Texas A&M’s Dr. Robert Chapkin lends his voice to the plant-based movement.
Over the past decade, many researchers studying anti-cancer mechanisms have focused on the intersection of diet and chronic inflammatory diseases, cancer included. The bottom line is becoming clear: Continue reading
Got milk? Got prostate cancer?
Psst, men–and all of you who care about men, growing boys or your own hormonal balance. How’s your DHT? That’s the powerful male hormone driving adolescent acne, then early hair loss, then later in life, Continue reading
“Again with the onions,” you’re probably screaming. Continue reading
While everyone else is taking to alcohol this Cinco de Mayo, dare to be different with an anti-cancer alternative: frozen matcha-ritas. Here’s the messipe:
For an overview of cancer as a metabolic disease, start here.
Cancer cells thrive on certain fuels–including glucose and glutamine, two key elements that you must inhibit in your anti-cancer diet. We’ve talked ad nauseum about glucose. But what about glutamine, an amino acid, a building block of protein? Continue reading
Myricetin may not yet grace your doctor’s anti-cancer tool kit, but put it on your prescription pad. Among all the phytonutrients, it’s what I call “plantastic”– blessed with a chemical structure that works some anti-cancer wonder.
Today, on World Cancer Day, go out and buy some cancer-fighting plants. Here are some musts for your anti-cancer kitchen: Continue reading
Is it my imagination or has Pillsbury’s Dough Boy shed a bit of belly fat?
Wonder what he’s been eating for lupper? Continue reading
As if Brazil didn’t have enough to worry about, now comes a new study that exposes the shady side of selenium. The selenium in Brazil nuts, it turns out, is not the kind associated with anti-cancer qualities. Continue reading
2018 update: For an update on Dr. Thomas Seyfried’s suggestions for treating cancer as a metabolic disease, read his article here or my piece summarizing that article.
Talk with your oncologist about using this approach and ask your oncologist to reach out to Dr. Seyfried at thomas.seyfried@bc.edu.
This week’s New York Times magazine features a story on a theme familiar to all of you readers of this anti-cancer blog : the metabolic approach to starving, or feeding, disease. It singles out insulin and a related hormone, Insulin Growth Factor-1, which we’ve talked about often. And if glucose, glutamine and certain fatty acids drive cancer growth, as the metabolic scientists quoted in the article suggest, then what could be more important than phytonutrients that keep cancer cells from utilizing those fuels? That’s another theme we’ve been addressing. Remember singing the praises of dill? Continue reading
Now that the holidays are behind us, let’s get back to celebrating life with some simple, health-promoting anti-cancer recipes. Instead of wine and canapés, treat yourself to a Berry Merry Tea Party—a handful of goji berries along with a cup of the finest tea. Here’s the black and white—and green and red—on your tea choices.
For any of you with cancer, please read the last three questions first. Continue reading
Here’s your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: an anti-cancer recipe for a Turmeric Concoction. Continue reading
Now that you’re eliminating mammary secretions on your anti-cancer diet, how do you decide which alternative to buy? It took a spreadsheet to figure out the answer. Continue reading
Yearning to know the best ways of preserving garlic’s anti-cancer properties? Continue reading
November 2013 update: Please read the groundbreaking news about crucifers! Scientists have recently discovered that lightly steamed cabbage has more anti-cancer compounds than raw cabbage (with one exception: qing gin cai is best raw)–and that you can cook any cabbage any way you want as long as you eat a little raw crucifer in the same meal. Radish, mustard, watercress, wasabi–any raw crucifer will do.
Most people will tell you to eat cabbage for its anti-cancer compounds, but they don’t explain that how you prepare it is key. If you want to get the anti-cancer benefits from cabbage, then heed this advice: Continue reading
Note: Writer-Producer Harriet Sugar Miller has been a health journalist and cancer survivor for almost two decades. In her past life (before children), she practiced law in NYC.
Although Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month wraps today, the disease remains– and will always be the beast that roused this anti-cancer blog.
In the words of McGill University’s Dr. Gerald Wiviott, we all need a trigger to help us get off our bums (Canadian for “butts”) and make changes: Inspiration, Motivation, Provocation and Support. Continue reading
The news this past week—that some rice and rice products are contaminated with arsenic—should spark a change in your anti-cancer eating habits.
Here’s the short version of the story: Continue reading
Summer’s waning. It’s your last chance to gather these anti-cancer wonders and preserve their pleasures for those long, winter nights. Get out today, and buy a bushel or four along with a large cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer, then Continue reading
When it comes to anti-cancer properties, some vegies tower above the others. Put leeks on top of that list. Continue reading
Hint: For an anti-cancer diet, one of these tops your choice of grains:
a/ steel cut oats b/ oat flakes c/ oat bran. Which one?
Gills down, this anti-cancer recipe wins the tastiest meal of the summer— Continue reading
We know that flaxseed appears to be an anti-cancer food for women and it may just do wonders for our sex drive, but what about for our men: Does it fight prostate cancer, too? Continue reading
Know anyone who has breast cancer? Doing your best to avoid it? Then consider this: Studies are showing that flaxseed can protect against breast cancer and prolong survival in women who have it. Continue reading
Should you include eggs in your anti-cancer diet? To be perfectly honest, Continue reading
Yikes. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you might want to reconsider Grandma’s precious recipe. Roasted chicken, it turns out, is more pro- than anti-cancerous. Here are two reasons why: Continue reading
If you’ve been following the anti-cancer recipes in this blog, then you already have some ideas. Besides good old- fashioned water (not from a plastic bottle, especially if it’s been sitting around in heat), here are some healthy options: Continue reading
Hey, guys. It might be a bit difficult at first to wrap your new anti-cancer brain around this one, but you’ll get used to it: Continue reading
Note: One of the pitfalls of a plant-based diet is that some foods can soften the enamel on teeth. The acid in citrus can definitely do that, As a reader suggests, the solution is to rinse your mouth with water. And wait an hour or so before brushing. You don’t want to brush enamel that’s been softened.
D-limonene, to be precise. Put it in your anti-cancer vocabulary. It’s a member of a very fragrant class of molecules that abound in citrus–terpenoids or terpenes. And they’ve been shown to inhibit cancer cell progression and induce cell death. Continue reading
Sure, we’re trying to stick to an anti-cancer diet, but we still have to enjoy ourselves, right? And that means eating in restaurants every so often, indulging in some Kaeng Red (Red Thai curry, pictured here), but hold the chicken, lots of broccoli, please. Continue reading
Ever notice how all the veggie juice recipes have you throwing in something sweet? Apples? Beets? Loads of carrots? Well, toss that taste for sweet out of your lifestyle. On the contrary, we’re trying to ignore our addiction to sugars and carbs til it vanishes. Kaput.
If you haven’t yet subscribed to Glowing Older, ® here’s a delicious anti-cancer recipe you’re likely missing:
Winter 2014 Update: Dr. Kristine Monroe’s most recent study (discussed briefly in the post below), which looks at the effects of grapefruit and its juice on healthy postmenopausal women, has just been published. She found that the whole fruit led to an increase in “the major form of circulating estrogen in postmenopausal women,” that grapefruit juices had no effect on that form of estrogen, but that they did lower another very potent form of estrogen.
“The take-away message from this pilot study is that the process of hormone metabolism and absorption is complicated,” Monroe said, and more research is clearly needed.
The few studies on grapefruit—and whether it has an anti-cancer benefits or promotes cancer—are definitely at odds.
It’s clear that grapefruit juice contains natural substances that can inhibit an enzyme system (called CYP3A4) responsible for metabolizing certain meds. The result: an increase of medication circulating in the blood, with potentially toxic side effects.
But can grapefruit also increase your estrogen? Continue reading
Epigallocatechin gallates (EGCGs) from green tea were one of the first dietary components identified as protective against angiogenesis, the process by which cancer cells develop blood vessels in order to grow and spread. Today researchers have found many more compounds that affect angiogenesis.
Exactly how do foods impact our ability to fight cancer? We started talking about that in Part I of The Basics. I owe you a better explanation. Continue reading
We all have cancer cells dormant inside our bodies; the key is to keep them from growing and spreading.
Picture your lawn in the springtime—at the beginning, a few precocious dandelions, then an army of weeds invades your space. We slay them with herbicides, we patiently dig out their roots, yet they continue to multiply.
But what if we changed the soil they grow in? What if we made that soil inhospitable to uncontrolled growth and spread? Continue reading
What to do–and NOT to do– with this bounty of kale?
November 2013 update: Please read the groundbreaking news about crucifers!
Cruciferous veggies may seem tough on the outside, but as we talked about in the first post on these anti-cancer wonders, they’re highly sensitive to boot. If you don’t handle them properly, their magic powers could literally evaporate.
University of Warwick scientist Dr. Paul Thornalley explains: Crucifers contain compounds called glucosinolates that, when mixed with an enzyme (myrosinase), get converted to another compound (isothiocyanates )with high cancer prevention activity. Talk about a mouthful… Continue reading
Dahl soup with mung beans
Taking CT scans or radiation treatments? Confused about what to eat in the wake of Japan’s quake?
● For starters, try miso soup, prescribed by Japanese doctors for radiation poisoning after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Miso is made by fermenting barley, soybeans and/or brown rice with salt and a fungus loaded with enzymes and probiotics. According to Japanese researchers, it helps protect the body from absorbing radiation. Continue reading
A tasty dinner, in 20 minutes …
Forget the pasta. It’s loaded with carbs, which wreak havoc with your blood sugar–and you probably know by now that sugar metabolism has been linked to cancer growth. Here, broccoli flowers stand in for pasta and give you cancer-fighting nutrients to boot. Continue reading
Turmeric concoction with chickpeas
Turmeric, the yellow spice that gives curry its bright color and peppery flavor, has been revered in India and China for thousands of years for its wide range of medicinal properties.
Its active ingredient, curcumin, is arguably nature’s most powerful anti-inflammatory and has shown great promise in many studies as an anti-cancer agent —reducing tumor growth and metastases, helping stimulate cancer cells to commit suicide and enhancing the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Continue reading
Broccoli and particularly its powerful baby sprouts are among the reigning monarchs in the crucifer family
November 2013 update: Please read the groundbreaking news about crucifers!
Along with vegetables from the Allium family, cruciferous ones TOP the list of foods that fight cancer: Broccoli sprouts and broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, collards, mustard greens, arugula, watercress, rutabaga and radishes.
The reason:
Meet the Allium family: garlic, onions, leeks, scallions, shallots and chives.
When it comes to cancer, they’re incendiary–packed with sulphur containing molecules that ward off disease. And no wonder they’re so powerful. They originated in central Asia north of Afghanistan—as pests go, a tough neck of the woods.
The ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Greeks all cherished Alliums for their medicinal value, and in the mid 1800s Louis Pasteur proved them right. He showed that garlic fights bacteria. Continue reading
Eat and Beat Cancer 