At this very moment, many of us have tumors growing inside our bodies, so we cannot wait to start eating and living more healthfully.
How to Slow Cancer Growth
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Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Many of us have tumors growing inside us right now. While most people develop cancer, slowing its growth can help us unknowingly live with it, rather than die from it. Watch the video to learn more.
One cancer cell never hurt anyone; two cancer cells never hurt anyone; but a billion cancer cells, that’s when we start getting into trouble. So, we have to slow—even reverse—the division and growth of cancer cells. We all have cells that could grow into tumors, but if we slow them down, our immune systems may have a chance to clean them up before they hurt us.
Take breast cancer, for example, the most common internal cancer among American women. Like all cancers, it starts with a single cell. This is a photomicrograph (a photograph taken under a microscope) of an actual breast cancer cell, which then divides and becomes two cells, then four, then eight, and so on. Every time the cells divide, the tiny tumor doubles in size. It only needs to double about 30 times, and we’re up to a billion cancer cells—which is a tumor just large enough to be felt and picked up by mammography.
Even though a tumor only has to double 30 times, it may take anywhere from about 50 days to a thousand days for a cancer cell to double just once. So, that means from the time that first cell mutates, it takes between a few years and nearly a century before it grows to show up as a little tumor we can see.
The shortest known interval between exposure to a carcinogen and the development of cancer is about 18 months, which is when some of the first leukemia cases started appearing after Hiroshima. Cancers need time to grow, and for most solid tumors, meaning non-blood tumors, cancer takes decades to develop. Check it out: the ovarian cancer you get diagnosed with at the average age of 62 started growing 44 years earlier. So, you’ve had cancer since you were 18 years old—you just didn’t know it. Some breast cancers may even start in the womb before we’re even born, and may depend in part on what your mom ate.
The process of cancer development happens in stages. The first stage is cancer initiation, the irreversible DNA mutation that turns that first cell bad. But then we move to the promotion stage of cancer, which is reversible. If we don’t promote the tumor growth, it can stay hidden forever, or even disappear. When I was a teen I ate a lot of processed meat—bacon, hot dogs—known human carcinogens, meaning they cause cancer. I very well may have mutated one of the cells in my colon. It can take 50 years for colon cancer to show up after it’s been initiated. Cancer may have been initiated by a DNA mutation, but if we don’t promote it, if we keep it dormant, if we slow it down, we may be able to even reverse its growth. I mean, I don’t care if the cancer shows up a hundred years from now; I don’t imagine I’ll be around to worry about it.
Take prostate cancer. More men die with prostate cancer than because of it. According to autopsy studies in Japan, there is about as much hidden prostate cancer there as we have in the United States. But their risk of dying from prostate cancer was 40 times lower, until they started Westernizing their diets and started eating more like us, with more animal foods and fewer plants.
Japan has among the longest life expectancies, but when Japanese men finally do die, many have tiny prostate tumors. But they die with their cancer, instead of from their cancer. By their 60s, the majority of men—nearly two-thirds—have tiny prostate cancer tumors whether they know it or not, and nearly one in three men in their thirties is already brewing cancer in their prostates. Similarly, if you look at forensic autopsies of middle-aged women, more than a third were already harboring cancer in their breast when they were only in their 40s. Yet the risk of dying from breast cancer at that age is less than one percent. In fact, your cumulative risk of ever dying from breast cancer in your lifetime is less than four percent. So, most breast cancers, just like most prostate cancers, grow so slowly that you can live your whole life not even knowing you have them.
It’s like atherosclerosis. About half of young Americans already have atherosclerotic plaques—hardening of their coronary arteries—by their twenties. So, what we think of as diet and lifestyle prevention for both of our leading killers, heart disease and cancer, may actually be diet and lifestyle treatment.
At this very moment, many of us have tumors growing inside of us; so we can’t wait until later to start eating healthier. We have to start now. How can we slow down and even reverse cancer while it’s still microscopic? Well, for prostate and breast cancers, those tissues tend to be sensitive to growth-promoting hormones.
Scientists from UCLA placed women on a plant-based diet with exercise, and found that the levels of all measured growth hormones in their blood dropped dramatically within just two weeks. What would that do to cancer? The researchers drew the women’s blood before and after those two weeks, and dripped them onto three types of breast cancer cells growing in petri dishes. Here’s the before: cancer growth powering away at 100 percent, and here’s the after. After just two weeks of eating healthfully and walking, the blood of women on the plant-based diet reduced their cancer growth rates by 12 percent. And cancer cell death, apoptosis, shot up by 24 percent. After just two weeks of moving on a plant-based diet, the blood circulating throughout their entire bodies was that much more inhospitable to cancer. At this very moment, many of us have tumors growing inside of us, so we can’t wait until we’re older to start eating and living healthier. We have to start now—tonight.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- DeVita VT, Young RC, Canellos GP. Combination versus single agent chemotherapy: a review of the basis for selection of drug treatment of cancer. Cancer. 1975;35(1):98-110.
- von Fournier D, Weber E, Hoeffken W, Bauer M, Kubli F, Barth V. Growth rate of 147 mammary carcinomas. Cancer. 1980;45(8):2198-2207.
- Bizzozero OJ, Johnson KG, Ciocco A. Radiation-related leukemia in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1946-1964. I. Distribution, incidence and appearance time. N Engl J Med. 1966;274(20):1095-1101.
- Nadler DL, Zurbenko IG. Estimating cancer latency times using a Weibull model. Adv Epidemiol. 2014;2014:1-8.
- Soto AM, Vandenberg LN, Maffini MV, Sonnenschein C. Does breast cancer start in the womb? Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2008;102(2):125-133.
- Hilakivi-Clarke L, Clarke R, Lippman M. The influence of maternal diet on breast cancer risk among female offspring. Nutrition. 1999;15(5):392-401.
- Pitot HC. The molecular biology of carcinogenesis. Cancer. 1993;72(3 Suppl):962-970.
- Bouvard V, Loomis D, Guyton KZ, et al. Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat. Lancet Oncol. 2015;16(16):1599-1600.
- IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. Red Meat and Processed Meat. Vol 114. International Agency for Research on Cancer; 2018.
- Jacklin C, Philippou Y, Brewster SF, Bryant RJ. “More men die with prostate cancer than because of it” - an old adage that still holds true in the 21st century. Cancer Treat Res Commun. 2021;26:100225.
- Zlotta AR, Egawa S, Pushkar D, et al. Prevalence of prostate cancer on autopsy: cross-sectional study on unscreened Caucasian and Asian men. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013;105(14):1050-1058.
- McCarty MF. The Japanese experience suggests that lethal prostate cancer is almost wholly preventable with a quasi-vegan diet, soy products, and green tea. Med Hypotheses. 2022;164:110839.
- Ho JY, Hendi AS. Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries: retrospective observational study. BMJ. 2018;362:k2562.
- Nelson WG, De Marzo AM, Isaacs WB. Prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2003;349(4):366-381.
- Nielsen M, Thomsen JL, Primdahl S, Dyreborg U, Andersen JA. Breast cancer and atypia among young and middle-aged women: a study of 110 medicolegal autopsies. Br J Cancer. 1987;56(6):814-819.
- Bunker JP, Houghton J, Baum M. Putting the risk of breast cancer in perspective. BMJ. 1998;317(7168):1307-1309.
- Berenson GS, Srinivasan SR, Bao W, Newman WP, Tracy RE, Wattigney WA. Association between multiple cardiovascular risk factors and atherosclerosis in children and young adults. The Bogalusa Heart Study. N Engl J Med. 1998;338(23):1650-1656.
- Dunn BK, Kramer BS. Cancer prevention: lessons learned and future directions. Trends Cancer. 2016;2(12):713-722.
- Malekinejad H, Rezabakhsh A. Hormones in dairy foods and their impact on public health - a narrative review article. Iran J Public Health. 2015;44(6):742-758.
- Barnard RJ, Gonzalez JH, Liva ME, Ngo TH. Effects of a low-fat, high-fiber diet and exercise program on breast cancer risk factors in vivo and tumor cell growth and apoptosis in vitro. Nutr Cancer. 2006;55(1):28-34.
Motion graphics by Avo Media
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Many of us have tumors growing inside us right now. While most people develop cancer, slowing its growth can help us unknowingly live with it, rather than die from it. Watch the video to learn more.
One cancer cell never hurt anyone; two cancer cells never hurt anyone; but a billion cancer cells, that’s when we start getting into trouble. So, we have to slow—even reverse—the division and growth of cancer cells. We all have cells that could grow into tumors, but if we slow them down, our immune systems may have a chance to clean them up before they hurt us.
Take breast cancer, for example, the most common internal cancer among American women. Like all cancers, it starts with a single cell. This is a photomicrograph (a photograph taken under a microscope) of an actual breast cancer cell, which then divides and becomes two cells, then four, then eight, and so on. Every time the cells divide, the tiny tumor doubles in size. It only needs to double about 30 times, and we’re up to a billion cancer cells—which is a tumor just large enough to be felt and picked up by mammography.
Even though a tumor only has to double 30 times, it may take anywhere from about 50 days to a thousand days for a cancer cell to double just once. So, that means from the time that first cell mutates, it takes between a few years and nearly a century before it grows to show up as a little tumor we can see.
The shortest known interval between exposure to a carcinogen and the development of cancer is about 18 months, which is when some of the first leukemia cases started appearing after Hiroshima. Cancers need time to grow, and for most solid tumors, meaning non-blood tumors, cancer takes decades to develop. Check it out: the ovarian cancer you get diagnosed with at the average age of 62 started growing 44 years earlier. So, you’ve had cancer since you were 18 years old—you just didn’t know it. Some breast cancers may even start in the womb before we’re even born, and may depend in part on what your mom ate.
The process of cancer development happens in stages. The first stage is cancer initiation, the irreversible DNA mutation that turns that first cell bad. But then we move to the promotion stage of cancer, which is reversible. If we don’t promote the tumor growth, it can stay hidden forever, or even disappear. When I was a teen I ate a lot of processed meat—bacon, hot dogs—known human carcinogens, meaning they cause cancer. I very well may have mutated one of the cells in my colon. It can take 50 years for colon cancer to show up after it’s been initiated. Cancer may have been initiated by a DNA mutation, but if we don’t promote it, if we keep it dormant, if we slow it down, we may be able to even reverse its growth. I mean, I don’t care if the cancer shows up a hundred years from now; I don’t imagine I’ll be around to worry about it.
Take prostate cancer. More men die with prostate cancer than because of it. According to autopsy studies in Japan, there is about as much hidden prostate cancer there as we have in the United States. But their risk of dying from prostate cancer was 40 times lower, until they started Westernizing their diets and started eating more like us, with more animal foods and fewer plants.
Japan has among the longest life expectancies, but when Japanese men finally do die, many have tiny prostate tumors. But they die with their cancer, instead of from their cancer. By their 60s, the majority of men—nearly two-thirds—have tiny prostate cancer tumors whether they know it or not, and nearly one in three men in their thirties is already brewing cancer in their prostates. Similarly, if you look at forensic autopsies of middle-aged women, more than a third were already harboring cancer in their breast when they were only in their 40s. Yet the risk of dying from breast cancer at that age is less than one percent. In fact, your cumulative risk of ever dying from breast cancer in your lifetime is less than four percent. So, most breast cancers, just like most prostate cancers, grow so slowly that you can live your whole life not even knowing you have them.
It’s like atherosclerosis. About half of young Americans already have atherosclerotic plaques—hardening of their coronary arteries—by their twenties. So, what we think of as diet and lifestyle prevention for both of our leading killers, heart disease and cancer, may actually be diet and lifestyle treatment.
At this very moment, many of us have tumors growing inside of us; so we can’t wait until later to start eating healthier. We have to start now. How can we slow down and even reverse cancer while it’s still microscopic? Well, for prostate and breast cancers, those tissues tend to be sensitive to growth-promoting hormones.
Scientists from UCLA placed women on a plant-based diet with exercise, and found that the levels of all measured growth hormones in their blood dropped dramatically within just two weeks. What would that do to cancer? The researchers drew the women’s blood before and after those two weeks, and dripped them onto three types of breast cancer cells growing in petri dishes. Here’s the before: cancer growth powering away at 100 percent, and here’s the after. After just two weeks of eating healthfully and walking, the blood of women on the plant-based diet reduced their cancer growth rates by 12 percent. And cancer cell death, apoptosis, shot up by 24 percent. After just two weeks of moving on a plant-based diet, the blood circulating throughout their entire bodies was that much more inhospitable to cancer. At this very moment, many of us have tumors growing inside of us, so we can’t wait until we’re older to start eating and living healthier. We have to start now—tonight.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- DeVita VT, Young RC, Canellos GP. Combination versus single agent chemotherapy: a review of the basis for selection of drug treatment of cancer. Cancer. 1975;35(1):98-110.
- von Fournier D, Weber E, Hoeffken W, Bauer M, Kubli F, Barth V. Growth rate of 147 mammary carcinomas. Cancer. 1980;45(8):2198-2207.
- Bizzozero OJ, Johnson KG, Ciocco A. Radiation-related leukemia in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1946-1964. I. Distribution, incidence and appearance time. N Engl J Med. 1966;274(20):1095-1101.
- Nadler DL, Zurbenko IG. Estimating cancer latency times using a Weibull model. Adv Epidemiol. 2014;2014:1-8.
- Soto AM, Vandenberg LN, Maffini MV, Sonnenschein C. Does breast cancer start in the womb? Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2008;102(2):125-133.
- Hilakivi-Clarke L, Clarke R, Lippman M. The influence of maternal diet on breast cancer risk among female offspring. Nutrition. 1999;15(5):392-401.
- Pitot HC. The molecular biology of carcinogenesis. Cancer. 1993;72(3 Suppl):962-970.
- Bouvard V, Loomis D, Guyton KZ, et al. Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat. Lancet Oncol. 2015;16(16):1599-1600.
- IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. Red Meat and Processed Meat. Vol 114. International Agency for Research on Cancer; 2018.
- Jacklin C, Philippou Y, Brewster SF, Bryant RJ. “More men die with prostate cancer than because of it” - an old adage that still holds true in the 21st century. Cancer Treat Res Commun. 2021;26:100225.
- Zlotta AR, Egawa S, Pushkar D, et al. Prevalence of prostate cancer on autopsy: cross-sectional study on unscreened Caucasian and Asian men. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013;105(14):1050-1058.
- McCarty MF. The Japanese experience suggests that lethal prostate cancer is almost wholly preventable with a quasi-vegan diet, soy products, and green tea. Med Hypotheses. 2022;164:110839.
- Ho JY, Hendi AS. Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries: retrospective observational study. BMJ. 2018;362:k2562.
- Nelson WG, De Marzo AM, Isaacs WB. Prostate cancer. N Engl J Med. 2003;349(4):366-381.
- Nielsen M, Thomsen JL, Primdahl S, Dyreborg U, Andersen JA. Breast cancer and atypia among young and middle-aged women: a study of 110 medicolegal autopsies. Br J Cancer. 1987;56(6):814-819.
- Bunker JP, Houghton J, Baum M. Putting the risk of breast cancer in perspective. BMJ. 1998;317(7168):1307-1309.
- Berenson GS, Srinivasan SR, Bao W, Newman WP, Tracy RE, Wattigney WA. Association between multiple cardiovascular risk factors and atherosclerosis in children and young adults. The Bogalusa Heart Study. N Engl J Med. 1998;338(23):1650-1656.
- Dunn BK, Kramer BS. Cancer prevention: lessons learned and future directions. Trends Cancer. 2016;2(12):713-722.
- Malekinejad H, Rezabakhsh A. Hormones in dairy foods and their impact on public health - a narrative review article. Iran J Public Health. 2015;44(6):742-758.
- Barnard RJ, Gonzalez JH, Liva ME, Ngo TH. Effects of a low-fat, high-fiber diet and exercise program on breast cancer risk factors in vivo and tumor cell growth and apoptosis in vitro. Nutr Cancer. 2006;55(1):28-34.
Motion graphics by Avo Media
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Title
How to Slow Cancer Growth
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
My next major book project after How Not to Hurt is going to be cancer. In fact, it’s going to be 18 books, one for each of the cancers that kill more than tens of thousands a year.
For more on cancer, check out:
- Starving Cancer with Methionine Restriction
- Strawberries vs. Esophageal Cancer
- Which Fruit Fights Cancer Better?
- Anti-Angiogenesis: Cutting off the Tumor Supply Line
- Tomato Sauce vs. Prostate Cancer
- How to Help Control Cancer Metastasis with Diet
- The Best Diet for Cancer Patients
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