What diet protects people from cancerous tumors?

Diet can be an important key against cancer

A wrong diet promotes cancer. However, proper nutrition can also push back cancer cells. Only: What is the right nutrition in the fight against cancer?

contents

• Diet can be an important key against cancer
• Unhealthy foods are part of the culture
• Fruit does not protect against every cancer
• The healthy power of cabbage
• Conclusion

Barbecue season, the meat sizzling on the grill, sometimes it charred in one way or another. Researchers have warned about the risk of cancer in charred meat for 15 years, but barbecue lovers do not stop it. It would be enough to just cut away the black spots.

Charred meat has been shown to cause cancer. (Image: Black Beard / fotolia.com)

For meat, it generally seems to be harder to influence the behavior of the endangered. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, to a certain extent the highest cancer agency, classified processed red meat as a proven carcinogen. Salami, bratwurst, pork, beef and lamb ham came into the twilight. They ended up in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos.

For not processed to sausage or ham red meat, the data was not quite so clear. The cancer agency's experts called it "probably carcinogenic." The panel's decision was based on an analysis of more than 800 studies. "There is no doubt that there is a link between the consumption of processed red meat and certain cancers, especially colon, but also prostate and pancreatic cancers," says lead author Bernard Stewart, a cancer researcher at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. This is particularly important for the industrialized nations, because a lot of sausage is eaten there. Globally, consumption of these products accounts for 34,000 cancer deaths each year.

That's not much compared to a million cancer deaths from cigarettes. That's another reason why Stewart immediately adds: "One thing is the clear connection. The other is which nutritional recommendation you derive from it. I like to eat ham and go on with it, but I've managed to restrain my consumption. "

Unhealthy foods are part of the culture

The German Society for Nutrition (DGE) sticks with its advice to eat a maximum of 300 to 600 grams of meat per week, although at these levels, the risk of colon cancer would be measurably increased. Weisswurst and Lyoner are just too popular. And not only she: "Bratwurst and ham have a centuries-old tradition and are part of the culture," says meat critic Stewart. With a call to renounce, one would invest with all lovers - and with industry. That's why he encourages gentle encouragement: fewer liverwurst, cold cuts and corned beef are more.

Sausage and raw meat are especially dangerous. (Image: whitestorm / fotolia.com)

Another cancer risk in food is hardly discussed so far: The Heidelberg Nobel Prize winner Harald zur Hausen recognized years ago that in particular intestinal and breast cancer occur more frequently in regions where dairy products and beef are consumed regularly. However, only if they come from the usual breed of European-Asian cattle in this country. Cultures that feed on the descendants of the yak are less likely to suffer from such diseases.

After years of research, Zur Hausen and his team found an explanation: Infectious agents in European-Asian cattle are responsible for the accumulation of cancer. These pathogens are called "bovine meat and milk factors", abbreviated BMMF. After decades of silent infection, they apparently lead to chronic inflammation and cancer in some people. The proportion of all cancer cases as a result of a BMMF infection can not yet be given in numbers to Hausen.

So it's best to do without milk, cheese, butter and goulash? "By no means," stresses Hausen. Dairy products are an important source of the bone calcium in sun-poor regions. Only before the first year of life babies should not get any milk products, but breast milk, recommends Hausen. Breastfeeding probably protects against early infection.

Another food-borne germ can also cause cancer: The bacterium Helicobacter pilory can be transmitted through contaminated food and water and causes an estimated 60 percent of all gastric cancers. It causes gastritis and thus promotes the formation of a carcinoma.

After all, the infections with Helicobacter are declining, according to Hausen, "probably because people keep food frozen." The cold does not survive the bacterium. In addition, antibiotics act against the pathogen.

But there are other cancer triggers that are not easily banished. Thus, in 2002, the discovery of the nerve agent acrylamide in biscuits, crispbread and French fries made headlines, especially in Germany: 10,000 deaths per year would be caused, were then the horror news.

Fried potatoes and fries increase the risk of cancer. (Photo: exclusive-design / fotolia.com)

The substance is produced when cereals or potatoes are roasted, fried, baked or otherwise heated to more than 120 degrees. Meanwhile, potato chips, chips and biscuits from factories contain less acrylamide than they once did. But "the substance can not be completely avoided," says Knut Franke from the German Institute of Food Technology in Quakenbrück. Anyone who prepares fried potatoes or French fries should just let them get golden brown and not eat too often.

Rice has also been warned for three years. At that time, the Berlin Federal Institute for Risk Assessment announced that there is too much arsenic in the grain. Arsenic increases the risk of skin, lung, liver and kidney cancer. Infants and young children should never eat rice-containing foods daily.

At the end of January 2016, the German Society of Toxicology warned that infants in particular eat too much rice, as many baby porridge and crackers are based on rice or rice flour. On average, infants receive between 0.61 and 2.09 micrograms per kilogram of arsenic per day. But from 0.3 micrograms per kilogram of arsenic daily and lifelong exposure increases the risk of cancer by one percent, the experts warn.

Since then, consumers on rice crackers have warned that children should not eat more than three to five pieces a day, depending on the size of the snack. "This is a serious advice," says the Potsdam toxicologist Tanja Schwerdtle, who sits for many years in numerous EU committees on the evaluation of arsenic in the food chain. "We demanded ten lower limits by a factor of ten. But then there would be too little marketable rice. "

It is actually quite easy to reduce the cancer risk with the right diet. Because there is food that has been proven to counteract the development of tumors. A study by nutrition researcher Heiner Boeing from the German Institute for Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbrücke has identified some of these healthy foods. For more than 20 years, Boeing and his team have interviewed 27,548 men and women about their dietary habits and compared their diet with the incidence of cancer.

Through this EPIC Potsdam study, which ended in 2014, the researchers found that the risk of colorectal cancer rose by as much as 49 percent from just 100 grams of pork, beef or lamb a day. For sausage, the increase was 70 percent. Whoever consumed the same amount of fish daily instead halved the danger. A rather simple diet tip is fish instead of sausage.

Fish instead of sausage significantly reduces the risk of cancer. (Image: karepa / fotolia.com)

The protective effect of fiber was already proven in 2003 in the EPIC study. Only 15 grams per day reduced the risk of colorectal cancer by 40 percent. Muesli, wholegrain bread, lentils and beans may therefore be in the food every day because they are high in fiber.

"Consuming fruits and vegetables also reduces the risk of cancer a bit," says Boeing, but warns against exaggerated expectations. If you eat a lot of fresh food, you usually consume less meat. The positive effect could also be due to this displacement effect. This is supported by the fact that although men who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, slightly less likely to suffer from an oral, pharyngeal, laryngeal or esophageal cancer. But women who eat the same thing are not.

Fruit does not protect against every cancer

The once massively recommended recommendation of the German Nutrition Society to eat fruit and vegetables five times a day to prevent cancer has not been confirmed in this clarity. For example, the EPIC study revealed that the frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables on the incidence of ovarian cancer in women has no positive effect at all.

The connections are complex. This can be illustrated by the example of breast cancer in women. Alcohol increases the risk very much. Already more than 0.1 liter of wine daily increases the risk. Also, a large amount of animal fats, so much sausage, butter, cheese and margarine, harm. In addition, when low bread and fruit juices were consumed, the risk of breast cancer doubled over six years compared to women who consumed a lot of bread, often drank fruit juices but ate little animal fat, according to the EPIC study.

Studying nutritional effects on the risk of cancer is anything but trivial. Because usually a particular diet is associated with a particular lifestyle. So many vegetarians pay more attention to their health than omnivores. They exercise regularly and go to the doctor rather. It is not really possible to find out what exactly has reduced or increased the risk of cancer in a human being through surveys and long-term observations. For this would require a complete monitoring in the laboratory - and this in turn would be only partially meaningful for normal life.

The healthy power of cabbage

But there are also foods with clearly positive effects: The laboratory shows that individual foods can push back cancer cells. This is particularly well documented for vegetables from the cruciferous family: these include broccoli, cauliflower, radish, cabbage and rocket.

Kohl actively pushes the cancer cells back. (Image: Brent Hofacker / fotolia.com)

The Heidelberg cancer researcher Ingrid Herr has been able to prove that it is above all the sulphurous ingredient sulforaphane, which directly suppresses the development of cancer cells. Canadian colleagues could help prostate cancer patients with three servings of broccoli or cauliflower per week. Her cancer was more rare or weaker than in patients who did not eat cabbage.

Ingrid Herr emphasizes that nobody has to buy expensive broccoli sprout products. It is quite enough to regularly eat more broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and rocket.

Conclusion

As intense as oncologists are researching the bad and good effects of food: there will never be an anti-cancer diet. Everyone has to find the right balance of healthy nutrition and fulfilling lifestyle for themselves. Grilling in the summer is part of it for many.

As a grill tip, Bernard Stewart of the International Agency for Cancer therefore states that meat and bratwurst should only be exposed to the concentrated heat in the middle of the grate. After that, they cook healthier on the cooler edge to end. Incidentally, grilled meat has a decisive advantage over other foods: Hardly anyone consumes it all year round. On average, Germans grill twelve times a year - fortunately, the dose that makes the poison is rather small. (Fs)