Is Cancer Our Trojan Horse?

http://kildall.com/blog/?p=644

Since I am not used to people dropping by unannounced, much less leaving packages,  I didn't quite know what to make of the Whole Foods bag with my name on it I found on my doorstep last week.

Curiosity and caution made me open the bag on the porch and luckily the hard object inside was just a book:  Anti Cancer A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber.  No note, or card so I am still looking for someone to thank because this is an interesting read.

The take away is that the author believes from personal experience and research that our bodies have a natural defense which he calls our "terrain" that can be deployed to fight the process of cancer tumor development. This anticancer biology keeps cancer cells under submission.

Of particular interest to me were the chapters on the anticancer environment and anticancer foods.  If you have read my other posts on this topic, you will be familiar with some of the claims for cancer fighting foods. Servan-Schreiber  provides an action plan that uses food to make a difference in the body's terrain and possibly inhibit cancer growth. The Anticancer Plate he promotes has many similarities to the new USDA plate which had not yet been published at the time of the printing of the book.

Very simply, Dr. Servan-Schreiber recommends a diet of  "vegetables and legumes prepared with olive, canola or flaxseed oil, or omega-3 butter, herbs and spices."  He cautions against eating produce that may absorb pesticides, see the "clean fifteen" group. The list of recommended foods begins with green tea which he describes in detail how to drink: "2 grams of green tea should be steeped for 10 minutes and consumed within an hour. Drink 2 - 3 cups a day."

In the forward Dr. Servan-Schreiber states that use of the book is not intended to "replace a physician's opinion....or make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment."  He cautions about "false hope" in his summary. But the diet he recommends is definitely heart healthy and there is no downside to trying his advice.

Article first published as Is Cancer Our Trojan Horse? on Technorati.