Fran Drescher Educates Us On Cancer Prevention & Early Diagnosis as She Celebrates 18 Years of Being Cancer-free
Yesterday, 22nd of June, Fran Drescher marked the eighteenth anniversary of being cancer-free and she is going to great lengths to keep it that way.
Since discovering she had uterine cancer some years ago and going into remission, the 60-year-old glowing actress had made it her mission to educate people about cancer prevention, early signs, and treatment.
In an exclusive chat with Daily Mail Online, Drescher who wrote the New York Times bestselling book Cancer Schmancer in 2002, shared some of the drastic lifestyle changes she has made, which she encourages other people to take up, like getting rid of aluminum cookware and not using antiperspirant.
She says that by following these steps, ‘slowly but surely you are successfully reducing your risk of getting disease.’
Drescher has spent nearly two decades speaking out about cancer prevention and education and advising other people to be smart about decreasing their chances of getting sick.
”What we say at Cancer Schmancer is: Take control of your body. Transform from being a patent to a medical consumer. Understand that how you live equals how you feel,” she said.
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Addressing the first part, she went on:
”You are what you eat. So we have to steer clear of industrial farmed foods, which are laden with all different kinds of chemicals and nothing is grown pristinely.”
”If you eat a strawberry that isn’t organic you might as well be eating a sponge soaked in pesticide.”
It’s not just food, either. The author avoids putting just about anything in or on her body that can be considered toxic.
”If toothpaste says do not swallow, then do not use. Toothpaste should be the equivalent of food,” she advises. ”Do not use antiperspirant. The act of perspiring in the human body is a way to detox. Use deodorant, not antiperspirant.”
Drescher is not the first person to warn against antiperspirants, which use aluminum-based compounds to stop sweat.
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Gwyneth Paltrow‘s website Goop has published whole guides on non-toxic deodorants — but scientific studies have had inclusive results on whether antiperspirants actually lead to cancer.
According to Cancer.org, there is no clear link between antiperspirants and breast cancer, but Cancer.gov says more research would be needed to determine whether a relationship exists.
For Drescher, it’s about eliminating any possible risk — so she also encourages people to detox their homes.
”Stop using aluminium foil, aluminium pans, stop using your microwave, cordless phones,” she said. ”Shut your WiFi off when you go to sleep. Let your brain regenerate without the interference of electromagnetic fields.”
Though research on weather radiation from wireless phones and WiFi is still inconclusive, according to Time.com, the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer have labeled cell phones as a ‘possible carcinogen,’ which means more research is needed to know if they can cause cancer.
Unfortunately, there are lots of bad-for-you products on the market that need to be avoided — but Drescher feels confident companies would stop selling them if consumers would send them a message.
”We need to exercise mindful consumerism, because all roads lead to Rome, and Rome is the systemic malignancy of greed. So you have to hit them where they live. If everyone stopped buying colas today, they’d stop making it.”
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Drescher also enlightened on what to do when you start feeling ill — and that’s trust your gut and do your research.
”We need to know what the early warning whispers are of the cancer that might affect us, and know the tests that are available,” she said.
Dreascher said she waited two years to get a proper diagnosis of uterine cancer, and had to see eight different doctors before one finally ran the proper tests.
”Because most women with uterine cancer are post-menopausal or obese, and I was neither, they decided I must be perimenopausal, and they didn’t give me the simple in-office biopsy that would have told them it was cancer.”
Perimenopause is the transitional period before a woman goes through menopause, which usually starts in her 40s but can start as early as her 30s. The body produces less estrogen, which can lead to symptoms similar to those of menopause.
”For two years, the doctors kept trying different things to help me with my symptoms and said it was perimenopause. The last doctor even gave me hormone replacement therapy that had estrogen in it, which is like poison if you have uterine cancer — and that’s when it all started to unfold with greater clarity.”
Luckily, Drescher’s cancer was still Stage I when it was caught, and by June 21, 2000 she was officially in remission.
”I was lucky because my cancer happened to be slow-growing. But ovarian cancer is often misdiagnosed as IBS. They say it’s a silent killer but it’s not, there are always whispers,” she said.
”I think that doctors in general are bludgeoned by Big Business health insurance to go the least expensive route of diagnostic testing.
So they tend to subscribe to the philosophy that if you hear hooves galloping, don’t look for a zebra, it’s probably a horse. And therein lies the rub of why people often get most diagnosed, because at cancer’s earliest stage, it often mimics a far more benign problem.”
The celebrity wants people to know that though certain symptoms may mean something benign, they could also be an early sign of something more serious — so if being treated for the less-serious illness shows no results, it’s worth seeking out more information.
Fran’s continuing her work educating and helping people through Cancer Schmancer quite a bit in the coming days.