Anticancer, A New Way of Life

Excerpted and Adapted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. From ANTICANCER, A NEW WAY OF LIFE by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, to be published in September. Copyright © by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, 2008

I was diagnosed with brain cancer for the first time about sixteen years ago. I received conventional treatment and the cancer went into remission, but I relapsed after a few years and endured a second surgical procedure and 13 months of chemotherapy. When I went back to see my oncologist at the end of treatment, I asked him if I ought to change my diet to avoid another recurrence. His answer was perfectly stereotypical: “Eat what you like. It won’t make much difference.”

He was wrong, of course. But his answer was hardly surprising. It’s a little-known fact that nutrition is barely taught in medical schools. In fact, as a physician, my own knowledge of nutrition prior to my diagnosis was probably less than that of a regular reader of this magazine. The truth is that in the world in which we doctors live and breathe, the solution to most problems is a drug.

Like all medical specialists, oncologists are constantly looking for scientific advances that may help their patients. But in medical culture, changes in prevention and treatment are allowable only when there has been a series of “double-blind” studies demonstrating the effectiveness of a treatment in humans. This is called, legitimately, “evidence-based medicine.” Until research is confirmed by large-scale studies in humans—which can cost between five hundred million and a billion dollars—it doesn’t count as “evidence.” Unlike with pharmaceuticals, it’s simply not financially feasible to invest such sums in demonstrating the cancer-fighting potential of broccoli, raspberries, or green tea, because their sale will never cover the enormous research costs.

Still, I am convinced there is no need to wait for such evidence; I believe it already exists. Cancer lies dormant in all of us—our bodies are always making defective cells, and that’s how tumors are born. However, a number of mechanisms detect and keep such cells in check. It took me months of research before I fully grasped my body’s own cancer-fighting potential. During that time, I met with a variety of researchers, scoured medical databases, and combed scientific publications. I recall a conversation with a fellow physician at a convention where I had made a presentation on the importance of a healthy diet in fighting disease. “You may be right, David, but people don’t want to change,” he said. “All they want is to take a pill and forget about it.” I don’t know whether he’s right. I know that it isn’t true for me. For people who, like me, want to avoid the disease, it’s essential to take advantage of this natural protection, and nurture it. That’s where diet comes in.

The list of anticancer foods is, in fact, a lot longer than you might think. Some foods block natural bodily processes like inflammation that fuel cancer growth. Others force cancer cells to die through a process that specialists call apoptosis. Still other foods assist the body in detoxifying cancer-causing toxins or protecting against free radicals. But most of them attack the disease on a variety of fronts. And they do it several times a day, without provoking any side effects. The anticancer diet is composed of vegetables and legumes accompanied by unsaturated fats (olive, canola or flaxseed oils), garlic, herbs, and spices. More specifically, choose a wide variety of orange, red, yellow, and green vegetables. Their hues indicate the presence of carotenoids, specifically vitamin A and lycopene, which inhibit the growth of cells of several types of cancer, including brain gliomas. Other carotenoids, such as lutein, phytoene, and canthaxanthin stimulate the growth of immune cells. Meat and eggs are optional, the exact opposite of a typical American meal.

You can bolster your protection even more by including several highly beneficial foods in every meal. In investigating the bulk of the available research, I devised a list of the most promising cancer-fighters, plus recommendations on how to make the most of their potential. Include at least one, and preferably two at every meal, to maximize your protection.

It must be said that, to date, there is no alternative approach that can cure cancer, and I believe that it’s completely unreasonable to treat this disease without the best of conventional medicine: surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and soon, molecular genetics. But at the same time, it also doesn’t make sense to rely only on this purely technical approach and neglect your own natural cancer-fighting capacity. I have been holding cancer at bay for eight years now, and I attribute my cancer-free survival largely to the changes I’ve made in my diet and lifestyle. I exercise and meditate more and try to manage the unavoidable stresses of life with more serenity, while eating wholesome anticancer foods on a regular basis. Still, the medical establishment is slow to embrace this approach. After my last screening at my university’s cancer center, I stopped at the cafeteria and discovered eight different types of tea and infusions: Darjeeling, Earl Grey, chamomile, and several fruit-flavored herbal teas. Sadly, there was not a single packet of green tea (that contains potent anticancer agents currently being studied by national cancer institutes worldwide).

Related Media Coverage

• The New York Times: Between Covers, an Anticancer Infomercial (10/6/008) Dr. David Servan-Schreiber