Research tells us that certain foods like extra virgin olive oil, oily fish, nuts and seeds, polyphenols and pulses all contain bioactive ingredients that can reduce inflammation, cut oestrogen, blood sugar and cholesterol, while strengthening the immune system, improving blood oxygenation, iodine levels, minerals and helping to fight cancer.
Some foods are even known to kill cancer stem cells - the cells that drive recurrence.
One of the easiest things for a person with cancer to address is their diet. Here is a list of 12 really important food groups to include in your diet. But first .....
Some hard evidence that changing your diet is crucial
Good cancer nutrition can be vital in increasing your personal odds of survival. A 2012 report by the American Cancer Society, covered in Cancer Watch our research centre, stated that there was overwhelming evidence that diet and exercise could increase survival and even prevent a cancer returning. A second study that ran for seven years, involving stage 3 colorectal cancer patients who had had surgery and chemotherapy, showed those who stuck closest to the colourful Mediterranean Diet (the rainbow diet) and the exercise programme survived 32 per cent longer with 42% less dying during the seven years. Ask your Doctor which drug can do that!!!
A study from Harvard following women for 15 years showed that those who adhered most closely to the colourful Mediterranean Diet with is natural bioactive ingredients, were free of 11 chronic illnesses at the end of the study.
If your Oncologists and nurses tell you 'it's a waste of time' or belittle you when you tell them you've changed your diet to better fight cancer, they are totally WRONG.
Their drugs are damaging your vitamin D levels, your magnesium level, your gut microbiome, you immune system; increasing blood sugar, cholesterol and inflammation, destroying B vitamins and more. Are they saying you should not bother to correct their damage?
Sometime, check out The Rainbow diet - the first Edition was written by Chris Woollams in 2005. It is a lifestyle, not just a diet.
12 foods to fight cancer
The first thing I need to say here is that your Number 1 compound for beating cancer is vitamin D3. On cancer diagnosis a staggering 80% of all patients are seriously deficient. Yet it arms your immune system and can correct cancer cells. It's crucial. There are receptor sites for 'hormone' D on all these cells.
Deficiency is below 80 nmol/L; and a healthy blood level is 125+ nmol/L. Where do those figures come from? The American Government, Harvard Medical School and Professor Michael Holick of Boston Medical School who is a Professor of breast cancer and has spent 30 years researching vitamin D.
Here's the problem. There's almost no vitamin D in food. You cannot get vitamin D from your daily diet. Milk is often quoted as containing it - no, only if it has been fortified (i.e. supplemented). Fish oils and organic mushrooms have a little. Everybody should be supplementing with at least 5,000 IUs a day according to Holick.
Be clear. People who get over 125 nmol/L in their bloodstream survive longer.
And to repeat, whatever you read, there's next to none in your food. And your oncologist's drugs will lower your levels!
Sunshine or supplement - that's the answer.
Now here are twelve foods areas to start your cancer fighting programme.
1: Oily Fish for Long chain Omega-3
Fish oil will provide long chain omega-3, a powerful anti-inflammatory in the body that minimizes COX-2 and its abilities to drive localised negative hormones called eicosanoids, which cause inflammation all over the body and drive cancer metastases. Long chain omega-3 has been shown to re-lengthen telomeres, which shorten when you have cancer putting the DNA structure at risk and reducing longevity. Fish oils also contain vitamin A, an important vitamin in the fight against cancer (herring, mackerel and salmon are top of the list). Fish oils have been linked to reduced levels of prostate, breast and colon cancer. Research shows they help prevent cachexia when having chemotherapy (that's when the chemo drastically lowers your body weight). You' ll also get a little vitamin D from oily fish, another proven cancer fighter. Omega 3 from fish is an important ingredient in your cancer diet. Please note that the omega 3 from flaxseed is short-chain, equally important but has different benefits (for example, it helps oxygenate the tissues and provides essential fibre).
2: Polyphenols - They protect and correct
Eat your colours - they protect and correct. Berries, cocoa products, turneric, seasonings and herbs, drinks like green tea, red grape juice, red wine, real coffee, olive oil, nuts and seeds. There arev over 500 in the Rainbow Diet. See -
Polyphenols - top foods for health
Kick off your day wit a green vegetable juice - A great juice to make yourself involves broccoli, kale, spinach, celery, cucumber and other greens like wheat grass and chlorella, with some sea kelp for iodine. Sweeten with Stevia and beetroot (for anthocyanins) with a helping of calming 5 gm of raw ginger root.
A real cancer fighting drink! It oxygenates the blood, gives you oestradiol blocking phytoestrogen, and helps you produce glutathione, the second largest antioxidant you make! The Sea Kelp will help you have good iodine levels in your body. Iodine oxygenates you, corrects the metabolism of cells and kills cancer and cancer stem cells. Iodine is essential for good thyroid hormone production, lowering fatigue and reducing anaemia risk. We think you should consume sea fish or sea kelp pills 4-5 times a week. 80% of people with cancer are low in iodine.
Pectins are food in the walls of fruit and vegetables. They are adored by your helpful gut bacteria. In particular they turn them into three crucial Short Chain Fatty Acids (SCFAs) - Propionate, Acetate and Butyrate - that are essential to your good health. Your oncologist doesn't know this. SCFAs control your body - drugs and antibiotics damage their levels.
Yes, you will Nourish yourself better if you Nourish your good gut bacteria.
By the way, a red pepper is the top source of vitamin C in the UK - even better than oranges.
Beware, many drugs include some chemo drugs and all statins have interference from grapefruit, its juice and large Seville type oranges. These also encourage more oestradiol production too. Avoid.
3: Ginger
Fresh, raw ginger has a number of very important benefits in cancer. It is a terrific anti-inflammatory agent throughout the body and reduces the effects of COX-2. This produces benefits in the body and in the gut, reducing rates of cancer spread. It also lowers blood sugar levels, and gingerol has been shown to have direct anti-cancer effects against prostate, breast, leukaemia and other cancer cells. Fresh ginger also kills certain microbes. Good with your green juice which in Chinese medicine is 'cold'. Ginger balances Yin and Yang.
Blend 5 gm or more of ginger each day into your green juice. Absolutely no fruit. It is also full of helpful vitamins and minerals and is anti-parasitic.
4: Nuts and Seeds
Several cancers have research showing that the consumption of nuts and seeds are survival enhancing. Colorectal, breast and prostate for example.
SEEDS are full of good oils, whole vitamins in a natural form (like vitamin E) and fibre to strengthen your gut flora. People who consume the highest levels of natural fibre have higher immune systems. For example:
Sunflower Seeds
High in zinc and natural vitamin E. Zinc is essential to your immune system, helps vitamin C do its work and accelerates healing time. It is important to a healthy prostate. You need 15 to 25 mg per day. Five tablespoons of sunflower seeds give you 10 mg. Sunflower seeds will also provide a little selenium.
Pumpkin Seeds
Can be mixed with the sunflower seeds in your morning muesli. 5 tablespoons will each provide 20 mg of total vitamin E. including tocotrienols, the ultimate cancer buster; these inhibit cancer cell growth and protects immune cells from free radicals. Vitamin E boosts your immune systems fighting abilities. Total Vitamin E in the high street doesn't exist. Of 4 tocopherols and 4 tocotrienols, most vitamin E supplements are just synthetic alpha-tocopherol. Eat Sunflower and pumpkin seeds.
Sesame Seeds
The unique lignans can reduce blood pressure and lipid levels. Research shows they can fight inflammation and also cancer! Gamma tocopherol vitamin E reduces inflammation around the body. It is also high in Red Rice Bran oil, which lowers blood sugar and cholesterol. Both sesame and flax lignans are converted to compounds that can arrest oestrogen cancers.
Flaxseed, like the green juices above are an important part of your daily anticancer diet. They oxygenate your blood, are friendly phytoestrogens that block bad oestradiol, and they help you make Glutathione - your number 2 antioxidant that helps clean up cancer cells.
NUTS - People who eat just two handsful of nuts every day survive longer according to research in Cancer Watch.
Brazil nuts - six nuts that you crack a day should give you your daily selenium; 100 to 200 mcg is the goal. Selenium is a very potent anti-cancer agent and releases Thyroid hormone from the Thyroid. Other sources - eight slices of wholemeal bread, an organic egg, or a large chicken breast will also be enough.(Tuna, onions, broccoli and tomatoes contain selenium too.
Walnuts- research with breast cancer and CRC shows that walnuts have huge benefits; not least they can correct mistakes in your message copying system. Walnuts also provide good oils, and ellagitanin, which is loved by your gut bacteria.
Almonds are a helpful additions to your diet because they contain good oils, high natural fibre and compounds that calm you.
Pistachio nuts - Raw pistachio nuts don't just give you the fibre and boost your microbiome. They give you Ursolic acid which kills Cancer Stem Cells - the cells at the heart of every cancer; the cells that cause recurrence. Ursolic Acid kills more CSCs if you combine it with Resveratrol, Turmeric, black pepper and lycopene. Like most of these compounds, you should eat a little fat with them (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) to improve absorption.
"At last the definitive book on a diet to fight cancer". Mrs BS Devon.
Go to: The Rainbow Diet and how it can help you beat cancer
Remember too that bioactive natural compounds are likely to do you a lot more good than synthetic pills! Many such compounds have strong and proven epigenetic benefits.
By the way, avoid Peanuts. They contain a compound cancer cells try to make to spread.
5: Mushrooms
There's an enormous body of research evidence now that shows how organic medicinal mushrooms (Shiitake, Maitake, Cordyceps etc) boost the immune system and fight cancer. Even an organic button mushroom has cancer fighting ingredients. Reishi and Chaga are good for Er+ve cancers. Everything from breast to prostate and endometria to testicular.
Organic Turkey Tail powder is essential if you are having chemotherapy - keeps your white cells up, makes drugs more effective, increases survival times!
HPV can be 'eradicated' according to Texas Medical school by an ingredient called AHCC from Shiitake mushrooms.
We know that research shows people who consume large quantities of fresh mushrooms don't get cancer.
We have a great review on medicinal mushrooms (Click Here). They must be organic for full benefit.
6: Carotenoids
Seven to ten helpings of tomatoes per week, especially cooked. Lycopene is the prime active ingredient, and 25 - 60 mg the desired daily dose.
According to Harvard research 7-10 helpings of cooked tomatoes a week cuts prostate symptoms by 40% and lycopene reduces the risk of aggressive prostate cancer and fatal prostate cancer. Lycopene is an alpha-carotene, kills E coli in the body, switches bad cholesterol into good, lowers dangerous Lipoprotein A levels and thus has an influence on many cancers e.g.: Prostate, lung; colon; cervix; breast.
Along with apricots, red and yellow peppers, greens like kale and spinach and sweet potatoes, carrots and tomatoes provide anti-cancer carotenoids like lycopene (an alpha carotene) and natural beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A, as and when required by the body. 1 cup of carrot juice, 2 sweet potatoes, 16 dried apricots and 4 cups of red cherries will each provide 25 mg. Don't eat them all at once - people have been known to turn a little orange! Fruits should be eaten on an empty stomach; green juices first thing in the morning.
Carotenoids are also found in strawberries, peppers, water melon and peaches, but one tin of tomato soup has 65 mg alone. Lycopene is a strong antioxidant. Saturated fat is known to help cancer spread.
7: Green Leafy Vegetables
A big driver of cancer is Homocysteine - it screws up your cellular copying process, and causes inflammation. To lower it you can take berberine, consume Turmeric or produce B vitamins (providing you have enough long chain omega 3 in your body). In particular, Folate (B-9) and vitamin B-12 are essential. But we can't make or release them without good levels of gut bacteria,
Along with avocado, beans, carrots, apricots, pumpkins, and egg yolk green vegetables will give you folate, if your gut bacteria are strong.
This will also help your DNA to replicate properly and protect it during radiotherapy.
400 micrograms is a recommended daily amount. Folate, biotin, choline and inositol, niacin and vitamin B12 are all B vitamins that help in the cancer fight. Niacin has even been shown to kill cancer cells. Egg yolk, greens and whole grains are the best sources. Whole Grains are important in your diet - it's a simple switch. Don't eat a grain if is refined.
It doesn't just stop there. Green vegetables and sprouting seeds are a source of sulforaphanes which have strong epigenetic (cancer correcting) benefits and have been shown to aid survival from colorectal cancer.
A diet rich in greens will help alkalyse your body. A slightly alkaline body is important as it improves the performance of your immune system and research shows it stops new metastases.
8: Broccoli
Like other green cruciferous vegetables (e.g. cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts), broccoli contains fibre which helps eliminate toxins
Moreover, the fibre is rich in galactose, which binds to damaging agents in the intestine, and is one of the favourite foods of good, helpful gut bacteria (as are carrots, apples, chicory and onions).
Broccoli also contains indoles, and especially indole3carbinol which, along with its metabolite DIM, modifies and diminishes aggressive oestrogen action (oestradiol), can modify cellular oestrogen receptor sites, and aids in fighting oestrogen-driven cancers like some breast, prostate, brain and colorectal cancers. Professor Rob Thomas was putting off the need fr prostate surgery by 4 years in newly diagnosed patients - he was giving them broccoli juice, broccoli soup, tomatoes and exercise.
I3C and DIM were also found to have action in non-oestrogen driven cancers as they can also affect the p27 cancer pathway.
9: Garlic and Red onions
Both are truly wonderful foods. Active ingredients like allicin seem to act to stop the spread of cancer in a number of ways, for example by stopping blood supply formation for tumours.
Garlic also kills microbes and yeasts - after taking drugs and antibiotics the body is often susceptible to these. Garlic is also anti-inflamatory in the body. It has a number of active ingredients. It contains selenium, tryptophan and sulphur-based active agents that attack cancer cells.
Finally, Garlic and red onions help you make glutathione. They clean your blood and lower pollution in your cells. Two or three raw cloves of garlic raw per day will ward off more than vampires.
10: Anthocyanins
And cherries, aubergines, plums, red grapes, red rice bran, red cabbage - indeed any purple coloured fruits and vegetables. They contain anthocyanins (and sometimes also resveratrol). Anthocyanins have been shown to kill cancer cells; Resveratrrol has research supporting its role in fighting certain cancers like blood and brain cancers too.
11: Pulses (legumes)
Pulses are important to your gut bacteria. Pulses, oats, vegetables and nuts and seeds don't just provide fibre; they provide soluble fibre - the favourite food of your good bacteria. Feeding them soluble fibre boosts their numbers and boosts you immune system in response.
Lentils, chickpeas, beans, peas, kidney beans and even soya beans are also a great source of plant protein. Most importantly they release their carbohydrate slowly because of their high fibre content. Their consumption reduces cholesterol and blood glucose.
Pulses also contain isoflavones called phytoestrogens. People get confused about plant oestrogen. The cells of your body have oestrogen receptor sites. When one form of human oestrogen (oestradiol) binds to them, the result is havoc inside your cells. About 40 times less potent is human oestrogen oestrone and about 40 to 50 times less potent still are plant oestrogens. These are your friends. Now which would you rather have sitting on your receptors? Pulses also provide fibre like lignans that can help neutralise free-radicals in the gut andblood stream.
Phytoestrogens bind more weakly than human oestrogen and wash through the body - so you need to eat them daily.
12: Unsaturated fats and oils
85% of your fats and oil consumption should come from Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Olives (black and green); oily fish and fish oils; avocados and avocado oil (the best to cook with because of its high flash point), and the good nuts and seeds as we covered above.
You should usually NOT consume saturated fat - dairy: milk, butter, cheese, yoghurt; or mass market beef, prawns, refined, processed and packaged foods; nor seed oils (they contain highly inflammatory omega-6); nor coconut oil and coconut products (92% Saturated fat).
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Supplements?
The National Cancer Institute in America produced research in July/August 2012 (see Cancer Watch). Dr. Young S. Kim and her team of researchers concluded that a poor diet (too much glucose, bad fats, cows dairy, too much salt, too many refined and junk foods) could cause a cancer to regrow from the Cancer Stem Cells left behind after orthodox treatment.
However, from all the cancer and nutrition studies, Dr. Kim also concluded that certain natural compounds in foods could stop this regrowth.Those compounds they said could even be taken as supplements. This list included: Sulforaphanes, Resveratrol, Turmeric/Curcumin, Piperine (black pepper), Vitamin E (naturally sourced and including all 8 tocopherols and tocotrienols) and Vitamin A, Theanine and Choline, EGCG from green tea, and genistein (from soy and the herb red clover).
Check out - 12 Supplements to fight cancer. Click Here
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Herbs that Fight Cancer?
Check out 20 herbs that fight cancer - Click Here.
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A Drink that fights cancer?
Choose green tea. Three cups per day help to neutralise free radicals. The Mayo clinic even claims from research that 3-5 cups a day can stop the growth of certain cancers. Actually a cup of real, organic black coffee is good for you, too.
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Other articles to read?
For 12 effective ways to boost your immune system - Click Here
For 25 Epigenetic natural compounds Click Here.
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More on Foods and other diseases?
Pulses for diabetes prevention, sulphoraphanes for autism, high fibre, less mortality from any cause.
Go to: The research is all on Chris Woollams Health Watch
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At last,the definitive, research-based book on how to build a diet to help beat cancer.Click hereto read about the brand new fourth edition - launchedFebruary2015.
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A diet to beat cancer
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Chris Woollams Health Watch