When your wellness is affected by cancer, you want to know you’re doing everything you can to get through treatment in the best way possible, and what, if anything, might guard your wellbeing against a recurrence. Thousands of scientific papers have been published on the link between diet and the treatment and prevention of cancer, so what kind of diet can give you the vitamins and minerals you need to keep cancer at bay?
Conner Middelmann-Whitney, a nutritionist and cook who specialises in the impact of diet on cancer prevention, argues, ‘There are a lot of things we can do that influence our cancer risk. The world cancer research fund back in 2007… concluded that 60% of all cancers of the oesophagus, 45% of all colo-rectal cancers and 38% of breast cancers could be prevented if people ate a healthy diet, had a healthy body weight and engaged in regular physical activity.’
Middelmann-Whitney advises, ‘The Mediterranean diet is a very natural, organic way of eating and you don’t have to live near the Mediterranean to eat that way. It involves a lot of plant foods, a lot of healthy fats, nothing is excluded, which I think is a very important aspect of the Mediterranean diet…The only foods that are omitted are heavily processed foods, refined flours and sugars and fats. Seasonal vegetables and fruits, olive oil, lots of pulses and whole grains, herbs and spices, these very nourishing foods really make up the core of the Mediterranean diet.’
According to Dr Brian Durie, a specialist in Myeloma cancers in the US, ‘We need to focus on the use of novel therapies that we have available. In addition to that we can have an enhancement of the quality of life. We need to have good food, an avoidance of bad food and so one can treat the cancer and improve the quality of life. But it’s important not to be relying on the food. In the UK we don’t have enough of those randomised studies to say that “if you eat enough cabbage and broccoli and fruit juices and have some turmeric and maybe some wine and chocolate, yes this can be helpful, but it’s not going to be enough to cure cancer”.’
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