"Anti-Angiogenesis: Cutting Off Tumor Supply Lines"
Probably about a third of common cancers
“can be prevented by eating a healthy, plant-based diet;
being physically active; and maintaining a healthy weight.”
One of the ways plants may help is by cutting off the supply lines
to cancerous tumors.
A tumor cannot grow without a blood supply.
Currently, it’s believed that a tumor mass cannot exist
in a volume greater than about size of the ball at the tip of a ballpoint pen
without a proper blood supply, which indicates that angiogenesis—
angio means vessel, so the genesis, the creation,
of new blood vessels is critical to tumor growth.
Each one of us has cancer cells in us right now.
By age 70, microscopic cancers are detected in the thyroid glands
of virtually everyone, for example.
“Most of these tumors” never cause problems,
“never become clinically significant, leading to the concept of
‘cancer without disease’ as a normal state during aging.”
Cancer cells are commonly present in the body,
but they can’t grow into tumors any bigger than that tiny dot size—
no more than ten million cancer cells—
before needing to get hooked up to a blood supply.
So, tumors diabolically release angiogenic factors,
chemicals that cause new blood vessels to sprout into the tumor.
The most important one is called VEGF, vascular endothelial growth factor.
But we can suppress VEGF with veggies.
Many of the phytonutrients we know and love
in tea, and spices, and fruit, and berries, and broccoli, and beans,
can block cancer’s stimulation of new blood vessels.
They’re “ideal for prophylactic long-term use against breast cancer
because of their reliability, availability, safety, and affordable price.
Dietary agents used to suppress angiogenesis [may] be
an important step in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer[s],”
and in fact all types of tumors.
The review concludes that we now have
“convincing evidence that dietary [plant constituents]
possess the unique ability to affect tumor angiogenesis,
which may be deemed advantageous in the prevention and treatment
of human breast cancer.”
Most of these studies have only been done in a petri dish, though.
You stimulate human blood vessel cells, and they start forming these
tubular structures trying to make new capillaries to feed the tumor.
But, if you add plant flavones like apigen or luteolin,
found throughout the plant kingdom— like in citrus, celery, and peppers—
you can see they help block the tube formation.
Here’s the effect of fisetin, a phytonutrient found in strawberries,
and other fruits and veggies.
It just shrinks the beginnings of new blood vessel formation right on down.
Where do researchers get their hands on human blood vessels from?
Human umbilical vein endothelial cells.
They get them from discarded umbilical cords, or, more controversially,
from the eyes of aborted fetuses.
But, either way, you can stimulate blood vessel formation with the
tumor compound VEGF, and then abolish that effect
with plant compounds— in this case, from purple rice.
“Therefore, the daily consumption of natural foods containing adequate
flavonoids could be beneficial for the prevention of cancer metastasis
or could improve cancer prognosis.”
Given the power of plants, one might speculate that
the foundation of an anti-angiogenic approach to cancer might be
a whole-food vegan diet.