Fighting in your sleep I'll admit it: I always thought that telling someone who's under the weather to "get some rest" was just a polite way to end the conversation. But after looking at some of the research Dr. Wright talked about in his article "Sleep your way to cancer prevention" in the upcoming December issue, I realized that there's a lot more to it than that -- particularly when it comes to fighting breast cancer. Let me back up a step.
In his article, Dr. Wright talks about the beneficial effects of melatonin. Research shows that this hormone can actually slow the growth of breast cancer by as much as 70 percent. It works by interacting with the dietary fat linoleic acid, which stimulates cancer cells.
But your body doesn't produce nearly as much melatonin during the day as it does at night. In fact, even just leaving the lights on for prolonged periods of time at night hinders melatonin production. This allows cancer cells to keep growing and "feeding" off of the linoleic acid in your system.
So getting plenty of rest at night in a dark, quiet room can actually help your body fight cancer by allowing it to produce as much melatonin as possible.
Melatonin supplements may boost your efforts even further. In fact, there are dozens of studies out there showing that it can actually increase survival rates.
And if you do choose to go the mainstream route for treating your cancer, melatonin still helps round out a complete anti-cancer arsenal: It improves healing after surgery and helps alleviate the side effects of radiation and chemo. Not to mention the improved quality of life that feeling more rested can bring.
Dr. Wright recommends taking 20 milligrams of melatonin at bedtime.
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