Disclaimer: The following is my personal opinion based on brief research and is not intended to be taken as professional advice or documentation.

Today I did a little reading on cancer treatment, and made some remarkable discoveries.

In 2007, Dr. Evangelos Michelakis and others at the University of Alberta found that DCA (dichloroacetate) significantly reduced tumor sizes in lab rats. Unfortunately, the drug is old and can no longer be patented. That means no one wants to fund clinical trials, and without clinical trials, the drug cannot be legally prescribed for mass use. (Some doctors are still using it in cancer treatment, but I’m not sure how this works legally.) Not even the Canadian Cancer Society will touch it, since they are in the business of helping drug companies find new drugs that can be patented and profitable (in addition to their non-profit work of educating the public about cancer prevention, of course).

Now, the research team has found some private funding that will allow them to proceed with clinical trials, which are still in the works. There is hope.

Aside from the political implications of this story, I found an interesting connection to something I read in a book by Brandon Bays, about her experience of beating cancer. You may have read it. It’s called The Journey: A Practical Guide to Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Back to the new wonder-drug, DCA. It works by getting into cancer cells and making them work properly again. Healthy cells have healthy mitochondria, which use oxidation to provide energy to the cells. When mitochondria fail, or don’t have a supply of oxygen, the cells use a process called glycolysis. This allows a damaged cell to continue living, without interference from the body’s immune system. More importantly, cells without healthy mitochondria are unable to die when they are damaged. They go on living a warped existence, along with other unhealthy cells, in a big cell city called a tumor.

DCA gets into those cells and reactivates the mitochondria, allowing cancer cells to die off when they are no longer needed.

Now, back to The Journey, in which Brandon Bays documents her struggle to cure herself of cancer. In a nutshell, she discovers that her tumor is the physical manifestation of a painful memory that she had not forgiven. When she uncovers the painful memory, acknowledges the injury and lets it go, she also lets go of the cancer. The tumor dissolves within weeks, leaving her cancer-free – and emotionally free. (If you don’t believe me, read the book.)

So, it seems to me that our unhealthy lifestyles, mixed with our failures to forgive old emotional injuries, are causing unprecedented rates of cancer, to the point that we have a 40% chance of getting cancer in some form. The cancer industry is not helping to bring that number down, so we have to take control of our lives and do something to help ourselves.

Looking at how cancer operates, and considering the experience of Bays, it seems to me that there is a big mind-body connection going on here: We are holding onto old guilt, shame and blame instead of letting them go. These unhealthy thoughts and emotions stay in our bodies instead of dying off like they should. We hold onto them, and they metastasize into something that can kill us.

When I refuse to forgive someone (for example, when I refuse to forgive greedy drug companies), I create a set of unhealthy thoughts and feelings in my body. If I can’t let them go, they will go on living inside me like a cancer. I know I would be healthier to let them die off and leave my body, but my ego often won’t allow me to let go.

We know that thoughts and feelings create physical / chemical reactions in the body. We know that they affect the cells. We know that anger and stress cause physical disease.

So all I’m saying here is that I suspect our own grudges can become cancerous if we do not deal with them.

It’s time to let go. Yes, it’s hard to forgive, but I need to let go of the past if I don’t want it to kill me.