The Cancer Diet
The statistics show that the
highly publicized "War against Cancer" is not going well. Cancer incidence
has increased and so has the death rate. Survival rates haven't changed much. Cancer
still ranks as the second leading killer in America-- some 50,000 per year.
The cancer fighting weapons used are surgery,
radiation, and anticancer drugs. These weapons have had only little impact even with early
detection.
Most experts acknowledge that a preferred way
to treat cancer is to strengthen the patient's own immune system to fight off the disease.
Cancer can be considered an immune system deficiency disease, a disease in which
the immune system has bee compromised or incapacitated.
This has led to the development of
bioengineered proteins--interferons, interleukin II, and tumor necrosis
factor. These stimulate a platoon of immune system cells known as natural killer
(NK) cells. NK cells hunt out cancer cells and destroy them. Even this
approach has not achieved good results.
Barry Sears states in his book, The
Zone, "In my view, it's because these therapies have essentially
ignored the immune system's most important biological response modifier: eicosanoids.
Cancer, like heart disease, can be understood as a condition in which eicosanoids are out
of balance. I believe the ultimate strategy for fighting cancer is one that allows
the body to prevent an overproduction of bad eicosanoids, which depress the immune
system.
"Since the mid-1980's, scientific research
has shown that eicosanoids play a powerful role in the development of cancer. Bad
eicosanoids are the villains of the piece, and there's a whole troop of them.
PGE 2 suppresses the immune system by inhibiting the activation of NK cells so that they
can't fight off cancers. Another group of bad eicosanoids, known as lipoxins,
also inhibits the action of NK cells.
"Other bad eicosanoids known as
leukotrines help cancer tumors sprout new blood vessels they need to keep them nourished
and growing. (This process is know as angiogenesis.) Meanwhile,
yet another class of bad eicosanoids known as hydroxylated essential fatty
acids actually promote metastasis--the potentially lethal tendency of cancer to
spread throughout the body.
"Unlike heart disease, in which both
good and bad eicosanoids play a role, cancer appears to be the result of a runaway
production of bad eicosanoids. So the goal in treating and preventing cancer is to
clamp down on the synthesis of bad eicosanoids by choking off the supply of arachidonic
acid."
Arachidonic acid is the building block of
bad eicosanoids. It is found in the fatty tissue of muscle meat and organ meat.
Just as high insulin levels in humans produce high levels of arachidonic acid in
our bodies, animals fattened on grain have high levels of arachidonic acid in their
fat and organs. Egg yolks also contain these high levels. Eat only lean chicken
breast, turkey breast, or lean wild game. No egg yolks.
The macrobiotic diet fails in its prescription
of too many carbohydrates which raise insulin levels too high, producing too many bad
eicosanoids.
The American Cancer Society diet fails for the
same reasons that the American Heart Association diet fails. TOO MANY CARBOHYDRATES.
The high insulin levels required to process these carbs induces too high of fat
levels --and therefore too high of omega 6 fatty acid levels. This results in too
much arachidonic acid and too many bad eicosanoids.
All this leads to a Zone favorable diet or a
diet of 40-30-30 as it sometimes called. 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein,
30% fat. This is a carbohydrate moderate, protein adequate, low
fat diet. Not radical at all. Eat this ratio every meal, every snack.
The Cancer Patient should:
1. Completely eliminate farm raised red meat,
egg yolks, and organ meats from the diet.
(Wild game may be eaten as an
alternative, it is very low in arachidonic acid.)
2. Reduce intake of omega 6 essential fatty acid to very low
levels.
3. Make sure that most of the fat in the diet is coming from
monounsaturated fat and fish oil, with salmon as the primary fish source of EPA.
4. Add extra EPA in the form of dietary fish-oil supplements. The
fish oil should be molecularly distilled. About 1,000 mg of EPA per day.
5. Restrict total calorie intake, but ensure protein
adequate to prevent loss of lean body mass.
6. Maintain a strict ratio of three grams of protein for every
four grams of carbohydrate at every meal, every snack.
7. Make sure that most of the carbohydrates eaten come from
fruits or fiber-rich vegetables.
(This means staying away from rice,
breads, pasta, grains, and potatoes as much as possible. These foods are
glucose based and enter the blood quickly, causing high insulin levels to process the
blood sugar level back to normal.
Supplements
Researchers have
discovered that cancer cells grown in petri dishes at various PHs demonstrated
that 5.5 PH is the ideal environment for the multiplication of cancer
cells. At a PH of 7.4, cancer cell growth is stunted.
Consuming an excess of carbohydrates causes excess acid
production in the body. The blood PH must stay at a PH of 7.4. To
keep the blood PH at 7.4, the body borrows calcium from body fluids, bones and
teeth. Balancing the body's saliva PH at 7.5 creates an environment where
cancer is stunted. Supplementation of calcium, preferably in the form of
coral calcium, balances the body's PH. If PH is low, consider the
carbohydrate consumption and add calcium gradually until a saliva PH of 7.5 is
reached consistently.
Test saliva PH in the
morning and 2 hours after each meal. See Cure
America.net.
Take a mineral
tonic. We recommend Body
Balance.
