Cancer Alert: Your Best Defense - Go Cruciferous by Dr. Joel Fuhrman

We may not have eaten so healthfully our entire lives. We may have a family history of breast, prostate or colon cancer. What should we do? Just wait until cancer is found?

Getting medical screenings is certainly a personal decision, but if you want to know what you can really do to protect yourself - eat lots of colorful vegetables, specifically including lots of green cruciferous vegetables.

Eating a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables is your best defense for fighting and preventing cancer.

If we really want to win the war against cancer, we must improve the nutritional quality of our diet.

We have all heard about the antioxidant effects our bodies derive from the phytochemicals in plant foods. However, the unique phytochemicals found in cruciferous vegetables offer superior benefits.


Cruciferous vegetables contain phytochemicals that have unique abilities to modify human hormones, detoxify compounds, and prevent toxic compounds from binding to human DNA, preventing toxins from causing DNA damage that could lead to cancer.


Studies have even shown that genetic defects that may lead to cancer are suppressed by the consumption of green cruciferous vegetables.

Certainly, many studies have shown that eating fresh fruits, beans, vegetables, seeds, and nuts reduces the occurrence of cancer.


I plotted cancer incidence in 25 countries against unrefined plant food intake and found that as vegetables, beans, and fruit consumption goes up 20% in a population, cancer rates typically drop 20%. But cruciferous vegetables are different; they have been shown to be twice as effective. As cruciferous vegetable intake goes up 20%, in a population, cancer rates drop 40%.

arugula
bok choy
broccoli
broccoli rabe
brocollina
brussels sprouts
cabbage
cauliflower
collards
horseradish
kale
kohlrabi
mustard greens
radish
red cabbage
rutabaga
turnips
turnip greens
watercress


Include them in both raw and cooked forms and eat a variety of them. These benefits cannot be duplicated by taking any one pre-formed compound or supplement.

The evidence is now overwhelming that cruciferous vegetables play a major and unique role in the widely recognized protective effects of natural plant foods against cancer--and are the most important players in this arena.


The biologically active compounds from raw and conservatively cooked green vegetables enhance the natural defenses of the human body against DNA damage and they even fuel the body's ability to block growth and replication of cells that are already damaged.


For those in the know, these foods are the most important nutritional factors to prevent common human cancers.

Case Study of Type 2 Diabetes by Joel Fuhrman , M.D.

Patient with Type 2 Diabetes Restored to Health:
Case Study of James Kenney

Diabetes affects roughly 135 million people worldwide, with more than 16 million Americans suffering from diabetes. More than 70 percent of the adults with Type 2 diabetes die of heart attacks or strokes.

Diabetes can be prevented through nutritional methods.

This case history shows a Type 2 diabetes treatment success story of James Kenney, one of my patients. Type 2 diabetes prevention is possible, with diabetes education, Type 2 diabetes diet, proper weight control, and exercise. Instead of controlling diabetes, simply get rid of it.

Name: James Kenney
Chief Complaint: Poorly controlled diabetes
Weight: 268 pounds
Insulin: 175 units per day

Mr. Kenney was referred to my office from his nephrologist at St. Barnabus Hospital in Livingston, New Jersey. Mr. Kenney was originally referred to the nephrologist by his endocrinologist (diabetic specialist) at the Joslin Clinic because of kidney damage that resulted from poorly controlled diabetes (very high glucose readings) in spite of maximum medical management.


In fact, Jim was taking a total of 175 units of insulin per day when he came in to my office for the first time in January. At that time, he had already suffered from severe complications of Type 2 diabetes, including two heart attacks and Charcot (destructive inflammation) joint damage in his right ankle.


In spite of this huge dose of insulin and six other medications, Jim's glucose readings averaged between 350 - 400. This was the case "no matter what I eat" he said. Jim told me that he was already on a diabetes diet, and was already following the precise diabetes nutrition and dietary recommendations of the dietician at the Joslin Clinic.


First visit: This is what my Type 2 diabetes treatment plan for Jim entailed. At his first visit, I put Jim on my Eat To Live program for diabetics, with diabetes nutrition and his specific needs in mind. In addition, I reduced his insulin dose down to 130 units per day. Jim and I spoke over the phone over the next few days, and I continued to decrease his insulin gradually.


Within five days, Jim's glucose was running between 80 and 120, and he had lost ten pounds. At this juncture in my Type 2 diabetes treatment for Jim, I put him on 45 units of Lantus insulin at bedtime and 6 units of Humalog regular insulin before each meal for a total of 63 units per day.


Two week visit: At his two week visit Jim had lost 16 pounds. I was already stopping some of his blood pressure medications and he was taking a total of 58 units of insulin per day.


After the first month of my Type 2 diabetes treatment and diabetes diet from my Eat To Live program, I was able to stop all of Jim's insulin and start him on Glucophage (one of the safer oral medications). He lost 25 pounds in the first five weeks and his blood glucose readings were well controlled without insulin. His blood pressure also came down to normal, and he no longer required any blood pressure medications.


I had also found that Jim had an elevated homocysteine when we checked his blood tests. With the appropriate supplementation of a specific form of folate that he required (methyl tetrahydrofolate), his homocysteine returned to the normal range.


Five months later: he was off diabetes medication, 60 pounds lighter, no longer suffering high cholesterol or high blood pressure, and his kidney insufficiency had normalized as well.


This case illustrates not merely how powerful the diet from my Eat To Live approach is, but it also illustrates how the standard dietary advice given to diabetics from conventional physicians and dieticians can be disease promoting. The standard nutritional advice given to diabetics is not only insufficient--it is dangerous.


Jim Kenny would likely be dead by now had his nephrologist not referred him to me for an effective diabetes nutrition and dietary approach.


Caution: Dietary and medication changes while on insulin should be done under the care of a competent physician.
Message to physicians: More and more physicians are expressing their support and enthusiasm for the Eat To Live approach to treating Type 2 diabetes and other diseases.

I invite other physicians to come to my office and observe the spectacular results first hand. Those who have taken me up on the offer have often commented that the experience was actually more fruitful than anything they did in their residency training.


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