Questioning the legitimacy of cancer specific foods
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Great, thanks ladies for getting back on track. I had to delete a previous post that I thought was meaningful to the discussion because it could be construed poorly. I posted about the reason that these foods get marketed as "cancer cures", and it is really for the television-viewing audience. The television industry is targeted by ad agencies that like to create a buzz around certain foods. A couple of years ago it was cranberries, then it was blueberries, then it was pomegranite. It's my belief that Dr. Oz is probably a good doctor, but his real power is his star power. He is good looking, charismatic, and can talk about wellness in a believable way.
A few generations ago, healthy eating, in balance and in proportion was the norm. I think shows featuring doctors like Dr. Oz are valuable to the general populace to educate them on health trends, healthy options, and the like. What is amounts to are sound bites, meant to be consumed by viewers. If you view a show with Dr. Oz, and he features blueberries and he extolls how beneficial they are to mental health and memory, one might be apt to purchase blueberries based on this premise alone. It's a very subtle form of marketing, based on appealing to viewers' needs to feel "in control" of their health destiny.
Just some food for thought. While I do believe in healthful properties for certain foods, the one to one healing ratio does not make sense. If you view the 1:1 ratio as a marketing platform, it begins to make a lot of sense.
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Marianne, I think that is an excellent point. I have a large eco-food store near me and I shop there a fair amount. The kids who run it are nice and they carry stuff that I can't otherwise get where I live (green lentils, polenta, rye flour, among other things). But it is a business like any other, and I see the trends cycling in and out of that store, just as they do in other stores.
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Advertising is usually aimed at a particular business. Buy Pepsi, McDonald's or Ford. Which companies benefit if we buy more blueberries, eat more cabbage and drink more water? Maybe supermatkets would get a slight benefit, but we might stop buying ice cream and apple pies at the same time if we follow his advise. I notice his audience members have a good understanding of a healthy diet and lifestyle thanks to his previous shows so if they follow the general principles then they and their families must surely be getting healthier.
Edited to add, eco food store? If only I had anything like that where I live. Yes they'd do well but they aren't footing the bill for the show. He does it out of the desire to improve people's health.
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I'm reminded of the hype over the "magical" benefits of the acai berry a few years ago. Further research uncovered the fact that the Brazilian acai berry had the same nutritive value as the humble North American wild blueberry. However, the hype did serve to improve the lot of the acai berry growers, the importers and the retailers.....
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Common sense must prevail in all of this. There are many choices out there, but I tend to stick to the top super foods that fight cancer, as well as the top supplements. I'm not straying off course too much at this point.
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We can definitely agree there Kaara.
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Yes, like Kaara said, I too choose the top super foods that fight cancer and top vitamins such as the Vt D3, A, B12 and B complex, and the coQ10. Plus I am aiming at a highly alkaline food plan. For me, I do see how the pH is difficult to maintain, but when I found out I had cancer, my pH was in 5.5 to 6.0 range, sometimes less. Was told the lemon yellow of my saliva pH was not good atall, had to get it up. Every doctor and pro I went to then and now say the same. I could boost it to the 7.5 sometimes but basically it stays too low all the time, closer to 6.5 now. Concerning to me. Yes, I know that this is controversial, to maintain a high pH but the discussion is in just about every book on food plans, cancer support, and I do not intend to disprove it to help me feel better about not doing this more proactively for myself.
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I did that same antioxidant test that was featured on Dr. Oz (my DS's friend is a Nu Skin distributor) and I ended up with a score of 54,000 in the blue (highest) range. Dr. Oz scored 75,000. It was proof to me that my diet and supplementation program is working. There are no SE's from following this food plan...unless you consider withdrawal from carbs SE's...I considered those cravings which quickly went away when the carbs were eliminated for a few weeks. I tasted some cheesecake in Costco the other day, and it wasn't pleasant to me at all. I now prefer fruit and nuts for dessert.
Essa...I'm glad to her that conventional doctors are now recommending that we get our ph levels up..this has not been the case in the past, so people tend to continue eating acidic foods and don't understand the difference between acidic/alkaline foods and high glycemic/low glycemic foods. Hopefully these docs would go a step further and hand out a list of good foods to elevate your ph, same as they do for lowering heart disease. I would much rather eat a healthy diet than take statins and drink baking soda....eeeek!
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Hey All,
Glad this thread is back on track, and everyone is respectfully sharing information and suggestions.
I took a few minutes to delete/edit this morning, as to prevent any more dredging of the negativity. I hope you all understand.
Thanks for your help keeping things supportive.
Moderator Melissa
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Lest we not forget, NEWS is a business too, including health news. Many times the media latches on to a study as "news" because their job is to report on something, fill airtime, column space, website space. I'm not saying they are purposely peddling falsehoods, but just making something a segment of a medical show, or giving something column space seems to legitimize it. What is important to remember is that everything you read or hear reported is not of equal value...it varies widely.0
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When striving for a reasonably high pH without over done manipulations except our food intake and alkaline water choices --- I agree. To get the pH up to say 7.6 and higher as a means to 'defeat' cancer is almost impossible and could lead to trouble sooner or later. I was told by a vendor, just for one month keep it up there, but no longer. Well, it did not get there for me.
But to maintain the reasonable pH level does not mean to avoid all legumes, all meats or dairy. The article was thrown together, in my opinion, no matter who wrote it or what hospital.
Legumes - first of all, lentils, incl the tiny green or grey French lentils, are most alkaline. While fava, kidney, black-eyed peas are lowest acid, and split pea, pinto beans, white beans, navy, red, aduki beans and tempeh are pretty low. Creating a dish with the lentils and perhaps one-third of another type would be quite alkaline, again in balance.
Meats - all pretty acid, esp chicken, pork, veal, beef, pheasant, lobster. But small portions and at that time coupled with alkaline choices brings balance. Now if one wants the ketone diet, that is another matter.
Dairy - my difficult group, love dairy, and have since switched to raw organic, pasture fed dairy and just got some from the first week after a calf was born. Will make clarified butter which is the higher side of alkaline, good. The yogurt, keifer, cream and rice milk are low acid, so in moderation. My main one is keifer and yogurt, in moderation. This does not create phlegm for me, but store bought organic and pasteurized certainly did.
Fats and Oils -- no need to cut out all these, when there are oils of avacado, coconut oil, olive oil, flax oil, cod lliver oil, primrose oil, sesame seed, and nuts llike cashews, chestnuts, almonds, all on alkaline side and better for you, and though coconut is on the acid side and kind of a fruit not a real nut, but I use the coconut oil everyday due to the health benefits.
Instead of peanut butter, cashew or almond butter (peanuts are a veggie on the list I was given and high acid).
Not a nutritionist, just thinking. Been attempting to pull together a food plan for a long time, one that will support my healing from cancer and keep pH higher and build strength and balance in my challenged organs (kidney qi, digestive, damp heat or phlegm and liver).
Received this list yesterday from Chinese medicine clinic, was asked to not eat cold or raw foods now, to get my body heat up, but not too hot at all. That even though all tests on urine and kidney were fine.... well my kidney function was so low it is causing the problems, thus thyroid low, body temp low, immunity dropped out and could not fight off the exposure to all caarcinogens in fumes from neighbor's ooutside wood boiler this last 14 months, thus the roaming usual cancer cells were activated - that's my word, activated, unmanaged is better choice.
Point is, the foods are not about what kills the cancer to me, they are about what brings me back to balance, like a good tea that is wholesome for me, so is a good brothy soup of kale, watercress, celery, quinoa, onion, and some diced tomatoes and carrots, flavored with pink Himalayan sea salt. Could have added some chicken or salmon, a little bit. Would have still been alkaline more than acidic. I am learning.
It is difficult to find an alkaline / acidic foods list, especially online where someone took their time and were extremely accurate. This link leads to one that I received yesterday.... from all the lists I have seen this is pretty darn good.
http://www.perque.com/HSC_AcidAlkChart_7-07FINAL.pdf
The one thing that bothers me about the article on last page is the needs for a cancer patient for protein, when undoubtedly the cancer patiient is having a hard ttime with energy, let alone energy to digest protein or raw foods. This the macrobiotic food plan that offers mostly slightly cooked foods and raises body temp, instead of the cold foods. I was told by a nutrionist and others to just juice, raw foods. But the fact was my body didn't want it, like it started to balk at real butter, my body said no, I want broth and stir fry. I tried, but this new list and teh add and minimize for the kidney stress is exactly what I felt I needed.
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DianeEssa: If you order Dr. Robert O Young's book "The pH Miracle" you will get a good idea of the kind of diet you need to follow to get your pH in line. My pH has been 7.5 for the last four months from the testing I have done, and I have had no ill effects. It might even be higher, but the test strip only measures that high on the color chart. I eat mostly leafy greens, veggies, fruits, lean protein, and nuts and seeds. I do cheat now and then...maybe once a week... and have some bread or pasta, but that's about it. Oh, I also eat hard boiled eggs, because they contain lutein for my macular degeneration.
I try to have some kind of a green smoothie daily made with greens and a small amount of fruit to sweeten. To this I add a protein powder and some of my powdered supplements. Lunch is a big green salad with all kinds of veggies on top, and sometimes homemade soup that I make in the Vita Mix. Dinner is usually some kind of fish or small piece of chicken with veggies and maybe a sweet potato. Dessert is fruit and nuts. We try to follow this at least six days a week with one day of eating off the plan for a special treat, but we don't stray too far. No dessert:(
I know it sounds boring, but we have learned how to eat to live, not live to eat as we used to.
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I originally rote the following for another thread, but it might fit in here better since it concerns diet:
I have noticed that there are a variety of diets under the big umbrella called "anti-cancer diets," like Gerson, Budwig, the Ketone diet, the Alkaline diet. They ALL supposedly work, anecdotally, and have their adherants; yet they are all different and the women here seem to pick one (maybe two) because you cannot possibly do them all at the same time. So, in wanting to treat B/C alternatively, or a complimentary way, how does one settle on a single method, or limited number, while rejecting some of the others?
If you follow one alternative/complimentary diet regimen that made sense to you, and rejected others, then surely you can see why persons not as inclined to alternative/complimentary treatment also reject some of the ideas too.
On the other hand, conceding that the each of alternative diet therapies may have had a positive effect on someone, somewhere, perhaps it was not so much the "aniti-cancer" diet itself, but the change away from their former diet?
(Thanks, JoyLW, for your response on the other thread.)
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I concede to that Elimar. It would be like wearing the pair of shoes that gave foot prooblems. You try the other ones and go with the best choice on how it feels, least health challenges and in longterm, a few weeks or months, you know there have been major changes as well. Right now, I am doing so with dairy. I was eating organic but pasteurized dairy cheeses, yogurt, some milk, not much. My masses were growing, could it have been that dairy. I gave up the dairy except Budwig 'mayonaise w organic kefir and flaxseed oil all stirred. There was no change, but felt good. Then I gave that up too, no dairy. Masses (multifocal small ones left that did not show on mammos) that were left behind after surgery started to be felt. Wasn't that dairy. So I switched to organic RAW kefir and was relieved I am not having phlegm issues. So I added colostrum fresh from cow (yes, little calf got its sharre before I got any, they can only drink a quart a day at first, so much left over, so is okay : ) and I am taking it for immunity for awhile. The masses have all backed off except the two larger on right side which are smaller but not gone. I attribute this to the organic dairy being all right for me, my foods doing well for me too, the supplements I chose and the Chinese medicine I just started.
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Elimar: I prefer the high alkaline diet because it is easy to follow and I didn't have to make major changes in my diet, just cut out white flour and sweets. We are also doing a modified gluten free as well. The key is to make some positive diet and lifestyle changes that will benefit you and keep you from having a recurrence.
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Wow kaara! You are so pretty!
I'm not trying to provoke but you are a much better advert for dietry changes than Ms Somers0 -
Angelsister, I couldn't agree more, lol. I think Kaara should consider a TV show or something.
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I was thinking more about this question of which diet last night and this morning. Comparing it to chemo:
In primary cancer, after surgery, different chemo regimes are used but there's no way to know if it worked as progression can happen to anyone. Different oncs use different chemo's for different reasons. Similarly with diets, there's no way to know if it helped each individual.
In metastatic disease there are tumours or tumour markers to plot any progress or relapse.
The chemo/diet may not work at all. The chemo/diet may kill the patient or make them sick. The chemo/diet probably won't cure the patient, in the end they'll succumb. The chemo/diet will probably only work for so long till either a relapse or NED. Then a new chemo/diet will be tried with all the above effects. Since people eventually run out of chemo options, it makes sense to me to try the diets and other alternatives to at least see if there is any response.
It's probably too late when all the chemo options have run out and the patient is in a weakened state and the tumour burden too high. What if an alternative options can add vital time to the treatment phase and prolong life? Why would any oncologist deny anyone that right to extend their life?
The big difference is the formal trials that show which chemo regimes work on different tumour types, and for how long, and in what combination. Cancer diets don't yet have the benefit of that type of research so it's unfortunately trial and error for each person. Research has shown that fasting for a couple of days prior to chemo makes it more effective in rats, and a preliminary study has been done on people, and I'm hoping that will open the door to a lot more dietary research at the leading edge, in people with active tumours.
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I can't express how pleased I am to see the dietary methods such as alkaline and fasting being tested with more conventional treatments such as chemo. I believe if they are successful then in time the chemo will be reduced and this is the thin edge of the wedge as more gentle treatments become standard treatment.
In the fasting study I linked to above, this quote stands out in regard to the question of which cancer diet to choose. (My bolds)
"What is it that, by definition, all cancer cells will have difficulty doing?" he asks. The fasting research suggests that the answer is adaptation.As a cancer grows and its cells mutate, they become more specifically adapted to the environment-a tactic that often spell success for the malignancy. But, Longo says, "if you start changing the environment" by fasting, it has more trouble surviving chemo assaults than healthy tissue cells. Cancer cells, at least in breast cancer experiments, seemed to be fighting to stay alive in the starvation-chemo environment by eating up even more energy, which stresses the malignant cells and causes more damage in them.
So by changing our strategy, changing our diets regularly, we may be forcing the cancer to keep trying to adapt, and hopefully weakening it or even killing it.
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Ladies: Thanks for the compliments...you are too kind!
Joy: I sure hope you're right about the diets because I've certainly put a lot of faith in mine. I just read an article on Dr. Mercola this morning about how diet and positive attitude has an impact on disease. Our bodies respond to and turn off certain cancer expression genes as a result of good nutrition and positive mental attitude. It cautions us not to fall into the trap of thinking that disease is genetic and there is nothing we can do about it, because that can actually turn on the gene and start the disease process. Interesting.
Headed for a 10 day vacation in Nevada and Arizona for some R & R. I'll have a lot to catch up on when I return. Stay well and happy everyone!
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is his last name really Oz? I guess so.. just checked wiki.. I think his show is generally helpful.. at least it gets people heading in the right direction. I am 8 years older than he is. He looks older than he is i think. He really has had an amazing productive career. must be incredibly smart. I love wikipedia and love the names of his children: Daphne Nur, Arabella Sezen, Zoe Yasemin and Oliver Mustafa
peace and love, apple - ..... Mary Magdalen
Diagnosis: 4/10/2008, IDC, 5cm, Stage IV, Grade 3, 4/9 nodes, mets, ER+, HER2+0 -
JoyLW, Well, I can definitely agree that both diet and chemo have a big degree of trial and error in them. If diet is ever studied as extensively as chemo is, it just may result in a truly complementary approach.
p.s. The above statement doesn't cancel out my skeptic status, does it?
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I just recommended Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life. It's excellent and the research regarding diet is quite compelling.
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Dr. Oz is Turkish . His children's middle names are a nod to his Turkish heritage. Oz is fairly common in Turkey too and not because of the wizard:). Caryn
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Elimar, sometimes I think I embrace the best of conventional and alternative, but mostly I realise I'm just skeptical of everything. Don't worry, your reputation is intact.
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I met Dr. Oz at New York Hospital when he was seeing a family member of mine and liked him. He took a lot of ribbing for his name, but handled it gracefully. I used to feel sorry for him because all the teasing, however light hearted and well meant, didn't seem fair - imagine each patient teasing him as he made rounds. It's nice to see he has created such a successful second career.
I occassionally catch him, or The Doctors, or some other people talking about healthy eating on TV and take what they say with a grain of a salt. I realize what they are saying has been simplified and packaged to appeal to the masses, also that these shows need to fill their time slots so they need to come up with new things to talk about. I, too, feel skeptical when told that something in particular prevents or cures cancer, but I translate it into meaning that the item is probably good for me, eaten in moderation.
I've always eaten well, buying only organic eggs, meat, fish, milk plus many fruits and veggies. I have also carefully avoided processed foods and anything with chemicals, coloring or preservatives in it for the past 30 or more years. My worst eating sin had been an occassional indulgence in candy - which I know is filled with terrible things, not just sugar. I never drank, smoked or used drugs and have always been active and slim, and no one in my extended family has ever had cancer, yet here I am with breast cancer. I'm pretty sure I didn't get it by eating or doing the wrong things,
So... what caused my cancer? Who knows? There are so many therories on causation, just as there are so many preventative food theories. My interest now is learning what can I do that might hold my cancer off from making a recurrance, which seems to be chemo, radiation and eating even more carefully. So that's what I am going to do.
I really enjoy reading everyone's posts. It's been fascinating. I like following up on ideas new to me and trying to learn more from posted links or google searching. Thank you everyone for your wide ranging thoughts. It's a pleasure reading through them.
PS: I just ran across this article on BBC news about the newly released results of a breast cancer study in England. It's fascinating.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17740690
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Well said, Hortense! Sorry you are here, but welcome anyway.
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I so agree with you. Eating well does not keep us from getting any diseases, although eating poorly can hasten bad health and exacerbate pre- existing conditions. I have always eaten a lot of soy as meat substitutes, now I'm on Aromasin and I was told to cut back. How is a lay person supposed to figure this out? Asian women eat soy and have low bc rates, but once on an AI it is bad? I am more vigilant to my diet, increased the amount of fruits and vegetables, going even more low-fat, but who knows how much this will help?
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why do some on these posts get so nasty and seem so intolerant! all that have opinions are deserving of respect...after all, we're all here b/c of a REASON. connecting. info. sharing. support. nasty comments make me not want to come here.
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Maud - I love that diagram and I know you have posted it before.
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