How your food choices could help you prevent cancer
With the right nutritional know-how, anyone can add cancer prevention to their family’s menu.
The food we eat and drink can reduce or increase our risk of developing cancer over the course of our lifetimes. “Think of food as medicine. What we eat should be enjoyable, but we should also eat in a healthy way to reduce the risk of cancer,” says Fred Tabung, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).
Tabung is just one of Ohio State’s experts focused on the role of food in cancer risk and prevention. Another is Candice Schreiber, RDN, LS, a dietitian who works with patients and their families to incorporate dietary best practices in their daily routines.
“A plant-focused diet is what I encourage people to eat,” Schreiber says. “It doesn’t have to be vegan or vegetarian, though — the goal is to fill the majority of your plate with fruits and vegetables and whole grains.”
At the OSUCCC – James, Tabung and his team focus on the role of diet and lifestyle in cancer risk and survival, specifically among patients with gastrointestinal cancers. “We study combinations of food and beverages that effect the metabolism, specifically inflammation and the insulin response,” he says. “High levels of insulin [from consuming too much sugar] can tell the cells to divide when they’re not supposed to divide, and this can lead to cells becoming cancerous.”
Red and processed meats, such as sausage and hot dogs, as well as other highly-processed foods are full of preservatives and sugar and can increase the risk of cancer. “In these foods, the nutritious parts are removed — the cancer-fighting parts of the foods have been stripped away,” says Tabung, who’s involved in a new clinical trial in which women with high risk of developing breast cancer are placed on diets designed to reduce those chances. “We’re really excited about this,” he says.
When working with patients, Schreiber provides numerous tips and suggestions that can help them emphasize health in ways that can feasibly fit into their lifestyles.
“We focus on changing a few patterns here and there — decreasing the amount of sugar sweetened beverages, adding in more vegetables and reducing meat consumption, or maybe there are too many carbohydrates, so possibly decreasing some of those, along with highly-processed snacks — I try to meet people where they are.”
Schreiber also makes sure to tell everyone that healthy eating can be an enjoyable, flavor-filled experience,.
“My pet peeve is that people often think that healthy food doesn’t taste good, but it absolutely does.”