Pancreatic Cancer And The Revolution 

Last week the inbox filled with questions about the recently publicized potential cure for pancreatic cancer following a Spanish team’s success in stopping tumor growth in mice. The very kind lead researcher had a motto on his lab coat: “contra el cancer”.

There needs to be a revolution in the way people think about cancer. And before that can happen, there needs to be a universal awakening to the fact that the body doesn’t make errors. The human body is staggering in its ability to respond to challenges. Cancer occurs at the end of these responses. So much has happened before a cancer begins.

For cancer to emerge, the body must be, by definition, thoroughly exhausted in its efforts to respond to challenges. It is overwhelmed by toxins after having made every possible move to eradicate them. The body has by this stage depleted its fluids in trying to clear toxins through sweating, urinating, or defecating; it has commandeered blood and stagnated it creating new, visible or hidden capillaries to hold the toxins at bay; it has created swellings and perhaps nodules to create a buffer to prevent the toxins from reaching the organs; and it has even tried to park the toxins in fat and in the joints to buy time, often creating arthritis in the process.

By the time of a cancer diagnosis, a person has run out of resources to clear toxins or hide them in places in the body that are out of reach of the organs. If diet, lifestyle, and thinking don’t change, the inflammation that the body creates to try to burn up the toxin becomes intense enough to fry the Jing (the essence of the body) which contains the DNA, corrupting it so that cells cannot replicate properly and cannot die, resulting in the growth of tumors. A tumor serves as the last attempt to contain the pathogen while at the same time perversely introducing more mass in the body to buffer the organs from both the toxic load and the inflammation. The fact that it is occurring at the deepest level of the body (DNA level) is a signal to the individual that a survival level shift needs to happen.

So, what would happen if you used sophisticated drugs like the ones used in this recent study to block the pathways that allow tumors to develop?

The body would then have to embark on other measures to clear that heat, and without sufficient resources to complete that clearing, the toxin would become systemic. These actions would draw the pathogens out of their remaining hiding places and push them toward, but not through, the exterior, manifesting as rebellious qi—intermittent or constant nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, urgent urination and even rashes, as the body desperately tries to push out the threat. And these are precisely the body’s responses that are reported with the trio of drugs that were used in the Spanish study. They are not side effects; they are heroic events as the body plays a chess-like game with the drugs. In a study on humans, one of the drugs resulted in 91% of people developing severe rashes, diarrhea, nausea, painful urination, mouth ulcers, nail infections, and then fatigue, due to the extreme demand that these efforts put on yang qi.

As these particular drugs suppress the pathways to tumors, cancer won’t appear, but you would see the body attempting to eradicate the toxins.  And because the body at this point is severely weakened and profoundly dehydrated even down to the level of fat, it will only get so far after shifting those toxins out of their holding places and making them systemic. When fire-toxins, as we call them, become systemic, the organs become mortally inflamed.

Pancreatic cancer can have no symptoms, or only mild symptoms, until it becomes late stage, so prevention is the way forward. First, the causes must be known. The causes of this cancer, according to allopathic medicine, are:

1. Smoking: related to 25% of cases
2. Chronic pancreatitis: significantly increases risk
3. Obesity: increases likelihood by 20%
4. Diabetes: in about 25% of patients
5. Age: the average age at diagnosis is 70

Only one of these is an actual cause, and that is smoking, which weakens the lungs, introduces carcinogens to the body, and taxes the pancreas, since lung qi originates there.

The other four are symptoms of already established pancreas qi deficiency.

• Chronic pancreatitis occurs when pancreatic qi—also known as pancreas-spleen qi—has been asked for too long to deal with inflamers in the gut.
• With obesity, the pancreas has been dealing with junk food, sugar, and a host of ultra-processed and non-nutritious things over a long time.
• Diabetes is a sugar disease, meaning the poor pancreas has been struggling to process refined sugars for a long time.
• And age is only a factor if the diet has been poor, because dietary stress has been going on longer.

In Chinese medicine, the question about how to prevent pancreatic cancer is, “How can I keep my pancreas happy?”

It’s quite simple.

Step 1:  Avoid everything the pancreas detests:

• The pancreas detests cold. So, no cold, including drinks and food. Nothing cold should enter the body. Cold seriously affects or disables the pancreas over time.
• The pancreas detests too much raw food. Raw food tires the pancreas  by demanding it deliver endless qi and more enzymes to the digestive tract to try to “cook” foods so they can be broken down and digested. Extreme cases of this kind of diet result in undigested food in the stool. 
• The pancreas detests refined sugar. It has to release large amounts of insulin with such regularity that eventually it becomes so weakened, it is unable to deal at all.
• The pancreas detests processed food, packaged factory food, and ultra-processed food, as it requires so much energy to create the inflammation needed to try to destroy it.
• The pancreas detests too much sticky food, like too much cheese or baked goods, as the gooey mess these foods create has to be broken down using its qi.
• The pancreas is adversely affected by worry because its job from the point of view of ancient psychology is to control obsessive or repetitive thinking. 

Step 2:  Add things that actively strengthen the pancreas:

• The pancreas is profoundly nourished by whole grains (organic): millet, rice, buckwheat, corn, amaranth, teff, sorghum, quinoa, kaniwa. It thrives on these and especially loves millet. Whole grains can be a part of every meal and have been for thousands of years. Their waning popularity lines up exactly with increases in gut biome and pancreas issues.
• The pancreas loves food that is cooked and warm.
• The pancreas loves yellow and orange veggies, especially sweet potatoes, yams, pumpkins, squashes, zucchini. Leafy green vegetables are vital and should always be included but their vectors are not specific to the pancreas.
• The pancreas loves meditation as it calms the mind.

Pancreatic cancer is preventable. Let’s put our resources there.

Ann Cecil-Sterman
New York City
18 February, 2026

PS: On my site, see my book Becoming Healthy, Staying Healthy for information about this wise and sophisticated ancient medical view, and Andrew Sterman’s two books, Welcoming Food, which focus on the health of the pancreas and include recipes for its long-term health.