Is Cancer Preventable? Dr. Fuhrman

Is Cancer Preventable?
We live in an era where the majority of Americans think that diseases strike us because of misfortune, genetics, or unknown factors beyond our control. When serious disease “strikes,” we run to doctors and expect them to fix us with a pill. Most people have no idea that most diseases—including cancers, heart disease, strokes, and diabetes—are the result of nutritional folly and are avoidable. Have you ever wondered why, despite the billions of dollars spent on cancer research over many decades, and the constant promise of a cure which is forever "just around the corner", cancer continues to increase? In spite of more than 20 billion dollars invested in cancer research in the last ten years, the death rate from cancer has increased steadily for the last 75 years in line with increases in overweight and heart disease. Once quite rare, cancer is now the second major cause of death in Western countries such as Australia, the U.S.A. and the United Kingdom. It is not true that this increase in cancer is due to people living to be older and thereby having a greater chance of contracting cancer. Cancer has increased in all age groups, and has been linked in population studies to dietary and life-style factors that promote the particular forms of cancer that are predominant in those populations. Has the “War on Cancer” been lost? The fact is that we now have good evidence to understand the complicated biology of cancer causation and educated individuals can dramatically reduce their risk of ever getting cancer. Not only has cancer incidence been increasing, but the age at which people die of cancer has not increased. The five year survival statistics of the American Cancer Society are misleading because we are diagnosing more cancers at an earlier stage of the disease, so the claims that patient are living longer with cancer is also false. More women with mild or benign diseases are being included in statistics and reported as being 'cured'. The bottom line is that we are feeding a cancer research establishment and the drug industry that will never win the war on cancer. Cancer is a disease of lifestyle choices that cause cancer and when we finally decide to work together to prevent cancer we will begin to win some battles and eventually the war. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine assessed progress against cancer in the United States for 35 years concluding that despite progress against some rare forms of cancer, which account for 1 to 2 per cent of total deaths caused by the disease, the overall death rate had increased substantially since 1950: "The main conclusion we draw is that some 35 years of intense effort focused largely on improving treatment must be judged a qualified failure." The report further concluded that ". . . we are losing the war against cancer" and argued for a shift in emphasis towards prevention if there is to be substantial progress.Environmental causes of cancer include lifestyle factors such as smoking, a diet high in processed foods and animal products and low in fresh fruit & vegetables, food additives, pollution, and drugs and medical procedures. Despite the general recognition that 85 per cent of all cancers are caused by environmental influences, less than 10 per cent of the (U.S.) National Cancer Institute budget is given to nutritional, lifestyle and environmental causes. Less than 1 per cent of the National Cancer Institute budget is devoted to nutrition studies. Our medicine-centered culture and the idea that doctor and drugs are the answer to our every expanding disease-care crisis has permeated our economic climate and has become woven into the social fabric of our society. Treating disease is enormously profitable and big businesses and medical institutions are sustained by almost worthless drug treatments and cancer therapies. The status quo is sustained by the fairy tale that a miracle cure is just around the corner. Your body is a self-repairing and self-healing machine. Human cells have all the features necessary to protect themselves from chemical damage to their DNA that eventually results in carcinogenic changes. A cancer cell is essentially a normal cell whose DNA has been damaged to the point that it can no longer control its replication. The process that is creating our modern epidemic of cancer is twofold. One aspect involves the exposure of our cells to damaging stresses such as chemical carcinogens, radon, acrylamides, high levels of saturated and trans fats and excess animal protein. At the same time, we have a woefully insufficient dietary intake of plant-derived nutrients, which include thousands of newly discovered and undiscovered phytochemicals that are essential for normal human cell function. Our cells have built-in, powerful mechanisms to remove or destroy toxic substances, inhibit DNA damage, repair broken DNA cross-links, and remove cells that are injured or abnormal before they become cancerous, but only if our nutritional requirements for antioxidants and phytochemicals are met.In recent years, the term phytochemicals has been used to refer to the thousands of newly-discovered nutrients supplied by plants that— in addition to vitamins and minerals—are necessary for maximal immune system protection and for the promotion of cellular detoxification and repair. Most of our knowledge about what constitutes the optimal cancer prevention diet comes from both human population (epidemiological) studies and animal studies. Populations that have a high intake of natural, unrefined plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and beans always have a low incidence of cancer, proportional to the intake of these phytochemcal-rich plant foods.Examining data from numerous epidemiological studies, the World Cancer Research Fund concluded that the evidence that fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of oral, esophageal, lung, stomach, colon, pancreatic, bladder, and breast cancer was convincing. No single substance in a plant-based diet accounts for this relationship; rather, it is the synergistic effect of multiple phytochemical compounds (which number in the thousands).Even though other factors such as chemicals, pollution, and smoking play a role in cancer etiology, the scientific literature still illustrates that a better diet offers dramatic protection even against non-dietary cancer promoters. For example, the Fiji Islands (where smoking rates are high) still has a dramatically lower incidence of lung cancer than Hawaii (where smoking rates are lower). This protection against lung cancer even in heavily smoking Fiji Islanders was shown to be the result of the high intake of green vegetables in Fiji. (1) The National Cancer Institute recommends eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. However, scientific studies suggest that this is still inadequate. More is better and much, much more is much, much better at reducing cancer risk. It is a national disgrace that very few Americans follow this very minimal recommendation to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. A healthy anti-cancer diet receives the vast majority of its calories from fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and seeds. These should not be seen as the add ons; rather they must be the core of any diet that can be considered healthy.I have spent the last twenty years reviewing over 60,000 scientific articles on the relationship of diet and nutrition to cancer and I have to say that the evidence that we can prevent the vast majority of human cancers is overwhelming. I have comprised a body of knowledge in my books, newsletters and other writings available here at this website to inform and educate people who want to take back control of their health destiny. My purpose is to let people know they do not have to have a stroke, get demented in their later years, suffer with heart problems or get cancer. They can choose to live in a manner that can increase healthy life expectancy and they can do it in a way that is fully pleasurable and tastes great.. 1. Le Marchand L, Hankin JH, Bach F, et al. An ecological study of diet and lung cancer in the South Pacific. Int J Cancer 1995 Sep 27; 3(1):18-23. 5



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