Can you eat yourself well? And what’s the best anti-cancer diet?
At CANCERactive, we are frequently asked "Can you eat yourself well?", or, "Can you eat to beat cancer". This article looks at the science of Epigenetics and the best diet according to research for protecting people from cancer and even for correcting them once they have it. We then look at some of the other diets claiming to help people increase their personal odds of beating cancer.
The World Health Organisation has stated that of the 6 million worldwide cancer cases each year, roughly 3 million are caused by poor diet, 1.5 million by infection and 1.5 million by toxins, including smoking. Many experts argue with these figures and developing cancer cannot just be assigned to three headings. The fact is that you build a body conducive to cancer over perhaps six to ten years, maybe more. Then something tips you over the edge. You are unlikely to ’cure’ your cancer in six to ten weeks or months. What you need to do is to build a body conducive to health. At least the World Health Organisation tell you whre to start. Correct your diet, avoid toxins and correct any infections!
Almost everyone who succumbs to cancer is both nutritionally deficient
and nutritionally toxic
The Science of Epigenetics teaches us much the same thing. Rather than cancer being routinely caused by a ’mutation’ in the core structure of the DNA, in fact it is far, far more likely to be the result of gene expression being blocked on the outside of the DNA (epi-, meaning ’around’).
And according to epigeneticists, these blockages are caused by FOUR things - poor diet, environmental toxins, stress and hormones like oestrogen.
Cancer is a metabolic disease
There can be little doubt that cancer is a metabolic disease with message changes attributable to epigenetic effects. In some cases, but far less that original thought, this may lead to DNA breaks or mutation. A double strand mutation is extraordinarily rare.
Around you ball of DNA are histones, linked to the DNA by methyl bonds. They control the structure of the ball of DNA. Many histones actually move regularly, allowing genes to send out messages through the histone gaps, while other genes are blocked. This system controls your basic metabolism
One sign that cancer risk is increasing is that levels of homocysteine increase in the blood stream. This is associated with more histone methylation.
More histones mean more DNA is hidden and less likely that its messages are read. When DNA blockages occur they may stop general messages being sent out (colour of eyes, hair etc., but half the blockages can affect messages that, for example, are crucial to the immune system, or DNA accurate replication.
You may have heard about the new science of immunotherapy - scientists are telling us that cancers develop the ability to hide from the immune system. These histone blockages, in part, bring this about.
A high natural fibre diet is best
High levels of homocysteine in the blood are linked to increased risk of cancer and Alzheimer’s. Scientists at Oxford University have shown that homocysteine levels can be reduced by taking a daily supplement of B vitamins.
As you age, your commensal gut bacteria (the friendly ones) see their numbers and diversity reduced. It is a little known fact but the friendly bacteria in your gut actually MAKE various B vitamins. They also have more DNA than you do (about 3 times more) and they can switch your DNA messages on and off.
A good diet to them is raw, high fibre and nourishing; not the junk most commonly consumed in the Western World. A good diet helps them grow and multiple. People with the highest fibre diets have the strongest immune systems and the lowest levels of homcysteine.
Correct nutritional deficiency and nutritional toxicity
Almost every newly diagnosed cancer patient is deficient in vitamin D, and worryingly, plasma levels are predictive of how long a patient might survive.
Women with breast cancer have been shown to be deficient in omega-3, vitamin D, magnesium and B-12. The typical Western diet is short in trace minerals like boron, iodine and selenium and a more major mineral, potassium. The truth is that we just don’t eat enough quality vegetables, and the ones we do eat are often depleted because they have been grown on depleted soils. A 12 million euro study of organic foods grown and compared with identical mass-market produce fields, showed huge differences in the content of bioactive natural compounds like anthocyanins, carotenoids and polyphenols.
But it is not just about shortages and nutritional deficiency; in parallel to this we eat far too much common sodium (sodium chloride), too much calcium (cows’ dairy and even calcium supplements); we eat dangerous trans fats, and added glucose and high-fructose corn syrup, plus aspartame, acrylamides, nitrosamines and herbicides and pesticides that may or may not mimic hormones naturally occurring in the body.
So people diagnosed with cancer are not just deficient - they are toxic too.
Create a body friendly to health and unfriendly to cancer
All of the above merely creates a body that is friendly to illness and to cancer.
But you need a body that is friendly to health
Michael Gearin-Tosh and Beata Bishop both realized this when the former developed multiple myeloma and the later melanoma. They both turned away from drugs and flooded their bodies with vitamins, minerals and bioactive compounds, focusing on a high vegetable diet - all organic and eating or juicing whole raw vegetables.
In 2014 Susan Ollifent was diagnosed with tumours in her liver and pancreas. There was nothing her oncologist could do for her. So she juiced and ate a plethora of colourful vegetables - for their cleanliness, their nourishment and their vibrancy and vitality. She also ate raw apricot kernels (50 a day) and drank alkalising sodium bicarbonate, taking a number of supplements. Eight weeks later her tumours were mere shadows. She now goes round the UK spreading the word with her Active Cancer Support roadshow - diet alone can beat cancer!
Jessica Richards did much the same - eating a Rainbow and juicing vegetables was the base to which she added IVC and even black salve. Result? No more breast cancer.
Then there was Galina Dean, Geoffrey Boycott, Fiona Shakeela-Burns and a host of others who came to CANCERactive for help.
But then, there are over 60 natural bioactive compounds that are known to have epigenetic ’protective and corrective’ benefits. And they all feature in the recommended CANCERactive diet ...
The Rainbow Diet is the best diet if you want to beat a chronic illness.
You can discover the foods, the bioactive compounds, the science and even the other diets in our book ’The Rainbow Diet - and how it can help you beat cancer’.
You can find recipes, reviews and research. Yes. Lot’s of research. Research on cancer prevention. Epidemiology studies showing adherence to a colourful Mediterranean Diet results in less cancer - indeed less diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and chronic illness in general You can find a recipe book - Rainbow Recipes.
We have even built a whole new Rainbow Diet website, just to cover all the research studies and information. No other diet can compete.
It is crucial when you have cancer to FLOOD YOUR BODY with nourishment, avoiding the foods that are friendly to cancer (like glucose, high fructose corn syrup and mass-market cows’ dairy, for example).
Feed your body junk and you will have a junk body. It is that simple. Importantly, when it comes to cancer research, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the high sugar, high saturated fat, high junk food diet in NHS booklets or UK Hospital recommendations of cake, biscuits, cheeseburgers or sugary tea and other such rubbish).
American Cancer Centres like Sloan-Kettering and MD Anderson are adamant that cancer patients should eat a healthy diet. And if there’s a fear of cachexia? Well, there’s more than enough research to suggest that taking daily fish oils will greatly reduce the risk.
Nourish your body, make it friendly to health and make it unfriendly to cancer - this isn’t rocket science
Here are a few of the other diets people talk about:
Other diet therapies and cancer ...
Diet therapies have probably never been so diverse as we learn more and more, and the overwhelming truth is that diet ’science’ is merely in its infancy. We cover other ’diets’ for completeness, without any intention of promoting or endorsing them. For example:
The Nori Protocol
A methionine-restricted diet (cancer cells need methionine), which uses sodium selenite and other cancer cell killers. Go To: the NORI protocol
But there’s no research or epidemiology studies showing it works for large numbers of people and we find the overall science questionable. However, colourful fruits are part of the Rainbow Diet and vegetables are lower in methionine, so in part some of its science further supports the Rainbow diet!
The Ketogenic Diet
This is one step on from the Atkins diet. No or low carbs, little protein and large volumes of good fats, it lacks the bioactive corrective compounds of the Rainbow diet and apart from research on rats and some anecdotes, we await Epidemiology and other studies. Go To: The Ketogenic Diet and cancer
The Paleo Diet
This diet, according to expert Paleontologists actually is inaccurate. Our forefathers didn’t eat like this. Gluten-free messages are stuck on and again, there are simply no major studies and certainly no research with cancer. Since there is just no research with cancer, we won’t review it.
The Budwig Diet
This diet involved a vegetarian and raw food diet, with flax oil supplements combined with ’quark’ or German cottage cheese made from lactic acid raw skimmed milk. We prefer flaxseed rather than oil. It also feeds your gut bacteria.
Go To: A review of The Budwig Diet
The theory is that the sulphur amino acids in the quark combine with the fatty acids in flaxseed oils to restore normal cellular energy production by driving the oxygen system of healthy mitochondria. Cancer cells are thus oxidised, and reconvert to healthy cells or die.
Shame there’s no research with numbers again. It’s a recurring theme.
The Hippocrates Health Institute
This in Boston and has branches worldwide. Its founders, Ann Wigmore and Victoras Kulvinskas, use organic wheat grass and a vegetarian diet. Ann used this method to cure her own cancer.
The Gerson Therapy
By far the best-known anti-cancer diet therapy is probably The Gerson Therapy. Dr Max Gerson first started to develop his theories and treatment in the 1920s for tuberculosis before emigrating from Germany to the USA in 1938. After much success, he was asked to treat someone for their cancer. After more successes, he published a book "A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases".
The basic principle in the Therapy is to re-stimulate the natural immune defences of the body by returning the cells to their ideal state - where potassium and magnesium dominate and sodium is a bit part player..
The basic principle is to re-stimulate the natural immune defences
of the body
This means cutting out all toxins, pesticides and herbicides by the exclusive use of organic foods, then adjusting the diet to cut out sodium, sugar, fats and protein all of which, Gerson felt, can unbalance cells, whilst increasing levels of helpful minerals, vitamins and digestive enzymes.
In practical terms the Therapy involves eating organic fruits and vegetables, whilst consuming freshly pressed organic vegetable and fruit juices every hour, thirteen times a day.
The dramatic changes in cellular composition can result in a ’healing crisis’ - namely, that the failing cancer cells pour their toxins out into the blood stream overloading both the blood and the liver, the organ of detoxification. This necessitates a constant cleaning and flushing of the liver. Gerson suggested using coffee enemas to encourage the liver to propel the excess toxins into the intestines You might feel happier using good old Epsom Salts. It takes less time to prepare too.
In addition to the organic regime, Gerson prescribed hydrochloric acid, pepsin, pancreatin and other enzymes prepared from raw liver, together with injections of B-12, niacin and Royal Jelly supplements. As he developed his therapy he dropped the raw liver and used linseed and flaxseed oils.
He was also fastidious about unhealthy teeth and mercury filings, removing all at the start of the treatment.
The Nutritional Cancer Therapy Trust
Lawrence Plaskett, vice chair of the Nutritional Council in Britain is a fan of Dr. Max Gerson and in the mid 1990’s he updated the Gerson Therapy using the latest nutritional research.He uses less juices, (favouring carrot and apple) and less coffee enemas. His University course has trained many fully qualified, expert nutritionists and, although he does not treat patients himself, such nutritionists can be contacted through The Nutritional Cancer Therapy Trust in the UK. There is undoubtedly one in your area. More explanation of the details of all these therapies are covered in The Rainbow Diet
Other Nutritional Cures And Diet ’Therapies’
Kristine Nolfi, a Danish Doctor, adopted one of the most traightforward ’cures’. She cured her own cancer using a totally organic, vegetarian raw-food diet. She then developed the same methodology at her own ’health farm’. However, she lost her licence to practice, apparently accused of employing’ dangerous’ methods!
In New Zealand an identical approach worked for Dr Eva Hill, whilst in South Africa Johanna Brand, a naturopath, cured hers tomach cancer in the 1920’s by eating nothing for just six weeks but organic grapes, particularly black varieties.
The purple of the beetroot has a known anti-cancer effect
Dr. Hans Nieper - He followed much the same principles as above but added a wide range of supplements to retard and destroy tumour growth, reinforce liver function and re-strengthen the immune system.
Dr. A Ferenczi - a Hungarian, used up to 1 kilogram of beetroot per day to cause tumours to breakdown. The purple of the beetroot contains anthocyanin, which has a known anti-cancer effect.
Dr. Seeger, another German, uses Zell Oxygen to re-start the oxidative process in the cancer cells in an attempt to either destroy them or normalise them. Zell Oxygen is a culture of young yeast cells very high in oxygenating enzymes and works best in combination with Royal Jelly.
Macrobiotics and the Penny Brohn Diet- The Macrobiotic Diet and that of Penny Brohn are both covered in The Rainbow Diet. They take people back to basics. The Macrobiotic diet argues for a local, fresh and in-season diet of fruit and vegetables plus whole grains. The Penny Brohn Centre largely refers people to a dairy-free, organic, vegetarian die
But, a word of warning. Several studies have shown that certain cancers develop in people with low levels of vitamin B-12. B-12 is most usually found in meats. And so a vegetarian diet is deficient in B-12 (73 per cent of vegetarians are deficientin B-12). If you decide to undertake a vegetarian diet it is absolutely essential that you take good supplementation, especially B-12. (A good source is chlorella). You would also be wise to supplement your vitamin A levels too.
Some cancers are caused by poor diet, and some people have used
a ’good’ diet to reverse this process
For more information, start br reading about the Rainbow Diet, recipes, research and reviews by clicking this link.
And now ... a word on Coffee Enemas
For more information on coffee enemas try www.enapure.com.
This piece is for information only and is not intended to be medical advice. Indeed medical authorities consider the use of coffee enemas to be dangerous practice.
How does the coffee work?
The active ingredients of coffee, when it is contained in anenema, are quickly absorbed because the veins of the anus are very close to the target tissues. The ingredients are also in a higher concentration having not been diluted in the stomach and the blood system.
The coffee works in two ways:-
First, the enzymes in coffee (palmitates) encourage the freeing of toxins held in the liver and the passing of them into the bile.
Second, active ingredients in coffee life caffeine, theobromine and theophylline dilate blood vessels and bile ducts allowing the toxic bile to pass more freely into the intestine.
How is the enema prepared?
Using organic coffee and distilled water, make the coffee normally in a cafetiere.
Leave for about an hour until lukewarm, separate the grounds and administer the equivalent of about eight cups of coffee using an enema kit that you can buy from large pharmacies.
Is that all?
Well no. The best results are apparently obtained if accompanied by a stomach massage when the lower colon is flooded.
Furthermore, other treatments may be needed to ensure the toxins from the bile are not reabsorbed into the blood stream from the colon. Castor oil taken by mouth or enema can help removal.