Cancer and Inflammation

by Glen Depke, Traditional Naturopath

Today we will dive into the intimate relationship between cancer and inflammation. Before we do this, let's look at some simple stats.

This year alone, over 1.7 million Americans will be told that they "have" CANCER and 33% of those people will die. Every 30 seconds somebody is diagnosed with cancer. And the numbers continue to grow worse with each passing year, despite more medical inventions and technology promising early detection.

How about not partaking in this statistic? 

If this is your goal, you will definitely want to learn more about the inflammatory tie into cancer. Recognize that when I talk about inflammation I am discussing longer term chronic systemic inflammation. I am not referring to acute inflammation due to injury.

When you are living with long term chronic systemic inflammation, this would be referred to as an NF-kB state. Often clients will ask me what this stands for so here you go. This is a nuclear factor kappa beta state. I know, this does not help at all. To define this further will likely create the clarity you are looking for. NF-kB is a protein complex that controls the transcription of DNA. 

Sounds rather important in regard to cancer?

When an individual is living with chronic inflammation this leads to immune system dysregulation. Immune system dysregulation can and will hinder the body's apoptosis. We discussed this briefly a few weeks ago. To review, apoptosis is basically cellular suicide. Understand that the way your body was created, if a cell because "broken" that cell is actually programmed to commit suicide. This will inhibit that "broken" cell from becoming another "broken" cell and so on and so on. If apoptosis is not functioning properly due to immune system dysregulation, which is caused by chronic inflammation, this "broken" cell will continue to replicate. The long term result of this would be a major contributing factor to cancer.

I do want to be very clear that I am not saying that inflammation is the only cause of cancer but this is a major contributing factor as mentioned above.

Now that you understand the role chronic inflammation play in cancer, what causes the chronic inflammation? The main causes of chronic inflammation are listed below.

• Food intolerance such as gluten and similar cross reactive foods
• The standard American diet high in processed foods and sugar
• Chronic infection
• Chronic stress
• Chemotherapy
• Obesity
• Alcohol/drug addiction 

So the key to addressing cancer is addressing inflammation and the key to addressing inflammation is working on the areas above. Start by assessing your likelihood of gluten intolerance by taking this complimentary gluten assessment.

Focus on reducing your sugar and processed food intake as much as possible. There are also two tests that we would recommend with regularity to address the underlying factors of inflammation. Once is a Cyrex Labs Gluten Cross Reactive Food test and the other is a comprehensive stool collection kit to assess the likelihood of a chronic gut infection. We find gut infections to be a challenge with about 75% of our client base and an even higher percentage that are living with gluten and/or cross reactive intolerance.


It is also important to note that your adrenal gland function also play a significant role in your immune system regulation as well as inflammatory states. Trying to accomplish your inflammatory roles without assessing adrenal function and addressing this with a proper adrenal protocol, will hinder your progress. If you have heard me talk about adrenals before, remember that here at Depke Wellness, we have reviewed well over 4,000 adrenal test kits and have seen only 4 come back normal. In fairness, we work with health challenged individuals, but if you have a health challenge you have almost a 100% chance of living with an adrenal issue. Check your adrenal function now.

Once you have addressed these areas, you can then work on the chronic inflammation. This cannot be taken lightly though. The chronic inflammation needs a strong "kick in the head" to be eliminated. This "kick in the head" involves a specific combination of supplements, with proper dosing to assist the body in shifting out of the chronic inflammatory state.

Once you have addressed all the common causes of chronic inflammation to the best of your ability and you have begun an adrenal balancing protocol, you are ready to provide the strong "kick in the head" in regard to inflammation. This would have to be addressed one on one. When you feel that you are ready to accomplish this task, reach out to Depke Wellness at (949)954-6226 to set up your complimentary 20 minute phone consultation. 

Don't be a statistic in the cancer and inflammation world. Address the underlying factors of inflammation and keep your immune function and apoptosis is full function.

If you have any comments or questions in regard to this article, post these below for us to address personally.