Eat Your Cancer-fighting Vitamins.
12 foods to fight cancer:
One of the easiest things for a person touched by cancer to address is their diet. Here are 12 foods that can each play a role in fighting one or more steps in the multi-step cancer process.
Remember that ´good nourishment´ is a crucial weapon in the fight against cancer and any illness. Good cancer nutrition can be vital in increasing your personal odds of survival.
Remember too that natural compounds are likely to do you a lot more good than synthetic pills! So here are a few additions to your cancer diet, as a part of your own Integrated Cancer Treatment Programme.
1: Oily Fish
Vitamin A is an important vitamin in the fight against cancer, and there´s a lot of evidence to support this. Oily fish is the best provider, with herring, mackerel and salmon top of the list. But you´ll need a kilo of fish to give you 1,000 mgs so you can ´top up´ with cod liver oil supplement. Fish oil will give you vitamin D and long chain Omega-3 as well, both are proven cancer-fighters.
2: Carrots
Along with apricots, peppers and pumpkins, they provide cancer carotenoids like beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A, when required by the body. 1 cup of carrot juice, 2 sweet potatoes, 16 dried apricots and 4 cups of red cherries will each provide 25mgs. Don´t eat them all at once - people have been known to turn a little orange! A great juice to make yourself involves carrots and apples (for quercitin) and beetroot (for anthocyanins). A real cancer fighting drink!
3: Red Peppers
The top UK source of vitamin C. Vitamin C strengthens your immune cells and neutralises toxins. Linus Pauling thought cancer patients should consume 2 to 10 gms per day. A large red pepper is 250 mgs. 200 gms raw broccoli 175 mgs. 150 gms papaya 90 mgs. An orange 65 mgs. Berries and cherries are great sources.
4: Sunflower Seeds
High in zinc and vitamin E. Zinc helps vitamin C do its work and accelerates healing time. It is important to a healthy prostate. You need 15 to 25 mgs per day. Five tablespoons of sunflower seeds give you 10 mgs. Best are oysters, 3 are enough. Milk can block zinc absorption. Sunflower seeds will also provide a little selenium.
Pumpkin Seeds
Can be mixed with the sunflower seeds in your morning mueseli. 5 tablespoons will each provide 20 mgs of vitamin E, the ultimate cancer buster, which inhibits cancer cell growth and protects immune cells from free radicals. Vitamin E boosts your immune systems fighting abilities. The target is 300-600 mgs and is difficult to achieve without supplements. Green vegetables, soya and almonds are also good sources.
5: Brazil Nuts
Six cracked nuts will give you your daily selenium; 100 to 200 mcgs is the goal. Selenium is a very potent anti-cancer agent. Eight slices of wholemeal bread, an organic egg, or a large chicken breast will also be enough.
Tuna, onions, broccoli and tomatoes contain selenium too.
6: Mushrooms
There´s an enormous body of research evidence now that shows how ´medicinal´ mushrooms (Shiitake, Maiitake, cordyceps etc) boost the immune sustem and fight cancer. Even the button mushroom has cancer fighting ingredients.
7: Tomatoes
Seven to ten helpings per week, especially cooked.
According to Harvard research 7-10 helpings a week cuts prostate symptoms by 40% and has an influence on many cancers e.g.: lung; colon; cervix; breast. Lycopene is the prime active ingredient, and 25 - 40 mgs the desired daily dose.
It is also found in strawberries, peppers, carrots and peaches, but one tin of tomato soup has 65 mgs alone.
8: Egg Yolk
Along with green leafy vegetables, avocado, beans, carrots, apricots and pumpkins, egg yolk will give you folic acid.
This will help your DNA to replicate properly and protect it during radiotherapy.
400 micrograms is a recommemended amount. Folate, biotin, niacin and vitamin B6 are all B vitamins that help in the cancer fight. Egg yolk, greens and whole grains are the best sources.
9: Broccoli
And other green cruciferous vegetables e.g. cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts, contain fibre which helps eliminate toxins
Moreover, the fibre is rich in galactose, which binds to damaging agents in the intestine.
Cruciferous vegetables also contain indole, and especially indole3carbinol, which modifies and diminishes aggressive oestrogen action and aids in fighting oestrogen driven cancers like some breast, prostate, brain and colorectal cancers.
Finally, sulphorophane in broccoli and especially sprouting broccoli seeds helps the liver detoxify, and reduces stomach cancer tumours.
10: Garlic
It is a truly wonderful food. It seems to act to stop the spread of cancer in a number of ways, for example by stopping blood supply forming for tumours.
Garlic has a number of active ingredients. It contains selenium, tryptophan and sulpher based active agents that attack cancer cells.
Two or three raw cloves of garlic per day will ward off more than vampires.
11: Soya
Contains a wealth of anti-cancer agents and is another way of inhibiting the spread of cancer
Soya isoflavines - particularly genestein, can help in all cases of hormonal cancer by blocking receptor sites on the surface of cells.
Soya lecithin provides choline and insitol, which help defat the liver and nourish cell membranes. Use soya milk, tofu and tempeh.
12: Pulses
Lentils, chickpeas etc. are a great source of fibre and protein without the animal fat.
Pulses also contain isoflavones, phytoestrogens (far less harmful than oestradiol, a major cause of cancer) and a type of fibre that binds to free radicals in the gut and in the blood stream.
Eat pulses every two days.
And For A Drink?
Choose green tea. Three cups per day help to neutralise free radicals. The Mayo clinic even claims from research that 3-5 cups a day can stop the growth of certain cancers.
One last thing!
Finally, don´t forget - EAT WHOLE FOODS; and take a daily multi-strain probiotic to help release all this nourishment!
 At last!!! The definitive, research-based book on how to build a diet to help beat cancer. Click here to read about it.
Readers also found the following pages helpful:
A diet for Chemotherapy
The Active8 Programme
Building an Integrated Treatment Programme
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