Food as Preventive Medicine for Cancer

[Guest guest]

Hi Misty and Everyone,

 

Along, the same line - I worked for a number of years at an

alternative/adjunctive cancer prevention, treatment and referral center near

Philadelphia, called the Center for Advancement in Cancer Education,

610-642-4810. I set up a psychological counseling program at that center, as

the psychological component, like the nutritional, is extremely important. I

agree with the position taken in the article - that it is the whole picture

of how one eats that counts. Certainly supplements are not the answer, though

they may be useful tools.

 

BTW, the Center I mentioned works frequently with people long distance by

telephone, and provides excellent information and guidance at very low cost.

 

There are so many factors which come into play in the development of a

cancer, and we never know which ones are the most critical in a particular

instance. However, there are always places to intervene and support the

person and the individual's immune system, addressing nutrition, psychology,

detoxification, etc with a variety of approaches. Also, I have believed for

many years that pollution and toxins are a major factor. Again, food can

support and buffer us in many ways.

 

Best to all,

 

Karen

 

Karen K. Milstein, PhD, LISW

Santa Fe

[Guest guest]

I thought this was interesting...

Misty

http://www..com

 

Cancer Prevention and Cures

 

By James A. Duke Ph.D.

 

Food as Preventive Medicine

 

 

One definition of herb—the one I favor—is any plant that can be used

as a healing agent.

 

As our understanding of the healing power of plants

continues to grow, so does the number of plants that can be called

herbs. If these days the definition embraces many of our foods, so

be it.

 

When it comes to preventing cancer, the key seems to be eating as

wide a variety of fruits and vegetables as possible. In a sense, if

you want to lower your risk of cancer, you can create a whole diet—

excluding or minimizing meats and dairy products—that consists of

healing herbs. So singling out individual plants would be giving you

a false picture of how to use herbs for cancer.

 

I was one of the first of the high-fiber* flakes, back when

nutritionists discovered the importance of what they used to call

" roughage " .

 

As a matter of fact, my everyday diet turned out to be higher in

fiber than the high-fiber diets that were fed to the volunteers in

five formal USDA studies. I know, because I was one of the subjects

in those studies.

 

Of course, I can't prove that my dad's high-fat diet killed him, nor

that my plant-based diet has spared me from becoming a cancer

statistic. But the research is very clear. As fat and meat

consumption increases, cancer rates rise. But in fruit and vegetable

consumption increases, thereby lowering fat in the diet and

increasing the amount of fiber and helpful phytochemicals, cancer

rates fall!

 

Fighting the Wrong Battles

 

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has been waging its war on

cancer for 30 years now. But in every year reported up until 1996,

cancer deaths were increasing, according to NCI statistics. Some of

the increases have to do with the fact that fewer people are dying

of heart disease and stroke, so they live long enough to get cancer.

But considering all the money and all the effort that this country

has invested in beating cancer, we don't have a whole lot to show

for it.

 

Lifestyle Keys to Locking out Cancer

 

Cancer prevention involves many of the same wise moves involved in

preventing many other diseases. You should make the effort to get:

 

· More vegetables and fruits, less fat in red meats and fowl.

· Greater variety in your diet, less monotony.

· More whole grains and less processed sugar.

· More natural food colors, fewer artificial colors.

· Some herbal spices, fewer artificial flavorings

· More natural, whole foods, fewer processed foods

· More estrogen-like chemicals from plants (phytoestrogens), fewer

synthetic hormones.

· More fruit and vegetable juices, fewer alcoholic beverages.

· More fresh air, less smoke- and pollution-filled air.

· More tranquility, less stress.

· More exercise, less television.

· More public greenery, less pavement.

· More organic gardens and farms, fewer pesticides.

· More herbal alternatives, fewer pharmaceutical " magic bullets "

 

Over the years, many new chemotherapy drugs have been developed.

They might extend life, but they don't cure cancer. And some of the

best of those new chemotherapeutics come from plants. Taxol, a

treatment for ovarian and breast cancer, originally came from

the Pacific yew tree Etoposide, a treatment for testicular cancer

and small-cell lung cancer, from the mayapple; and vinblastine and

cincristine, which treat Hodgkin's disease, leukemia and lymphomas,

both from the Madasgascar periwinkle.

 

But as far as I'm concerned, something is very wrong with the way

the NCI has approached cancer. The vast majority of NCI research

money-our tax dollars- has gone for the development of

chemotherapies, with comparatively little devoted to prevention.

 

Chemotherapeutics have their place in the grand scheme of things,

but they're not cures.

 

 

They are usually life-extenders that add a few months or years to

average survival. But those months or years are often lower-quality

time because of the many devastating side effects that chemotherapy

drugs cause. (a vast understatement in my estimation)

 

From 1977 to 1982, I was involved with the NCI's cancer screening

program, a multiyear effort that investigated the cancer treatment

potential of thousands of plant compounds and gave us the ones

mentioned above. I've also been involved with the embryonic Designer

Food Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is

attempting to design foods high in healthful phytochemicals that

prevent cancer.

 

I have a greater respect for the potential of the food program than

I do for the results of the drug-finding programs.

 

Clearly, cancer prevention programs can save more lives than

treatment programs can, and at a fraction of the cost. Still, the 30

year cure-oriented war on cancer gets the most tax dollars, while

prevention programs get very little.

 

Green Pharmacy for Cancer

 

Twenty years ago, long before scientists reached a consensus on the

fact that a diet high in fruits and vegetables helps to prevent

cancer, and long before the NIH began urging everyone to " strive for

five " —five servings of fruits and vegetables a day—Prevention

magazine asked me for ideas on cancer prevention. I came up with

several; a big green salad or coleslaw, a big bowl of minestrone

soup and a Cancer prevention Herbal Salad.

 

Cancer Prevention Herbal Salad

 

At the core of the recipe are several plants I lifted from Jonathan

Hartwell's ethnobotanical classic " Plants used against cancer " , a

compendium of about 3,000 plants cited in the medical-folklore

literature for treating cancer. More than half of Hartwell's plants

turned out to contain a compound useful in the treatment of some

types of cancers, at least in the test tube.

 

My Cancer Prevention Herbal Salad now includes garlic, onions, red

peppers, tomatoes (organic), red clover flowers, shopping cooked

beets, fresh calendula flowers, celery, fresh chicory flowers,

chives, cucumbers, cumin, peanuts, poke salad, purslane and sage.

 

In addition, I came up with a cancer prevention dressing to use with

this salad. It includes flaxseed oil, evening primrose oil, garlic,

rosemary, a dash of lemon juice and that Latin American favorite,

hot peppers.

 

Fifteen years after I developed my salad, late in 1989, Herbert

Pierson, Ph. D. of the NIH called to invite my participation in the

Designer Food Program for cancer prevention.

 

This was a major national effort to manipulate foods to increase

their content of nutraceuticals (nutrients with medicinal value).

The idea was to enhance the amount of cancer fighting chemicals in

foods, either by manipulating the plant's genes or by coming up with

necessary techniques that would preserve or enhance the desired

medicinal effects.Dr. Pierson was most interested in my database of

phytochemicals in food plants and herbs, which includes anti-cancer

compounds—the same ever-evolving database on which this book is

based. He invited me to attend a meeting where experts would explain

the cancer-prevention benefits of various plants.

 

Imagine my delight when my colleagues and fellow researchers spoke

about the anti-cancer phytochemicals that they were finding in

plants.

 

My fellow scientists gave presentations on the sulfides in garlic,

the capsaicin in red peppers, the limonene in citrus fruits and the

lycopene in tomatoes. They touted the cancer-fighting potential of

such herbs as flax. Licorice, and rosemary. (Ever since, I have

added rosemary to my salad dressing.)

 

The Designer Food Program clearly had a lot going for it. I got

excited about the program and eagerly anticipated five years of

helping the NIH in this area. But alas, Dr. Pierson left the NIH,

and the program now seems much less visible and exciting.

 

Fortunately, research on the medicinal potential of foods is going

forward in other programs and institutions throughout the nation.

Over the next several years, you'll be hearing a lot more about

nutraceuticals, phytochemicals and meals that heal. Foods and

medicinal herbs clearly have healing properties, including the

ability to prevent and fight cancer.

 

Excerpt from:

" The Green Pharmacy "

James A. Duke, Ph.D.