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Diet to Play Increasing Role in Preventing Cancer
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WASHINGTON, Sept 03 (Reuters Health) - At a meeting here Thursday dedicated to exploration of phytochemicals' potential for preventing cancer, several leading nutritional experts predicted that increasingly, diet would play a leading role in cancer prevention, or would delay its onset.
"The time will come where we will be able to design individual diets or supplement plans where we can prevent disease," Dr. Richard Rivlin, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, said. Dr. Rivlin spoke at the American Institute of Cancer Research's meeting on phytochemicals.
He noted that many epidemiological studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of foods such as garlic and tomatoes, but that more information is needed on how the phytochemicals in those foods "...work to prevent cancer."
For now, when giving his own patients advice, "I speak in terms of promising areas of research," said Dr. Rivlin. For instance, he continued, soy, garlic, tomatoes, tea, selenium, and limiting fat intake have all been shown to help reduce prostate and colon cancer.
Dr. David Heber, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University California Los Angeles School of Medicine, went even further, stating that the majority of cancers could be prevented through changes in diet and lifestyle. He said in the past, it was thought that cancer developed solely because of a genetic predisposition. "We now know that's probably not true," Dr. Heber said.
He promoted the theory that genes could be modulated or perhaps prevented from mutation by changing dietary intake.
Dr. Rivlin stressed that a change in diet had to be permanent. "To delay cancer may really take years..." of a healthful, mostly plant-based diet, he said. He added that "...meat is not poison," but should be eaten in moderation.
Dr. Heber acknowledged that "[w]e don't have the final proof..." on how foods and components such as phytochemicals might work to delay or prevent disease.
But Dr. Rivlin added that "[n]early every study shows a benefit from fruits and vegetables, and none show a risk."
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