Eating to be cancer free
How to eat to prevent cancer, its recurrence, or progression
There is no magic way to prevent cancer, or its recurrence, or its progression, by eating special foods. In general terms, the high fat, low fibre, highly processed diet of most Westerners may be one of many factors that has contributed to an increase in the incidence of certain cancers in Western countries, particularly bowel cancer. In certain very special circumstances, the excessive consumption of certain foods has been linked with certain specific cancers. An example is the consumption of betel nuts which cause cancers of the mouth when these nuts are chewed, a habit that is common in some parts of the world like the Indian sub-continent. Another example is the excessive consumption of very charred meat which has been linked to the high incidence of cancer of the stomach (gastric cancer) in certain Asian countries.
However, most of the claims made in the popular press and on the Internet regarding dietary causes of cancer have not held up when they have been examined carefully by epidemiologists. One recent example of this is the book "Dairy Foods and Breast Cancer" by Professor Jane Plant, which claims amongst other things that breast cancer can be prevented, and even treated, by taking a diet free of dairy products. (Professor Plant is Professor of Geology, not Medicine. She is a breast cancer survivor.) Many extensive surveys throughout the world have failed to show any dietary link with breast cancer, except for a very slight increase in risk in those who consume more than three alcoholic drinks per day. There is absolutely no evidence that breast cancer is linked to the consumption of dairy products. In fact, those who completely substitute dairy products with soy milk and its derivatives may be consuming a larger than normal amount of plant oestrogens which may be potentially harmful with respect to both the cause and the treatment of breast cancer. Furthermore, women who do so may be receiving less than the amount of daily calcium that they need to preserve bone health and prevent the thinning of the bones which occurs during menopause and is known as osteoporosis.
What about vitamins, antioxidants, selenium, and trace elements?
My advice to you is to avoid fad diets and to follow the sensible balanced diet set out below. If you do so, you will be obtaining a fully balanced supply of vitamins and antioxidants, minerals, and trace elements. It is probably important to get your vitamins and antioxidants in the balanced environment of fresh fruit and vegetables, rather than overwhelming the intestine and the liver with the excessive concentrations that are usually found in vitamin supplements. There is as yet very little reliable evidence that excessive amounts of vitamin supplements reduce the risk of cancer. In fact, there is some evidence that vitamin E and vitamin A may cause an increase in the incidence of certain cancers when taken in the quantities commonly found in vitamin supplements.
Diet 1: Eating to be Cancer-Free
Vegetables
Have at least one serving daily of leafy green vegetables minimally cooked. Salads are ideal. Other good choices include green beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and spinach. A good way to cook them is like this:
Take a small amount of olive oil and glaze 1 chopped onion in it. Towards the end of cooking, add some chopped parsley, one bay leaf, and, if you like, some garlic. Now turn the heat down to low and add the washed chopped vegetables with some salt and pepper. Place a lid on the pan and cook until the vegetables are just "al dente ". Whatever you'd do, do not over-cook the vegetables.
Be sure that you have a lot of variety in your other vegetables. There are no hard and fast rules here, but try to take vegetables from each of the broad colour groups at least once during the week. From the orange group you will be choosing carrots and pumpkin, for example, from the yellow group, corn and squashes, and from the red group, tomatoes and capsicums. Make it a habit to go to the greengrocer several times a week and choose the best and freshest vegetables that are in season.
Fruit
Try to have three pieces of fresh fruit daily. Try to get as much variety as possible in the fruit you eat during the week. Buy the fruit that looks best and is in season and is fresh. Try to avoid fruit that has spent a long time in cold storage. If you're not a fruit eater, make it a habit to visit a shopping mall where there is a fruit juice kiosk, and tell them to prepare for you large freshly made juice from whatever fruit takes your fancy.
Prepare a fruit platter instead of desert for the evening meal, or a freshly made the fruit salad.
Meat and Fish
Have some meat on most days, but choose a quantity approximately the size of one palm of your hand, not double that (which is what most Australians do!) Remove excess fat from the meat before cooking, and grill or roast the meat rather than frying it.
Try to have at least one fish meal per week and the best fish is that which is rather oily. A good example is Atlantic salmon or trout. Tinned salmon or smoked salmon are excellent choices for sandwiches. Again, when cooking fish try to grill it rather than fry it but if you must fry meat or fish always use olive oil.
Pulses and Legumes
These include lentils, split peas, haricot beans, and other beans of all types. They are an excellent source of protein, and contain many important trace elements and minerals. Australians do not eat enough of them, and if you want to find creative ways of using them try any of the major Middle Eastern cookbooks, like “The Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook " by Tessa Mallos. For the hungry family, lentils in a meat stew will make the meat go much further. There is nothing wrong either, with tinned baked beans as a snack or for breakfast.
Nuts
Nuts are an important source of trace elements and minerals. Again, Middle Eastern cuisine use them extensively and creatively. Choose nuts and dried fruit instead of other nibbles for drink time or between meal snacks. Try to get as much variety as you can. Choose unsalted nuts. Almonds are particularly rich in nutrients.
Breads and grains.
Try to use whole grain bread. Get variety into the carbohydrate content of your meals, by having rice several times per week and pasta several times, alternating with the potatoes cooked in various ways. Avoid frying and especially deep frying. Roast potatoes or mash them. Basmati rice is the best.
Alcohol
Alcohol is fine in moderation. That means no more than three standard drinks per day with at least three rest days, preferably consecutively, during the week. The best choice is probably red wine, because it contains antioxidants.
Other Beverages
Avoid soft drinks, and choose fresh fruit juice or mineral water. Tea and coffee are fine, but try to keep them under three cups per day. Green tea is probably the best choice.
Dairy foods
Dairy foods are an important source of calcium. Women should have at least two servings daily. Low fat dairy foods are recommended. Low fat yoghurt is ideal. Dairy foods do not cause breast cancer and they do not influence its behaviour! See below.
Fast Foods and Eating Out
Eating out is a great and relaxing pastime, and often one of the only ways that we get to sit down and communicate with our families. Eating at home is frequently made chaotic by the different schedules of various family members, particularly during the working week.
The trick is to find a good restaurant where people know your eating habits, not to be afraid to tell them your specific needs, and to make the right choices. Probably the simplest of all for good healthy eating are Italian restaurants, where a healthy pasta dish, and a salad make a good choice. For main course elections, grilled chicken or fish dishes are ideal. Try to avoid the creamy pasta sauces.
Asian restaurants are also good, but unfortunately they frequently use large amounts of saturated animal fat in preparing their dishes.
Lebanese or Middle Eastern restaurants can also be good, but avoid the fatty meat dishes, deep-fried foods and pastries.
Fast food is mostly a disaster. Sometimes it is unavoidable, and if that is the case, the healthiest choice is probably a good old-fashioned hamburger with all the salad loaded on. The occasional pizza is okay, but ask them to make it with half the normal amount of cheese, and avoid those fatty deep crusted commercial pizzas.
Do dairy foods cause breast cancer or make it come back?
No! See my notes at Breast Cancer Myths
Dietary fat and reducing breast cancer recurrence
The Women's Intervention Nutrition Study (WINS) was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). It looked at the impact of dietary fat reduction on risk of recurrence in women with primary breast cancer.
In this trial, more than 2400 women who had received standard adjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer were prospectively randomized to a control group or a dietary intervention group for 5 years. The control group was instructed to maintain a low-fat diet while the dietary intervention group was placed on a very low-fat diet that restricted daily caloric fat intake to < 15% of total calories consumed. There was a significant reduction in recurrence in those on the strict low-fat diet. Among ER-negative (hormone receptor negative) patients, the dietary intervention resulted in a 42% reduction in the likelihood of recurrence. It is possible that this is somehow linked to insulin growth factors (IgF) and their receptors on breast cancer cells.
There is no magic way to prevent cancer, or its recurrence, or its progression, by eating special foods. In general terms, the high fat, low fibre, highly processed diet of most Westerners may be one of many factors that has contributed to an increase in the incidence of certain cancers in Western countries, particularly bowel cancer. In certain very special circumstances, the excessive consumption of certain foods has been linked with certain specific cancers. An example is the consumption of betel nuts which cause cancers of the mouth when these nuts are chewed, a habit that is common in some parts of the world like the Indian sub-continent. Another example is the excessive consumption of very charred meat which has been linked to the high incidence of cancer of the stomach (gastric cancer) in certain Asian countries.
However, most of the claims made in the popular press and on the Internet regarding dietary causes of cancer have not held up when they have been examined carefully by epidemiologists. One recent example of this is the book "Dairy Foods and Breast Cancer" by Professor Jane Plant, which claims amongst other things that breast cancer can be prevented, and even treated, by taking a diet free of dairy products. (Professor Plant is Professor of Geology, not Medicine. She is a breast cancer survivor.) Many extensive surveys throughout the world have failed to show any dietary link with breast cancer, except for a very slight increase in risk in those who consume more than three alcoholic drinks per day. There is absolutely no evidence that breast cancer is linked to the consumption of dairy products. In fact, those who completely substitute dairy products with soy milk and its derivatives may be consuming a larger than normal amount of plant oestrogens which may be potentially harmful with respect to both the cause and the treatment of breast cancer. Furthermore, women who do so may be receiving less than the amount of daily calcium that they need to preserve bone health and prevent the thinning of the bones which occurs during menopause and is known as osteoporosis.
What about vitamins, antioxidants, selenium, and trace elements?
My advice to you is to avoid fad diets and to follow the sensible balanced diet set out below. If you do so, you will be obtaining a fully balanced supply of vitamins and antioxidants, minerals, and trace elements. It is probably important to get your vitamins and antioxidants in the balanced environment of fresh fruit and vegetables, rather than overwhelming the intestine and the liver with the excessive concentrations that are usually found in vitamin supplements. There is as yet very little reliable evidence that excessive amounts of vitamin supplements reduce the risk of cancer. In fact, there is some evidence that vitamin E and vitamin A may cause an increase in the incidence of certain cancers when taken in the quantities commonly found in vitamin supplements.
Diet 1: Eating to be Cancer-Free
Vegetables
Have at least one serving daily of leafy green vegetables minimally cooked. Salads are ideal. Other good choices include green beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and spinach. A good way to cook them is like this:
Take a small amount of olive oil and glaze 1 chopped onion in it. Towards the end of cooking, add some chopped parsley, one bay leaf, and, if you like, some garlic. Now turn the heat down to low and add the washed chopped vegetables with some salt and pepper. Place a lid on the pan and cook until the vegetables are just "al dente ". Whatever you'd do, do not over-cook the vegetables.
Be sure that you have a lot of variety in your other vegetables. There are no hard and fast rules here, but try to take vegetables from each of the broad colour groups at least once during the week. From the orange group you will be choosing carrots and pumpkin, for example, from the yellow group, corn and squashes, and from the red group, tomatoes and capsicums. Make it a habit to go to the greengrocer several times a week and choose the best and freshest vegetables that are in season.
Fruit
Try to have three pieces of fresh fruit daily. Try to get as much variety as possible in the fruit you eat during the week. Buy the fruit that looks best and is in season and is fresh. Try to avoid fruit that has spent a long time in cold storage. If you're not a fruit eater, make it a habit to visit a shopping mall where there is a fruit juice kiosk, and tell them to prepare for you large freshly made juice from whatever fruit takes your fancy.
Prepare a fruit platter instead of desert for the evening meal, or a freshly made the fruit salad.
Meat and Fish
Have some meat on most days, but choose a quantity approximately the size of one palm of your hand, not double that (which is what most Australians do!) Remove excess fat from the meat before cooking, and grill or roast the meat rather than frying it.
Try to have at least one fish meal per week and the best fish is that which is rather oily. A good example is Atlantic salmon or trout. Tinned salmon or smoked salmon are excellent choices for sandwiches. Again, when cooking fish try to grill it rather than fry it but if you must fry meat or fish always use olive oil.
Pulses and Legumes
These include lentils, split peas, haricot beans, and other beans of all types. They are an excellent source of protein, and contain many important trace elements and minerals. Australians do not eat enough of them, and if you want to find creative ways of using them try any of the major Middle Eastern cookbooks, like “The Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook " by Tessa Mallos. For the hungry family, lentils in a meat stew will make the meat go much further. There is nothing wrong either, with tinned baked beans as a snack or for breakfast.
Nuts
Nuts are an important source of trace elements and minerals. Again, Middle Eastern cuisine use them extensively and creatively. Choose nuts and dried fruit instead of other nibbles for drink time or between meal snacks. Try to get as much variety as you can. Choose unsalted nuts. Almonds are particularly rich in nutrients.
Breads and grains.
Try to use whole grain bread. Get variety into the carbohydrate content of your meals, by having rice several times per week and pasta several times, alternating with the potatoes cooked in various ways. Avoid frying and especially deep frying. Roast potatoes or mash them. Basmati rice is the best.
Alcohol
Alcohol is fine in moderation. That means no more than three standard drinks per day with at least three rest days, preferably consecutively, during the week. The best choice is probably red wine, because it contains antioxidants.
Other Beverages
Avoid soft drinks, and choose fresh fruit juice or mineral water. Tea and coffee are fine, but try to keep them under three cups per day. Green tea is probably the best choice.
Dairy foods
Dairy foods are an important source of calcium. Women should have at least two servings daily. Low fat dairy foods are recommended. Low fat yoghurt is ideal. Dairy foods do not cause breast cancer and they do not influence its behaviour! See below.
Fast Foods and Eating Out
Eating out is a great and relaxing pastime, and often one of the only ways that we get to sit down and communicate with our families. Eating at home is frequently made chaotic by the different schedules of various family members, particularly during the working week.
The trick is to find a good restaurant where people know your eating habits, not to be afraid to tell them your specific needs, and to make the right choices. Probably the simplest of all for good healthy eating are Italian restaurants, where a healthy pasta dish, and a salad make a good choice. For main course elections, grilled chicken or fish dishes are ideal. Try to avoid the creamy pasta sauces.
Asian restaurants are also good, but unfortunately they frequently use large amounts of saturated animal fat in preparing their dishes.
Lebanese or Middle Eastern restaurants can also be good, but avoid the fatty meat dishes, deep-fried foods and pastries.
Fast food is mostly a disaster. Sometimes it is unavoidable, and if that is the case, the healthiest choice is probably a good old-fashioned hamburger with all the salad loaded on. The occasional pizza is okay, but ask them to make it with half the normal amount of cheese, and avoid those fatty deep crusted commercial pizzas.
Do dairy foods cause breast cancer or make it come back?
No! See my notes at Breast Cancer Myths
Dietary fat and reducing breast cancer recurrence
The Women's Intervention Nutrition Study (WINS) was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). It looked at the impact of dietary fat reduction on risk of recurrence in women with primary breast cancer.
In this trial, more than 2400 women who had received standard adjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer were prospectively randomized to a control group or a dietary intervention group for 5 years. The control group was instructed to maintain a low-fat diet while the dietary intervention group was placed on a very low-fat diet that restricted daily caloric fat intake to < 15% of total calories consumed. There was a significant reduction in recurrence in those on the strict low-fat diet. Among ER-negative (hormone receptor negative) patients, the dietary intervention resulted in a 42% reduction in the likelihood of recurrence. It is possible that this is somehow linked to insulin growth factors (IgF) and their receptors on breast cancer cells.