These are some random thoughts about being healthy. I would enjoy hearing from other people as to their take on the matters presented below.
I suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. For years I have been in a group of mostly women, all of us who are challenged on a daily basis to avoid certain chemicals. Few of us get cancer, as we have to avoid so many things. To accomplish this we try very hard to get our lifestyles back to the basics. Most of us have life styles similar to how people lived fifty if not one hundred and fifty years ago.
I had to quit working in an office environment, as at night the cleaning crews spray so many things, from furniture polish to Lysol to Febreeze. And of course, during the day there are perfumes, copy toners, etc in many office environments.
Due to this development, I made much less money, as I went into the field of Home Health Aide work. But it was a rewarding line of work. (I am now retired.) Of course, I turned down many clients, as I was not willing to spray the great auntie's home with poisons, just so that some nitwit relative would have the false assurance that auntie's home was clean! (Decades ago, when someone's natural processes made a bathroom a bit stinky, a match was lit, but these days, we are taught to use half a spray can of Glade or Febreeze to dispel the odor.)
Everywhere I turn, there are organizations that are supposedly "trying to stop cancer." Yet IMNSHO the best way to stop cancer would be to ensure that the nasty crap in this and that product was not allowed to be sold to us in the first place. Almost all air fresheners contain either benzene or formaldehyde. The reason that companies sell these products is so they don't have to bundle up that benzene or formaldehyde and put it into containers and send it off to SuperFund sites! So they make money just by their saving on that aspect of their madness. Notice that the commercials never present spoken words to tell you that air fresheners or Lysol or other air products are safe to use around pets or children or in the nursery. But they imply this through the settings of the commercials. (Back when Elliot Spitzer was Attorney General he once fined Monsanto some $ 50,000 for making claims about the safety of RoundUp. So the companies have learned they cannot say in spoken words that their product is safe, but they can imply it through the visuals they present to the TV viewer.)
If you use shampoo, and suffer from cancer, make sure you are not using a paraben or formaldehyde-containing shampoo. (The key word for formaldehyde is Quaternium, that is the "aka" for formaldehyde.) Right now it is nigh impossible to find a shampoo free from those two things. If you have MS, it is also important to avoid formaldehyde, so finding out whether your shampoo has Quaternium is important for you as well.
Perhaps one of the key things to avoid in order for a human being to remain healthy (and even, cancer-free) is dirty air. Experts have stated for years that living inside a big city is the equivalent of smoking two and a half boxes of cigarettes a day! For years, I lived in the San Francisco Bay area. I never felt "quite right." I tried eating macrobiotic. I tried living without grains, or without meat, or without sugar. Sometimes I noticed a minor improvement in my health, but nothing major. Nothing that I tried ever made me feel that eating this way or that way made much of a difference. (I never eat junk food, or processed food, but I now eat a moderate amount of meat, and although I am wheat free, as the formaldehyde tainted wheat we have in the USA is very bad for me, I do indulge in sugar and dairy.)
Then I moved out to Lake County Calif, which has the best air in the nation. I suddenly felt good again, and it amazed me that with all the time and energy I had spent on "getting my diet right" not only had the idea of clean air evaded me, but health professionals I consulted also rarely if ever mentioned air as a consideration.
If you have to live in the city, get a decent air cleaner. I understand many people like the concept of open windows, but even using the air cleaner half the time should make a difference.
Lastly we should all pause and consider water. Where I live is off of a "soda bay" springs area. The water tastes as though it has about a tablespoon of baking soda per eight ounce glass. And the local water treatment people add in a ton of bleach, and who knows how much fluoride. My household decided to use distilled water, to avoid what was in the tap water. But one day recently, I happened to notice some Pellegrino water at the grocery store. O(n impulse, I bought ten bottles, and brought them home. Within three days, I felt like I was back in my thirties. Also, although the Pellegrino is expensive, it knocked my appetite down by a factor of five. I was not craving large entrees at the main meal, and no longer wanted snacks.
I also found I loved drinking water! I have not loved drinking water since living in the MidWest, some forty years back. Speaking strictly for myself, I had more energy, (which in the summer, living in a place that is close to 100 degrees during the day, is amazing!) My memory seemed sharper. My outlook seemed brighter. And I really loved drinking water.
Within a month of using the Pellegrino, I had lost eight pounds. Toxins were being flushed from my body and I imagine other processes were taking place that helped me shed some weight. (Of course, more energy means weight loss,a s a person usually gets more active when they have energy,)
I want to close with the bit of cautionary information I found out about Lysol. The product itself is not at all carcinogenic. But it contains Alkyl's, which prevent the body from flushing out the cancer cells that each of us have in our bodies. So those cells are not flushed out, and then the cancers have a better chance of taking up resident. My philosophy is it is better to experience some germs floating around in the air, than to be affected by the Alkyl.