Every health triumph – such as beating cancer, a successful operation, coming through an accident, or surviving a heart attack or stroke – also casts a shadow.
As a result, many survivors struggle to find their way back to their best – but fortunately, we now understand why making a full recovery feels so difficult, and (most importantly) how we can speed up the journey back to becoming our best selves.
Major health events, and the life-saving drugs, chemotherapy/radiotherapy and operations we use to treat them, all leave a lingering mark on our body’s wider health by disrupting our body’s internal balance. This can profoundly affect our health and well-being for years beyond the health scare itself.
For example, many survivors grapple with feeling tired and fatigued, find themselves battling high blood sugar & cholesterol or struggle with weight gain. This leaves people feeling distant from their former selves and often anxious about their health and future.
Fortunately, there are things we can do to support both our body and our mind to ensure both recover fully, enabling us to leave cancer behind for good and get back to living life to the full. As always, our recovery starts with understanding what it is that’s holding us back.
Our metabolism is our engine – it is the process by which our body’s cells turn food into energy, and create the building blocks we need for our body to repair itself and grow.
When we experience a major health event, take powerful drugs or require an operation, we often disrupt how our metabolism works, making our body’s ‘engine’ less efficient. When this happens, we are at risk of developing something called ‘metabolic syndrome’.
Disruptions to our metabolism can reach the point where they negatively impact our health, leading to chronic inflammation and internal imbalance. When this occurs, it’s called ‘metabolic syndrome’.
People with metabolic syndrome experience struggles with common areas of their health, including:
Metabolic syndrome puts you at a much greater risk of developing serious health conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke. It can also make it more difficult to maintain a healthy body weight, and weaken your immune system.
Many survivors develop metabolic syndrome without knowing. For example, studies have shown that as many as 70% of patients who successfully complete cancer treatment may go on to develop metabolic syndrome following their treatment, even if they were healthy before their diagnosis.
Researchers found that survivors with metabolic syndrome showed signs of increased inflammation, higher cholesterol, higher blood sugar levels and significant weight gain in the weeks following their treatment.
Worse still, these symptoms continued to worsen over a 5 year followup period following treatment.
In a cruel twist of fate, this puts those who’ve survived a major health scare such as cancer at a far greater risk of suffering another one (such as a heart attack or stroke) and of developing life-limiting conditions like type-2 diabetes and obesity.
And worst of all, metabolic syndrome also increases our risk of cancer, putting survivors at a greater risk of being given a cancer diagnosis in the future – potentially for the second time.
So restoring metabolic health is of critical importance for survivors. Time alone can’t heal these internal wounds – but fortunately, there are a number of simple steps yo can take to help repair your metabolism and get it working smoothly again.
Fruits and vegetables are packed full of vitamins, minerals and natural bioactive compounds that help to repair your metabolism. Eating well is your best friend.
Exercise helps to stimulate our body’s natural ‘repair’ genes, so it’s a great way of giving your metabolism a boost. Do your best to find exercise you can do regularly and enjoy – and remember to take rest days to recover.
Stress forces your body to be constantly on high alert, which undermines your metabolic health – while sleep is your body’s chance to repair damage and look after itself. Try meditation, mindfulness and improving your sleep hygiene to get more shut-eye and give your metabolism the best chance of recovering well.
Certain natural molecules found in plants can support metabolic repair and recovery. Eating more of the key ‘functional foods’ rich in these molecules (especially broccoli) can help get you back to your best faster.
When it comes to repairing your metabolism, broccoli truly is a superfood. This is because it’s a source of a bioactive molecule called sulforaphane.
Sulforaphane turns on key genes in our cells that repair your metabolism. As a result, studies show that adding a high dose of sulforaphane to your diet can help your metabolism to recover faster, helping to support:
Sadly, broccoli only provides a small amount of sulforaphane, and you’d need to eat it raw to see health benefits.
That’s why we developed SmarterNaturally SuperSoup, which is made with our unique & patented ‘super-broccoli’ – it’s such a powerful source of sulforaphane that eating just one bowl a week can support improved metabolic health.
Metabolic syndrome is an under-reported condition which undermines our health, and can have a huge impact on the lives of survivors. Understanding and reversing this condition can be a critical step in getting back to your best.
Fortunately, survivors can repair the damage to their metabolism and set themselves onto a path towards a healthier future. And we’re here to help.
In support of World Cancer Day, we’re celebrating survivors everywhere by offering 20% off to all you survivors out there. Claim your discount today with code RECOVER20 and let us support your journey back to your best.
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