Why only fruits and veggies can’t work for cancer prevention

In order to understand dietary requirements to fight cancer, one should first go through the basics of nutrition. Avocadoes, spinach, kale, tomatoes and quinoa, you must be aware of a number of edible items that you fondly include in your daily diet in the name of “good food.” But, which type of food can exactly be defined as healthy food? Is the same set of nutritional components suited or healthy for everyone? Or is there any difference that we should know about?
Most clinicians find it hard to answer such questions because healthy food differs from an individual’s dietary requirements. Adding to that, the choice of healthy food essentially depends on one’s current weight, levels of physical activity, fitness goals or the presence of comorbid conditions and disorders such as kidney or liver diseases. Similarly, the concept of “right food intake to fight cancer” needs to be understood from this perspective as well.
FIRST, REDUCE BODY WEIGHT
The most important impact of diet on the risk of cancer is mediated through body weight. Obesity, weight and inactivity are major contributors to cancer risk (visceral obesity). Obese individuals face higher mortality risk from all cancers. Besides body weight, alcohol consumption is the established dietary risk factor for cancer.
Consumption of alcohol increases the risk of numerous cancers like liver, esophagus, pharynx, oral cavity, larynx, breast and rectum. The association between alcohol consumption and breast cancer is notable because a small but significant risk has been found even with one drink per day.
MONOUNSATURATED FATS VS BREAST CANCER
Inverse association is seen between monounsaturated fat and breast cancer. Relatively low rates of breast cancer are seen in southern European countries with high intakes of olive oil as the primary sources of fat. Animal fat increases the risk of prostate cancer. Rates of other cancers that are common in affluent countries, including those of the endometrium and ovary, are also correlated with fat intake.
CAN FRUITS AND VEGETABLES WORK?
Now, the consumption of fruits and vegetables appears to be less important in cancer prevention than previously assumed and has become less essential for cancer prevention. Frequent consumption of tomato-based products has been seen to be associated with a decreased risk of prostate, lung, and stomach cancers. Carotenoids act as antioxidants and stimulate the body’s own antioxidant defenses, decreasing free radical damage to DNA that can lead to cancer. Soybeans contain isoflavones and phyto-estrogens that compete with estrogen for the estrogen receptor. In Asian countries, which have a high consumption of soy foods, breast cancer rates have been low. High intake and high plasma levels of vitamin D have been associated with a decreased risk of several cancers, including cancer of the breast, prostate, pancreas, lymphoma.
A general rule of the thumb is to take a balanced diet, which includes all the essential dietary components, including carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins and fibres. Carbohydrates, including fibres, must comprise 65 per cent of your diet, fats must contain almost 30 per cent, and the remaining 35 per cent must come from proteins, as per the WHO.
Accumulated evidence suggests that an individual’s genetic makeup greatly affects the efficacy of dietary recommendations. Driven new technologies and paradigms, nutrition scients have embraced nutritional genomics or nutrigenomics, which in the future will be the driving force of nutritional research. Many dietary factors may not act in isolation and it may be their interaction with other dietary, lifestyle and/or genetic factors.