How to prevent liver cancer, a serious disease? 5 tips to keep you away from the threat of liver cancer

The "bad reputation" of liver cancer mainly comes from its high mortality rate. According to domestic statistics, the five-year survival rate of patients diagnosed with liver cancer is only 10%. The survival rate of patients with advanced liver cancer is extremely low, while early small liver cancer can be clinically cured through surgery. In foreign countries, early liver cancer is often discovered during physical examinations, and early intervention makes the treatment effect ideal and the patient survival rate high. Liver cancer patients are often in the middle and late stages when they are discovered, resulting in poor treatment effects.

It usually takes more than two years for a tumor to develop from cells to detectable liver cancer tissue. During this period, the patient does not feel uncomfortable and has no jaundice, which is called the 'subclinical stage'. But after that, the growth rate of the tumor accelerates greatly. When the patient develops clinical symptoms, the tumor cell doubling cycle is about 40 to 50 days. Therefore, when the tumor grows to three or four centimeters in size, the patient must race against time for treatment.

How to prevent liver cancer?

1. Vaccination: Killing Three Birds with One Stone

Chronic viral hepatitis can directly promote the canceration of liver cells and increase the incidence of liver cancer. Therefore, effectively preventing viral hepatitis is the most important means to prevent liver cancer. Everyone should get vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine. Once successfully vaccinated, it can not only effectively prevent the occurrence of hepatitis B, but also block the occurrence of hepatitis D (it is a defective virus that can only be infected on the basis of hepatitis B), and can also prevent liver cancer, which can be said to be "killing three birds with one stone".

2. Diet: Eat rough food and avoid mold

① The diet should be nutritious and rich: You should pay attention to the balance of nutrients in your diet, avoid partial eclipse, eat more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and eat less refined rice, refined flour, animal fats, and low-fiber foods. Because whole grains, vegetables, and fruits are rich in minerals and vitamins, they are beneficial for preventing liver cancer.

Rice bran is not only rich in B vitamins, which can protect the liver, but also has a good effect in absorbing carcinogenic harmful substances. Since the human body lacks enzymes to digest rice bran fiber, all absorbed harmful substances are excreted from the body in the form of feces. For people with liver disease or long-term carriers of hepatitis B surface antigen, if they can regularly use rice bran to adjust their diet to absorb and excrete harmful substances in the digestive tract, it is a good way to prevent liver cancer.

② Avoid eating moldy food: Peanuts, corn, sweet potato chips, etc. stored at home are easily contaminated by Aspergillus flavus, which is 75 times more carcinogenic than nitrosamines and 4,000 times more carcinogenic than benzopyrene. Therefore, once the above foods are found to be moldy, they must not be eaten. If you eat moldy peanuts with wine, the possibility of inducing liver cancer will be greater. In addition, rotten fish and meat contain a lot of amines, rotten vegetables, fruits and repeatedly boiled water contain a lot of nitrites. Nitrite can easily combine with amines to form carcinogenic nitrosamines.

Stale oils contain malondialdehyde, which can generate polymers and react with proteins and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the human body, promoting protein structure mutations, causing cells to lose their normal functions and transform into early cancer cells. In addition, malondialdehyde polymers can also hinder DNA replication and accelerate the aging process of people. Therefore, animal and vegetable oils should not be stored for too long. Those that have gone bad (may have a rancid smell) should not be eaten.

Scientists call selenium the "king of anti-cancer" among trace elements in the human body. For people with low selenium levels, selenium-rich yeast, selenium polysaccharides, and selenium-rich salts can be used to supplement selenium and increase blood selenium levels.

3. Don’t let drugs poison your liver

Hormonal immunosuppressants and contraceptives are the main toxic drugs that cause liver damage and even liver cancer. They should not be used indiscriminately or for a long time. In addition, ethotripsy (which has been banned) and other drugs may also cause liver cancer.

The Chinese and Western medicines that cause more liver damage include: Tripterygium wilfordii, Malus kunmingense, Senecio grandiflora, Xanthium sibiricum, Toosendan fruit, Melia toosendan bark, Rhizoma Cynomorii, Stephania tetrandra, and Dioscorea bulbifera; phenytoin sodium, nitrofurantoin, dapsone, ketoconazole, isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide, paracetamol, piroxicam, valproic acid, carbamazepine, labetalol, and nicotinic acid, etc.

4. Quit smoking and limit alcohol consumption to give your liver a rest

The carcinogens contained in cigarettes have a direct effect on the occurrence of lung cancer and are also related to the occurrence of other tumors such as liver cancer. Therefore, it is best to quit smoking.

Excessive drinking can lead to alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is a high-risk factor for liver cancer. Cases of alcoholic cirrhosis developing into liver cancer are not uncommon. Especially for those with a history of chronic hepatitis, they should quit drinking completely. After alcohol enters the human body, more than 90% of it must be metabolized by the liver. Drinking a lot of alcohol makes the liver "overloaded", which will cause liver cell damage and abnormal liver function in the long run. At the same time, alcohol can promote the integration of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus into liver cells, causing normal liver cells to mutate and become liver cancer cells.

5. Exercise regularly and relax your mind

Except in special circumstances when exercise is not advisable, everyone should perform physical exercise at appropriate times to effectively improve the immune function of various organs, thereby avoiding the cancerous transformation of liver cells and preventing liver cancer.

According to statistics, more than 90% of hepatitis patients have psychological problems. If their psychological guidance and treatment are neglected, and some patients have poor psychological quality, they are prone to negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, and depression. If this emotion persists for a long time, it will lead to a series of changes in nerves, endocrine and immune functions, and significantly reduce the T lymphocytes in the blood (lymphocytes are the main anti-cancer cells), leading to an increase in the chance and speed of tumor growth. Therefore, sufficient attention should be paid to the patient's post-illness psychological state. While treating physical diseases, we should also care about the patient's psychological state. Family members, relatives and friends should support, care for and sympathize with the patient, and the patient himself should also receive education on health knowledge and psychological common sense, treat the disease correctly, and consult a doctor for related issues.