Ran across this interesting article about the impact of nutrition on cancer prevention. Research continues to show how vital nutrition is to our overall wellbeing- physically, mentally, and emotionally. Its time to wake up and make a change!
Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer
A variety of factors in your body ensure that your cells only grow and divide when appropriate. But cancer cells are different. Something in your body’s immune system does not do its regulatory job, and they start growing and dividing rapidly in the process of neoplasia. They start hoarding energy from the blood; then they manipulate their surroundings to support their rapid growth.
Mitrochondria—The Glucose Consuming Energy Producers
In 1924, Otto Warburg, a 1931 Nobel Prize winner, came up with the idea that cancer begins with damage to the mitochondria in cells that knocks down their ability to use oxygen for energy. They become cancer cells and are forced to generate energy by inefficient fermentation and have to consume much more glucose to live. One of the mysteries about cancer has been that it rarely emerges from oxygen-rich muscle cells. This may well be because cancer cells can’t tolerate oxygen
All of the available evidence suggests that if we want to understand cancer better, we need to turn our attention to mitochondria, for it is here that the energy malfunctions occurring in cancer are found. If they can be reversed, normal cell death (apoptosis) might be increased and neoplastic cancer cell growth prevented.
Paul Talalay, professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences at Johns Hopkins University, found that cruciferous vegetables, such as arugula, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, and watercress, reduce and may block neoplasia. Another study that tracked breast cancer for six years showed that those who consumed the most foods rich in carotenoids, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, apricots and beets, lived longer than those who consumed less.
Anti-angiogenic therapies stop the growth of tumors and progression of cancers by limiting the formation of new blood vessels in cancer tumors (angiogenesis). Anti-angiogenic foods and beverages include strawberries, soybeans, parsley, garlic, tomatoes and four different teas: Chinese jasmine, Japanese sencha, Earl Grey, and a blend that is more potent than either one alone. Combining cruciferous, carotenoid, and anti-angiogenic foods may have merit in the prevention and treatment of cancer.
To top off of all of this suggestive evidence, Thomas Seyfried in his 2012 book Cancer as a Metabolic Disease makes a compelling case for the metabolic factors that lead to neoplasia. Two major conclusions emerge from the hypothesis that neoplasia is a metabolic disease: 1) many cancers regress and 2) many cancers may be prevented if carbohydrate intake is restricted. These conclusions are supported by the fact that obesityis a risk factor for cancer.
A low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet causes your body to start entering ketosis. This means that your body is using fat for energy and blood levels of ketones are elevated. Ketones are burned for energy just like glucose by normal cells. If glucose is unavailable, they can use either fatty acids or ketone bodies to provide energy. Cancer cells are unable to do this. They must have glucose.
Dr. Fred Hatfield is a case example of the efficacy of the ketogenic diet. He is an impressive guy: a power-lifting champion, author of dozens of books, and a millionaire businessman. But he’ll tell you his greatest accomplishment is killing his cancer in the nick of time. “The doctors gave me three months to live because of widespread metastatic cancer in my skeletal structure,” he recalled. While Hatfield was preparing to die, he heard about the ketogenic diet. With nothing to lose, he gave it a try and was shocked when it actually worked. “The cancer was gone!” he exclaimed. “Completely. To this day there’s no trace of it. And it’s been over five years.”
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)/Ubiquinol
CoQ10’s role as your body’s natural, powerful antioxidant and immune system stimulant curbs aging, cancer, and other diseases. It is more effective than other antioxidants, especially in its active form in the body: ubiquinol. Interest in it as a potential therapeutic agent in cancer was stimulated by a study that found that individuals with lung, pancreas and especially breast cancer were more likely to have low plasma CoQ10 levels than healthy controls.
In 1994, Knud Lockwood, a cancer specialist in Copenhagen who treated some 7,000 cases of breast cancer over 35 years wrote that until using CoQ10, he had “never seen a spontaneous complete regression of a 1.5 to 2.0 centimeter breast tumor, and had never seen a comparable regression on any conventional anti-tumor therapy.”
Akasha Center: CoQ10
Vitamin B17
Hunza is an area in the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan with approximately 30,000 inhabitants. The Hunzas apparently have been cancer free for over 900 years of their existence and generally live over 100 years. They have a natural diet and are comparatively free of toxic chemicals in the air and water. Their diet does not include white rice, white flour, sugar and, for the most part, meat. Instead, they eat locally grown organic fruit, vegetables, unprocessed fresh milk products and green or whole grains. They engage in regular meditative practices and exercise.
The Hunzas also eat fresh apricots for the three months they are in season, and the remainder of the year they eat dried apricots, including their seeds. This supplies them with 50 to 75 milligrams of Vitamin B17 a day, a substance that has anti-cancer properties.
Alkalinity and High Oxygen Levels
The pH of your tissues and body fluids mirrors the state of your health and your inner “cleanliness.” The closer the pH is to 7.35 to 7.45, the higher your level of health and well-being. Testing the pH of your saliva is desirable in general and especially if you have cancer. Litmus strips can be purchased at any drug store.
Cancer grows in an acidic environment (low pH), and acidity helps neoplasia and enables cancer cells to spread. The vast majority of highly processed foods—like white flour products and white sugar—have an acidic effect on your body and will overwork your body’s pH buffering systems. If you’re eating mainly grains, flour products and meat and washing these foods down with coffee, soda, and milk, you will almost certainly improve your health by replacing some of your food and beverage choices with fresh vegetables and other nutrient-dense foods. Paradoxically, fresh lemon juice is acidic until it enters the body where it is alkalizing.
CELLFOODTM is an oxygen-based product that enhances your overall health. It increases oxygen at the cellular level and enhances your body’s metabolic functions. Additionally, CELLFOOD can detoxify your body and increase your energy by transporting oxygen to your cells. It also has anti-oxidant and alkalinizing properties. For more than 45 years, CELLFOOD has safely provided nutritional benefits and more recently has been shown to suppress and kill cancer cells. Cancer cells thrive in an acidic body and cannot can’t stand high levels of oxygen.
Cancer Prevention
Although it seems far-fetched now, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that cancer can be ameliorated through nutritional means, just as we prevent scurvy, pernicious anemia, and pellagra. At the very least, we do know that nutrition plays causative, preventive, and treatment roles in cancer.
Psychology Today
Nutrition in the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer
Many cancers can be prevented and regress if carbohydrate intake is restricted.