Saturday, July 23, 2016

How to CANCER PREVENTION

‘To keep the body in good health is a duty … otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.’ – BUDDHA


The WHO believes that over 30 per cent of cancers are actually preventable
and that, regardless of resource levels, all countries can implement the four
basic components of cancer control – prevention, early detection, diagnosis
and treatment, and palliative care – and thus avoid and/or cure many
cancers.76 We have already seen that by educating ourselves and ensuring
regular check-ups, early detection is possible. And diagnosis, treatment and
palliative care are sectors that are well established in South Africa. But what
about prevention?

The WHO suggests that cancer prevention starts with not using tobacco,
following a healthy diet, being physically active and moderating the use of
alcohol. According to The China Study, in which T. Colin Campbell and
Thomas M. Campbell II present their intensive research into the link between
diet and common illnesses like cancer, diabetes and heart disease, asserts that
plant-based diets have been scientifically proven to benefit human beings
around the world. This research is significant, considering that the ACS
recommends individuals consume a healthy diet with an emphasis on plant
foods, limiting their consumption of processed meat and red meat.77

What can we conclude from this? Obviously, maintaining a balanced
lifestyle and a healthy way of eating, where one includes as many fruits and
vegetables as possible, is logically a better way to live, lowering your chances
of developing all sorts of diseases as well as ensuring your dietary intake is
made up of a lot of vitamins and nutrients. With smoking responsible for 22
per cent of cancer deaths in the world,78 it is also fair to suggest that cutting
back on habits such as this is a good idea.

We are taught about food pyramids at school and reminded by our
parents to eat our vegetables, but how often do we significantly factor this
information into our daily lives? My friend Kerry, who has witnessed
firsthand how a person’s body can deteriorate says, ‘I always thought that I
could eat what I wanted to a certain degree because I danced a lot and played
sport at school. I met someone in 2008, however, who introduced me to gym
and showed me how eating clean could change your body and how you felt. It
was during this period that I started to understand how your body reacts to
things that you put in it. For example, after eating clean for a while and then
eating gluten or having lots of sugar, I could feel how my body would disagree
with it and how it could even alter my mood.’ While Kerry would not call
herself a fanatic, she now reads labels and stays away from breads, sugars and
processed foods. ‘I started thinking more about what I put in my mouth. I
now understand that your body is a machine and you need to feed it the right
foods to keep it working well. I think I always knew the basics of healthy
eating, but I only chose to enforce them a couple of years ago.’

The WCRF and AICR’s Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention
of Cancer: A Global Perspective, concludes that, while smoking, exposure to
tobacco, infection, infestation, solar radiation, food and nutrition, physical
activity, body composition, and various other factors are all causes of cancer,
‘food and nutrition, and physical activity can protect against cancer.’79 Ergo,
we can choose ways of living that will protect both ourselves and the next
generation from getting cancer.

The same report summarises the most common types of cancer and lists
foods that research indicates may help protect one from getting that particular
cancer:

Bladder cancer  ==>> milk

Cancer of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx  ==>> non-starchy vegetables, fruit and foods containing carotenoids

Cervical cancer  ==>> carrots

Colorectal cancer  ==>> Foods containing dietary fibre, folate, vitamin D, selenium and calcium, garlic, milk, non-starchy vegetables, fruit and fish

Endometrial cancer  ==>> non-starchy vegetables

Kidney cancer  ==>>  fruit and vegetables rich in antioxidants and phytates

Liver cancer  = =>> fruit

Lung cancer  ==>> non-starchy vegetables, fruit, and foods containing selenium, quercetin and carotenoids

Nasopharyngeal cancer  ==>>  non-starchy vegetables and fruit

Oesophageal cancer  ==>>  non-starchy vegetables, fruit and foods containing beta-carotene, vitamin C, dietary fibre, folate, pyridoxine and/or vitamin E

Ovarian cancer  ==>>  non-starchy vegetables

Pancreatic cancer  ==>>  fruit and foods containing folate

Prostate cancer  = =>> pulses (legumes), including soya and soya products, and foods containing vitamin E, lycopene and selenium

Skin cancer  = =>> foods containing retinol (vitamin A)

Stomach cancer  = =>> non-starchy vegetables, specifically allium vegetables, as well as fruit, pulses (legumes), soya and soya products, and foods containing selenium

Breast cancer is an interesting case. Instead of specific foods, the report cites
‘life events’ that protect against breast cancer. These include late menarche,
early pregnancy, bearing children and early menopause, all of which have the
effect of reducing the number of menstrual cycles and therefore lifetime
exposure to oestrogen. The reverse also applies. Furthermore, there is
evidence that lactation and exercise protect against breast cancer at all ages. In
any event, the report recommends taking into account factors that modify the
risks of body and abdominal fatness, including physical activity, the energy
density of foods and drinks, and breastfeeding. This last point applies to
prevention of all forms of cancer.

EAT TO LIVE

While science strives to come up with the hard evidence, we would do well to
consider the role of our diet in cancer prevention. Obesity and unhealthy
eating are signs of an ‘unclean’ life, and are thus bound to have an effect on
cancer initiation and promotion.

‘Diet is a really important component of cancer prevention,’ says dietitian
Nathalie Mat. ‘Eating too much food is the primary reason people are
overweight and this is a direct consequence of diet. Being overweight
generally increases your risk of developing cancer. One’s diet can [therefore]
increase your risk of getting cancer. For example, a diet high in red meats and
low in dietary fibre increases your risk of developing cancer. High alcohol
intake increases your risk of certain cancers, especially the cancers of the
upper gastro-intestinal tract.’

Ernest Hawk, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center,
maintains that the risk of cancer can be eliminated through proper nutrition,
physical activity and maintaining a healthy weight across your lifespan. ‘We
know what to recommend in broad terms for most people in the population,
but not always the specifics of a highly tailored or personalised “prescription”
for every individual.’ In other words, while ongoing research suggests that
dietary choices and physical activity do have a significant impact on
treatment and survivorship in terms of improving quality of life and overall
health, as well as diminishing side effects and symptoms, scientists are not
able to provide a general one-size-fits-all diet and accompanying ‘rules’ for
eliminating cancer risks. Hawk explains: ‘Diets are extremely varied and
complex within and across individuals especially over time. The vast variety
of different types of cancers and important cancer-associated outcomes also
create a challenge. Therefore, current recommendations are relatively broad
and apply to the general public.’ As we have seen, the broad
recommendations include increasing fruit and vegetables to at least five
servings a day, increasing whole grains, limiting red or processed meats and
salt, balancing calorie intake with expenditure to maintain a healthy weight,
and doing at least fifteen minutes of vigorous physical activity or thirty
minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per day at least five times a week.

While these may be general suggestions, Hawk says the point is that we do
know how to reduce the risk of cancer by at least 50 per cent today – by
adopting healthy lifestyles, having the recommended vaccines and undergoing
the recommended evidence-based screening tests.

AVOIDING CANCER

Cancer is an unforgiving disease that often takes its time breaking down our
health and our bodies. Recovery can be a very long process. The fear of
getting sick, of facing a premature death, is something that haunts many of us.

This fear can be so consuming that it can even provoke an individual to go
to extreme lengths to avoid cancer’s wrath. Allison Gilbert is one of many
who have undergone preventative surgery to lower their chances of getting
cancer.

‘I’m not a helicopter parent and my children would tell you I don’t bake
cupcakes for their birthday parties. But I’d readily cut off my breasts for them
– and recently I did,’ says Allison, the author of Parentless Parents, Always Too
Soon and Covering Catastrophe, who has been featured on CNN and a range of
other news stations and websites.

The double mastectomy, which she had done in 2012, took eleven-and-ahalf
hours and she does not regret a second, despite the long road to recovery.
She went on to have new breasts made out of her stomach fat so that she
would not have to get implants.

‘The decision to have surgery without having cancer wasn’t easy, but it
seemed logical to me. My mother, aunt and grandmother have all died from
breast or ovarian cancer and I tested positive for the breast cancer gene. Being
BRCA positive means a woman’s chance of developing breast and ovarian
cancer is substantially elevated.’

When weighing up the statistics, Allison learnt that patients with BRCA1
or BRCA1 mutations have a 50 to 85 per cent lifetime risk of developing
breast cancer, where the rest of the population only has a risk of around 13 per
cent. She also found out that the gene means a 60 per cent chance of ovarian
cancer. ‘At my gynaecologist’s urging, I tackled the threat of ovarian cancer
first. Because the disease is hard to detect, so often fatal, my ovaries were
removed in 2007, a few years after my husband and I decided we were done
having kids.’

It was not an easy decision and she had to deal with the repercussions,
including going through menopause at the age of thirty-seven. Less than a
year later, her aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and died within four
months. ‘Aunt Ronnie’s death set me on a preventative mastectomy warpath.

I had already been under high-risk surveillance for more than a decade, being
examined annually by a leading breast specialist and alternating between
mammograms, breast MRIs and sonograms every three months, but suddenly
being on watch didn’t seem enough and I began researching surgical options.’

It was a concept that she thought about over many years, torn between the
anxiety of surgery and the threat of cancer. She eventually underwent the
double mastectomy on 7 August 2012, but it had been a stressful journey
getting to that point. ‘The worst moment came one night when my husband
and I were in bed. I began to cry uncontrollably and wished I could talk with
my mother and aunt about which procedure to have, which doctor I should
choose and whether I should even have the surgery. Then a moment of
bittersweet grace clarified what I needed to do. It struck me that the reason I
couldn’t speak to my mother and aunt was exactly the reason why I had to
have the surgery.’

Allison is convinced that if she had not had the surgery, she would have
been one of the estimated 226 000 women that according to the ACS are
diagnosed with invasive breast cancer each year. ‘I could have tried to eat my
way to a cancer-free life, but even Dr T. Colin Campbell, author of the
popular vegetables-are-key-to-health book The China Study admits diet may
not be enough to protect BRCA patients from cancer.’

Her rationale by the time she came to have the surgery was simple. She
was not willing to bank on a future miracle cure or drugs, or even statistical
evidence, that her lifestyle choices may help lower her risks. ‘Every surgery
substitute seemed locked in hope, not statistics. And as I’ve told my husband
and children, I wasn’t willing to wait. I love them more than my chest.’

TAKING CONTROL

Allison and others like her have taken extreme measures. You must do what is
right for you. Taking control of your health is a good first step, and maybe
the only step you will need to take. Nutrition can provide a valuable basis for
good health, but you need to adopt healthy habits in every aspect of your life.

Cutting down your alcohol intake, monitoring your stress levels, quitting
smoking, protecting yourself in the sun and ensuring that you get the right
amount of exercise all play a crucial role in protecting yourself against illness.
For a start, try to focus on the following:

  • Body fat – Be as lean as possible within the normal range of body weight.
  • Physical activity – Be physically active as part of everyday life.
  • Foods and drinks that promote weight gain – Limit consumption of energy-dense foods and avoid sugary drinks.
  • Plant foods – Eat mostly foods of plant origin.
  • Animal foods – Limit intake of red meats and avoid processed meats.
  • Alcoholic drinks – Limit alcoholic drinks.
  • Preservation, processing and preparation – Limit consumption of salt, and avoid mouldy cereals (grains) or pulses (legumes).
  • Dietary supplements – Aim to meet nutritional needs through diet alone.


AND REMEMBER: PREVENTION IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN CURE.

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