More and more doctors are convinced they should write a prescription for diet and exercise, just as they write one for medicines when it comes to beating cancer. Eating right and exercising regularly is advice everyone knows about and now some doctors say it is a key factor for long-term cancer survival.
A small but increasing number of health care professionals believe that following a specific mostly plant-based diet and keeping active are the very prescription to not only prevent cancer but to also survive the disease.
In 1971 an estimated 335,000 Americans died of cancer. Some 565,000 Americans will die of the disease in 2008, representing a 69 percent increase over 1971. These statistics defy the American Cancer Society’s battle cry of many years. “that a cancer cure is near and all we need is more money.”
Biologists have known for at least two decades that it is a rare cancer that can be completely cured through surgery. Nevertheless, countless surgeons keep assuring countless anxious patients that “they got it all.” In many cases after surgery cancer cells remain in the body, at levels so low not even a whole-body scan cannot reveal them. “Yet after surgery and, for some cancers, radiation or chemotherapy, patients are sent back into the world with no regimen to keep these lurking cells from igniting into a full-blown metastatic cancer or recurrence of the original cancer.
When the doctor says: "we think we got it all" what he or she is really saying is "we have destroyed all detectable cancer cells, and now it's up to your immune system to fight and destroy the cancer cells that inevitably remain in your body".
Comprehensive cancer treatment must include an aggressive nutrition component, which strengthens the immune system to do its work in attacking and killing cancer cells. Chemotherapy, radiation and surgery can temporarily reduce the tumor burden, but these therapies do not change the underlying cause of the disease.
Science has now established a definite link between cancer and diet. In one study after another, researchers have found that people following low fat plant-based diets tend to have strikingly low cancer rates. In rural Asia and Africa, for example, traditional diets are based on rice and other grains, starchy vegetables, fruits, and beans, and people eating these diets generally avoid the disease. When cancer does strike, they also seem to have a much better chance of survival.
One person keen to know what is going on is Dr. Dean Ornish a medical doctor at the University of California, San Francisco. Besides his academic job, he is the founding president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, a charitable foundation based in Sausalito. Dr. Ornish was one of the first to show scientifically that healthy living (a low-fat vegetarian diet), plenty of exercise and of course no smoking can not only stop, but also reverse the process of coronary heart disease. He and his colleagues therefore decided to look at gene activity in a group of people with cancer who had chosen to change their lifestyle. Dr.Ornish enrolled 30 early stage prostate cancer patients into a program of “comprehensive lifestyle changes.” These included a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet, stress management, moderate exercise and plenty of “psychosocial group support”. Patients’ prostates were sampled at the start of the study, and then three months later to see what had changed.
He and his colleagues found that after three months, the activity of more than 500 genes was altered in the prostate in a way that might be expected to help fight cancer. The good life turned off tumor promoting genes. Mean while, disease-preventing genes, including one for a protein that may help the immune system to recognize tumor cells were switched on.
Dr. Ornish’s research demonstrated that what we eat and how we treat our bodies on a daily basis have a very powerful effect on our health and quality of life. Although cancer can affect many different parts of the body, the foods that prevent cancer and deter cancer growth are generally the same. Fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes all have important nutrients and other cancer-fighting substances like photochemical and pectin that strengthen immune function and destroy cancer-causing substances before they cause harm. Research has shown that people who eat a diet free of animal products, high in plant foods, and low in fat have a much lower risk of developing cancer.
The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, (460-377) the founding father of natural medicine said, “Let food be your medicine.” Even today, doctors swear the “Hippocratic Oath” but have largely ignored his advice regarding nutrition. Now doctors are finding that Hippo was right after all.
As a cancer survivor and founder of Cancer Guide Service, I believe that the optimum treatment for cancer patients requires a concerted multidisciplinary approach employing the best medical treatment using the full resources of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy and nutrition. Nutrition has received the least amount of attention, although it might well possess the greatest potential for long-term cancer survival.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Robert Nelsen
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