Is there such a thing as an "anti-cancer" diet?
February 10, 2013 3:14 PM Subscribe
A good friend of mine is working in a field that involves a lot of radiation. It's just sort of an occupational hazard. Just wondering, are there foods or a specific kind of diet that is healthy/has a proven ability to reduce the risk of getting cancer? I have heard anecdotal stuff, but am wondering if there is any proven (scientific) work out there on this. I want to protect my friend and I am curious for myself too!
Generally eating lots of fresh vegetables and avoiding preserved meats with nitrates. Good amount of fiber helps avoid colon cancer. Avoiding heavily salted preserved food - cultures that eat a lot of salted fish have higher incidence of stomach cancers.
posted by leslies at 3:20 PM on February 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by leslies at 3:20 PM on February 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
Good amount of fiber helps avoid colon cancer.
Adequate dietary fiber certainly has numerous health benefits, but its role in preventing colon cancer is inconclusive (anecdotally: I was diagnosed with colon cancer at 40 despite having eaten a high fiber diet for many years).
Some general recommendations from the American Cancer Society:
- Eat a mostly plant-based diet.
- Fill two-thirds of your plate with plants foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts, and one-third with lean or low-fat animal products.
- Limit red meat to 18 ounces per week.
- Avoid processed meats.
My oncologist especially stresses the recommendation to avoid processed meats (bacon, sausage, salami, pepperoni, etc.), suggesting no more than 1-3 small servings a month. She also says that she recommends total avoidance of any foods with any blue or green food dyes (they show up mostly in sports drinks, commercially prepared sweets, etc.).
posted by scody at 3:31 PM on February 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
Adequate dietary fiber certainly has numerous health benefits, but its role in preventing colon cancer is inconclusive (anecdotally: I was diagnosed with colon cancer at 40 despite having eaten a high fiber diet for many years).
Some general recommendations from the American Cancer Society:
- Eat a mostly plant-based diet.
- Fill two-thirds of your plate with plants foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts, and one-third with lean or low-fat animal products.
- Limit red meat to 18 ounces per week.
- Avoid processed meats.
My oncologist especially stresses the recommendation to avoid processed meats (bacon, sausage, salami, pepperoni, etc.), suggesting no more than 1-3 small servings a month. She also says that she recommends total avoidance of any foods with any blue or green food dyes (they show up mostly in sports drinks, commercially prepared sweets, etc.).
posted by scody at 3:31 PM on February 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
The diet that gets promoted by health food types (lots of green leafy vegetables, lots of fiber, decent amounts of fresh fish, less red meat, complex carbohydrates rather than simple ones) is essentially the anti-cancer diet. It won't prevent all or possibly even most cancer but it reduces your risk factors.
Diet isn't going to protect someone exposed to a bunch of radiation apart from very special cases like thyroid cancer and iodine as srboisvert mentions. But I'm assuming your friend is like an airline pilot rather than a worker cleaning up Fukushima while wearing nothing but overalls or whatever, in which case it's not really worth worrying about above living a healthy lifestyle.
posted by Justinian at 3:33 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
Diet isn't going to protect someone exposed to a bunch of radiation apart from very special cases like thyroid cancer and iodine as srboisvert mentions. But I'm assuming your friend is like an airline pilot rather than a worker cleaning up Fukushima while wearing nothing but overalls or whatever, in which case it's not really worth worrying about above living a healthy lifestyle.
posted by Justinian at 3:33 PM on February 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
I had the impression that the theory behind trying to increase your antioxidant consumption is that when ionizing radiation creates free radicals within your body by breaking molecular bonds, the antioxidants bind to the free radicals before they can damage your DNA, consequently reducing the likelihood that you'll get cancer. But various Wikipedia articles are presenting links to studies that conclude that eating more antioxidants doesn't actually reduce cancer rates.
posted by XMLicious at 3:51 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 3:51 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet is the diet she attributes to her being a "cancer thriver". She was diagnosed with cancer nearly 10 years ago, and basically promotes a vegetable, whole foods based diet.
What works for her may not work for everyone, obviously.
posted by backwards guitar at 3:51 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
What works for her may not work for everyone, obviously.
posted by backwards guitar at 3:51 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Nah. Anyone who believes in "cleanse" is to be doubted, I think.
posted by zadcat at 4:27 PM on February 10, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by zadcat at 4:27 PM on February 10, 2013 [10 favorites]
Professions in the U.S. that involve radiation exposure are highly regulated, such that cumulative exposure does not exceed certain limits. The greater the risk, the tighter the regulations. I once had a nuclear engineer tell me that his exposure was likely lower than average, given that he worked all day in environments where radiation levels were continually monitored.
srboivert mentioned iodine, which does certainly reduce the risk of exposure to radioactive iodine, such as might occur after a nuclear accident or detonation. But that form of treatment involves a large dose of supplemental iodine, far exceeding normal amounts. It's not without side effects, and is really only meant to be used for acute exposure in emergency situations. It's also worth noting that the form of radiation your friend is exposed to may have nothing to do with iodine.
posted by dephlogisticated at 4:49 PM on February 10, 2013 [5 favorites]
srboivert mentioned iodine, which does certainly reduce the risk of exposure to radioactive iodine, such as might occur after a nuclear accident or detonation. But that form of treatment involves a large dose of supplemental iodine, far exceeding normal amounts. It's not without side effects, and is really only meant to be used for acute exposure in emergency situations. It's also worth noting that the form of radiation your friend is exposed to may have nothing to do with iodine.
posted by dephlogisticated at 4:49 PM on February 10, 2013 [5 favorites]
I remember reading about tomatoes as something especially cancer-preventive random link
posted by mumimor at 4:52 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mumimor at 4:52 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
You might like The China Study. It advocates a plant-based diet to combat cancer, heart disease, and other Western diseases. The book backs it up with exhaustive scientific research. It's both very credible and eye-opening.
posted by mama penguin at 6:00 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mama penguin at 6:00 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Given the connection between chronic inflammation and cancer(ScienceDaily), it makes sense to me that one could eat foods with a low inflammation factor.
Check out NutritionData.com for a pretty great interface for investigating foods and things like inflammation factor.
posted by hanoixan at 9:24 PM on February 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
Check out NutritionData.com for a pretty great interface for investigating foods and things like inflammation factor.
posted by hanoixan at 9:24 PM on February 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
To follow up on Scody's point, here's a press release from HSPH about processed red meat.
What I'm about to say next is much more speculative than that, but there are at least a few prominent cancer researchers who hypothesize (red, bold, underlined) that a diet high in fructose (a constituent of "normal" table sugar as well as HFCS, but not of starches) may promote tumorigenesis. Fructose intake is also linked to metabolic syndrome, so there may be other good reasons to limit it; it's an open question of how much fructose exactly is safe to consume, but if your friend consumes any sweetened beverages or fruit juices on a regular basis, getting rid of that habit would be pretty low-hanging fruit (sorry).
posted by en forme de poire at 9:48 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
What I'm about to say next is much more speculative than that, but there are at least a few prominent cancer researchers who hypothesize (red, bold, underlined) that a diet high in fructose (a constituent of "normal" table sugar as well as HFCS, but not of starches) may promote tumorigenesis. Fructose intake is also linked to metabolic syndrome, so there may be other good reasons to limit it; it's an open question of how much fructose exactly is safe to consume, but if your friend consumes any sweetened beverages or fruit juices on a regular basis, getting rid of that habit would be pretty low-hanging fruit (sorry).
posted by en forme de poire at 9:48 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
The China Study is certainly not credible. There are hundreds of pieces exposing the poor "science" done by T. Colin Campbell. Feel free to google "The China Study" and let google autocomplete suggestions do the rest for plenty of examples. Denise Minger does a particularly excellent job.
Processed red meat has rightly been mentioned above, but please don't take that as an indication that all red meat is bad for you or cancer causing. Processed food in general is terrible for you, whether it's red meat, nitrate loaded foods, processed grains, cereals, HFCS, sugar, etc. If it comes pre-packaged in a box or bottle, there's probably not much of a need to eat it. There are lots of excellent researchers putting out hard science supporting a meat inclusive, minimally processed diet. It's hard to weed through the junk, but Mat Lalonde, Kurt Harris, and Doug McGuff put out some very excellent research.
My advice is to review the current research yourself and form your own opinion. (Also avoid T. Colin Campbell and Dean Ornish like the plague)
posted by Vonnegut27 at 8:19 AM on February 11, 2013 [4 favorites]
Processed red meat has rightly been mentioned above, but please don't take that as an indication that all red meat is bad for you or cancer causing. Processed food in general is terrible for you, whether it's red meat, nitrate loaded foods, processed grains, cereals, HFCS, sugar, etc. If it comes pre-packaged in a box or bottle, there's probably not much of a need to eat it. There are lots of excellent researchers putting out hard science supporting a meat inclusive, minimally processed diet. It's hard to weed through the junk, but Mat Lalonde, Kurt Harris, and Doug McGuff put out some very excellent research.
My advice is to review the current research yourself and form your own opinion. (Also avoid T. Colin Campbell and Dean Ornish like the plague)
posted by Vonnegut27 at 8:19 AM on February 11, 2013 [4 favorites]
Dr. Richard Beliveau is a biochemistry researcher that wrote a book called Foods That Fight Cancer: Preventing Cancer through Diet. From what I remember, some foods, such as curcuma and some types of green teas are proven "anti-cancer"
posted by racingjs at 12:18 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by racingjs at 12:18 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]
What exactly do you mean by a lot of radiation? What specific types of radiation? Painting watch dials is going to be very different than giving x-rays, for example.
posted by yohko at 12:32 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by yohko at 12:32 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]
Don't forget other lifestyle factors like physical activity and avoiding alcohol that are linked to cancer prevention.
posted by waterandrock at 6:53 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by waterandrock at 6:53 PM on February 11, 2013 [1 favorite]
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posted by srboisvert at 3:18 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]