Feeding your body's defenses against cancer

Chicago Tribune (MCT) - David Servan-Schreiber was 31 when he was diagnosed with a walnut-size brain tumor and given 6 months to live. After surgery and chemotherapy, the young neuroscientist asked his oncologist if he should change his diet.

"Eat whatever you like," his doctor told him. "It won't make much of a difference." Servan-Schreiber thought otherwise. For the next 15 years, he threw himself into researching the body's natural defenses; today he believes dietary and other lifestyle changes are powerful and underutilized cancer-fighting tools. "Cancer lies dormant in all of us," he wrote in his new book, "Anticancer: A New Way of Life" (Viking, $25.95). "But our bodies are also equipped with a number of mecha­nisms that detect and keep such (defective) cells in check." Cancer rears its ugly head when things get out of balance, Servan-Schreiber said in an interview. And that can happen if the bad guys that promote the growth of cancer cells (tobacco, excessive alcohol, excessive sugar, hydrogenated fats, environmental pollutants) outnumber the good guys that support our natural defenses (cancer-fighting phytochemicals found in fruits, vegetables, herbs and teas; physical activity; and stress management techniques). But conventional treatment, while indispensable, focuses on a single target: destroying cancer cells. Doctors rarely address the other side: teaching patients how to fortify themselves using nutrition, exercise and stress management techniques to create an inhospitable environment for cancer. "Cancer is all about residual cells left behind in the body," said Dr. Keith Block, medical director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Evanston, Ill., where nutrition and lifestyle modifications are an essential part of all treatment plans. "When you ignore the environment where cancer lives, the disease in those residual cells comes back to haunt at a more aggressive level. It's irresponsible to send patients home without strategies and interventions to reduce the risk of recurrence." What often happens, however, is that patients are told to eat whatever they want _ even though research has shown the traditional Western diet can promote cancer growth _ as long as they take in enough calories. When Susie Sondag of Chicago was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 at age 29, her doctors told her to eat meat and starch and to take the high-calorie supplement Ensure to counteract any weight loss. "My response was 'thanks for sharing,'" said Sondag, who instead changed to a raw and vegetarian diet. If garlic, broccoli, green tea or jogging could be patented, things might be different. Large, high-quality clinical trials would be held and oncologists would write out an anti-cancer grocery list. But although there's a great deal of scientific evidence showing an effect of foods on cancer growth, no one wants to fund the large, controlled trials because no profits can be made. "It's very easy to fund a single drug looking at a single target," said Block. "But it often doesn't work. Single drugs address, at most, two targets. They cost way too much and are too toxic to use several at once. "But if you take the phytochemical curcumin found in the Indian spice turmeric _ which hits over 70 targets _ you might get different results," Block said. "It might not be enough to knock down cancer on its own. But when you start putting (treatments) together you can change the environment that is responsible for how cancers grow." What doctors fear is offering false hope. There's no guarantee that eating a healthy diet, avoiding products containing industrial chemicals, exercising, meditating and surrounding yourself with a solid support system can slow down or stave off cancer. But doctors such as Servan-Schreiber and Block say that no one ever regretted trying, especially when there are no negative side effects to eating garlic, leeks and scallions. They also warn that false hopelessness is far worse than false hope. Because even fatalism has been scientifically proven to affect a cancer patient's outcome. ___ (Contact the writer: jdeardorff@tribune.com ) ___ © 2008, Chicago Tribune.

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