Anti Cancer Diet

Your anti cancer diet combined with other therapy can make a huge difference to you. There's been plenty in the news about foods that may prevent cancer, but a diagnosis of colon cancer involves changing dietary requirements.

Why? Because:

• Foods that can help prevent colon cancer can be hard to handle during treatment.
• Your body weight can affect treatment.
• Surgery can affect what you can eat and chemotherapy can make you lose your appetite.
• The phases of colon cancer can affect what you need to eat and what you can eat in different ways.

Before Diagnosis

Before being diagnosed with colon cancer you may have experienced a changing diet: changes in the taste or smell of food, problems with digestion, weight loss or gain. About half of the people diagnosed with colon cancer have lost a lot of weight. For others, their extra weight or obesity can complicate treatment. Obesity is linked with colon cancer and with lower survival rates.

Getting to and keeping a healthy body weight is very important to recovery. Cancer treatment can cause all sorts of nutritional deficiencies. This can interfere with treatment, delay healing and increase risks. There is no one perfect anti cancer diet but you can take ideas from this essay to keep yourself healthy.

During Treatment

Cancer treatments affect nutrition.

• surgery
• radiation and
• chemotherapy can change your eating habits.

Treatment can:

• lower your ability to digest food,
• lower absorption of nutrients
• and interfere with your body's ability to use them.

Lack of nutrition is a constant challenge. Keeping as healthy as you can during treatment is important. Often, food will taste or smell differently. Nausea, pain and lack of energy can affect your eating patterns. Diets for cancer patients often are different from other diets because of these changes.

Ways to improve nutrition during treatment include:

• Eating many small meals
• Not drinking fluid when you eat
• Eating or drinking fortified foods and shakes
• Using tube feeding or intravenous aids
• Taking medicine to increase your appetite

Supplements

Many people take vitamin supplements. Usually people change what supplements they take during treatment. Antioxidants like vitamin C and E can interfere with the way radiation or chemotherapy work to kill cancer cells. A nutritionist can determine if you need to take supplements, tell you what kind and what dosage, and how they fit with your anti cancer diet.

Food Saftey

Treatment lowers your ability to fight off infection. You must pay extra attention to safe food practices. How you handle, clean and prepare food can prevent you getting a food-borne illness like salmonella.

Recovery

Diet does seem to play a role in cancer prevention. 75% of those diagnosed have no family history of the disease.

Many of the symptoms and side effects that affected your eating usually fade after treatment. Surgery for colon cancer can mean changing your diet in different ways. The most important thing is to eat foods to keep you at a healthy weight. The American Cancer Society recommends eating in a 30-30-40 ratio: 30% Fats, 30% Protein and 40% Carbohydrates.

Fats and Proteins

We list these together because they are often eaten as one. You get fats and protein in things like nuts, dairy and meats.

• Stay away from processed fats and oils. Processing changes their structure in dangerous ways. Good fats are important building blocks for your body. Bad fats include trans fats and hydrogenated fats and oils.
• Eat meat and dairy from grass-fed or free-range farms. Look for those that say "antibiotic and hormone-free."
• Get your omega-3 fatty acids in olive oil, flax seed oil, fish oil, fatty fish, nuts and seeds.
• Dairy is another good source of protein and calcium and may decrease colorectal polyps.
• Stay away from highly processed meats. Nitrites and nitrates are linked to colorectal cancer.
• Don't overcook your meat and do less grilling. Overly cooked and charred meats can cause cancer.
• Eat more fish and chicken and less red meat.

Carbohydrates

Plant food is your best source of carbohydrates. This includes grains, fruits and vegetables.

Fruits and Vegetables

Eating more fruit and vegetables definitely lowers the risk of getting any type of cancer.

Fiber cleans out the colon and the recommended 5 servings is only 2 and 1/2 cups a day

Whole Grains

Complex carbohydrates haven't been stripped of their goodness and refined. They prevent many types of cancer and they are loaded with fiber. They help healthy bacteria to grow in the colon. This strengthens your immune system and protects the walls of your colon. Good bacteria eat up excess sugar and starch.

Refined and processed grains are things like white rice, white flour and white bread. "Wheat flour" is often stripped and processed. Look for "100% whole grains."

Refined foods have very little nutrition. They're hard for your body to digest and they're full of sugar, salt and chemical toxins. Foods that are refined and then "fortified" have vitamins and minerals added back that may be in unnatural forms.

You can write to us or contact a nutritionist for more information about your diet after colon cancer surgery or any other medical treatment.

Written by Margaret Stenerson - 6/30/09

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