Nutrition - food as a medicine

Hi Indomitable,

It is a subject I am interested in. I was advised by a medical herbalist friend ( proper qualified one), that she had been looking at research from the US about chemo and food. There are studies which show that keeping calories very low in the days before chemo can assist. There are TED talks about fasting, ketosis and the effects on cancer cells as opposed to non cancerous cells. All of it is very interesting. I decided to take my friend's advice and now the day before chemo and the day of, I keep my calorie intake as low as I can bear ( I am not so good at a water only fast), and have certainly found I have few side effects from chemo. I am on cycle 70 + paclitaxol over the last 2 years, and never have to take anti sickness tablets etc. I do see people on the chemo unit eating all sorts of "junk" foods and I do wonder why the message about eating healthily is not more widespread. There is an argument about giving yourself what you want when undergoing treatment, but I think I prefer to feel I am doing my body good rather than flooding it with sugar or loads of less than healthy stuff. I am pescatarian and have been for years, so most of my food is plant based anyway so it has not been such a big deal.

It is obviously down to everyone to do what feels right for them, but I do think the messages about how important food is in all health is very anaemically delivered in our culture and certainly cancer patients should be well informed ( and about the role of exercise too). I dont want to sound judgemental, and if people are not given information, how can they make decisions about what to do?

There are also wider issues about the price of good healthy food as opposed to cheap junk food, and the lack of skills developed in young people re cooking. I am old enough to have had cookery classes in school, while my own kids ended up doing " food technology" for gods sake! Heaven knows what our poor national curriculum beset kids today are learning ( sorry, I am a ranty political person too!).

Your diet can only be complimentary, to propose diet as an alternative therapy is in my opinion dangerous, people with cancer can become desperate and willing to try anything this can lead to becoming easy prey for people selling 'snake oil' or some sort of hocus pocus cure.If you have sat in the big chair you can make your own choices for me I am guided by the health professionals who have done a good job so far. Personally I have eaten healthier and joined Slimming world this has seen a loss of 3.5 stone which is the best way for a diet to help with health.  

Good luck with your future treatments

Hi Crimson Codpiece( must be a story behind that name!)

I agree that there are plenty of snake oil salesmen out there and desperate people willing to believe. But food is such a key aspect of our lives, and the better we eat, the better our health to then deal with the toxicity that is all chemotherapy treatment. I am happy to take medical advice and listen carefully to the science, but if we can have at least some degree of control over things like food, then that makes me feel better too. The psychology of this journey is important too I think, so whatever helps. I would certainly never advocate a diet only treatment and I dont think Indomitable was either.

Good luck with your treatment too.

Just surfacing after last operation, so definitely not advocating food only option. Just been on a course run by the Fountain Centre which is attached to Guildford Hospital, it was run by mind-body medical and went through a number of important things to consider when looking at food, will it harm or will it heal. I never really understood what an antioxidant did at your cell level and roll in protecting your body. There are foods where the science backs up that they increase cancer cell apoptosis (cell death) and preventing tumours create additional blood supplies and invading adjacent tissue. I think there is a Ying + Yang approach needed to take the best invasive medicine where required and to evaluate food as a medicine as well.  

Any suggestions for juices. I make a detox smoothie with breakfast, pineapple, olive oil, garlic and ginger, and a little water half hour before food, and then a green juice with cucumber, celery, kale and a little carrot, ginger and lemon to take edge off.  

I think this space is evolving quickly and the science of nutritional oncology is becoming mainstream in US and Japan. If you are treated in US you will see a nutritionalist as part of overall treatment plan. In the UK at present the current view is it does not matter what you eat, I am hopeful in next 3-5 years the UK will catch up, but in the meanwhile learning what others are doing makes sense. I am not advocating there is some superfood that will stop and reverse cancer, but that a range of foods targeting cancers ability to grow and ability to protect healthy cells would seem worthwhile.   

Hi

Hope you are recovering well from your latest operation. Yes, it is strange that nutrition is not given more prominence in cancer treatment. Boosting gut health and therefore strengthening the immune system seems to be a fast developing science too, and one which is not much publicised through the oncology sector as far as I am aware, in the UK.

The juices sound incredibly healthy, but am afraid I am a porridge person, and then lots of fruit and veg for the rest of the day, in their natural state not juiced. Glad the course was informative re role of anti oxidants in cancer cell growth. Information is power and knowing stuff and having choice is also so good for us in what can seem an out of control set of circumstances.

Hey ownedbystaffies 

If you are porridge man, you may want to check out Chyawanprash - it's a natural herbal jam, it's a complex bio nutritional product, 1 teaspoon is enough to pack an anti oxidant punch in your porridge!! 

As already stated, using food as medicine can and must only be complementary and secondary to traditional Western medicine. I've also taken great care and spent hours researching to ensure that the foods/drinks I take do not interfere with my traditional medicine in any way.

I suffer very badly with indigestion/reflux. I've been on a proton pump inhibitor for months and it makes very little difference. I'm talking indigestion from something as simple as scrambled egg or soup, never mind the typical culprits such as curry and fried food. The likes of Gaviscon/Rennies and so on only work for so long and they're really just masking the symptoms, not the cause. There's also some issue (I forget what - it's been a while since I read it) with the calcium indigestion remedies and liver disease so it just seems best to avoid them. I have discovered that drinking kefir before and after meals really helps. Kefir is a fermented milk drink - it's taste, when unflavoured, is similar to that of natural live yoghurt.  I actually make my own kefir now.

When I googled to check that kefir wouldn't interfere with my Tamoxifen, I found a few .gov studies stating that it is a powerful probiotic with anti-cancer properties. This is what prompted me to source kefir grains and begin making my own. 

There's plenty of studies suggesting that vitamin C can help - it certainly helps keep away infections and is an antioxidant. I crave orange juice - I've often surmised I have some sort of deficiency because I'm not that keen on the taste - but I discovered there is a theory that orange juice (and marmalades etc) can interfere with the absorption of oral medication. So I leave at least two hours between orange juice and Tamoxifen, to ensure that Tamoxifen can work properly.

I also drink green tea with manuka - the properties of both are well known.

One lesser known drink that is great for liver problems is coffee. It helps with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, all kinds of things. I discovered this when my liver was struggling to process a chemo (raised enzymes) and there was talk about giving me a reduced dose of chemo. I didn't want that at any cost and began researching to see how I could help my liver recover from this. Several articles talked about coffee being a good liver aid so I massively upped my intake and at the next pre-chemo blood test, the enzymes were back to normal. Coincidence? Maybe. I don't know. But I do know there are documented good liver effects from coffee and as it doesn't interfere with my traditional medicine, I'll keep doing it to keep my liver as healthy as possible.