The following is transcribed from “Let’s talk About Health,” a WOR-AM radio program which originated in New York City.
Robert Anderson: My guest today is Ruth Sackman, President of FACT, a non-profit organization. She is going to be speaking with us today about how to prevent cancer and, hopefully, how to keep it from recurring. She’s highly knowledgeable. So when you call FACT and have questions, they’re not out there making money from anybody so I think the highest probability is that they’re coming from the heart. I’ve been to many of their conventions and I’ve really been dazzled by their knowledge of healing and there are so many worthwhile professionals who are affiliated with this organization.
I always like to have a thought for the day and this thought is as follows: Be an explorer of yourself. I think that there are mountains and valleys and continents within your mind and within yourself to be explored. So many of us in our lifetime find a superficial understanding of ourselves. We have to remember that the self is limitless and that if we find out one aspect of ourselves, do not think that we know ourselves. Understand that you found part of yourself and that your search and exploration can go on deeper and deeper and deeper.
At this point I’d like to welcome Ruth to the show. As we’re waiting for our listeners to call in, perhaps you can address the question of how to prevent cancer. It’s certainly an idea that so many people are concerned about with a prediction of 1 out of 3 people getting cancer. You’d think with all the publicity and newspaper articles about new things out there, it would seem like the establishment is winning the war, but, as you mentioned on a previous show, in 1960 1 out of 25 were predicted to get cancer. Now with the “War on Cancer,” as the orthodox medical establishment labeled it several years ago, according to the statistics, it certainly doesn’t seem like that war is being won.
Ruth Sackman: That’s well put. What we need to do today is take into account all of the pollution that we’re exposed to. But that’s not going to change because our government consumer protection agencies have a “benefit/risk” ratio policy. By that is meant that if there appears to be benefit to many people, a certain amount of risk to others is tolerable. Therefore, the situation we have today of toxic chemicals added to the food supply or used in FACTory farming or released into air is not likely to change in the near future. So it’s up to the individual to exercise some protection for himself.
Cancer is a frightening disease, but you can do many things to build host resistance as a preventive. It’s what you take into your system that is helpful, and, of course, good elimination is very important. I’d like to give you some ideas that are more specific instead of generalities. Let’s talk about things we ought to avoid and then we can talk about things we need to include.
We need to take into account that there are a lot of carcinogenic substances out there., You’ve got all sorts of chemicals that go into the food for it to be grown. These substances may make the food look better and yield a larger crop. In addition, regulators rationalize that this will make more food available to more people and at a cheaper price. But these chemicals are cumulative and though they may not hurt you the day you eat one apple with Alar, if you ingest them over a period of time, eventually something is going to show up and no one is going to suspect or even attribute the problem to the FACT that you’ve accumulated too many toxins from the food you ate.
You must also watch out for your water. Too many communities have fluoridated their water. Although there’s a controversy about it, there is enough scientific evidence to show there is a fluoride/cancer link. In studies where 10 fluoridated cities were compared to 10 unfluoridated cities, it was found that the cancer incidence in the fluoridated cities was significantly higher statistically than for the comparable =fluoridated areas. You’ve got the food supply and water supply with all these toxic chemicals or what we call pesticides. You want to be careful and you can be.
But, of course, beyond trying to avoid toxic substances, it’s important to move ahead and try to ingest the kinds of material that are going to fortify the body as much as possible in order to prevent the disease. This is what we like to term, developing host resistance. And that’s not so very difficult. A dietary change can develop host resistance to cancer. But if you already have cancer and surgically remove the tumor and the doctor says, “We got it all,” you would still be wise, and I don’t think any doctor would disagree with me, to do whatever you can to increase host resistance by fortifying your body to avoid a recurrence.
Now this might be something you want to write down. You start out by ingesting the right food because that material is going to help the body to produce healthy cells. The elements in the food are not going to be available from any medication or from any herbal preparations.
You’ve got to start with food. This is what Nature intended for the human being to maintain and restore health just as it did for all animal species. And so we start out with a substantial amount of raw food because raw food is synergistically sound and contains all the elements which the body needs. When you cook it, you alter its natural condition; when you heat it, you destroy the enzymes. Enzymes are destroyed at about 115 degrees or even a little below that. You need those enzymes to metabolize your food competently. Enzymes break down food into its microcomponents and make them available for healthy cell production. I hope that’s understood because we tend to think that all we have to do is take vitamins, minerals and supplements to get healthy. We don’t realize that none of those things are used by the body until there’s enzymatic function.
RA: Yes. I’m a great believer in that. Honey is one of my favorite foods for that reason. Do you know that raw honey has 200 enzymes which are very close to human enzymes? I think that on an earlier broadcast Ruth mentioned that 60% to 70% of our food should be raw so that we get enzymes. I know that most people go through the day without getting any raw food into their body.
Ruth, you seem to be saying that one of the main causes of cancer today is the pollutants in the food, air and water. I thoroughly agree with you. I remember reading a profound article several years ago in Science News magazine which indicated that mankind is getting between 100,000 to150,000 man-made chemicals into his body. This was the average human being. We are probably the most toxic generation in the history of mankind. What’s happening is that the cleansing system is breaking down because we weren’t designed by Nature to cope with that many pollutants.
We have Debby on the line. Debby, welcome to the show. How are you today?
Debby: What would be Mrs. Sackman’s position on eating meat as well as fish that comes from a lot of polluted waters. We hear a lot about organic meat, but what about the fish?
RS: It’s true that the waters are polluted. But when you can’t get organic meat, in order to create balance when the body requires some flesh protein, you can’t leave it out and be successful in the long run in building good host resistance. So you have to put up with fish that might be polluted. But here’s the way to handle it. First of all, get fish that doesn’t have much fat, because the pollutants settle primarily in the fat. Another thing that one ought to do is not take the same type of fish from the same waters with the same pollutants over and over again, but to vary it. So that if you’ve collected some pollutants from one type of fish and let’s say very little because you’ve taken away the fat, you’re off getting fish from another area. The balanced diet should be potent enough to help the body eliminate whatever pollutants the body does collect.
No matter what we do, let’s understand this: we’re not going to have 100% purity. We have to depend on the body’s ability to eliminate competently and to keep the pollution intake as low as we possibly can. Look, we’re alive after eating a lot of these things, so you can see the powerful ability on the part of the body to maintain life. But what we want to do is cut the pollutants down to a minimum and not burden the body with the struggle.
RA: Good morning Sandy, welcome to our show. Why don’t you just set forth your question.
Sandy: First, I would really like your opinion on something. What happened back in September, I noticed that my mother started to get an immune deficiency. She started getting fatigued; she lost weight, and what happened was she went to a doctor who said, “Well, take vitamins. You should be all right.” He did a chest x-ray; it was fine. And then she broke out in shingles in February and she went to an alternative doctor and I made her try the vitamins and the doctor said that is very good. But she can’t take pills, so he gave her high doses of vitamin C to get rid of the shingles. She ended up with bursitis in her ankles, though. Now she’s got great improvement with the vitamins and everything. Then she went for a sonogram Her lungs again were clear, but she went back to her thyroid doctor to have her thyroid measured and he usually gives a chest x-ray. Now within 2 months a tumor showed up on the outside part of her lung. I would just like to get your opinion on that because this all happened within 2 months. She looks great, she put on weight, she has taken every test and the results are excellent.
RS: What I should have said when I started delivering information about a dietary program was this: that it needs to be done intelligently. If you’re going to put good material into the body, you have to know that the body will have to struggle to eliminate the bad material that’s been in storage. It goes into a flow stage because all of the things that enter the cells and are eliminated by the cells travel through the body fluids primarily the bloodstream. Now if you’re making a dietary change, you also have to give the body some help in the elimination process. If you don’t do that, the stuff circulates in the bloodstream and eventually settles somewhere. The shingles that your mother got, was probably an attempt by the body to eliminate through the skin because the colon or kidneys were overloaded. Vitamin C in high doses is more a medication. It suppresses the shingles, the outlet that the body was trying to use for elimination. Has it been determined that the tumor is malignant? Sandy: No, tomorrow she goes for the biopsy. There’s no symptom, no pain, no coughing. I’m wondering if that’s a good sign also?
RS: Well, it might be. Hopefully it might be benign.
I want to complete what I was saying about the preventive program. We’re talking about host resistance. Now it’s not just taking raw foods. The key word is you’ve got to have a balanced diet which means you’ve got to have your protein and we know today that many of the vegetarian nutritionists have come to the conclusion that not everyone can be a vegetarian. So don’t equate the word vegetarian with health. It doesn’t fit. The healthy system is a balanced system. If your body requires meat protein, you need to eat meat protein. Some people can be vegetarians, but, if you’re not getting your protein from meat sources because this is what you as an individual require, there’s going to be trouble at some future time.You also need starch (such as in beans and potatoes) and fatty acid (as in oils, nuts, avocados, etc.), in your diet. We have found that, I don’t know why, but Nature seems to have decided that we need a little fermented food for digestion and intestinal flora. Fermented food would be, for example, the cheeses and yogurt. So we don’t want to leave that out. One wonderful food for everybody, of course, is whole grains. Keep in mind something about whole gains: you put a gain into the ground and add water and the little grain produces new life and new seeds. That’s power! That’s tremendous power. Grains are an excellent source of a wide range of vitamins and minerals.
RA: We have John on line. Welcome to the show.
John: I’ve been reading about Joanna Budwig of Germany. She’s been treating certain types of cancer with flaxseed oil and cottage cheese. Are you familiar with that?
RS: Yes, I am.
John: What’s her success ratio with that?
RS: I’d like to lump that question in with a lot of other things that are on the market where people are attributing single ideas as the answer to cancer. It will never happen. The body has to get every single nutrient and correct any breakdown in order to build cells. You can’t build a cell because you’re’ taking flaxseed oil or green tea or selenium or high doses of vitamin C or any of the variety of nostrums that are offered by so many sources. As a matter of FACT, we should have a program to show you how some of these things can be more harmful than helpful. I’m not saying there’s something wrong with flaxseed oil. But to think that flaxseed oil is going to be a cure for cancer is really putting yourself in a difficult situation. Can you understand that?
John: Thank you.
RA: We certainly agree with Ruth on the problems with single nutrients.
RS: Take into account vitamin C for an example, though this, of course, applies to other things: Linus Pauling has said, “Take 30 grams of Vitamin C a day.” Now if your body is only going to use about 125 mg. of that, what are you going to do with the rest of it. The body has to get rid of it and that’s a burden for the body to have to get rid of the excess vitamin C when it has so many other things it has to houseclean.
RA: That’s why you detoxify.
RS: That’s right. You don’t burden that system of elimination because that’s the very system that can maintain health. It’s part of immune activity. It needs its vitality to eliminate cancer cells.
RA: Yes, and that’s the thing that we talk about here on our show. When you take all of the megavitamins, you have to detoxify. If the body does not need the substances you’re traking, then it has to be detoxified just like a drug has to be detoxified from your body.
Well, at this point I’d like to thank Ruth and give the foundation’s number.
RS: It’s xxx-xxx-xxxx, from 10-4 weekdays.
RA: And to all of you out there in the listening audience, this has been Robert Anderson and Ruth Sackman, wishing you all good health and hoping you’ll live each day as though it were your first day, your last day, your only day.