"Imagine that one medical advancement held the promise to conquer cancer, perhaps within your lifetime … the potential to also end more than 70 of life's most threatening conditions, affecting one billion people worldwide. This is the promise of angiogenesis, the first medical revolution of the 21st century."---William Li M.D.
In this 20-minute video, Dr. William Li explains his study of the suppression of cancer through eating diets of cancer-preventing foods. Foods such as tomatoes, berries, soy, teas, coffee, grains, and resveratrol (from red wine or grapes) are examples of cancer-fighting foods. Some of these may work synergistically, as his tea studies have shown. He states that 30-35% of environmentally caused cancers are caused by diet and that instead of focusing on what we should not eat which causes cancer, he feels the focus should be on what we should eat to fight cancer.
Li calls this the study of angiogenesis, the growth of the blood network that enables cancer cells to proliferate rapidly in the body. I personally see his work as another way of looking at super-foods, antioxidants, and the benefits of eating a healthy diet. Good examples of diets rich in nutrients and disease-prevention are the Mediterranean diet and the Okinawa diet for longevity.
Another good source of information that I recommend on the subject of food for disease prevention is the book, "Food As Medicine: How to Use Diet, Vitamins, Juices, and Herbs for a Healthier, Happier, and Longer Life" by Dharma Singh Khalsa M.D. (2004). It is full of information about foods and how they interact with the human body chemistry.
We all know that "we are what we eat." We also know that each of us has a unique genetic makeup which reacts differently to foods, drugs, and the environment. If you want to be proactive in your own health, use the preventive medicine approach through diet. By focusing on the good foods you do want to include in your diet, the bad ones will fall by the wayside.
(If you don't have the 20 minutes required, the food section begins at 11.5 minutes.)
K. McDonald
Source: TED; Eat to Defeat Cancer.
ALSO SEE previous post: Andrew Weil MD's Health Sense.