How to Manage Carbohydrates to Defeat Cancer

So many diets, so little time. Nutritional correction might possibly be the best single and most effective treatment to slow, halt, and even regress your cancer. But, where do you start? No matter what the medical establishment has managed to make you believe, the cancer epidemic is directly linked to a serious nutritional imbalance due to food-chain contamination, food-processing techniques, nutritional abuse, sedentary life, and nutritional misinformation.

The link between nutrition and cancer is indisputable and many scientific studies have proved it. A cancer nutritional approach is as crucial as a cancer treatment. In that approach, what you are supposed to eat is as important as what you are supposed to exclude. Reversing your diet will reverse the conditions that were necessary for the cancer to develop. A cancer diet severely changes the perspective on what you can introduce in it and what you have to restrict, and unfortunately, the majority of people might not be prepared for such change. This will be in fact the biggest fight you will face against cancer. It’s not chemotherapy, it’s not radiation, it’s not surgery: it’s your disposition to change your diet and, trust me, for some people this is the most difficult thing to change.

Nutrition should be the basics of your cancer treatment. Whatever you decide to do apart from your nutritional plan will be secondary. In other words, no matter what kind of supplements, vitamins, or pills you take, if your diet is not based in solid anticancer principles, you will be diminishing your chances of success and increase your chances of failure. Is that simple. You cannot expect that such or such supplement will cure your cancer if you haven’t addressed your nutritional offenses and deficiencies first.

The problem that we face when we understand that we need to change our nutritional course is that there are many approaches on how to do proceed. It is difficult to recommend a specific diet for cancer. There are many options and they all have good principles, but some of the diets often have opposite views and that makes it difficult to decide. Over the course of your re-education on your disease, you will find nutritional approaches that will build up to what you already know, so it’s best to incorporate nutritional knowledge as you encounter it.

Carbohydrates and Cancer

Cancer feeds on glucose. You’ve heard it many times and it’s easy to act on it. On my post about sugar and cancer I try to explain how glucose feeds cancer and debilitates your immune system. Cancer cells will actively change the metabolism of your body to make glucose more available to them, and more inaccessible to healthy cells. It is a diabolic mechanism. On one way, cancer cells will increase the liver process of making more sugar from amino acids, the building blocks of your proteins, which leads to a loss of muscle tissue from the skeleton and internal organs. On the other way, insulin resistance on healthy cells is increased so that glucose will not be as able to enter them, leaving increased blood sugar levels readily available to super insulin sensitive cancer cells.

It is the fact that cancer alters your own metabolism to get more fuel that makes it vital to adopt a strict and rigorous diet. It is not just the fact that you eat healthier during cancer, it’s the fact that compelling your body to rely on certain foods for nutrition will actually break the cancer metabolism. Diet is a treatment. It might be a very easy concept to visualize, but the reality is that it is difficult to actually inculcate this message in the majority of cancer patients, mainly because one of the reasons of the cancer diagnosis is precisely the consequence of an out of control diet. Reverse that tendency becomes hopeless most of the time.

Ban Sugar, Any Kind of Sugar

In whichever diet approach you decide to embark on, the main purpose should always be to deny cancer cells of glucose while enabling healthy cells to be more sensitive to it. It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to kill cancer cells and break the cancer metabolism. How can you achieve that? Simply by keeping sugar levels as low as possible and as stable as possible.

That’s why sugar is strictly prohibited in all nutritional therapies for cancer. You should absolutely avoid anything that tastes sweet, specially on an empty stomach: fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, corn syrup, lactose, milk sugar, dextrose, maltose, barley malt, brown rice syrup, honey, molasses, fruit juice, maple syrup, sugar cane juice, daikon syrup, and agave nectar. No matter how high in amino acids or minerals or how low on the glycemic index, sweets will feed cancer cells, weaken your immune system, cause more acidity, more lack of oxygen, and more insulin growth factors. As long as you eat sweets, your cancer will continue to progress.

How About Fruit?

As hard as it might be to learn this, you should know that fruit will increase your blood sugar as well, just like sweets, and that might compromise your goal of starving cancer. I find a very good idea to reduce the amount of fruit to a minimum or to nothing at least the first 8 weeks of nutritional treatment, as Dr. Robert O. Young recommends. Fruits have many advantages and are full of antioxidants but having a specific plan on how to manage their consumption is essential. Restrict all kinds of fruits the first two months. Dr. Young excludes avocados and lemons from the restricted fruit group. Lemons are actually a required part of any cancer treatment because of their beneficial effect on the liver and because they get oxygen into the body. Avocados are very low in sugar and have very beneficial fats.

One exception to this general no-fruit rule is special fruit “fasts,” such as the Johanna Brandt Grape Cure, which is a potent cancer cure, or carrot juice regimens, like Gerson’s.

After two months, or once you have achieved progress in your blood work and your tumor markers, I’d recommend to approach fruit cautiously. Always consider fruits that are native or local and also seasonal, and always eat them raw. Avoid tropical fruits, unless there is a specific reason why you should include them (like noni juice or goji berries). Avoid cooked, canned, or dried fruit. Every time you take in fruit by itself, your sugar levels will rise. It is best to eat whole fruit along with fiber, no matter what you have heard about food combining. By doing so you will release the glucose from the fruit more slowly, so eat it along with some greens.

I am combining three approaches from 3 perspectives on this personal fruit advice. On one hand, Macrobiotics always recommends to stick with what’s local and what’s seasonal because it is precisely what is naturally meant for your always changing inner biology throughout the year. I also like the approach of Maureen Keane and Daniella Chace in their book What to Eat if You Have Cancer. They name fruit as a potential insulin unstabler and recommend to eat it along with fiber. In her book Green for Life, Victoria Boutenko also recommends to always mix fruits and non-starchy leafy vegetables to make sure your glucose levels don’t go to the roof with fruit alone. And Dr. Robert O. Young, on his amazing book Sick and Tired recommends to abstain from fruit the first weeks of a nutritional therapy, which I think is a very effective strategy.

Again, only if, and when, your blood work and tumor markers show improvement you can move to another stage. Dr Joel Furhman in his book Eat to Live states that cancer is a fruit and vegetable deficiency disease. His fantastic calorie restriction diet allows any kind of fruit, as much as you want, anytime you want. He excludes fruit juices, canned fruit, and dried fruit because of their high sugar levels. I think it’s a good idea to always eat fruit raw. Ultimately, I think that’s the kind of approach you can take after, specially when you fully regain your health back or if you want to prevent a health crisis from striking.

Sweeteners, the Bad and the Good

ALL man-made sweeteners (e.g. aspartame – NutraSweet, Equal) should be avoided. These items are most often associated with brain cancer, but everyone with or without cancer should avoid them. There is only one acceptable sweetener in a cancer diet: unrefined Stevia, which is an herb that will actually help you manage your blood glucose levels, among other things.

Alcohol

It is a common misconception that alcohol “turns to sugar” and will raise your blood glucose. In fact, the opposite is true, alcohol will decrease your insulin levels. Is that a good thing? Alcohol is not food and it does not provide any essential nutrients. It is in fact an anti-nutrient. Even though your body can use the calories for energy, it cannot use the alcohol itself to make glucose. When calories from alcohol aren’t used for immediate energy, they are changed to fat and stored as triglycerides. In other words, it is easier to think of alcohol as being like a fat, rather than a carbohydrate.

When yeast ferments glucose in sugar, fruits, or cereal grains, ethanol (a type of alcohol) is produced. Ethanol within the human body is converted into acetaldehyde and then into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is highly toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic. It has been shown to increase the risk of multiple forms of cancer apart from developing cirrhosis of the liver and cause addiction. There is no safe dose of alcohol, no matter what you read about it. Any kind of alcohol intake is dangerous and extremely carcinogenic. It also generates free-radicals, depresses DNA-repair, reduces nutrients due to reduced absorption, and reduces consumption of food nutrients associated with obtaining calories from alcohol.

There is no small amount of alcohol that does not cause dependency. In other words, you don’t have to become an alcoholic to become addicted to alcohol. Any amount of alcohol develops addiction. It is often more difficult to stop drinking when you have a drink once in a while than if you are an alcoholic. I mention this because if you think it will be easy to give up your once a month wine glass when you go dining, think again. For some people even a small amount of alcohol becomes impossible to quit.

Ethanol consumption increases serum estrogen and decreases serum androgen in both men and women, which explains its direct incidence in hormone related cancers: breast cancer and prostate cancer. Ethanol is known to also reduce T-cells (Thymus-derived lymphocytes), a suppression of the immune system that can increase cancer incidence and decrease resistance to infectious diseases. Ethanol may also suppress DNA methylation of oncogenes (cancer-inducing genes) leading to dedifferentiation and proliferation.

Polyphenols and resveratrol (a phytochemical synthesized by grapes in response to fungal infections) are anti-cancer compounds found in high quantities in red wine but there is no need to drink red wine to get polyphenols and resveratrol. The polyphenols in green tea may well be more potent and you can get concentrated resveratrol in supplement form without the dangers of alcohol.

No matter what you hear or read, NO amount of alcohol is safe for you, yet alone beneficial. The only safe amount of alcohol is ZERO. If your conventional oncologist does not promote complete alcohol abstinence upfront, you should find another doctor you can really trust. I can only tell you this: of all the most well grounded alternative research and publications I’ve come across, there is not a single view that recommends alcohol in any form, in any dosage, particularly if cancer is involved. As a matter of fact, even alcohol-based colognes and perfumes are considered highly xenoestrogenic because of their alcohol content going to your bloodstream through your skin and affecting your hormones. Even alcohol-based mouthwash is carcinogenic.

Grains, Beans, and Starchy Vegetables

My first approach to a cancer diet was Macrobiotics. There are many people that fully recovered from their cancers thanks to this fabulous nutritional approach. It is generally described as a grain based diet. My dad still follows it and he’s in great health. But as I was reading along about other approaches and principles, my opinion on it has evolved and changed, mostly because of it’s approach to carbohydrates. Despite its greatness and effectiveness, I find it too focused on cooked starches. I think it is a great diet to consider when you regain total control of your health but maybe the first months of diet correction should be more rigorous.

As strict as it may sound, I personally believe the first 8 weeks of nutritional therapy you should consider to avoid any grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables whatsoever. Again, Dr Robert O. Young makes the case why the first weeks you should abstain from anything that increases your blood glucose, and that includes ANY grains. Only when you find your blood and tumor markers coming out of any danger zone you might want to reintroduce grains, legumes and starchy vegetables, but be cautious. Here are some ideas on how to introduce grains:

• Avoid any glutinous grain (wheat, rye, barley, kamut, spelt). Gluten is a dangerous and addictive protein that might causes havoc in our bodies. Introduce non-glutinous grains like buckwheat, millet, and quinoa.
• Avoid any kind of flour, glutinous or non-glutinous. Flour is digested faster and has a greater impact on your glucose levels. It can also lose nutritional properties. Avoid any kind of baked products whatsoever.
• Soak grains at least 24 hours before cooking. Soaking causes pre-sprouting, which reduces the carbohydrate content and increases the protein content of the grains, plus it removes any enzyme inhibitors that might interfere with your digestions and nutrient absorption.
• Restrict whole, organic, and non-glutinous grain consumption to one cup a day, preferably in the evening, when it’s easier to digest and might keep your fasting glucose levels low during the night.

As for legumes and starchy vegetables, introduce them carefully based on your overall progress. Dr. Furhman recommends legumes at lunch, when your digestion is stronger. Soak them as well. Inducing early stage germination increases their nutritional value, shortens cooking time, deactivates enzyme inhibitors, and reduces blood sugar impact. He doesn’t seem to put any restrictions on legumes. Just adjust its consumption to your activity levels. He does restrict the amount of starchy vegetables to one cup a day. Consider anything that is not green to be a high starch vegetable.

Finally Hulda Clark recommends to wash grains and legumes with ascorbic acid, to kill any mold. You can do that after the soaking. You can even soak them with a little bit of ascorbic acid, and even cook them with it. I will add that it is a great idea to store your grains and legumes in the freezer to prevent molding and rancidity.

A cancer diet is a fasting diet. You purposely include certain nutrients and exclude others. Fasting has no exceptions or intermissions: you start one day and you break it another. It’s better to approach your cancer diet plan this way. Unfortunately, cancer has no days off so you might as well understand that discipline and consistency play in your favor.

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Manage Proteins to Defeat Cancer
• How to Manage Fats to Defeat Cancer