An Anti-Cancer Diet?

An Anti-Cancer Diet?
Some foods have specific cancer fighting properties.
As we learn more and more about the causes of cancer, it’s not unusual to hear newly diagnosed people wonder if they could have avoided their disease—like you can heart disease—by eating better. The short answer is a qualified yes, but not because there’s such a thing as "the anticancer diet." Still, studies show that people who eat low-fat, high-fiber diets have lower rates of cancer.
Not surprisingly, this type of diet contains lots of fruits and vegetables—and very little red or processed meat. In fact, a study last year found that these two foods increase the risk of colorectal cancer by 30 percent. A different study of 500,000 people aged 50 to 71 also linked eating red meat to lung cancer and an elevated risk for cancer of the esophagus and liver. So an anti-cancer diet—if one existed— would cut way back on meat and load up on the fruits and veggies. Vegetables contain lots of vitamins and minerals and an astonishing variety of phytonutrients, like carotenoids and flavonoids, that have a positive impact on health. Research reports that carotenoids, for example, protect us against some cancers, as well as heart disease and macular degeneration. The best known, alpha- and beta-carotenoids are found in carrots and leafy greens respectively.
No one would suggest that there’s a "magic" food out there, but some foods seem to have specific cancer fighting properties; here are some of the most recent discoveries:
• Black Raspberries Studies at Ohio State University found that eating this fruit may protect high-risk people from esophageal cancer, a particularly deadly form with only a 15 percent 5-year survival rate. The berries reduced an oxidative stress marker by 58 percent and increased the levels of a protective enzyme by 37 percent.
• Cruciferous Vegetables Members of this group—including broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower—appear to reduce bladder cancer risk by roughly 40 percent. They contain a class of phytonutrients called isothiocyanates (ITCs). You’ve got to eat them raw to get the full benefit, however—cooking cuts the ITCs by 60 to 90 percent.
• Red Tomatoess The carotenoid lycopene provides a dose of prevention against prostate, breast, and lung cancers. You can buy lycopene as a supplement, but at least one study has shown that eating the whole tomato inhibited prostate cancer more effectively. Lycopene is more concentrated in tomato paste and for some reason it’s better absorbed from cooked tomatoes.
• Garlic This aromatic food, which has innumerable culinary uses, has long been known in the herb world for its antiseptic properties. Now researchers have discovered that people who eat 5 cloves of garlic a week have 30 percent less risk of colon cancer than those who eat only 1. The likely reason: the same sulfur-containing compounds that give garlic its odor also contain antioxidant flavonoids and the vitamins A and D.
• Flax Seeds The phytoestrogens in this health food contain lignans, which are similar to, but weaker than, natural estrogen. Researchers think they reduce the risk of hormone-driven cancers (breast and uterine) by blocking excessive estrogen production.
Sweet Alternatives
Americans have a colossal sweet tooth—we average 2 to 3 pounds of refined sugar a week—and all that sucrose, dextrose, and high-fructose corn syrup raises blood insulin levels and depresses the immune system. The insulin spikes can lead to insulin resistance and Type-2 diabetes, and a depressed immune system leaves us prone to viral and bacterial infections—and to more serious chronic diseases. The natural, unrefined sweeteners listed below can satisfy your sugar cravings without undermining your health.
Honey This classic sweetener contains vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and amino acids. It also has antibacterial properties. Even so, don’t give honey to children less than a year old; it may contain spores that cause infant botulism.
Agave Syrup Also known as honey water or agave nectar, this Mexican sweetener comes from the heart of the agave cactus—a plant held sacred by the Aztec. Lighter and less viscous than honey, it dissolves easily in hot or cold beverages. It is 50 percent sweeter than sugar, but with fewer calories. It also gets absorbed more slowly, thus avoiding a spike in insulin levels.
Stevia This age-old sweetener can’t be sold as a sugar substitute—even though it’s 100 times sweeter than sugar and calorie-free. For some reason, the FDA says it has not been proven safe as a food additive. Yet studies show stevia helps lower blood sugar, which would make it a good sugar substitute for diabetics.
Salt of the Sea
The debate about the role of salt in cardiovascular disease (CVD) got a little testy last May when a sizable study found that people who ate the least amount of salt were 80 percent more likely to die from CVD than the quartile that ate the most. Critics immediately pointed to earlier studies linking high salt intake with a number of health risks including high blood pressure and CVD. However, data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)—a nationwide study undertaken every 10 years—seems to support the new information. NHANES associated a low-salt diet with a 400 percent higher risk of heart attack in men.
Actually, this seems to make sense. We have more salt in our body than anything other than water. We need it to digest our food, and our heart, adrenal glands, liver, and kidneys can’t function without it.
The problem may very well lie with "refined" salt, the type you’ll find in salt shakers and hidden (in huge quantities) in processed foods. Refined salt contains three ingredients: sodium chloride (more than 98 percent), iodine (.01 percent), and anti-caking materials (up to 2 percent). Unrefined sea salt, on the other hand, contains more than 80 minerals, many of which play essential roles in our body’s chemistry.
Perhaps it’s time to get your salt and your minerals in one food. Just bear in mind that you want unrefined sea salt—the type that’s produced by evaporating sea water.
Sop Up Excess Cholesterol
That old "hearty bowl of oatmeal" phrase contains more truth than its coiner every dreamed of. Yes, oatmeal will keep you full until lunch, but more importantly it will go a long way toward keeping your heart healthy as well, by lowering cholesterol levels by as much as 20 percent. Based on earlier research that showed oatmeal’s special ability to lower LDL cholesterol—the "bad" kind—the FDA decided about 10 years ago to allow manufacturers of oatmeal, oat bran, and oat flour to put heart-health claims on their labels. More recently, researchers have figured out how this hearty grain does its cholesterol-fighting thing.
Oatmeal contains lots of soluble fiber, which binds to bile acids and inhibits the formation of micelles, chemical compounds that help the gut absorb cholesterol and other fats. With fewer micelles present, those fats simply pass through the digestive tract untouched—without contributing to high levels of cholesterol in the blood.
In addition, the fiber-bound bile acids also get flushed—instead of reabsorbed as usual—causing a bile acid deficit. And guess how they’re made—by converting blood cholesterol to new bile salt acids in the liver.
In essence the soluble fiber found in oatmeal acts like a sponge to sop up cholesterol in the digestive tract and it causes the body to draw cholesterol from the blood. That’s a twofer, well, actually, make it a threefer because oatmeal seems even more likely to target the small, dense LDL particles (called pattern B), which scientists think may pose more risk than the larger, fluffier pattern-A LDL particles