five years.
We are going backwards
The Trump administration has rescinded the 2009 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, loosening vehicle emission standards, and weakening pollution controls on power plants and oil and gas operations (Tabuchi, 2026). The health consequences may not appear immediately; however, they are predictable. The increased exposure today will again contribute to increased rates of cancer, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, and developmental disorders tomorrow.
To understand how the government regulations have been revised so that once again Americans will be more exposed to toxins in their food, air, and water, read the superb investigative report published by U.S. Right to Know whose mission is to pursuing truth and transparency for public health.
Their most recent report, Tracing Bayer’s ties to power in Trump’s Washington, describes in detail the hidden social connections, lobbying and political donations that lead “The White House to invokes the Defense Production Act to guarantee supplies of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides. Regulators reapprove dicamba, a Bayer herbicide twice blocked by federal courts, and clear the way for new pesticides containing toxic, persistent PFAS “forever” chemicals (Malkan, 2026).“
When regulatory safeguards weaken, corporations can once again function as disease vectors-not through infection, but through environmental exposure. By loosening the pollution standards, federal policy will negatively affect the health of both present and future generations.
I encourage you to explore many superb investigative reports and practical suggestions how to avoid these toxins exposure that are available on U.S. Right to Know website:
One exposure. Twenty generations later, the damage is still unfolding
Glyphosate: Cancer, liver disease, endocrine disruption and other health concerns
Big Food ‘transparency’ campaign seeks to block tough new food safety laws
Ultra-processed foods damage health in ways that calories don’t explain, new study says
Listen to the expanded podcast based upon this blog and created by Google Notebook LM.
See also the following blogs
References
Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin. https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Spring-Rachel-Carson/dp/B002E8JF6G/
Doll, R., & Hill, A. B. (1954). The mortality of doctors in relation to their smoking habits: A preliminary report. British Medical Journal, 1(4877), 1451–1455. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.4877.1451
Doll, R., & Hill, A. B. (1964). Mortality in relation to smoking: Ten years’ observations of British doctors. British Medical Journal, 1(5396), 1460–1467. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.5396.1460
Malkan, S. (2026). Tracing Bayer’s ties to power in Trump’s Washington. U.S. Right to Know. Accessed February 24, 2026. https://usrtk.org/pesticides/tracing-bayers-ties-to-power-in-trumps-washington/
Tabuchi, H. (2026). Historic Climate Rollback Makes U.S. a Global Outlier on Tailpipe Rules. The New York Times, February 16, 2026. Accessed February 24, 2026 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/climate/endangerment-finding-auto-emissions-regulations.html
Wynder, E.L., & Graham, A. (1985). JAMA, 253 (20), 2986-2994. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1985.03350440064033
the peper perspective 