When you think about it, most communities which follow a native diet and lifestyle STRICTLY have very low cancer rates, if at all. It’s the people who adulterate this “formula” who start getting all kinds of sicknesses, including cancer. Let’s look at the elements which are common to relatively cancer-free societies, whether they are Asian, European or African:

1. They eat foods native to their territory, whether it be plant or animal in origin. Don’t forget that the Mongolians and Eskimos eat a predominantly meat and fat based diet, with hardly any plant food. The Mongolians, in addition, eat plenty of dairy foods. Many traditional European, Middle-Eastern and Indian diets also feature dairy products and meats.

2. Each native group obviously adapted to their respective diets, eating whatever was naturally available in order to stay alive. This is why a diet abundant in meat and fat was not harmful to the Eskimos or the Mongolians. In fact, it was protective for them, living in their harsh, wintry environments.

3. The foods they ate and beverages they drank were organic, unprocessed, unrefined and free from artificial additives like chemicals, hormones and antibiotics. Meat and dairy were completely natural and uncontaminated.

4. Foods were generally eaten fresh, freshly harvested or freshly killed. Any food preservation or storage was usually limited to salting, fermenting, drying or pickling. Modern societies tend to eat food which has been canned, packaged in some way or frozen for quite some time.

5. Cooking methods were completely natural. Nothing strange like microwaving or “nuking” in any way.

6. Kitchen utensils, cookware and materials used were also completely natural (clay, leaves, wood etc). Certainly no plastic.

7. Condiments, spices and flavorings were kept simple and natural. Nothing artificial.

8. In Asia, if oil was used for cooking, it was what was indigenous to the territory eg. peanut oil, coconut oil, soya bean oil, ghee (clarified butter), or lard (made from animal fat). “Healthy” fats like olive oil or grapeseed oil were unheard of.

9. If a sweetener was used, it was natural eg. cane sugar, palm sugar or honey.

10. Carbohydrates were fine and even essential, but they were usually natural, unrefined and free from artificial additives eg. tapioca, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, nuts, seeds, potatoes and other tubers.

11. No leftover food was kept. Everything was made fresh and finished in one sitting, so food did not have a chance to deteriorate further.

12. Usually, native people ate only what they needed, or even starved at times for a while. Excess was a luxury, and generally reserved for special occasions. Modern people are literally indulging themselves to death.

13. With the exception of people living in harsh environments like the Mongolians and Eskimos – where meat and fat was more readily available than plant foods – most native diets are dominated by plant foods. Meat was considered a luxury item to be eaten sparingly or reserved for special occasions. If seafood was available, that was eaten more often than meat. Modern societies consume far more meat than our forefathers did, and the meat we eat today is mostly adulterated and contaminated.

14. Almost all native societies have some fermented foods. These foods are rich in anti-cancer properties. Think sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, tempeh and yoghurt.

15. Almost all native societies have a rich tradition of using herbs for food, healing and beauty. The Chinese, for instance, have a vast variety of herbal teas, using herbs, flowers, roots, tree bark, fungi etc. I grew up drinking herbal teas and soups, but switched to Western concoctions and drugs and soda pop from my early teens. Now that I’m older and (hopefully) wiser, I’m beginning to rediscover Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and learning how to use traditional herbs at home.

16.The true native lifestyle is physically active, even rigorous, on a daily basis. Exercise was a way of life. People living in urban societies are very sedentary, and obesity has become an epidemic.

17 The environment and air was clean and pure. There was no exposure to modern contaminants like chemicals, radiation, electrical currents, vehicle and industrial emissions etc.

18. Furniture, building materials, fabrics etc was all organic.

19. There was no obsession with cleaning or enhancing body or home with products saturated with chemicals, unlike today.

20. People slept early and woke up early. Their sleeping environments were completely dark and quiet, except perhaps for the sounds of nature. No night lights, street lights, blinking lights, TV etc. Perfect for melatonin production.

These are just a few of my observations. As I said in my opening paragraph, the people who adulterate this “formula” are the ones who start getting all kinds of sicknesses, including cancer. Of course, observing a strict native diet and way of life is challenging in an urban society. But I believe we need to try our level best, in order to be cancer-free, even if it means re-locating. Major miracles often require major changes.

So, should we consume green tea, or soy, or turmeric, or flaxseed, or berries, or cruciferous vegetables, or iodine, or dark chocolate etc. or load up on more supplements? I think we know by now that each in itself CANNOT defeat cancer. Diet alone won’t cut it. Even vegetarians and exercise fanatics get cancer, right? A radical, holistic approach is required, and this may include some medical intervention. To keep cancer and other diseases at bay, it’s back to basics, back to our roots.

GO NATIVE, as far as it makes sense. In other words, if you’re a Mongolian working in a nice, cushy office in New York, the traditional Mongolian diet may not be healthy for you in this context. Adapt it to your present living environment, eliminating elements which are harmful (eg. unnatural foods, high-fat diet, chemicals, being sedentary) and adding those which are protective (eg. daily exercise, lots of plant foods, natural foods, fresh foods, safe personal care and household care products, conducive sleeping environment and times).

As long as your foods are natural and your way of life is as native as possible, a little dairy food or meat or dessert once in a while is not going to kill you. Just make sure it is pure, unrefined, unprocessed and fresh. Food which has travelled a long way to get to you is often “preserved” in some way to make it last the journey and storage. They also lose their nutritional value with each passing day.

Avoid anything artificial or unnatural, eat fresh, don’t over-indulge, lose weight, learn how to use herbs for everything, eat some fermented foods regularly, live in a pure and uncontaminated environment, sleep well and exercise everyday. GO NATIVE!

Posted: June 4th, 2010 under Alternative Remedies, Cancer, Diet, Health Basics 101.
Comments: 1

Practically everybody will have cancer in their bodies at some stage in their lives. They just may be blissfully unaware of it because the mutant cells never grow large enough to develop into a troublesome disease. “In autopsy studies of people who died in car accidents, up to 40% of women between age 40 and 50 have microscopic cancers in the breast, and about 50% of men in their fifties and sixties have them in their prostate glands,” says Dr. William Li, president and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation. “By the time we reach our seventies, virtually 100% of us will have microscopic cancers in our thyroid glands. We probably form microscopic cancers in our bodies all the time. We just don’t know it.”

Most cancers remain about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, one critical reason being that they are unable to grow further without a blood supply. Tumors need to grow blood vessels in order to feed and spread. However, healthy bodies have natural antiangiogenic mechanisms which regulate angiogenesis, the process through which our bodies create new blood vessels.

Angiogenesis is an essential part of a normal, functioning body. In healthy people, new blood vessels grow only under specific conditions, for instance as part of the healing process for an injury, or during pregnancy. Healthy individuals have a natural system of checks and balances – known to scientists as angiogenesis stimulators and inhibitors – to regulate the growth of blood vessels.  Explains Dr. Li, “The stimulators act as natural fertilizers to get vessels to grow, and the inhibitors prune back extra vessels when they’re no longer needed”.

Forty years ago, Dr. Judah Folkman – Dr. Li’s mentor – presented his thesis in the New England Journal of Medicine that a growing tumor could be “starved to death” by cutting off its blood supply. That theory was initially met with scepticism. Today, every major pharmaceutical company has an angiogenesis program. The first FDA-approved antiangiogenic cancer drug, Avastin, is well-established.There are 12 antiangiogenic drugs on the market for cancer treatment, with some 26 more in the final stages of human testing and another 100-plus behind them in human trials.

You can boost your body’s ability to produce angiogenesis inhibitors. Natural antiangiogenic food sources or angiogenesis inhibitor food sources include:

Green Tea
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blueberries
Blackberries
Oranges
Grapefruit
Lemons
Apples
Pineapple
Cherries
Red Grapes
Red wine
Cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, brussels sprouts, bok choy, kale etc.)
Soy beans
Ginseng
Licorice
Turmeric
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Artichokes
Lavender
Pumpkin
Sea Cucumber
Seaweed
Tuna
Parsley
Rosemary
Thyme
Oregano
Basil
Mint
Garlic
Ginger
Tomato
Olive Oil
Grapeseed oil
Omega 3s (salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, cod, sardine)
Dark chocolate
Walnuts
Hazelnuts
Pecans
Mushrooms (Maitake, Reishi, Agaricus subrufescens also known as Agaricus Blazei Murill Mushroom or Almond mushroom or Himematsutake /Japanese “princess matsutake”, Trametes versicolor or Turkey Tail in the United States or Yun Zhi in Chinese, Phellinus linteus or Japanese “meshimakobu” or Chinese “song gen” or Korean “sanghwang”).

This list is not exhaustive, but it’s a good start. I hear a bar of dark chocolate calling to me right now and, for my own good, I should give it my undivided attention!

Posted: May 24th, 2010 under Cancer, Diet.
Comments: 1

Green cabbage was very cheap at the supermarket nearby a few days ago so I bought two – one to make sauerkraut and the other for general eating (coleslaw, sauté, soup etc). I would have bought more had my fridge had the space. I couldn’t resist buying a nice head of purple cabbage too. I’ll use that as well as some green cabbage to make coleslaw. That night, we enjoyed a big plate of braised cabbage with onions and dried prawns. The vegetables had been cooked slowly to coax out the sweet flavors. Absolutely delicious!

It’s a good thing I like cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables, as phytochemicals such as indole-3-carbinol (I3C) and sulforaphane are components of cruciferous vegetables which exhibit antitumorigenic activity. In the digestive tract, indole-3-carbinol produces a metabolite (product of metabolism) called diindolylmethane (DIM), a new class of antiestrogens that inhibit breast cancer growth. DIM also encourages cells that are abnormally multiplying to stop reproducing and die.

Research shows that it is possible for the stronger and more dangerous form of estrogen (estradiol) to be converted into the weaker form (estriol) without using drugs. As all women who have had breast cancer know, estradiol fuels breast cancer. For this reason, aromatase inhibitor drugs (Ais) were invented to block the production of estrogen. Unfortunately, like most drugs, aromatase inhibitor drugs have serious side effects. Also, not all kinds of all estrogen are harmful. Estriol is a weaker and relatively harmless form of estrogen. Being less active than estradiol, it is desirable for it to occupy the estrogen receptor as, by doing so, it effectively blocks estradiol’s strong “grow” signals.

In 1997, researchers at Strang Cancer Research Laboratory at Rockefeller University discovered that diindolylmethane or DIM can change “strong” estrogen to “weak” estrogen and, when this happens, it stops human cancer cells from growing and provokes the cells to self-destruct, a process known as apoptosis. Subsequent studies done at the University of California at Berkeley show that DIM inhibits some human breast cancer cells from growing by as much as 90% in culture.

Apparently, DIM is the most active phytochemical in promoting the synthesis of protective hydroxylated estrogen (2OHE). Also known as 2-hydroxyestrone, 2OHE and 16-alpha-hydroxyestrone (16OHE) are metabolites of estrogens. 2OHE is biologically inactive, while 16OHE is biologically active meaning that, like estradiol, it can send “grow” signals. In cases of breast cancer, the ‘bad’ 16OHE is often elevated and the ‘good’ 2OHE is decreased. Studies show that people who take DIM not only have beneficial increases in estriol, they also have beneficial increases in 2OHE. Low levels of the 2OHE have been linked to breast cancer (in both women and men), uterine cancer, cervical cancer and lupus.

If you’ve had breast cancer, regular consumption of cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, turnips, kale, green cabbage, collard greens and mustard greens is a very good idea. While cooking such vegetables, creating mild acidic conditions by adding some lemon juice or vinegar helps convert indole-3-carbinol (I3C) to the active cancer-fighting substance DIM. No wonder fermented vegetables like sauerkraut and kimchi are recommended cancer-fighting foods. Go ahead and indulge in these vegetables!

Posted: April 23rd, 2010 under Alternative Remedies, Cancer, Diet, Healing Foods, Hormone Health.
Comments: none