Diet and cancer

The easiest and least expensive way to reduce your risk for cancer is just by eating a healthy diet - Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon, PhD, National Cancer Institute

Here's the WHO's stats on cancer:

Myarka

With all I've learned over these years of research, if I were asked to design a diet today that promoted the development of cancer to the maximum, I couldn't improve on our present diet! - Dr Richard Beliveau (* Meat, dairy, high levels of refined sugar and saturated fat, low levels of omega-3 and insufficient intake of fruit and vegetables)

In 1982, the National Research Council released a technical report 'Diet, Nutrition and Cancer' showing that diet was probably the greatest single factor in the epidemic of cancer - Dr Neal Barnard

This has been known for centuries in Buddhist tradition and
first published in macrobiotic Zen books.
Interesting enough, even with most pure and healthy meals, one
may still drift to cancer (if prone to), simply by eating 85% and more of Yin type meals.

This has been known for centuries in Buddhist tradition and
first published in macrobiotic Zen books.
Interesting enough, even with most pure and healthy meals, one
may still drift to cancer (if prone to), simply by eating 85% and more of Yin type meals.

What are considered yin type meals alks123 ???

The easiest and least expensive way to reduce your risk for cancer is just by eating a healthy diet - Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon, PhD, National Cancer Institute

I think this is very true, a healthy diet combined with exercise, which can also be 'free', and encourages things like lymph system drainage, is probably the best way to increase your chance of a healthy full life.

It is interesting to note that when people like Dr Max Gerson first suggested that diet could effect cancer tumours back in the 1930s he was ignored by the masses and criticized by those with a more conventional approach. These days there many scientists researching the positive effects of different foods on conditions such as cancer. In particular we have been interested in the benefits of raw foods and juices for some time. My OH did an article, '[url]Scientific Research shows Fruit Juice Reverses Cancer Tumours[/url]', citing some of the research that she found. Similarly a healthy diet would seem the way to go for [url]cholesterol control and Prevention of Heart Disease[/url] too.

Pete

Similarly a healthy diet would seem the way to go for [url]cholesterol control and Prevention of Heart Disease[/url] too.

The basis of holistic living is that good diet and exercise are essential for healthy living. But we also need to take into account that there are several other environmental and genetic factors that relate to cancer.

If we major on one parameter then balance is lost. I think everyone would agree that western lifestyles are generally bad for our health. Perhaps we should be looking at the Okinawa lifestyle where more people live past 100 than anywhere else in the world.

Myarka.

Yes, diet (in particular good water, fresh fruit and veg juices) are a great help for cancer prevention. The other thing that helps is fasting and self-cleansing - without that, in my opinion, even the best diet doesn't help all that much.

What are considered yin type meals alks123 ???

I posted the list of Yang meals in one thread on cancer.
The rest are Yin (approx 2/3 to 3/4 of meals in total).

snip
I think everyone would agree that western lifestyles are generally bad for our health. Perhaps we should be looking at the Okinawa lifestyle where more people live past 100 than anywhere else in the world.

Myarka.

I agree with that!

Pete

My friend has recently been diagnosed with Lymphoma and has heard that a macrobiotic diet can be hugely beneficial. Any thoughts on this?

A macrobiotic diet is healthy for all sorts of reasons - but I am not aware of any evidence that it helps with any form of cancer.It certainly won't do any harm tho 🙂

Your friend should be encouraged to do lots of research first. Macrobiotics is not just a diet - it's a whole way of life, and she may have to adopt a very 'regimented' daily routine. She will need help.

I've been caring for cancer patients for many years, and a few have adopted macrobiotics - but in each case it rarely lasted more than 3 months. It really does take team work.

During the 70's, I had an lovely friend, aged 62, with very severe rheumatoid arthritis, and he became macrobiotic. It helped his condition so much, he was able to go out hill-walking with his dogs, and swimming with his grandchildren. He was a widower, and retired, so had plenty of time to devote to the prep involved with his routine. He used to take a weekend 'off' every month, when he stayed with his family, and ate 'normal' food! It didn't have any adverse effects! He kept up macrobiotics for 5 years, and then went back to his old ways - he continued to be RA free until he died due to a heart attack aged 73.

I agree with Jabba that Macrobiotics is a way of life.

This is something to consider about health, it's very easy to pick up on a therapeutic technique hoping that it on its own provides a solution. But as someone said to me a couple of months ago, it's like jogging vs a wellbeing programme. Jogging may be beneficial on it's own, but jogging within an over all wellbeing package would be more beneficial.

The only thing I would say about macrobiotic diets, is that it may be suitable as a therapeutic diet for the period of the disease, but it should be modified and changed during progress. It's easy to get stuck into something (diets, remedies, techniques), benefit from it and then think this is the way to go from then on.

Even though its anecdotal, I have heard many times over the years people benefitting from macrobiotics whilst with cancer. I think one of the reasons for this (and many other dietary regimes) is that it encourages the person to eat more healthier and wholesome foods, and psychologically helps to change their worldview, embracing a more holistic outlook.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I guess it is a way of life, a holistic approach. At this point I really think he will give anything a try. I'm interested in trying it myself. To be honest I already eat a lot of the foods contained in a macrobiotic diet. Will look into it more.

I think one of our biggest problems if all the chemicals that are in foods etc are def not helping.. crop spraying and so on.. animals fed manufactured food also..

For anyone who's interested my friend and I have both been giving the macrobiotic thing a real go for the past couple of months. You weren't wrong about it being a lifestyle choice! There's so much to consider and it really does completely effect everything.

Really hopeful of keeping it up long term although I do find myself being tempted to slip every now and again...

Here's the WHO's stats on cancer:

Myarka

The WHO is a sham.....look up how they knuckled under to the sugar lobby regarding the intake of sugar....the lobby was going to withhold $400 million dollars.....:-(

For anyone who's interested me and my friend have been doing pretty well living macrobiotic. It was really tough at first but I think the biggest help has been utilising good recipes to make nice meals from your macrobiotics.

[url]I have found some great stuff on http://www.thekindfoodcompany.co.uk/recipes [/url]

And occasionally the BBC will do something that ticks the right boxes.

Is it helping the Lymphoma? Very hard to tell. But my friend reports he is enjoying the challenge of keeping macrobiotic!

Will a right diet help only for preventing cancer? Or can it help existing cancer patients too?

But how can we know what's the right diet? It looks like the researches change every day, and even they don't agree with each other.

As far as my reading leads me to understand, most research agrees about what a 'healthy diet' consists of - but people (the NHS, the AHA etc.) don't want to believe it.

Most research points to 'healthy' being low-carb, NO refined carbs, steer clear of polyunsaturated oils. How many official bodies are prepared to say that?

There may be at times seem that there's inconsistency in nutritional research, but so much of it is supressed until it can't be suppressed anymore.

Diet (as in want you eat) and nutrition (what you need from your food) is generally in most cases very easy:

*Eat seasonally and in tune with your environment as possible.
*Process food enough to get its best nutrition, and to reduce anti-nutrients
*Depend less on pack processed food and increase cooking for yourself/family/friends
*Don't believe marketing hype - whether in a supermarket or health food shop
*Dried fruit need rehydrating
*Listen carefully to your gut instincts and reactions to what you are consuming. If you feel crap for 24 hours or more, then maybe you shouldn't be eating it
*Vary your diet and joyfully try new foods and tastes occasionally
*Refined simple sugars is a drug - reduce consummation
*We should balance the 5 flavours - sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, salty
*Avoid products with trans-fatty acids, aspartame, MSG and anything that looks suspicious
*Not all 'E' numbers are bad and not all are good. Vitamin C is a E number!!
*Fats and oils are not dietary no no's and are part of good health. Choose organic and/or cold pressed oils & fats. As a society we could do with higher levels of omega 3 and a reduction of omega 6
*Appreciate what you are eating, you are partaking with the universe
*Chew slowly and digest well
*BMI & calorie counting is taken too much as gospel - based too much on statistics and not enough on individual differences

As for diet and cancer and can it help in cancer cases, it's like any other serious illness, the more you can do something and the more you can boost the immune system, the increase in recovery may be possible. The body if there is enough vitality can ride many of life's ripples, but if atrophy has gone to a very low ebb, no magic pill, chemical (chemotherapy is based on WW1 nerve gas), herb or food is going to help. But changing to a more wholesome diet at least is a positive step and well worth considering with other therapies and techniques.

Healthy Diet is part of the picture to fight against cancer. It takes take ages for people to understand the prevention of cancer is the basic needs of

a) daily intake sufficient of water
b) daily exercises
c) enough rest or sleep.
d) ..... keeping an active fitness life...and others (which needs more details explanation)

However, if someone is having the cancer, it is totally a different approach, as emotion would normally takes over everything. From the internet resources, alkaline foods or water would slow down the spread of the cancer. Some article even suggest higher dosage of Vitamin C would cure certain cancer.

While from my observation, the cancer hard to fight because the content of human body contains the harmful cells, just like a glass of clean water fill with few drops of ink. The more drops of the ink, probably means the higher stages of the cancer it becomes.

For me, i would think of Colon cleanse supplements to clean up or building up a good digestive or absorption system, I would not consider it as a lose weight supplement. What needs to be discharged from the body need to be replaced by alkaline food and drinks.

Some article suggest that Cancer means body is simply too acidic. This is what I'm working on. stay tune.