A recent survey in the United States has it that 61 percent of men and 59 percent of women with difficult to treat cancer were traced to unforgiveness.

Dr Patrick Ijewere, a medical consultant at Howard University, Washington DC, on Monday made the revelation to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the International Drink Festival in Lagos.

The medical expert was one of the dignitaries and discussants at the drink festival at the Balmoral Event Centre of the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos which ended on Sunday night.

He gave a lecture on “The General Human Well Being and Beverage Industry Personnel in Nigeria”, alongside motivational speaker and medical doctor, Deji Osasiene, popularly known as “Dr Osas”.

NAN reports that over 3,000 participants, 2,000 international and local exhibitors and 500 delegates gathered at the first ever three-day International Drink Festival put together by the Balmoral Group.

Speaking to NAN at the end of the programme, Ijewere said that he had the backing of his claims about the link between unforgiveness and cancer from established research in the US.

He said that there was a project in the US called “Unforgiveness Project’’ about the link between human behaviour and diseases which linked the difficulty to treat cancer to unforgiveness.

“There is a project ongoing in the US that is basically a search to know how our attitudes and lifestyles affect our treatable diseases which tends to be opposite.

“Various studies have showed that what happens in the physical realm has a lot to do with what we have in the spiritual world. It has been an established link.

“The research in the US is verifiable that 61 percent in men and 59 percent in women with difficult to treat cancer has been linked to unforgiveness.

“The research is simple. There is a chemical in our body called ‘Cortisol’. It is a chemical that can hinder or suppress our immune system which mainly is instigated by anger,” he said.

Ijewere, the Medical Director of Salus Trust Health Management Organisation, said that the link was expected to make people free from social attributes that might hinder their medications.

“According to an expert, Dr Steven Standiford in the US, unforgiveness has been classified in medical books as a disease, refusing to forgive makes people sick and keep them that way.

“Of all cancer patients, 61 percent have forgiveness issues, and of those, more than half are severe. Harbouring these negative emotions, this anger and hatred, creates a state of chronic anxiety,” he told NAN.

“Chronic anxiety is very predictably and produces excess adrenaline and cortisol which deplete the production of natural killer cells, which is the body’s foot soldier in the fight against cancer.

“The issue of forgiveness is not about religion, it is about us and our attitudes. Most people don’t realise what a burden anger and hatred are until they let them go,” he said.

Tracing further the implication unforgiveness to cancer treatment, Ijewere said that negative emotions contribute mainly to people getting sick and becoming untreatable.

“One of the major causes of rapid cancer cell mutation is by the presence of negative emotions which include hate, grief and others which can lead to depression.

“These negative emotions mostly aggravate that toxic chemicals which increase stress hormone cortisol levels, which directly suppress immune system function.

“When there is a breakdown of immune system, the normal cells mutate into cancer cells which make them spread fast.

“The bad news is that when the body is not relaxed, the mind will not relax sufficiently enough to enter the deep-sleep-cycle to produce melatonin, which is the primary hormone responsible for inhibiting cancer cells growth,” he said. (NAN)

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