A cancer diet, and cancer nutrition, that would help the average person on Chemotherapy.
By Chris Woollams
Introduction
In 2003, one of our readers was having chemotherapy and picked up an NHS booklet at the Royal Marsden on ‘A Diet for Chemotherapy’ covering recommendations for what to eat as a ´cancer diet´ when undergoing chemotherapy, and she was horror-struck. "I thought it was some sort of April Fool", she wrote in her letter to us. Small pictures of a cheeseburger, a milkshake and a sticky bun or cake on every page, with recommendations to eat cows’ dairy, sugar and fats commonplace. Is this really a ´cancer diet´ for cancer patients? Is this cancer nutrition at its best? A diet to beat cancer? We quizzed the hospital for whom we have the greatest respect. The reply stated that the sole issue during chemotherapy was to keep up body weight, hence the diet laden with calories - fat and sugar. But this cannot be the ‘sole issue’ – the answer seems to ignore the hard facts that people with high blood glucose live the shortest times; that salt poisons healthy cells and can reduce their oxygen levels and power, that fat can severely compromise the immune system and cows´ dairy contains IGF-1 (growth hormone) known to encourage cancers to grow and divide. Why give people this diet when at the same time the oncologist is struggling to kill off that person´s cancer. The answer came when we found out hospital dieticians are sooooooo busy that they only see the 7 per cent of patients in severe trouble. These patients have cachexia, where the chemo is causing severe weight loss. This can kill. So the dietician aims to ´build you up´. However, we cannot agree that this diet should be recommended for the other 93 per cent of patients on chemotherapy. It is not a general ‘Diet for chemotherapy’. In fact, publishing a booklet under that title, we think, is simply crazy. A diet for chemotherapy should support and enhance your oncologists activities, whilst strengthening your body and reducing the side effects of the chemo if possible. Why feed the very cancer you are trying to kill? So here, based on the views of expert nutritionists, herbalists and so on plus the hard research results you can find in Cancer Watch over the last seven or more years, we present an outline of a real ´Diet for Chemotherapy´. (Readers wanting a personal version – tailored to their own cancer and personal circumstances might be interested in our Personal Information Prescriptions available from our web site click here.) Building an effective cancer diet that will HELP your oncologist treat your cancer.
I’m sorry to bore you but I want to start with some elementary biochemistry. I promise to keep it simple!
1 Understand Cancer cells are different
Cancer cells aren’t like normal, healthy cells. Much of their uniqueness stems from their power stations, or mitochondria, which have unique enzymes and energy producing systems not found in normal, healthy cells.
Three factors are important to understand:
A healthy cell produces energy by burning carbohydrate in the presence of oxygen. Whereas a cancer cell´s power station cannot use oxygen - in fact oxygen will kill it, a fact we have known since Otto Warburg won his Nobel Prize in 1931. Cancer cells produce their energy in the absence of oxygen by burning glucose - common sugar.
The waste product from this cancer process is a form of lactic acid and this can only be detoxified and neutralised by the liver.
The liver detoxifies this lactic acid and produces a harmless substance called ..... glucose, which passes back round the body to feed the cancer. Alien has taken over the controls - it is now ´making’ its own food; using the body systems to grow! But this energy production system is very inefficient, yet the cancer wants to grow quickly. This commands glucose in great volumes. Feed it at your peril.
2 Cancers need blood supplies and growth hormone
Scientists have also been looking at giving breast cancer patients bisphonates, which are bone strengthening drugs. They know, for example, that cancer attacks bones causing the bone to try to defend and strengthen itself by producing growth hormone. The cancer says ´Thank you´ and uses the growth hormone to boost its growth and division. It is really taking control of the body systems now.
Scientists also know that tumours need to grow and that demands an increased blood supply. They have been looking at drugs like thalidomide to stop blood vessels forming in cancer tumours. Growth hormones and other factors in your body can be stimulated by the foods you eat but research shows other foods (like garlic and curcumin) can stop this process.
3 Many cancers are ´driven´ by the female sex hormone, oestrogen
Oncologists can tell breast cancer patients whether they are oestrogen-positive or not. In 70 per cent of cases where the woman is positive they can prescribe drugs to cut oestrogen production.
However it is now clear many cancers are oestrogen driven – for example, some brain tumours, colon cancers, prostate cancers, lung cancers, not just female cancers like womb and breast.
There are many oestrogens all of which can bind to the receptor sites on the walls of healthy cells. The most dangerous, oestradiol, then creates havoc inside the cell setting up and driving cancer. Other forms like oestrone are less dangerous. Plant oestrogens are far weaker and can merely block the receptor sites from attack by oestradiol.
Again, your diet can help or hinder – animal and saturated fats can increase aggressive oestrogen production and so drive your cancer. Whereas a diet high in phytoestrogens (plants, greens, pulses) can help block the receptor sites. Research shows indole 3 carbinol (from broccoli) can denature and convert oestradiol into its safer sister oestrone, while certain mushrooms, flaxseed and other foods can cut actually oestrogen production. Which would you rather do?
4 Common salt can cause the same oestrogen effects in the cell
A diet high in sodium salt, but low in magnesium and potassium can poison your cells and their power stations and generate the same effects as oestrogen. You need a low salt, high potassium and magnesium diet to counter this effect.
5 Your immune system can kick out a cancer
Scientists are looking at a whole range of immune boosting drugs and treatments – like Interleukin or Interferon and dendritic cell vaccines to help boost your immune system to fight off the cancer. But we know that a high glucose diet depresses the immune system, while one high in animal fats can block liver and lymph systems depressing your immune response.
6 Chemotherapy is changing
Chemotherapy drugs over the last fifty years are like unguided missiles
The new breed of drugs (Biologics, mono-clonal antibodies, hormone treatments) are problem specific, tackling missing proteins or reducing oestrogen, or growth hormones. They can clearly be helped in this action by certain natural compounds, antioxidants, herbs and a tailored diet.
7 Our knowledge is increasing
We also know that there are other unique factors to a cancer cell. For example it has more receptor sites than a normal cell for vitamin D. And recently major research studies have shown that vitamin D seems capable of ´normalising´ and even killing a cancer cell. (We have an extensive review on vitamin D on the CANCERactive web site.) Recent Clinical Trials on a concentrate of Vitamin D are being heralded as ‘amazing’. You can wait for the drug, or join the sun worshipers for 30 minutes a day, or supplement. Oily fish will give you a little.
8 Different folks, different strokes
When we covered research on common sugar in Cancer Watch we received several letters from irate nurses saying, basically, that we were talking rubbish because sugar is good for you.
Let´s get a few facts straight. Firstly, it’s not our research. We just tell you what Harvard, UCLA, MD Anderson, whoever have found in their research and clinical trials. And there have been at least three serious studies in the last couple of years that say people with the highest levels of blood glucose (common sugar) survive least!
There are lots of different types of sugar. Fructose, sucrose, plant sugars, and polysaccharides that aid your immune defences, and intra- and inter-cellular messaging. But common or garden glucose is tantamount to a chemical toxin. It causes diabetes when in excess in our diets, and high blood glucose in people results in higher levels of cancer and less survival if you already have cancer. Fact!
You need to keep blood glucose levels to a minimum if you want to beat cancer. A Dr Gold in America highlighted the probable benefit of Hydrazine Sulphate - a compound that has the potential to break the cycle of glucose production by the liver from lactic acid production of the cancer cell. The Russians have clinical trials on this. The West ignores this potentially cheap complementary therapy. Hey ho.
Cheeseburgers; milky/sugary tea; sticky buns; milk shakes??!!
I have explained why you definitely would not want to feed your cancer more glucose. But consider these other points too:
Your Liver, immune and lymph systems will be blocked by animal and saturated fats Your liver is your centre of detoxification. It plays a major role in your energy supplies to the cells, and in your immune system. Its health is crucial to the survival of a cancer patient.
But the liver of a cancer patient is ´full´. Clogged up (sorry – technical term) with dead cancer cells, maybe dead yeasts and bacteria, cholesterol, cancer drug chemicals, and lactic acid, it is grossly overworked. Often the cholesterol sticks around the outside of dead cells and forms gallstones (rather as pearls from oysters). These block the bile ducts and prevent the liver cleansing itself easily. If your liver is blocked, you stagnate your whole immune system.
Eating more fats, especially those in cheeseburgers, and you will clog up your liver even more which messes up your glucose levels and weakens your whole immune system and detoxification system. Furthermore, your lymph system, the home to your white immune cells, and the liquid that takes toxins away from cells and nourishment into them, also gets clogged up with fat and simply doesn’t work as well as it should.
Growth hormones? The NCI in the USA has shown clearly that dairy, through insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), is implicated in cellular proliferation, metabolic change and even cancer itself. Many cancer nutrition experts recommend consuming no cows´ dairy or saturated fats at all for this reason. You simply do not need to add a cows’ growth hormones into your body.
The World Health Organisation is quite clear that 70 per cent of all cancers can be attributed to poor diet. Consuming milk shakes, cheeseburgers, milky/sugary tea, ice cream, healthy drinks like Ribena and Lucosade, sticky buns, chocolate and cake? You are pouring petrol on the fire!!! This is not a ‘diet for chemotherapy’ – it is positively dangerous for the 93 per cent of cancer patients without cachexia.
Cheeseburgers and milkshakes are positively no-go foods A real Diet for Chemotherapy
So let us try to build up a plan, based on real science, to give patients a strong route forward.
1. Clean Your Liver
One starting point can be the use of a Liver Flush involving Epsom Salts and olive oil consumed with a fruit juice to take the taste away. The details are on our web site. Coffee enemas can also help the liver pass more toxins into the intestine by dilating/expanding the bile ducts.
Milk thistle has recently been shown in clinical trials to reduce side-effects in chemotherapy patients. As has Mistletoe (which has to be prescribed). Milk thistle, boldo tea and dandelion amongst others will strengthen your liver and bile production. Magnesium will strengthen the liver too, and choline and inositol will help reduce fat levels. You could also add turmeric to some meals and drink at least two litres of clean water a day.
2. Prepare Yourself
a) Boost your immune system:Herbs like astragalus, cat´s claw, and echinacea seem particularly effective, as do curcumin/turmeric, natural vitamin E and the natural food chlorella (for complete beta-carotene, B-12 etc).
b) Cut sodium from your diet – boost potassium and magnesium:Increase potassium and magnesium. Sodium poisons your cells and displaces potassium in the power stations of your cells, making them more toxic and more acidic. Cancer thrives in acid bodies. Cut sodium foods like salt, soy sauce, gravy granules, hams, cooked meats, salami, turkey roast slices, sliced bread, breakfast cereals, sausages, bacon, processed food, prepared meals and Chinese meals. Consume high potassium and magnesium foods like fresh nuts, jacket potatoes, whole grains, green leaf vegetables, carrots, fresh apples, bananas, whole brown rice, broad beans, peas and pulses. A little rice milk or soya milk is acceptable.
You may wish to read our article on the web site entitled ‘Acid Bodies and cancer’. Your aim is to have a slightly alkaline one! So cut out smoking, alcohol, coffee, fats, sugar, salt, cows’ dairy (like milk and cheese. Yes, and the ‘healthy’ yoghurt and probiotic drink), chocolate, refined carbohydrates (white bread, pasta, rice) – i.e. pretty well everything in the NHS ‘A Diet for chemotherapy’ (or was that cachexia?) booklet.
c) Increase your omega 3 levels: We have known since 1982, and a Nobel Prize by Sir John Vane, about the positive benefits of omega 3 in the cancer process. Fish oils provide the long-chain version, which helps to reduce cellular inflammation. Short-chain omega 3 can be found in flaxseed. In Dr Joanna Budwig´s anti-cancer diet, she used it with quark to improve cellular oxygen levels; and flaxseed helps reduce oestrogen levels.
d) Determine whether your cancer is hormonally-driven- it is not just breast cancer that can be driven by oestrogen. There is clear research evidence that some womb, ovarian, colon, melanoma, brain tumours and prostate cancers are driven by this female sex hormone.
If your cancer is linked to higher oestrogen levels women should avoid the pill and HRT, men and women should avoid recycled water, fatty foods and eating one or two big meals a day. Graze - eat five or six smaller meals a day. Big starchy or carbohydrate-rich meals stimulate insulin production and this has a knock-on effect to increase oestrogen production.
Oestrogen mimics (xeno-oestrogens) should be minimised too. These invade our bodies in perfumed products, nail polishes (toluene), cosmetics and toiletries; and via volatile organic carbon gases from glues, dyes, dry cleaning, bleaches and disinfectants; plus they are formed from chemicals in certain pesticides, white can linings (BPA) and plastic packaging (BPA and phthalates).
So consider going toxin-free at home in the products you use; eat less pesticides; eat more greens, particularly cabbage and broccoli, and pulses.
Sleep in a fully darkened room – this will increase your melatonin production (it balances both IGF-1 and oestrogen excesses). Or you can supplement. (We have a book – ‘Oestrogen, the killer in our midst’ that tells you more click here to read about it.)
e) Consider the latest research. Read Cancer Watch regularly! For example, there is clear research now on vitamin D and its role in fighting cancer. It appears from research to work synergistically with vitamin K. The prime source for the former is sunshine, and the latter is greens (but only if you have the beneficial bacteria to release it). You may wish to supplement.
f) Cut animal fats, saturated fats and fried foods: People who eat fried foods regularly have three times the cancer risk. Overweight people have higher cancer risk – but research from Northwestern University shows that if you have cancer and reduce your weight to normal you increase survival times. You could consider replacing all animal and saturated fats with a little virgin, first pressed olive oil, or walnut oil.
3.Eat to Beat Cancer
In my book ‘The Rainbow Diet – and how it can help you beat cancer’, I tell you what foods have been shown in research to be ‘Protective’ and ‘Corrective’. So base your diet around foods like -
Fresh garlic, leeks, onions, spring onions, radishes - for example, garlic is known to contain a number of anti-cancer agents and is believed to help stop cancer spreading and blood supplies forming to new tumours.
Pulses - for thousands of years we have eaten broad beans, peas and pulses providing phytoestrogens (plant oestrogens that are far, far weaker than human oestrogens) to protect us especially against the spread of hormonally driven cancers.
Glycoproteins and polysaccharides - Four Nobel Prizes for medicine in the last six years have been won for discoveries on these natural compounds. Foods include aloe vera, echinacea, turmeric, pectins (e.g. apples and pears), arabinogalactins (e.g. in oats, psyllium, coconut, tomatoes, carrots, brown rice). Even red wine and mother´s milk contain these important protective factors that encourage better messaging between cells. In the US they are now called "Super carbs" or monosaccharides but are actually neither. Probably the best studied are Medicinal Mushrooms like Reishi, Maitake, Cordyceps which are beta-glucan polysaccharides. (see below).
Dark Red foods - like beetroot, dark plums, aubergines, red grapes, all of which provide anthocyanins, known to kill cancer cells.
Bright colours - Red and yellow peppers, peaches, apricots, watermelon, for carotenoids, known to restrict cancers like breast cancer.
Greens – Kale, spinach, broccoli, cabbage for vitamin K, phytoestrogens and indole 3 carbinol.
Sprouting seeds – for sulphoraphanes, which have strong anti-cancer activity.
Nuts and seeds – try a breakfast of a little organic muesli, boosted by organic pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and linseeds. Great for B vitamins like folic acid and biotin to help protect DNA, cellular oxygenation and detoxifying lignans.
Bitter foods - like watercress, gooseberries, cranberries, blackberries, wild strawberries. Or almonds, cashew nuts, millet, buckwheat and apricot kernels all of which contain a variety of natural compounds like B-17 which Dr Contreras of the Oasis of Hope refers to as "nature´s chemotherapy".
Notable additions - Green tea, olive oil, fennel, oregano to boost your immune system and kill yeasts.
Switch out of cows’ dairy - to a little goat’s cheese, soya and rice milk. Swap red meat for game and oily fish.
Eat more mushrooms, apples, organic brown rice, Manuka Honey (grade 12) and onions. I could go on. There is research on everything from the benefits of quercitin against cancer to the ability of medicinal mushrooms to cut oestrogen and boost the immune system. It is all in ‘The Rainbow Diet – and how it can help you beat cancer’.
Click here to read about The Rainbow Diet
Diet alone won´t suffice!
65 per cent of adults in the UK are overweight and 22 per cent are actually defined as obese. We have women 4 stone overweight write to us and describe themselves as ‘a little chubby’.
Being overweight increases your risk of cancer by 40 to 60 per cent depending upon the research study. With smoking the increased "risk" is ´only´ 25 per cent.
Although outside the remit of this article, if you have the energy, try some exercise, even the least strenuous forms of yoga. It will move your lymph, taking toxins from your cells; it will add oxygen into your blood by getting you to breathe better and it will reduce levels of toxins in the body and rebalance hormones. We do, however, understand that for some people on chemotherapy this is just impossible.
The simple fact is that research shows that light daily exercise of about 30 minutes duration helps improve survival rates by up to 50 per cent.
In 2003, one of our readers was having chemotherapy and picked up an NHS booklet at the Royal Marsden on ‘A Diet for Chemotherapy’ covering recommendations for what to eat as a ´cancer diet´ when undergoing chemotherapy, and she was horror-struck. "I thought it was some sort of April Fool", she wrote in her letter to us. Small pictures of a cheeseburger, a milkshake and a sticky bun or cake on every page, with recommendations to eat cows’ dairy, sugar and fats commonplace. Is this really a ´cancer diet´ for cancer patients? Is this cancer nutrition at its best? A diet to beat cancer? We quizzed the hospital for whom we have the greatest respect. The reply stated that the sole issue during chemotherapy was to keep up body weight, hence the diet laden with calories - fat and sugar. But this cannot be the ‘sole issue’ – the answer seems to ignore the hard facts that people with high blood glucose live the shortest times; that salt poisons healthy cells and can reduce their oxygen levels and power, that fat can severely compromise the immune system and cows´ dairy contains IGF-1 (growth hormone) known to encourage cancers to grow and divide. Why give people this diet when at the same time the oncologist is struggling to kill off that person´s cancer. The answer came when we found out hospital dieticians are sooooooo busy that they only see the 7 per cent of patients in severe trouble. These patients have cachexia, where the chemo is causing severe weight loss. This can kill. So the dietician aims to ´build you up´. However, we cannot agree that this diet should be recommended for the other 93 per cent of patients on chemotherapy. It is not a general ‘Diet for chemotherapy’. In fact, publishing a booklet under that title, we think, is simply crazy. A diet for chemotherapy should support and enhance your oncologists activities, whilst strengthening your body and reducing the side effects of the chemo if possible. Why feed the very cancer you are trying to kill? So here, based on the views of expert nutritionists, herbalists and so on plus the hard research results you can find in Cancer Watch over the last seven or more years, we present an outline of a real ´Diet for Chemotherapy´. (Readers wanting a personal version – tailored to their own cancer and personal circumstances might be interested in our Personal Information Prescriptions available from our web site click here.) Building an effective cancer diet that will HELP your oncologist treat your cancer.
I’m sorry to bore you but I want to start with some elementary biochemistry. I promise to keep it simple!
1 Understand Cancer cells are different
Cancer cells aren’t like normal, healthy cells. Much of their uniqueness stems from their power stations, or mitochondria, which have unique enzymes and energy producing systems not found in normal, healthy cells.
Three factors are important to understand:
A healthy cell produces energy by burning carbohydrate in the presence of oxygen. Whereas a cancer cell´s power station cannot use oxygen - in fact oxygen will kill it, a fact we have known since Otto Warburg won his Nobel Prize in 1931. Cancer cells produce their energy in the absence of oxygen by burning glucose - common sugar.
The waste product from this cancer process is a form of lactic acid and this can only be detoxified and neutralised by the liver.
The liver detoxifies this lactic acid and produces a harmless substance called ..... glucose, which passes back round the body to feed the cancer. Alien has taken over the controls - it is now ´making’ its own food; using the body systems to grow! But this energy production system is very inefficient, yet the cancer wants to grow quickly. This commands glucose in great volumes. Feed it at your peril.
2 Cancers need blood supplies and growth hormone
Scientists have also been looking at giving breast cancer patients bisphonates, which are bone strengthening drugs. They know, for example, that cancer attacks bones causing the bone to try to defend and strengthen itself by producing growth hormone. The cancer says ´Thank you´ and uses the growth hormone to boost its growth and division. It is really taking control of the body systems now.
Scientists also know that tumours need to grow and that demands an increased blood supply. They have been looking at drugs like thalidomide to stop blood vessels forming in cancer tumours. Growth hormones and other factors in your body can be stimulated by the foods you eat but research shows other foods (like garlic and curcumin) can stop this process.
3 Many cancers are ´driven´ by the female sex hormone, oestrogen
Oncologists can tell breast cancer patients whether they are oestrogen-positive or not. In 70 per cent of cases where the woman is positive they can prescribe drugs to cut oestrogen production.
However it is now clear many cancers are oestrogen driven – for example, some brain tumours, colon cancers, prostate cancers, lung cancers, not just female cancers like womb and breast.
There are many oestrogens all of which can bind to the receptor sites on the walls of healthy cells. The most dangerous, oestradiol, then creates havoc inside the cell setting up and driving cancer. Other forms like oestrone are less dangerous. Plant oestrogens are far weaker and can merely block the receptor sites from attack by oestradiol.
Again, your diet can help or hinder – animal and saturated fats can increase aggressive oestrogen production and so drive your cancer. Whereas a diet high in phytoestrogens (plants, greens, pulses) can help block the receptor sites. Research shows indole 3 carbinol (from broccoli) can denature and convert oestradiol into its safer sister oestrone, while certain mushrooms, flaxseed and other foods can cut actually oestrogen production. Which would you rather do?
4 Common salt can cause the same oestrogen effects in the cell
A diet high in sodium salt, but low in magnesium and potassium can poison your cells and their power stations and generate the same effects as oestrogen. You need a low salt, high potassium and magnesium diet to counter this effect.
5 Your immune system can kick out a cancer
Scientists are looking at a whole range of immune boosting drugs and treatments – like Interleukin or Interferon and dendritic cell vaccines to help boost your immune system to fight off the cancer. But we know that a high glucose diet depresses the immune system, while one high in animal fats can block liver and lymph systems depressing your immune response.
6 Chemotherapy is changing
Chemotherapy drugs over the last fifty years are like unguided missiles
The new breed of drugs (Biologics, mono-clonal antibodies, hormone treatments) are problem specific, tackling missing proteins or reducing oestrogen, or growth hormones. They can clearly be helped in this action by certain natural compounds, antioxidants, herbs and a tailored diet.
7 Our knowledge is increasing
We also know that there are other unique factors to a cancer cell. For example it has more receptor sites than a normal cell for vitamin D. And recently major research studies have shown that vitamin D seems capable of ´normalising´ and even killing a cancer cell. (We have an extensive review on vitamin D on the CANCERactive web site.) Recent Clinical Trials on a concentrate of Vitamin D are being heralded as ‘amazing’. You can wait for the drug, or join the sun worshipers for 30 minutes a day, or supplement. Oily fish will give you a little.
8 Different folks, different strokes
When we covered research on common sugar in Cancer Watch we received several letters from irate nurses saying, basically, that we were talking rubbish because sugar is good for you.
Let´s get a few facts straight. Firstly, it’s not our research. We just tell you what Harvard, UCLA, MD Anderson, whoever have found in their research and clinical trials. And there have been at least three serious studies in the last couple of years that say people with the highest levels of blood glucose (common sugar) survive least!
There are lots of different types of sugar. Fructose, sucrose, plant sugars, and polysaccharides that aid your immune defences, and intra- and inter-cellular messaging. But common or garden glucose is tantamount to a chemical toxin. It causes diabetes when in excess in our diets, and high blood glucose in people results in higher levels of cancer and less survival if you already have cancer. Fact!
You need to keep blood glucose levels to a minimum if you want to beat cancer. A Dr Gold in America highlighted the probable benefit of Hydrazine Sulphate - a compound that has the potential to break the cycle of glucose production by the liver from lactic acid production of the cancer cell. The Russians have clinical trials on this. The West ignores this potentially cheap complementary therapy. Hey ho.
Cheeseburgers; milky/sugary tea; sticky buns; milk shakes??!!
I have explained why you definitely would not want to feed your cancer more glucose. But consider these other points too:
Your Liver, immune and lymph systems will be blocked by animal and saturated fats Your liver is your centre of detoxification. It plays a major role in your energy supplies to the cells, and in your immune system. Its health is crucial to the survival of a cancer patient.
But the liver of a cancer patient is ´full´. Clogged up (sorry – technical term) with dead cancer cells, maybe dead yeasts and bacteria, cholesterol, cancer drug chemicals, and lactic acid, it is grossly overworked. Often the cholesterol sticks around the outside of dead cells and forms gallstones (rather as pearls from oysters). These block the bile ducts and prevent the liver cleansing itself easily. If your liver is blocked, you stagnate your whole immune system.
Eating more fats, especially those in cheeseburgers, and you will clog up your liver even more which messes up your glucose levels and weakens your whole immune system and detoxification system. Furthermore, your lymph system, the home to your white immune cells, and the liquid that takes toxins away from cells and nourishment into them, also gets clogged up with fat and simply doesn’t work as well as it should.
Growth hormones? The NCI in the USA has shown clearly that dairy, through insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), is implicated in cellular proliferation, metabolic change and even cancer itself. Many cancer nutrition experts recommend consuming no cows´ dairy or saturated fats at all for this reason. You simply do not need to add a cows’ growth hormones into your body.
The World Health Organisation is quite clear that 70 per cent of all cancers can be attributed to poor diet. Consuming milk shakes, cheeseburgers, milky/sugary tea, ice cream, healthy drinks like Ribena and Lucosade, sticky buns, chocolate and cake? You are pouring petrol on the fire!!! This is not a ‘diet for chemotherapy’ – it is positively dangerous for the 93 per cent of cancer patients without cachexia.
Cheeseburgers and milkshakes are positively no-go foods A real Diet for Chemotherapy
So let us try to build up a plan, based on real science, to give patients a strong route forward.
1. Clean Your Liver
One starting point can be the use of a Liver Flush involving Epsom Salts and olive oil consumed with a fruit juice to take the taste away. The details are on our web site. Coffee enemas can also help the liver pass more toxins into the intestine by dilating/expanding the bile ducts.
Milk thistle has recently been shown in clinical trials to reduce side-effects in chemotherapy patients. As has Mistletoe (which has to be prescribed). Milk thistle, boldo tea and dandelion amongst others will strengthen your liver and bile production. Magnesium will strengthen the liver too, and choline and inositol will help reduce fat levels. You could also add turmeric to some meals and drink at least two litres of clean water a day.
2. Prepare Yourself
a) Boost your immune system:Herbs like astragalus, cat´s claw, and echinacea seem particularly effective, as do curcumin/turmeric, natural vitamin E and the natural food chlorella (for complete beta-carotene, B-12 etc).
b) Cut sodium from your diet – boost potassium and magnesium:Increase potassium and magnesium. Sodium poisons your cells and displaces potassium in the power stations of your cells, making them more toxic and more acidic. Cancer thrives in acid bodies. Cut sodium foods like salt, soy sauce, gravy granules, hams, cooked meats, salami, turkey roast slices, sliced bread, breakfast cereals, sausages, bacon, processed food, prepared meals and Chinese meals. Consume high potassium and magnesium foods like fresh nuts, jacket potatoes, whole grains, green leaf vegetables, carrots, fresh apples, bananas, whole brown rice, broad beans, peas and pulses. A little rice milk or soya milk is acceptable.
You may wish to read our article on the web site entitled ‘Acid Bodies and cancer’. Your aim is to have a slightly alkaline one! So cut out smoking, alcohol, coffee, fats, sugar, salt, cows’ dairy (like milk and cheese. Yes, and the ‘healthy’ yoghurt and probiotic drink), chocolate, refined carbohydrates (white bread, pasta, rice) – i.e. pretty well everything in the NHS ‘A Diet for chemotherapy’ (or was that cachexia?) booklet.
c) Increase your omega 3 levels: We have known since 1982, and a Nobel Prize by Sir John Vane, about the positive benefits of omega 3 in the cancer process. Fish oils provide the long-chain version, which helps to reduce cellular inflammation. Short-chain omega 3 can be found in flaxseed. In Dr Joanna Budwig´s anti-cancer diet, she used it with quark to improve cellular oxygen levels; and flaxseed helps reduce oestrogen levels.
d) Determine whether your cancer is hormonally-driven- it is not just breast cancer that can be driven by oestrogen. There is clear research evidence that some womb, ovarian, colon, melanoma, brain tumours and prostate cancers are driven by this female sex hormone.
If your cancer is linked to higher oestrogen levels women should avoid the pill and HRT, men and women should avoid recycled water, fatty foods and eating one or two big meals a day. Graze - eat five or six smaller meals a day. Big starchy or carbohydrate-rich meals stimulate insulin production and this has a knock-on effect to increase oestrogen production.
Oestrogen mimics (xeno-oestrogens) should be minimised too. These invade our bodies in perfumed products, nail polishes (toluene), cosmetics and toiletries; and via volatile organic carbon gases from glues, dyes, dry cleaning, bleaches and disinfectants; plus they are formed from chemicals in certain pesticides, white can linings (BPA) and plastic packaging (BPA and phthalates).
So consider going toxin-free at home in the products you use; eat less pesticides; eat more greens, particularly cabbage and broccoli, and pulses.
Sleep in a fully darkened room – this will increase your melatonin production (it balances both IGF-1 and oestrogen excesses). Or you can supplement. (We have a book – ‘Oestrogen, the killer in our midst’ that tells you more click here to read about it.)
e) Consider the latest research. Read Cancer Watch regularly! For example, there is clear research now on vitamin D and its role in fighting cancer. It appears from research to work synergistically with vitamin K. The prime source for the former is sunshine, and the latter is greens (but only if you have the beneficial bacteria to release it). You may wish to supplement.
f) Cut animal fats, saturated fats and fried foods: People who eat fried foods regularly have three times the cancer risk. Overweight people have higher cancer risk – but research from Northwestern University shows that if you have cancer and reduce your weight to normal you increase survival times. You could consider replacing all animal and saturated fats with a little virgin, first pressed olive oil, or walnut oil.
3.Eat to Beat Cancer
In my book ‘The Rainbow Diet – and how it can help you beat cancer’, I tell you what foods have been shown in research to be ‘Protective’ and ‘Corrective’. So base your diet around foods like -
Fresh garlic, leeks, onions, spring onions, radishes - for example, garlic is known to contain a number of anti-cancer agents and is believed to help stop cancer spreading and blood supplies forming to new tumours.
Pulses - for thousands of years we have eaten broad beans, peas and pulses providing phytoestrogens (plant oestrogens that are far, far weaker than human oestrogens) to protect us especially against the spread of hormonally driven cancers.
Glycoproteins and polysaccharides - Four Nobel Prizes for medicine in the last six years have been won for discoveries on these natural compounds. Foods include aloe vera, echinacea, turmeric, pectins (e.g. apples and pears), arabinogalactins (e.g. in oats, psyllium, coconut, tomatoes, carrots, brown rice). Even red wine and mother´s milk contain these important protective factors that encourage better messaging between cells. In the US they are now called "Super carbs" or monosaccharides but are actually neither. Probably the best studied are Medicinal Mushrooms like Reishi, Maitake, Cordyceps which are beta-glucan polysaccharides. (see below).
Dark Red foods - like beetroot, dark plums, aubergines, red grapes, all of which provide anthocyanins, known to kill cancer cells.
Bright colours - Red and yellow peppers, peaches, apricots, watermelon, for carotenoids, known to restrict cancers like breast cancer.
Greens – Kale, spinach, broccoli, cabbage for vitamin K, phytoestrogens and indole 3 carbinol.
Sprouting seeds – for sulphoraphanes, which have strong anti-cancer activity.
Nuts and seeds – try a breakfast of a little organic muesli, boosted by organic pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and linseeds. Great for B vitamins like folic acid and biotin to help protect DNA, cellular oxygenation and detoxifying lignans.
Bitter foods - like watercress, gooseberries, cranberries, blackberries, wild strawberries. Or almonds, cashew nuts, millet, buckwheat and apricot kernels all of which contain a variety of natural compounds like B-17 which Dr Contreras of the Oasis of Hope refers to as "nature´s chemotherapy".
Notable additions - Green tea, olive oil, fennel, oregano to boost your immune system and kill yeasts.
Switch out of cows’ dairy - to a little goat’s cheese, soya and rice milk. Swap red meat for game and oily fish.
Eat more mushrooms, apples, organic brown rice, Manuka Honey (grade 12) and onions. I could go on. There is research on everything from the benefits of quercitin against cancer to the ability of medicinal mushrooms to cut oestrogen and boost the immune system. It is all in ‘The Rainbow Diet – and how it can help you beat cancer’.
Click here to read about The Rainbow Diet
Diet alone won´t suffice!
65 per cent of adults in the UK are overweight and 22 per cent are actually defined as obese. We have women 4 stone overweight write to us and describe themselves as ‘a little chubby’.
Being overweight increases your risk of cancer by 40 to 60 per cent depending upon the research study. With smoking the increased "risk" is ´only´ 25 per cent.
Although outside the remit of this article, if you have the energy, try some exercise, even the least strenuous forms of yoga. It will move your lymph, taking toxins from your cells; it will add oxygen into your blood by getting you to breathe better and it will reduce levels of toxins in the body and rebalance hormones. We do, however, understand that for some people on chemotherapy this is just impossible.
The simple fact is that research shows that light daily exercise of about 30 minutes duration helps improve survival rates by up to 50 per cent.