A couple weeks ago, a dear friend of mine discovered that some neurologial symptoms he’d been having were in fact due to a brain tumor. The tumor is located so deep in his brain that it’s inoperable. Today, he starts radiation. He’s 29.
My friend is a smart guy. Within a week of his diagnosis, he was looking into dietary and lifestyle changes he could make to improve his health and hopefully fight the tumor. I was intrigued, so I checked out several of the books he was reading from my local library. And I’m loving what the most recent research has to say about cancer.
More and more, evidence is showing a strong link between diet, as well as psychological health, and cancer. Scientists are now starting to believe that we all have cancer-like cells in our bodies. But in some people, the conditions of the body are ripe for those cancer cells to proliferate. Interestingly, those conditions can be found mostly in Western cultures, as cancer rates here are much higher than in less developed countries. And when foreigners from those countries with lower cancer rates move to the U.S., they quickly start seeing cancer rates similar to that of Americans. The most suspect aspects of our diet that may make us more susceptible to cancer include the high amount of refined sugars, bleached flour, and vegetable oils we consume. It also doesn’t help that when we fill up on foods like these, we don’t have room for more nutritious fare, like fruits and vegetables chock full of phyotchemicals and nutrients.
One of the most impressive books I’ve looked at is called Anti Cancer by Dr. David Servan-Schreiber. A good portion of this book is about cancer and diet. It is absolutely fascinating that food can have the impact that it does on our health (of course this is something I truly believe, but to see the science back it up is even better). We all know someone who currently has or has had cancer, and we know how likely it is that we will get cancer. Therefore, I think everyone should consider reading this book. I especially enjoyed the section on anticancer foods, like green tea, turmeric, mushrooms, etc. It’s also very interesting to hear this story told by a doctor who developed cancer himself, and found that very few physicians could advise him in undertaking any changes to his lifestyle or diet. But the more he looked, the more he found that there is plenty of evidence that those are just the types of changes we need to prevent cancer, or to help supplement treatment once its developed.
