Why I am NOT a cancer screening customer
by J. Morris Hicks
In 2002, at age 57, along about the time I began to learn about the health-promoting power of a whole food, plant-based diet--doctors were urging me to begin having routine colonoscopies and PSA tests to screen for cancer.
Not real sure, but I believe that my last PSA test was done during my last routine physical exam, which I believe took place in 2002--and I know that I have never had a colonoscopy and never will.
A few years later, I learned that there was a $50 billion industry (in just the USA) to screen for the disease that was expected to kill 7% of the population. I also learned that colonoscopies resulted in thousands of injuries per year (about 1/3 of 1% of the patients).
My question at the time was:
If the risk of dying from that disease was lowered to less than 1%, would there still be a fifty billion dollar business just to screen for it? I think not. And just yesterday, my friend John McDougall, MD, posted a video that strongly reinforced the decision that I made fifteen years ago.
My recommendation. Not being a doctor, I can't recommend whether anyone should or should not undergo cancer screenings--but I can recommend to everyone that they take 25 minutes to watch this video before they do:
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25 minutes with Dr. John McDougall
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Want more info? Here are links to three blogs that I posted in 2011 and 2012:
J. Morris Hicks
