nutrition and cancer

[retroperitommy]

This is a summary of various conversations with health professionals and books as well as results from the China Study (arguably the lagest study on cancer ever undertaken).

Abstract: the medial industry does not tell us much about the afect nutrition has on our bodies. So I wanted to share my collected findings in a "clif note" of sorts. You can read oodles on the subject, and research studies are available by the truckload, but obviously I'm not going to write a dissertation here, just want to get the info out, even if it is in highly distilled form.

CANCER AND NUTRITIONAL ASPECTS:

Any sort of animal fat/protein has a direct link to increased cancer risk. If you want to reduce cellular cancerous activities, remove butter, fried items, and meats from your diet. Sounds difficult but is possible.

Instead, get your protein/fat from vegetables only. Olive oil, beans.

Do not eat any dairy products, especially milk, but also yoghurt and cheese.

Try not to eat processed foods as much as possible (margarine, cookies, crackers, breads) because they contain fats and other stuff that might be detrimental to your bloodstream. Has less to do with cancer than with general health.

Completely cut refined sugar out of the diet, including baked goods, soft drinks, anything sweet, but fruit is okay. Cancerous cells cannot use oxygen from the blood and thus rely on sugar for survival (there is more to this, so I'm just paraphrasing for simplicity).

DO EAT: fruits and vegetables: especially anything leafy with a dark green color, but not head lettuce, iceberg, or similar (those are essentially just water and not much else). Eat kale, chard, rapini, bok choi, dandelion... easy to buy as a "spring mix" - comes in bags for salads. Better of course is to buy it fresh.

Also eat anything that has color: tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, radishes, zuccini, etc.. you get the gist. Mushrooms are good (but not portabella!).

Perfect mushroom, but hard to get is Maitake. Easier to find is ****ake - very good for your lymph nodes.

Eat LOTS of fruit and grains. Any fruit will do, but mix it up, keep a variety around as snack.

Eat only whole grains. No white bread, or anything that doesn't say "whole" on the packaging. Cereals should NOT be of the Kellog's variety but more like a granola mix. The more grains it's got, the better. Must be WHOLE grain. That is important, especially with bread.

And whenever you can, only buy organic (plenty of research out there linking several types of cancer to a variety of pesticides, so organic is obviously better).

NOTE: if you drastically change your diet, your body will release a high amount of toxins i.e. "bad cells" it no longer wants, adding a little bit of stress to your system, but that subsides quickly (couple days or so).

ANOTHER NOTE: don't expect immediate results. But anyone with cancer should seriously look at their food intake and make sure they remove animal fats from their body and increase leafy greens/vegetables (making the blood more alkaline), increasing fruits (adding antioxidants), and grains (. Noone says you can't ever eat a burger, but your proportion of

[Scott]

I subscribe to the "everything in moderation, nothing to excess" diet. Eat a wide variety of healthy foods and exercise regularly.

[QuantumSheep]

This sounds very similar to the Budwig diet I've been following lately (and posted here a few days back). I really dove into nutrition research because I've already had skin cancer and now testicular cancer, and I decided I was tired of this cycle of detecting cancer, then cutting it out of my body -- I wanted to look into ways of "heading it off at the pass" ... !

It's very high in flax oil and nuts as the main sources of fats, and makes the similar recommendation of eating and also juicing a lot of fruits/veggies (carrot, apple, beet, etc.). The main difference is that this diet is actually high in dairy (ample amounts of lowfat cottage cheese or "quark" to be blended with the flax oil). And although sugar should be avoided, honey and/or grape juice are encouraged as a way to sweeten things up.

Who knows if it's actually successful in reducing the risk of cancer but whether it does or not, a healthy diet is a healthy diet! I really feel so much better since trying it out ... (and for me to break my addiction to sugar and all things sugar-filled was no small feat, let me assure you!!)

[Rune]

I'm with Scott on this one.. and I can recommend bike riding for the exercise part

I think most of the advice in the original post is very sound. It's a good idea to eat a lot of vegetables, fruit and whole grain bread and getting enough healthy fat is definitely important as well. Flaxseed oil, olive oil or fish oil are great sources for omega-3, -6 and -9.

To add to the list, I would recommend avoiding food containing trans fatty acids, which has been proven to be a carcinogen. Its use is illegal in Denmark and a lot of other European countries, but for some reason it's still being used in the US, mainly because it's cheaper.

However, I would like to see real, hard evidence to support animal protein being linked to incidence of cancer. The traditional diet of my countrymen in Greenland, for instance, consisted mainly of animal meat from seals, whales and fish and the general cancer rate in Greenland was very low until they started adopting a more "western lifestyle".

Another problem with avoiding all dairy products and animal meat is that it makes it hard to get enough protein. It's very possible, but it does require eating a lot of vegetables each day. Not getting enough protein will cause the body to break down muscle in order to cover its needs.

I agree about the refined sugar, but not the "cancerous cells [..] rely on sugar for survival" quote, which would seem to indicate that it's possible to cure cancer by removing all sugar from the diet

I guess what I'm really trying to say, is: A given diet may cause cancer or it might protect against cancer, but it has not been shown that following a given diet can cure cancer. Not that it isn't important to eat healthy foods while in treatment..

I'll get off my soapbox now -- just wanted to add my two cents to the subject

I can certainly relate to feeling better after changing diet. I have a lot more energy after I started eating more sensible food and exercising more a couple of years ago.. dropped 40 pounds as well

[Eric]

my two cents

Hi Retroperitommy

There is an inreresting thread on this forum called "recurrence prevention" started by adrian i think. He talk about the breuss cancer diet(i personnaly believe that this can work for some people). At the end of the same thread i talk about an great biochimist in my country who is the author of a book called "Food that fight cancer" and now available in usa. This book talk about the research done by his lab on a lot of food and scientificaly prooved that has an effect on cancer. There is a daily dose of each that can give the optimum protection against cancer. You can't be 100% sure that you will avoid cancer with this diet but you will certainly reduce your risk considerably. At the end of the same thread TSX include the internet link to this book. A lot of food that you talk about are prooved to have an effect on cancer and also flaxseed(what i call linseed) is also used in this diet. I personally try to follow this diet the best that i can. It's easy to begin slowly like including flaxseed in my cereal, poor a teaspoon of turmeric in my daily vegetable juice, drink 1 glass of wine every day, always eat more vegetable than meat, try to drink one cup of green tea every night. I still have a place for an ocasionally hot-dog, big-mac or pizza.

[Scott]

...a book called "Food that fight cancer" and now available in usa. This book talk about the research done by his lab on a lot of food and scientificaly prooved that has an effect on cancer.

Here's a link to information on Amazon.com about Foods That Fight Cancer.