In the 527-page report of 2007 by the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research, more than 100 oncologists from the Americas, Asia, and Europe have concluded the following guidelines that underpin our claim that nutrition has an impact on the growth and shrinkage of tumor cells.
Not everyone in health care is aware of the direct impact of food on diseases. Cancer patients are not encouraged enough to change their lifestyle and diet. Many doctors and dieticians still think that cancer patients should eat energy-rich products to strengthen their bodies against the adverse effects of chemotherapy. Of course, patients who need energy must eat enough. However, most cancer patients are above average weight. The downside of this advice is that these people will start to eat meat, sugared drinks, and carbohydrates, all of which significantly promote the growth of tumors if the body does not need the extra energy. What the body needs, in addition to sufficient energy, is a lot of nutrients and fiber. Nutrients strengthen the body, and fiber is the food for the good bacteria in our microbiome. So, a proper diet is almost the opposite.
The table below states that only an energy-rich diet (which promotes cancer growth) is deductible from the Dutch tax concerning the special health insurance allowance.
Because almost all doctors, including in the Netherlands, have had nutrition education for less than 25 hours (see the report Status of nutrition education in medical schools), they are not aware of what nutrition does to cancer patients. Diet can make the difference between life and death. The impact is substantial. That there are nutrients that promote tumor growth, and others that inhibit tumor growth and even kill tumors have long been known to doctors who specialize in nutrition. Furthermore, this is also anchored knowledge among the oncologists who specialize in nutritional sciences. An example is meat, which has been classified by the World Health Organisation as a carcinogen.
It is, therefore, unfortunate to see that most cancer patients are not aware of this. They know that they have to eat healthier, but not that the relationship is so strong that there are people who have been cured of (early phase) cancer with only diet and exercise. In short, they are not motivated enough by the medical industry to actively work on healing themselves and meekly take only the less effective chemotherapy treatment, which, if you look closely, is pure symptom treating. It kills cancer cells (in addition to many healthy cells). However, it leaves the underlying mechanism through which they initially developed cancer intact, making them almost 100% more likely to get cancer again later, unless they tackle the root cause.
In this blog, we do not want to quote too many medical studies, because every medical research can be challenged. Therefore, we will quote the results of a meta-analysis that have looked at and compared many medical studies. Anyway, judge for yourself is the motto.
What to do with cancer?
In addition to your standard treatments suggested by your doctor, we advise you to do the following, which would help you enormously. It is not bad for your body and does not undermine your regular medical treatments. If you undergo chemotherapy, it will make your body heal faster from chemotherapy. And no, eating healthy does not ruin chemotherapy.
Below we present the main points of proper and inadequate nutrition. We hope that you will further deepen yourself and work on this if you are ill. We know it can be the difference between life and death:
- Avoid sugars
- Tumors love sugars. Radioactive glucose is injected during a PET scan to visualize tumors. Tumor cells attract glucose more strongly than healthy cells.
- Sugar is the fuel for the tumors.
- So also no orange juice, which is a sugar shot.
- Avoid processed foods
- There are many wrong ingredients in processed foods, such as too much salt, too much sugar, too much bad fats/oils, too many refined carbohydrates, pesticides, preservatives, anti-caking agents or binders.
- Your body has to clean up all this mess, and some, unfortunately, remain behind, making your body sick.
- Processed foods are almost everything in a packaging that has been produced by machines, such as sausages, cheeses, margarine, chips, energy bars, nut bars, gingerbread, pizza, cereals, everything from biscuits, pancakes, soft drinks, energy drinks, etc.
- Avoid meat cooked on high heat
- Classified by WHO in Group 1 of carcinogens and proven to be carcinogenic: mechanically proven and through double-blind studies.
- Restricts eating meat (especially red meat)
- Classified by WHO in Group 2A of carcinogens. It is better to avoid this as much as possible when you are sick.
- Your body has to work harder to remove all pollutants from your body.
- Avoid milk products
- Again many wrong ingredients: growth hormones (party for the tumors; do you need them if you are over 20?), pesticides, bad saturated animal fats, and other pollutants.
- Avoid animal fat (butter), margarine, and refined vegetable oil, such as salad oil, sunflower oil, etc., and substitute the following oil:
- extra virgin olive oil
- avocado
- nuts
- small fish
- bad oil causes DNA damage (breeding ground for tumor cells) and forms weak cell membranes.
- Eat complex carbohydrates (from beans, vegetables, nuts, and seeds) instead of simple, refined carbohydrates (rice, pasta, bread, etc.)
- Simple carbohydrates consist of pure energy. With an excess of simple carbohydrates in your body, they are converted into glucose and then into fat (mainly belly fat). However, if you’re underweight or normal weight, it’s fine to eat simple carbohydrates.
- Complex carbohydrates are not completely converted to glucose in the small intestine. Part of it enters the large intestine and is food for the microbiome, which is good for the body.
- Eat as many beans, legumes, seeds, fruits and vegetables as possible (not concentrated sweet fruit)
- Some vegetables are anti-cancer
- These products contain the nutrients (vitamins and minerals) and fiber that your body needs to heal from any disease.
- Test your nutrient levels (vitamin, minerals, body markers)
- Our advice is to test for all nutrients and to supplement the shortages.
- Your body needs them to fight the tumor cells.
- If you do not want to test, you could at least supplement the nutrients mentioned below. We take them ourselves without being sick because when you are older, it is difficult to prevent a shortage.
- Almost all cancer patients are severely deficient in vitamin D.
- This vitamin is essential to make your body resistant to any disease.
- Around 70% of the population is deficient (not all severely deficient).
- Almost all cancer patients are severely deficient in vitamin C.
- Because these are used up directly by the body to fight the cancer
- Multivitamins
- Since you are sick, you have a high chance of a shortage of other essential vitamins and minerals.
- Exercise
- Think of this as fuel for the logistics system for transporting the nutrients to the parts of the body that need it.
- Exercise daily for at least 15 minutes until you hear the veins beating.
- Sleep
- In your sleep, body repairs take place.
To learn more, read this meta-study “Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet”, which highlights some of the claims described above.
We are convinced that more than 80% of cancer cases, like most chronic diseases, have been caused by eating the wrong foods. Part of it is due to bad genes. But even if you have bad genes, such as the harmful variants of BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes that cause DNA damage that causes tumor cells, you may still be able to prevent cancer by eating the things that fight tumor cells (although this is much harder). Everyone from the age of 17 develops micro tumor cells. Each time our immune system clears them until we eat so much junk that it overloads our immune system. We just have to eat things that keep cleaning up those micro tumor cells instead of growing them.
If you have cancer and want to know what’s right for you, watch the documentary below, take the online course below, or read the books below. That will open your eyes.
- Documentary about cancer
- The C Word, voiced by Morgan Freeman, talks about cancer, what causes cancer, and how you can promote healing by eating better (minimizing animal foods, sugar, simple carbohydrates, and processed foods), exercising, and reducing stress. The C Word can be seen on Netflix and is often available for free on Youtube.
- Book “Chis Beat Cancer” by Chris Wark
- Chris Wark has had stage 3 colon cancer himself and has put together a program in which he explains what you should and should not eat. But more importantly, he explains why based on scientific research.
- Chris Beat Cancer Square one course
- Dr. Michael Greger: “How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease”
Our mission is to share knowledge with people. We hope that you are inspired to actively work on your health besides your regular treatment with your hospital.