Cancer and nutritional approaches to health

Better Nutrition, Jan, 1998 by Stephen Langer

One of the noisiest objections to traditional cancer research is that, until recently, it has concentrated on curing, rather than preventing, cancer.

A noisier objection is the fact that, even with this new focus, there have been few important breakthroughs. However, finally, research emphasis is slowly shifting to prevention by means of foods, food-derived nutrients, and supplements.

And there are many preventives -- antioxidant vitamins, minerals, and other nutritients found in fresh fruits and vegetables and supplements -- that are proven, through extensive research, to have the ability to block cancer growth, slow its development, or even reverse it. A book-length manuscript would be required to fully cover all of the preventive measures. So, here, we offer a brief introduction to the antioxidant arsenal available to all of us to get cancer before it gets us.

Antioxidants: our inner bodyguards

Antixoxidants are the inner bodyguards that protect our cells from free radicals. Any discussion of free radicals and their nemesis, antioxidants, must begin with a paradox: oxygen gives life and takes it away. Oxygen is essential for metabolizing food in our trillions of cells to generate energy and body warmth and provide nutrition for health. In the process, however, this process creates free radicals, vicious molecules with a missing electron that set off to attack neighboring molecules to seize an electron, turning them into free radicals, and starting a destructive chain reaction.

Free radicals not only damage protective cell membranes and lessen their effectiveness, they sometimes penetrate the cell interiors and sabotage the DNA (the pattern for cell replication), corrupting it, so that, in time, it may produce cancerous cells.

At a recent anti-aging conference, Denham Harman, M.D., of the University of Nebraska, who originated the free radical theory in the mid-1950s, told Better Nutrition that, now, he is even more firmly convinced than ever that excessive free radicals are the number-one cause for all degenerative diseases -- and aging itself.

Not only can free-radical attacks convert cells from healthy to cancerous, they can cause blockages in the arteries, cause joint deterioration, and degrade our nervous system, among other degenerative effects.

In her book, Food -- Our Miracle Medicine, Jean Carper cites a colorful description of the aging process according to Helmut Sies, M.D., chairman of the department of physiological chemistry at the University of Dusseldorf Medical School in Germany: "The older we are, the more oxidized we get." In other words, we rust as we age.

He goes on to mention the two warring forces -- free radicals and antioxidants. The former attacks us, while the latter protects us. Trouble develops when there too many free radicals and too few antioxidants.

One of the best ways to get a healthful supply of antioxidants is by eating fresh vegetables and fruits, which protect us against cancer in other ways, as well. However, we can't always get enough antioxidants to meet our needs without supplementation.

Gladys Block, a respected researcher at U.C.L.A., analyzed almost 200 studies from 17 nations and found that eating vegetables and fruits consistently cut in half our chances of developing cancer.

Beyond their antioxidative functions, vegetables and fruits contain direct anti-cancer nutrients -- notably broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and tomatoes.

Equally important as antioxidants is the fiber in produce that's needed for bowel regularity. It is essential that waste matter be moved out rapidly and frequently; otherwise it may ferment while cancer-causatives in waste matter will have more time to press against sensitive colon membranes, leading to dysfunctions, and eventually cancer, in this part of the digestive tract.

Some of the best-known antioxidants in vegetables, fruits, and other botanicals are beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lycopene, alpha-lipoic acid, oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs), and quercetin, which is also a bioflavonoid. Additional key antioxidants from these and other sources are vitamins A, C, E, selenium, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase (SOD).

The 10-pronged nutritional attack on cancer

1. Carotenoids

In a 1997 study by S.M. Zhang, and coworkers, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, breast biopsies of 109 Boston-area women showed that those with the highest levels of carotenoids (including beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein, and zeaxanthin) in breast tissue were less likely to have breast cancer, and that women with the lowest levels were those with breast cancer.

Beta-carotene. More than 100 studies have shown the effectiveness of beta-carotene in cancer prevention. A clinical trial that appeared in a 1997 issue of the Journal of Laboratory Clinical Medicine found that supplementing with beta-carotene boosts the levels of monocytes, which are one type of white blood cell that combats cancer.

Alpha-carotene. Among other key antioxidants present in vegetables and fruit, alpha-carotene, which is gathering momentum and prominence, has been shown to guard against liver, lung, and skin cancer cells, as stated in Aging Without Growing Old by Judy Lindbergh McFarland.