Published in the Manila Bulletin 04 September 2005.
Authored by Alex Timbol/Maccess Corporation
The Cancer Diet
So, you or someone you know has cancer?
Cancer is no longer the death sentence it used to be. With medical technology and greater knowledge of how the body works, cancer is a treatable disease.
The key is to tilt the odds in your favor. When first diagnosed with cancer, you will be referred to an oncologist, or cancer specialist. His job is to evaluate your cancer, perhaps run more tests, in order to "stage" it.
Stage ONE is the earliest stage of cancer. Ninety percent of Stage 1 cancer patients survive and eventually become cancer free.
While easily treated, stage one cancers are usually asymptomatic (without symptoms). They can only be detected as part of a routine medical examination.
Stage Four defines a cancer that has spread extensively (mestastasized). Because traditional medicine offers little to Stage Four patients, these patients have the greatest motivation to explore complementary and alternative approaches to a cure.
People have survived Stage Four cancers, but it takes determination to live and beat the odds.
Creating a body environment hostile to cancer cells, together with traditional medical approaches of chemotherapy, radiation, and eventually, surgery, tilts the odds in your favor and is key to fighting cancer.
Unlike ordinary cells, cancer cells are different. They multiply rapidly, they don't use oxygen, inefficiently burning glucose to create the lactic acid rich environment in which they thrive, while starving the rest of the body of nutrition.
This process called the "cachexia cycle" is what kills cancer victims.
Your doctor can only do so much with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Each approach has its strengths and drawbacks:
Chemotherapy is best for preventing further growth of the main tumor and its spread throughout the body, but the treatment is toxic, and if used alone, may require doses high enough to create their own problems.
Radiation attacks the tumor mass directly, but does nothing for free-floating cancer cells looking for a place to colonize.
Surgery physically removes most of the cancer, but may leave behind enough cells at either the tumor site or in the blood to start new cancers elsewhere.
Because surgery deceives the body into thinking that the cancer is gone, production of natural anti-cancer factors are reduced, encouraging the proliferation of the remaining cancer cells.
Up-to-date doctors will use a neoadjuvant approach.
These are the doctors you need to get. These modern doctors use low-dose chemo to stop tumor growth and kill off free floating cancer cells, radiation to attack the main mass (and allow a reduced chemo dose), and, if needed, surgery to remove whatever remains.
If you believe your doctor is not open to, or unfamiliar with, modern approaches, consider getting another doctor because it is your life and your money that is at stake.
Your doctor is also going to need your help. He is not a magician and you will need to work with him to beat your cancer.
Use the Internet to research everything you need to know about your particular type of cancer.
Discuss your research with your doctor and how you can work together to defeat your cancer.
A good place to start is at the Life Extension Foundation, which is run by a board of doctors and scientists. The site has extensive discussions of complementary treatment protocols supportive of medical cancer treatments.
Learn more about "Alternative" approaches, but be skeptical if it requires you to forego traditional medical treatments. "Complementary," which works together with medical approaches, offers the best odds.
Fortunately, many "Alternative" approaches involve simple lifestyle changes which you can do to help you resolve your cancer.
The first and most important lifestyle change to make when you have cancer is GO VEGETARIAN. STOP EATING MEAT.
That means no meat, even meat mixed into vegetables. Some fish is okay, but not dried fish, shrimps, and crabs. Red meat is a definite no-no. Red meat has an amino acid profile that feeds cancers directly, making them more robust.
More importantly, eating meat increases your body acidity. Cancers thrive in acidic body environments.
Eat tofu, tokwa, and drink lots of soy milk. Genistein, a protein in soy has potent anticancer effects.
Forget about athritis concerns with soya. This is a myth. Vegetable proteins contribute far less to uric acid levels in the blood than animal proteins. You may even find your athritis gone after a few weeks of a meatless diet.
Eat your veggies, particularly cruciferous vegetables: Cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower. Carrots, onions, and garlic also have potent anti-cancer components.
Seventh Day Adventists, who are encouraged to pursue a meatless, soy-rich diet have significantly lower rates of cancers, athritis and heart disease.
Eat lots of fruits. Better yet, start your day with fruits to cleanse your digestive system. Enzymatic fruits, such as papayas, pineapples, mangos, kiwis, and strawberries are the best.
This is particularly important when you are taking chemotherapy. Your liver, which processes toxins created by chemo flushes them out through your intestines. Fruits and lots of water wash these toxins out of the body.
Psyllium husk is another important food item. This is becoming popular nowadays, sold as C-Lium, Colon Cleanse, Metamucil, Fiber-ade, etc. This is effective at reducing the toxicity and duration of side effects with chemotherapy.
Chemo works by killing fast growing cells, mainly the cancer cells, but it also ruins blood cells, causing anemia and decreased resistance to infection, hair cells (causing hair loss), and the cells of the intestinal lining, causing nausea.
By taking Psyllium in the morning, not only will you wash away the toxic by-products of chemo, but you'll also gently scrub away the dead layer of intestinal cells. Removing this dead layer reduces nausea, and more importantly, allow your intestines to quickly resume efficient absorption of nutrients.
Preventing anemia is a critical factor. Cancer itself causes anemia, and so do chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery (if there is substantial bleeding) --a double whammy.
A good doctor will monitor your blood's hematocrit level. It must be in the normal range at the very least.
Your doctor can prescribe drugs to fix this, but simply eating plenty of "talbos ng kamote, alugbati," and "munggo" may dramatically improve your blood readings.
Yoghurt, at least three times a week, also helps to maintain healthy glutathione levels, needed by the immune system to fight off infection and kill free floating cancer cells. The helpful bacteria in yoghurt also helps restore intestinal function after chemo.
Apart from diet, strategic vitamin supplementation helps maintain good health and a strong immune system, both of which are essential to keep the odds in your favor.
Search the Internet for the terms "Stockholm protocol Cancer" to find details of a vitamin plan that supports cancer treatment.
The protocol is comprehensive, and recommends vitamins that are easy to find in any health food store or vitamin shop. Vitamins A, C, E, CoQ10, Fish Oil, melatonin and calcium, plus a high potency multivitamin, form the core of the program.
If you are taking chemo, add milk thistle capsules, an herb that helps your liver process chemo related toxins.
Except for melatonin (taken at bedtime) it is best to take these vitamins in divided doses, in the morning with breakfast and in the evening after dinner.
Once again, if your doctor is opposed to the idea of taking vitamin supplements, seek a second opinion as it is your life that is at stake.
Most studies of vitamin supplements and cancer treatments show improved responsiveness to treatments and reduced duration and intensity of side effects.
It has not shown that supplements interfere with cancer treatments, and instead, may result in quality of life improvements while undergoing treatment, i.e. greater energy, fewer side effects, etc.
Fighting cancer is a multi-step process, a sequence of two steps forward, one step back, until you reach the ultimate goal of defeating cancer.
Modern medicine provides some of the tools, but ultimately it is your body that will rid itself of cancer.
By lifestyle and diet modification, and complementary nutritional support, your body can quickly restore its immune system functions and greatly increase the success rate of modern medical treatments.
For Lance Armstrong, cycling champion and testicular cancer survivor, defeating cancer means to maintain one's health and outlook while undergoing cancer treatment. As he says: "Live Strong."
