Two weeks on a plant-based diet appears to significantly enhance cancer defenses against breast cancer and colon cancer cells. The blood of those eating a vegan diet for a year suppresses cancer cell growth nearly eight times better.
Within a matter of weeks, participants placed on the vegan diet outlined by the prophet Daniel experienced improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels, insulin resistance, and C-reactive protein levels, a marker of inflammation within the body.
Certain good bacteria in our gut can turn the fiber we eat into an anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer compound—called butyrate—that we absorb back into our system. We may be able to boost the number of butyrate-producing bacteria by eating a plant-based diet.
Iron is a double-edged sword. If we don’t absorb enough, we risk anemia; but if absorb too much, we may increase our risk of cancer, heart disease, and a number of inflammatory conditions. Because the human body has no mechanism to rid itself of excess iron, one should choose plant-based (non-heme) sources, over which our body has some control.
Death in America is largely a foodborne illness. Focusing on studies published just over the last year in peer-reviewed scientific medical journals, Dr. Greger offers practical advice on how best to feed ourselves and our families to prevent, treat, and even reverse many of the top 15 killers in the United States.
The whole grain phytonutrient phytic acid (phytate) partially inhibits mineral absorption, but has a wide range of health-promoting properties, such as anticancer activity. By concurrently eating mineral absorption enhancers, such as garlic and onions, one can get the best of both worlds by improving the bioavailability of iron and zinc in plant foods.
Though our life expectancy is improving, our health expectancy is not. In fact we are living fewer years without serious disease and disability.
A competing risks analysis of the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study compares the danger of smoking cigarettes to the danger of animal product consumption (cholesterol), and the benefits of plant foods (fiber) to the benefits of exercise.
Measuring the effects of a plant-based diet on the expression of hundreds of different genes at a time, a research group found that an antioxidant-rich portfolio of plant foods such as berries, pomegranates, purple grapes, red cabbage, oregano, and walnuts was able to significantly modify the regulation of genes in the blood of volunteers.
Plant-based diets help prevent cancer not only by blocking DNA damage, but by increasing our DNA repair enzymes’ ability to repair any damage that gets by our first line of antioxidant defense.
Now officially incorporated into the Centers for Disease Control STD Treatment Guidelines, the topical application of phytonutrients from green tea on external genital warts results in an astounding 100% clearance in more than half the patients tested—a testament to the power of plants.
Gorlin Syndrome, also known as basal cell nevus syndrome, is a rare genetic condition in which one’s body becomes covered in skin cancers. An astounding case is reported of a woman suffering from the syndrome, whose cancer progression was apparently reversed with topical green tea body wraps.
A single meal of meats, eggs, and dairy can cause a spike of inflammation within hours that can stiffen one’s arteries. Originally, this was thought to be the result of saturated animal fat causing our gut lining to leak bacterial toxins into our bloodstream, leading to endotoxemia.
Antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties of white compared to yellow and purple potatoes. Purple potatoes may also help lower high blood pressure.
For the same reason aspirin should be avoided in pregnancy, chamomile has such powerful anti-inflammatory properties that regular consumption may result in a serious fetal heart problem—premature constriction of the fetal ductus arteriosus, which allows the fetus to “breathe” in the womb.
People taking dietary supplements may, in some cases, be paying to make themselves sick. This video covers folic acid, beta carotene, and green tea supplements.
Studies in the U.S. and Canada focus on what advice and supplements natural food store employees would offer a woman suffering from breast cancer.
The risk of glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness, appears to be dramatically reduced by kale or collard greens consumption, thanks to the phytonutrient pigments lutein and zeaxanthin.
Dairy is considered a major cause of the acne epidemic, and other more serious chronic diseases in the Western world, due to the “abuse” of the mammalian postnatal signaling system by widespread cow milk consumption.
There are four common types of cinnamon: Vietnamese, Chinese (cassia), Indonesian, and Ceylon (true) cinnamon. Which is safest in terms of the level of coumarin, which may damage the liver at toxic doses?
Avian leukosis/sarcoma virus has been found in 14% of retail egg samples.
The largest study to date on poultry workers found a significantly increased risk of dying from penile cancer, thought to be due to exposure to oncogenic (cancer-causing) chicken viruses, which raise consumer concerns as well.
The association between poultry and cancer may be explained by the presence in chickens’ and turkeys’ flesh of industrial carcinogens such as dioxins, oncogenic (cancer-causing) viruses, and/or the drugs that were fed to the birds.
In a study of a half million people, which was most associated with the risk of developing lymphoma? Red meat, processed meat, poultry, offal, eggs, or milk?
Even after controlling for a variety of dietary and nondietary factors, those eating plant-based diets appear to have lower overall cancer rates.
Caffeine has positive cognitive and physiological effects at moderate doses.
Coffee consumption is associated with a modest reduction of total cancer incidence.
All three human studies on soy and breast cancer survival suggest that soy in sufficient amounts may improve survival in women diagnosed with breast cancer.
One teaspoon of flax seeds may double one’s daily production of lignans—phytonutrients that appear to play a role in both breast cancer prevention and survival.
Breast cancer survivors may reduce their chances of survival if they eat too much trans fat, found primarily in the American diet in junk food and animal products.
Breast cancer survivors may reduce their chances of survival if they eat too much saturated fat, found primarily in the American diet in cheese, chicken, and junk food.
The effect of raw and cooked broccoli consumption on survival rates of bladder cancer patients.
The anti-proliferative effects of cruciferous vegetable phytonutrients may decrease the metastatic potential of lung cancer, the number one cancer killer of women.
6,000 cups of broccoli a year is probably too much.
Monday, March 12, 2012: The Harvard Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study concluded that red meat consumption was associated with living a significantly shorter life—increased cancer mortality, increased heart disease mortality, and increased overall mortality.
In a test tube, the broccoli phytonutrient sulforaphane appears to target breast cancer stem cells. But how do we know it’s even absorbed into the body? Have women undergoing breast reduction surgery eat some an hour before their operation, and directly measure the level in their tissues.
A new theory of cancer biology—cancer stem cells—and the role played by sulforaphane, a phytonutrient produced by cruciferous vegetables.
How meat scientists justify their promotion of foods associated with cancer risk.
In the context of a healthy, plant-based diet, the nitrates in vegetables can safely be converted into nitric oxide, which can boost athletic performance, and may help prevent heart disease.
The addition of vitamin C to processed (cured) meats such as bacon may actually make them more carcinogenic.
