Beating Cancer One Bite At A Time - foods that help prevent cancer

Vegetarian Times, April, 1999 by Suzanne Gerber

The research is in and it's encouraging: What we eat (and don't eat) is one of our most

They're still the three most dreaded words in the English language: "You've got cancer." But these days that diagnosis is not necessarily a death sentence. Certain types of cancer respond extremely well to improvements in diet and lifestyle. "I've never been so optimistic," says Mitchell Gaynor, M.D., director of medical oncology at New York's Strang Cancer Prevention Center. "There's so much new research and so many new therapies to treat--and prevent--the disease." A lot of that research involves the powerful effect fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes have on treatment and prevention. "The best solution to cancer," says Gaynor, "is to never get it in the first place."

But unfortunately, not everyone is going to be that lucky. In fact, one-third of all Americans will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime. The following stories tell about three people who learned they had advanced stages of the disease. May their remarkable tales of healing inspire you and everyone you care about to make some changes in your lives today.

Cathy Hainer had been a features writer at USA Today, outside Washington, D.C., for six years when they installed a new computer system. Software problems aside, everyone was having a tough time adjusting. Several people were diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and many, including Hainer, complained of less specific muscle cramping. So she thought nothing of it when she felt the lump in her chest. "It never came into my brain that it could be a tumor," she remembers.

Yet on a cold Friday morning in January 1998, during a routine exam, Hainer's gynecologist was less sanguine. He sent her running for a biopsy, and afterward, the surgeon prepared her for the worst.

"I spent the weekend in panic and disbelief," Hainer says. "My mother had died of breast cancer three years earlier, but I still felt the surgeon was crazy. I was 37! I ran three miles a day and was the most fit I'd ever been in my life. But sometime over the weekend, my gut took over. By the time the surgeon called on Monday, I already knew the results."

SHOCK WAVES

The first jolt was getting what Hainer calls the worst diagnosis on the planet: Stage IV breast cancer that had metastasized (spread) to the bone. Then came the truly overwhelming part: having to make dozens of life-altering decisions by herself. Although she'd been very involved in caring for her sick mother, Hainer hadn't learned that much about the disease or nonconventional approaches to treating it. All the decision-making had been left to the physicians. "Things have changed a lot over the past four years," she says now. "There's been a sea change in attitude about wholeheartedly trusting doctors. The one thing I have learned is that you have to be your own best advocate; you have to question everything, every step of the way, and chart your own course of treatment."

Maybe it was her training as a journalist, or maybe it was just her personality, but Hainer decided to learn as much as she could about her disease and fight her battle on every conceivable front. The one thing she was sure of was her desire to maintain as normal--and as long--a life as possible. One of the first things she did was agree to participate in a study that her oncologist was conducting at Georgetown University, in which she was given intravenous cycles of the chemotherapy drugs taxol (usually a last resort) and Adriamycin. The goal was to shrink the tumor then remove it surgically.

At the same time, Hainer says, she initiated a quest for effective nontraditional means to fight her cancer and counter the harmful effects of the chemo. Her brother and sister-in-law gave her a book called A Cancer Battle Plan, by Anne E. Frahm (Putnam, reprinted in 1998), which planted the seed that diet could be one of her most powerful weapons (see "Prevention Plan," p. 84). "The book was an eye-opener," she says. "It was the first time I ever encountered the thinking that what we ate affected our health." Of course, she was horrified to learn that her former eating habits--lots of junk food, cheese, ice cream, several cups of coffee a day plus a nightly glass of wine--were implicated by medical research as significant risk factors for cancer, especially of the breast.

This information led her to seek the help of a nutritionist and to undertake a complete dietary reversal. "I wasn't a big meat eater but I stopped eating it altogether," she says. "The nutritionist, whom I trusted because she was affiliated with an M.D., told me to keep fish and chicken to a bare minimum, get off all alcohol, caffeine, dairy and processed foods and to curtail my wheat intake. Instead, I was to eat a diet full of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and especially soy." In the past, Hainer had used soy only in milk form, but she started consuming tofu and soy powder three to four times a week. Her nutritional supplements were mostly antioxidants (vitamins A, C, E and the minerals selenium and zinc) and essential fatty acids (omega-3s).