by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” is a quote often attributed to Hippocrates, along with the “first do no harm” medical approach. He is considered the Greek father of Western medicine and his philosophical natural approach is repeated by many in the alternative health field today.
But these quotes are rarely practiced in mainstream medicine. Instead, we have a culture suckered into eating unhealthy processed and fast foods and indoctrinated by mainstream medicine to believe only western modern medicine, ruled by the pharmaceutical industry’s toxic synthetic chemicals, can keep you disease free.
Most mainstream medical professionals disapprovingly wince or shrug their shoulders whenever someone inquires about dietary influences. Except for cautioning against cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, the attitude among most practicing M.D.s is just eat what you want and rely on our pharmaceutical solutions to fix you.
Food as first medicine for cancer is mostly preventative, though some prove worthy as healing agents or adjuncts to other protocols. Three such foods, two of which are considered controversial or even unhealthy by outdated mainstream dieticians and medical practitioners, will be discussed here.
The Most Controversial Cancer Fighter: Avocado
Avocados are controversial mostly because they are high in saturated fat. Despite the more current data proving the health benefits of natural unprocessed saturated fats, many still cling to the notion that consuming saturated fats makes one fat, lazy, and prone to cardiovascular disease.
The fact is that saturated fats from foods that are not polluted with chemicals, antibiotics, and growth hormones are not only okay, they are essentially a necessary dietary component for good health. (Source) [1]
High calories with nutrient dense foods is not a bad thing. Most folks locked into the “standard American diet” take in high calories from non-fat or low fat foods containing heavy amounts of sugar or high fructose corn syrup used even in processed or fast foods that are not sweet tooth satisfying. The hidden sugars help create junk food addictions.
Avocados are high in oleic acid, and important nutrient for the brain and central nervous system’s myelin sheathing. The myelin sheath is vital for the brain and nervous system’s optimum function. If this sheathing is hampered, neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s flourish.
Avocados are also high in vitamin E, B vitamins, folate, and omega-3 fatty acids, all of which contribute to overall health.
Now we can add avocados help prevent cancer by nipping random cancer cells floating about internally that are in all of us, keeping them from colonizing into tumors. A handful of orthodox oncologists are realizing that cancer doesn’t go away for good unless cancerous stem cells are killed or are returned to normal cell status.
Chemotherapy is not able to target and destroy stem cells, which function as mother cells, creating more cancer cells. And if the stem cells survive, which they usually do, they’re able to create even tougher cancer cells to resist the next onslaught of toxic chemo chemicals that tend to destroy healthy cells as well as some cancer cells.
That’s why chemotherapy is considered carcinogenic by some. It helps create future cancers that may be more resistant to the chemo drug du jour, forcing Big Pharma back to the drawing board for developing the latest new cancer drug. When complete, press releases are sent to mainstream media outlets. Often remissions are followed by recurrences if the patient even survives this toxic treatment.
A 2015 University of Waterloo (Canada) study focusing on a difficult form of blood cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), discovered a compound extracted from avocado kills even AML’s stem cells by converting its infinite or non-death status to apoptosis (self destruction) without harming the healthy biological and biochemical inner terrain or environment of. This compound extracted from avocado was tagged avocotin B. (Source) [2]
Healthy cells undergo apoptosis to make room for newly created fresh cells. Cancer cells don’t have this programmed, they’re programmed to last forever and expand. Cancer cells are considered loosely to have an infinite cell life.
Converting cancer cells into programmed apoptosis is characteristic of most natural alternative methods of killing cancer cells. In this way, only cancer cells are targeted for destruction. Healthy cells remain healthy and intact.
The Canadian study that isolated avocado’s compound avocotin B to observe its effect on AML cells’ conversion to apoptosis mode started with this line: “Treatment regimens for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) continue to offer weak clinical outcomes.” Translation, so far the pharmaceutical industry has nothing to offer here. (Source) [3]
This group is usually dedicated to producing nutraceuticals. Their processes can be patented, but their products cannot. How far Big Pharma might go to take a stab at synthetically creating avocotin B, enabling them to create patents on their final products, is anybody’s guess.
This research was based out of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where the focus has been on developing nutraceuticals, condensed extracts from natural sources. They may have some problems getting FDA approval as a treatment for AML, even as it probably could be used against other forms of cancer.
One example of a cancer fighting nutraceutical is laetrile. It is extracted from amygdalin in apricot seed kernels. The extraction process itself is patented. But because it’s extracted from a natural source it cannot be patented by the pharmaceutical industry.
Laetrile is so effective on cancer the pharmaceutical owned cancer industry banned it in the USA even as it is in other cancer clinics abroad. Natural cancer curing advocates are forced into eating bunches of apricot kernels, a food which is not banned as long as their cancer curing amygdalin compounds, which have a unique way of targeting cancer cells, are not promoted for curing cancer..
Just because the recent study focused on ALM doesn’t mean avocotin B converts only ALM cancer cells into apoptosis. The FDA may not allow avocotin B nutraceuticals to be marketed as a cancer remedy or even a cancer preventative.
Instead, the pharmaceutical industry may take the Waterloo study to produce a synthetic pharmaceutical for ALM and possibly other cancer applications. The FDA would be sure to approve that if too many don’t drop dead during the human trials.
But be assured that eating avocados is healthier than previously known, even as a cancer fighting food.
Purple Potatoes Demonstrate Evidence for Killing Colon Cancer Cells
Another food condemned as unhealthy and likely to lead to obesity and diabetes 2 is potatoes. Ironically, the worst forms of non-organic potatoes are fried in bad oils and bagged as potato chips or sold over the counter as french fries. Those seem to be very popular while organic potatoes cooked correctly are shunned.
Nevertheless, organic potatoes are very healthy. Their starch levels are overly emphasized, surpassing their healthy aspects that qualify them as a perfect survival food for hoarding and growing. The Irish survived on them and a fellow in Washington State live healthily on nothing but potatoes for two months to prove that point. (Source) [4]
Now purple potatoes are proving to be anti-cancerous, especially for one of our most common cancers, colon or colorectal cancer. Anthocyanins are high in purple potatoes and a recent Penn State study determined they go after colon cancer stem cells.
That study concluded: “These observations, coupled with both in vitro and in vivo studies reported here, suggest anthocyanin-enriched sweet potato P40 may protect against colorectal cancer by inducing cell-cycle arrest, antiproliferative, and apoptotic mechanisms.” (Study abstract) [5]
This study even used baked, instead of raw purple potatoes, to reach their conclusion that the anthocyanins help create cell death (apoptosis) among even cancer stem cells. They used extracts from the baked potatoes in their in vitro studies (lab cultures) and in vivo with animals that had colon cancers with positive results that reversed tumor growths.
Organic purple potatoes are easy to find in most health food stores. They originated in Peru and so far they’re not common enough to motivate Monsanto or others of their ilk to genetically modify them. One way to prepare purple potatoes is to cut and boil them then mash them with organic butter and real sea salt. But still opt for organic of course.
After boiling small chunks of purple potatoes you can make them into a potato salad. Make your own healthy mayonnaise or spend a little more to buy a healthy version without canola (rapeseed) oil or soy oil.
There is a starch known as resistant starch that is not rapidly digested to create glycemic spikes, which some experts now consider overrated as health hazards among non-diabetics. But if you’re still concerned, potato salads of both white and purple potatoes, even pastas and peas, offer this resistant starch after refrigerating them then eating at room temperature.
Resistant starch contains chlorogenic acid, which is also a powerful antioxidant and tumor fighter. It’s highest in starchy foods that are either raw or cooked then cooled by refrigeration and eaten at room temperature.
University of Colorado School of Medicine food researcher Janine Higgins explains:
Resistant starch is found in peas, beans and other legumes, green bananas, and also in cooked and cooled starchy products like sushi rice and pasta salad. You have to consume it at room temperate or below — as soon as you heat it, the resistant starch is gone. But consumed correctly, it appears to kill precancerous cells in the bowel.
Purple potatoes are not the only source of anthocyanins. The color purple in plums or even the dark red of tart cherries signals the presence of anthocyonins as well. Of course those are eaten raw. A purple potato salad with a few raw tart cherries thrown in can give you a double whammy against colon cancer.
Here’s The Least Controversial Third Food That Provides Cancer Resistance
Another food that has been scientifically determined to have up to 50 times the cancer resisting properties of broccoli is its sprouts. Broccoli sprouts did have some licensing and patent controversy, but there is no controversy over it as a food for consumers at all.
You can read all about the Johns Hopkins broccoli cancer fighting findings and their attempt to patent a type of broccoli sprouts in an earlier Health Impact News article here [6].
Sources:
http://www.healthybrainforlife.com/articles/healthy-food/10-tasty-brain-foods-to-enjoy-now [7]
http://www.sciencealert.com/new-avocado-based-drug-targets-leukaemia-stem-cells [2]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26077472 [3]
http://www.cancerdefeated.com/the-purple-cancer-eater/3333/ [8]