Can You Prevent Cancer With a Healthy Diet?

March 25, 2020

4 min read

Besides providing more energy and improving your mood, changing your eating habits can drop your risk of developing most cancers by 30-40%, and up to 90% for stomach cancer. If cancer runs in your family, that probably means that you have some genetic predisposition to developing cancer at some point in your life. Why that's the case is still unclear, but leading scientists think that certain combinations of gene variants in our DNA make cancer development more likely after exposure to certain elements that are known to cause cell damage. Our digestive tracks, which are exposed to a bombardment of biologic materials and non-biologic particles multiple times a day, is one area where we can take an active role in our cellular health.

What's a carcinogen and what's it doing in my food?

A carcinogen is any substance that can cause cancer by damaging cellular DNA or disrupting cellular metabolic processes. Carcinogens can be non-material, like UV light that makes DNA stick to itself in weird ways, or material, like a small chemical compound. Unless you're trying to give your insides a tan (by the way, don't do that), UV damage isn't a concern in our digestive tracks, but small chemicals are quite common. Some of them even occur naturally! Common carcinogens we consume can come from:

1. Processed meat and packaged foods

While convenient and often tasty, packaged foods with a longer shelf life need preservatives to keep them from going bad. Sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite are both common preservatives that are thought to be carcinogenic because they can easily form free radicals, which means their molecules become sticky and start to stick to things in cells they shouldn't. The same principle holds for artificial coloring dyes, which contain another sticky compound called benzidene. These compounds and others used in preservatives are found in very low concentrations, and these foods eaten by most individuals in moderation don't have a significant effect on our digestive cellular health. The issue comes in when these foods are consumed in large quantities on a regular basis. That's enough of a concern for the World Health Organization to place processed meats in particular squarely on the carcinogen list.

2. Overcooked meat

Meat that is grilled with a tasty caramelized edge, that's the best way to cook a chunk of meat right? Bad news, folks. That mouthwatering slightly burnt edge you're going for is actually chock-full of carcinogens, including: heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and acrylamide. These are more compounds that cause things to get unpleasantly sticky inside cells. If you're grilling, best to pull your food off before the edges start to blacken.

3. Alcohol

Alcohol is absorbed by the cells in your digestive tract and then into your blood stream, where it is broken down by your liver. An intermediate in alcohol breakdown is acetaldehyde, which can cause tissue inflammation and damage DNA directly. Alcohol can also stimulate metastasis by setting off cellular signaling cascades telling tumor cells to move to other areas. Eliminating or reducing alcohol consumption would make all of our cells a little happier.

So what should I eat - and why?

The best anti-cancer diet is one based heavily on whole foods, especially fruits and vegetables. That's because these foods contain nutrients that make you - and your cells - healthy. Vitamins, minerals, fibers, proteins, and oils that play well with others (those would be monounsaturated fatty acids) are all natural compounds plentifully found in whole fruits and veggies. These foods are also light on things our bodies have a hard time figuring out what to do with, like excessive sugars and fats that can linger around like litter on a street.

Another really important component of any anti-cancer diet is antioxidants. These compounds, also found in fruits and veggies, inhibit oxidation in cells. A common trend you may have picked up on in the carcinogen section is that a lot of those chemicals cause sticky reactions inside of cells. Antioxidants are the antidote to those sticky, free radical chemicals run amok, working by inhibiting the sticky reactions in the first place. Vitamins C and E are both common, powerful oxidation busters.

Strive for a Mediterranean Diet

When thinking about your diet as a whole though, it can be daunting trying to figure out what you should or shouldn't eat for every meal of every day. And that's why doctors recommend the Mediterranean diet, which scientists have identified as a diet with consistently low cancer risk. This means eating lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, dried beans and peas, nuts, and fish while avoiding red and processed meats.

So many aspects of cancer are out of our control, but one thing we can influence is our diet. Besides reducing cancer risks, a healthy diet rich in fruits and veggies will make us and our cells feel better and keep us at a healthy weight. So, what's for dinner tonight?