Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World (6 page)
Read Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World Online
Authors: Kathy Freston
Tags: #food.cookbooks
Switching to a plant-based diet, even after years of poor nutrition, may halt cancer growth.
KF:
How long does it take to see changes?
TCC:
It is not clear, because carefully designed research in humans has not been done. However, we demonstrated and published findings showing that experimental progression of disease is at least suspended, and even reversed, when tumors are clearly present.
KF:
Consider a person who has been eating poorly his whole life; is there still hope that a dietary change can make a big difference? Or is everything already in motion?
TCC:
A variety of evidence shows that cancers and non-cancers alike can be stopped even after a person has consumed a poor diet earlier in life. This effect is equivalent to treatment, a very exciting concept.
KF:
This is sounding like it’s something akin to a cure; is that the case?
TCC:
Yes. The problem in this area of medicine is that traditional doctors are so focused on the use of targeted therapies (chemo, surgery, radiation) that they refuse to even acknowledge the use of therapies like nutrition and are loath to even do proper research in this area. So, in spite of the considerable evidence—theoretical and practical—to support a beneficial nutritional effect, every effort will be made to discredit it. It’s a self-serving motive.
KF:
What else do you recommend we do to avoid, stop, or reverse cancer?
TCC:
A good diet, when coupled with other health-promoting activities like exercise, adequate fresh air and sunlight, good water, and sleep, will be more beneficial. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
*Just a note here: This is very exciting information, but it is in no way encouragement to refuse traditional treatment. If you are dealing with cancer, please make your health and medical decisions with your doctor.
What sticks with me more than anything is the concept that animal protein could feed cancer cells like fertilizer feeds a lawn. So those chicken patties and barbecue ribs I grew up loving literally help cancer grow in the body. This is a subject that means a lot to me because I have so much cancer in my family—my father died from melanoma at sixty-four—and I often wonder how a good healthy diet might have changed the course of things for him. I feel so empowered knowing that there is such a practical, effective thing we can do to fight cancer: we can change our diet from an animal-based one to a plant-based one. We can eat all those colorful fruits and vegetables and reap the rewards of the vitamins and antioxidants therein. Very exciting!
In addition to what Dr. Campbell has shared, many studies show that women who are overweight are at greater risk for succumbing to breast cancer. Trimming away extra weight helps them survive. And as discussed earlier, plant-based diets make weight control much easier.
But the promise of a healthy diet goes even further. The Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study, which included 2,437 postmenopausal women who had previously been treated for breast cancer, tested whether a low-fat diet could reduce the risk that cancer might recur. And it did. In this study, most of the participants simply cut down on meat and other fatty foods, and it remains to be seen whether going further—eliminating these products completely—would be even more effective.
Adding physical exercise helps too. In the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study, which included approximately 3,000 women, all of whom had been treated for breast cancer, those who had at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables and averaged thirty minutes of walking each day had roughly half the mortality risk, compared with women who ate fewer vegetables and fruits or who were less active.
Diet also makes a huge difference for men. Dr. Dean Ornish, who had already shown the ability of a low-fat vegetarian diet, along with other lifestyle measures, to reverse heart disease, tested a similar diet for men with prostate cancer. To track their progress, he used a blood test for prostate-specific antigen (a rapidly rising PSA is a sign of advancing cancer). Dr. Ornish showed that, on average, men who avoided animal products actually had a drop in their PSA levels, meaning their cancer was not advancing and might actually be retreating. Meanwhile, the cancers of men in a control group who made no diet changes continued to worsen.
Putting these studies together, the healthiest combination appears to be to cut out fatty foods—especially animal products—boost vegetables and fruits, and lace up your sneakers.
The scientific community is still trying to verify the straight line between a vegan diet and cancer
cures
(once someone has cancer, there are a million variables that can’t be easily accounted for, and diet is difficult both to isolate and to enforce). That said, there is a growing body of anecdotal evidence of people staving off cancer by turning to a plant-based diet (along with other healthy practices, of course).
Next you’ll meet Meg Wolff, whose cancer has been halted, largely, she believes, because she eliminated animal foods from her diet and chooses whole, fresh, plant-based foods instead.
Meg Wolff’s Story: Surviving Cancer with a Plant-Based Diet
I think it’s fair to say that for about the first half of my life, I didn’t think much about the effects of any foods I put into my body. Most people don’t. Growing up in Westbrook, Maine, in the 1960s, I of course ate whatever my mother served—meat as the main course, frozen or fresh veggies, home-baked desserts, lots of milk. This was what was considered healthy at that time.
As a teen, I ditched the vegetables and got addicted to fast-food cheeseburgers, fries, and milk-shakes. I’d often use my lunch money for a bag of salty chips, a candy bar, a pastry, and a diet soda! Like kids today, once I got a taste for processed sweets and foods, nothing healthy satisfied me.
Over the next few years, I had intense menstrual cramps, a racing heartbeat that required medication, psoriasis for which I took cortisone and tar baths, and bouts of diarrhea. I bounced back easily from each of these things, though, and lived a very active, otherwise healthy life. I always considered myself the strong, fit one in my family. So I never paused to consider what might have caused these illnesses.
I was introduced to the concept of food as medicine in 1982, when my husband Tom and I lived in Korea right after getting married. My Korean friends tried to impress upon me the need to take care of and protect my body with appropriate foods, but I was too blinded by my Western upbringing to embrace this message. After three years in Korea, we moved to Portland, Oregon. By that point I had been living with pain in the back of my knee for several years, but doctors always wrote it off as nothing to worry about and prescribed pain relievers. Over the next couple of years, the pain really started to bother and limit me. At age thirty-three, I was diagnosed with bone cancer that required me to have my left leg amputated above the knee.
We had just bought our first home in a great neighborhood. I was happily staying home to raise my kids. I had a four-year-old son whom I loved taking to the playground, and my new baby daughter woke up every morning with a big smile on her face. And then… BAM! The cancer came and my vibrantly colored world turned into one the color of a brown paper bag. Gone was the feeling that I wanted to ride with the car windows open and sing with the radio. “Devastated” doesn’t begin to cover what I felt.
After I lost my leg, I was drawn to the subject of food and health. I read books about how diet could be used to help eliminate cancer from the body, and I consulted a naturopathic doctor. The naturopath recommended dietary changes, including eliminating dairy. But still, the power of food was largely lost on me. I did add more whole grains and vegetables to our diet and cut back on sugar, but I continued eating meat, cheese, and ice cream. Soon after, I had more bowel problems. I figured my system couldn’t handle the extra grains and veggies, so I stopped eating them.
Once I had a reasonably comfortable prosthetic leg, I was ready to catch up on life, and my whole family got involved with skiing. It turned out we were all pretty good at it, including me! Still, though, sinus issues and headaches that I’d always chalked up to the damp Oregon weather remained. A specialist prescribed antibiotics—and that led to debilitating ulcerative colitis. To top it off, at various doctor appointments I’d ask about lumps I was feeling under my arms and in my breasts. Doctors called it fibrocystic breast disease, acted unconcerned, and advised annual mammograms.
By 1998, the lumps had become more numerous, and I again brought this to my doctor’s attention. Again, I was told not to worry.
Between the prescription drugs and my leg, I was often exhausted and depressed. And I had a growing fear about my breasts. I tried to let it go—until I discovered a protruding hard lump in my right breast. My doctor shrugged it off, attributing it to my crutches likely shifting a swollen lymph node. I sought a referral and, after testing, the specialist too told me not to worry.
We were just getting ready to move back to Maine, where my mother was very sick with colon cancer. I had so many other things to take care of. Besides, I told myself, lightning couldn’t strike twice, right? I mean, what were the chances that I’d have another cancer?
These thoughts kept me from freaking out, but as it turned out, the chances were really remarkable: We moved to Maine in June, my mother died in July, and in December, at age forty-one, I was diagnosed with stage 3B invasive breast cancer.
I had surgery in January 1999 to remove my right breast. It was painful, physically and especially emotionally. Tom and I already had weathered so much, and I worried about our ability to get through another huge thing and be happy again. I started my chemotherapy treatments with a heavy heart, knowing my doctors weren’t hopeful about a long-term remission. I worried about dying and leaving my children.
And then, between chemo sessions, I finally found some real hope. I visited another naturopath, and this time I was finally ready to heed her advice. She said that eating a plant-based diet had helped some women with breast cancer. All of a sudden, a light went on. I finally connected the dots.
Between treatments, I mustered up the energy to buy some whole grains and vegetables. I couldn’t learn enough fast enough! I happily cooked my healthy food, and it felt right. I signed up for cooking classes. I dove in. At first, many family members and friends thought I had really lost my mind because I believed this food was going to help heal my close-to-death body.
As I was about to start radiation treatments, the radiologist took one look at me and advised me to prepare my soul to die. But I had other plans.
I continued cooking and eating my plant-based foods, and I quickly started to feel much better. I had more energy. I didn’t need sleeping pills to sleep through the night. I was less anxious. Despite having regular radiation treatments, I felt better than I had in years—like the world was finally right-side up. After a year and a half of eating well, I was off all medications for the first time in more than a decade. My chemo and radiation treatments were over, and my health was excellent. My doctors and I were in awe. When I first switched to a plant-based diet, it just made sense in my soul, so I took a leap of faith. I grew to love the food and the healthy lifestyle I was leading. I then educated myself about the science that backs up a plant-based diet by taking classes and voraciously reading.
As I started improving and stayed healthy, my doctors liked to say I was a miracle patient. But I knew I had, at least in part, made my own luck. It’s been twelve years, and I’ve never looked back. I consider it my life’s work now to share this message—that what
we eat matters most, that you can maintain or regain your good health by eating a plant-based diet!
You can get some of Meg Wolff’s healing recipes in her book
A Life In Balance: Healthy Recipes from Maine.
I am grateful to Meg for sharing her story. I hear stories like hers often, and they offer such hope. Just think about what is yet to be discovered about the link between foods and cancer. I strongly suspect we will soon have conclusive, irrefutable evidence that we’ve been eating ourselves to death with our high-fat, animal-based diets. But let me be clear. In no way am I suggesting that changing your diet is the only thing that will and does make a difference with cancer. As always, if you have cancer or feel a lump somewhere or notice an odd-looking mole, talk with your doctor about all your treatment options, do your own reading, and set about your journey with a well-rounded approach.
Halting Heart Disease
When you have heart disease, or are approaching it, it’s like there is a war going on in your body. You likely have high blood pressure, which assaults your heart, rapidly wearing it out. Quite often, heart disease goes right along with obesity, and that means you have miles of extra blood vessels going out to nourish your extra-large body, and your heart struggles to keep up.
The exciting news is that within days of making a diet change, weight starts to drop away. Within a week, blood sugar starts to fall. Within two weeks, blood pressure improves. Within a month, cholesterol improves significantly. You see a reduced need for medications, and less risk of the complications associated with them.
Perhaps the most widely recognized advantage of cutting out meat and dairy is what it does for your heart. Dr. Dean Ornish revolutionized cardiology when his studies indicated that the blocked arteries of 82 percent of his participating patients could be opened if they switched to a vegetarian diet (along with other lifestyle changes such as meditation and support groups).
Switch to a plant-based, vegan diet and within days weight starts to drop away, within a week blood sugar starts to fall, within two weeks blood pressure improves, and within a month cholesterol improves significantly. Research shows that a vegetarian diet could add a good ten years onto your life.