"Diet and Lifestyle for Cancer Prevention and Survival"
Cancer prevalence is predicted to continue to increase, but
the good news is that between 30% and 50% of most common cancers
might be preventable through diet and lifestyle changes.
Take breast cancer, for example: the most common female internal
cancer diagnosis in the United States, and the second leading cause
of female cancer death after lung cancer.
But there's a growing body of evidence that breast cancer
incidence can be reduced with an overall healthy lifestyle,
which includes a high-quality diet consisting of fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, and legumes
like beans, split peas, chickpeas and lentils.
Greater adherence to a more Mediterranean style diet
was associated with a lower risk of cancer mortality,
including less breast cancer.
And an analysis of the individual components
of the Mediterranean diet revealed that the protective effects
appear to be most attributable to eating more fruits, vegetables,
and whole grains, contributing to mounting evidence
that a plant-based diet is the most
beneficial dietary pattern for breast cancer survivors.
Wait. The same diet that can help you prevent cancer
can also help you survive cancer? That's one of the 10 recommendations
from the prestigious American Institute for Cancer Research.
After a cancer diagnosis, follow the same recommendations to
maintain a healthy weight, exercise, eat a diet rich in four things:
whole grains, vegetables, fruit, and beans, but limit fast food and
processed junk, and limit consumption of meats, soda, and alcohol.
OK, but does adherence to these guidelines actually
translate into less cancer?
Yes, substantially reduced the risk of total cancer, providing robust evidence
that the guidelines for cancer prevention should be
widely disseminated in society.
About half the folks were failing in the healthy weight and
physical activity departments, but more than 90% were failing on
eating enough plant foods or limiting enough meat and processed junk.
But I guess the glass 10% full interpretation is that
given that many people do not meet the recommendations,
there is a great potential for cancer prevention.
Specific to breast cancer risk, women who met most
of those recommendations only had half the breast cancer risk
compared to women who only nailed a couple.
If you could only do one of those recommendations,
the limiting animal foods seemed most protective.
Adherence to the recommendations was also associated
with higher survival in cancer patients who already had cancer.
This was also true for older female cancer survivors,
most of whom were suffering from breast cancer.
A good proxy for whole food plant intake is dietary fiber,
since it's not found in animal foods
and is depleted or completely absent in processed foods.
And higher dietary fiber consumption was associated
with a 37% lower risk of dying from all causes put together,
and 28% lower risk of dying
specifically from breast cancer among breast cancer survivors.
And it didn't take much. There was like a 10% drop in death risk
for every 5 grams a day increment in dietary fiber intake.
That's just like a cup of oatmeal or broccoli
or a third a cup of beans.
A cancer diagnosis may provide a "teachable moment" for
cancer survivors to make positive changes in their health behaviors.
Even more importantly, higher fiber intake
may help prevent breast cancer in the first place.
Yes, fiber could help directly by feeding your good gut flora,
which then produce anti-inflammatory compounds,
or it could just be an indicator of total whole plant food intake.
Adherence to the cancer prevention recommendations
isn't just associated with higher survival in cancer patients
and lower risk of dying from cancer, but lower risk of dying overall.
That's the beauty of eating a more plant-based diet.
The same diet that's anti-cancer is also anti-heart disease,
and even, apparently, anti-lung disease.
Conclusion: results of this study suggest following
the cancer prevention diet and lifestyle recommendations
could significantly increase longevity.