Sunday July 25, 2004

Some things don't give you Cancer

Is Cancer Preventable?
Eating the right foods may be the key to preventing many incidences of cancer and other diseases.

It has long been the conventional wisdom that the American fast food diet and the meat-and-potatoes diet, while you might find it tasty, is not very healthy. Many of us turn to bagels with cream cheese, pizza, burgers from Wendy's, microwave dinners, and instant soups for our staple diet.

On top of such poor nutrition, some smoke cigarettes or drink excessive amounts of alcohol. Instead of eating well, many people resign themselves to the helplessness evoked by the Joe Jackson song, "everything gives you cancer... there's no cure there's no answer..." - and look to drugs and high-tech medicine to solve their health problems.

But Joe's cynicism is way off the mark. According to the Institute for Cancer Prevention, up to 70 percent of Cancer is preventable. One example that has caught the eye of researchers is the extremely low incidence of prostate cancer in China, only around 10,000 cases, compared to the 192,000 in the U.S. (2001 data from the database of the International Agency for Research on Cancer).

Chinese cuisine includes a fair amount of garlic, onions and green vegetables, and research has shown that various compounds in garlic and other allium vegetables - onions, scallions, leeks, and chives - may possess potent cancer-preventive powers.

A recent study conducted at the University of Toronto, discovered that certain disulfides, a variety of chemicals found in garlic and onions, not only killed cancer cells, but also killed the parasite that causes malaria.

Another chemical derivative of garlic, ajoene, was found to reduce skin cancer tumor size in 17 of 21 patients at a study conducted at the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands. Another study in Japan found that ajoene significantly reduced the incidence of skin tumor growth in mice.

Yet another study in Peking University, Beijing, China found that ajoene "was shown to be a potent inhibitor of tumor cell growth" in animals and test tubes. Researchers in India found that diallyl sulfide, the primary active chemical in garlic, protects cells against asbestos-induced toxicity.

Of course, garlic and onions aren't the only weapons in your cancer-fighting arsenal. Broccoli contains compounds known as isothiocyanates which are suspected to have considerable anti-cancer properties, and the National Cancer Institute is currently conducting a controlled 12-year study to determine whether seven or more years of daily dietary supplementation with the mineral selenium and/or Vitamin E will reduce the incidence of prostate cancer.

The spice turmeric, often used in Indian cuisine, contains the chemical curcumin which has been shown to inhibit cancer tumor cell growth in studies and possesses properties that show promise in protecting against Alzheimer's disease.

According to the National Cancer Institute, "it has been estimated that 35 percent of cancer deaths may be related to dietary factors," and "Currently available research shows that diets low in fat and high in fiber, fruits, vegetables, and grain products are associated with reduced risks for many cancers."

Eating well can also significantly reduce your risk of stroke: "people who consumed at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily were at more than 30 percent lower risk of having a stroke, compared with people who consumed the lowest amount of fruits and vegetables daily," states an article from The Journal of the American Medical Association.

If we look at how we eat and compare it to how we should eat - a diet of fortified cereal, burgers, and processed packaged foods, versus one of cooked oatmeal, rice or pasta with cooked fresh green vegetables, raw salad, and fresh fruit for desert - and think of the nutrients that each respective meal contains, we might suddenly realize that our diet is sorely lacking in both vitamins, minerals, fiber, and many beneficial nutrients not mentioned on packaging.

Though garlic and onions may help prevent cancer, there's currently no "Recommended Daily Allowance" (RDA) for them or the nutrients in them. And though your TOTAL cereal box may say you're getting 100 percent of your RDA of most of the vitamins you need, it doesn't tell you that you body is not absorbing all of them.

New research also shows a deficiency in our diet of essential fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids which play significant roles in the brain, deficiencies that can lead to depression and other mental disorders. Our "fat-free" craze, born by ignorance of the role of fat in our bodies, could actually be damaging our health.

The modern means of attaining nutrition for many people is to take a multi-vitamin and maybe drink a fiber supplement. However, our bodies do not absorb much of the nutrients that the pills provide. Indeed, supplements often contain forms of vitamins poorly absorbed by the body, like dl-alpha tocopherol, a type of Vitamin E found in most multi-vitamins. The body utilizes Vitamin E as d-alpha tocopherol much more efficiently. You can find d-alpha supplements at most health food stores.

It is always better to obtain nutrients from foods, since nutrients work together in your body to protect it from disease. Vitamin E is found in sunflower seeds, almonds, wheat germ, and sunflower or almond oils. Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, and oatmeal are good sources of natural selenium and other minerals. Fatty fish such as salmon are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, and dark green and cruciferous vegetables are excellent sources of minerals and the antioxidant vitamins A & C.

And of course, there are garlic and onions - if you aren't afraid of the breath effects. But wait a little while after you chop garlic to cook it - researchers have found that a chemical reaction occurs during chopping which creates the cancer-fighting chemicals in garlic.

~ David M. Fine

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Related Links

Nutrition Data Nutrient Search Tool
A Database of foods and the nutrients in them

Eating Well magazine

National Cancer Institute SEER: Survellance, Epidemiology, and End Results