By Ellen Berces
There are anti-cancer tips to help protect yourself and your family from the disease. Making healthy food choices, the beverages you drink and lifestyle habits may reduce your risk of getting cancer.
About one-third of all cancer deaths may be related to what we eat. Good nutrition promotes good health. Here are seven simple guidelines to help people eat a healthy diet.
Eat a Variety of Foods. it is important to eat a variety of foods each day to provide the nutrients a person needs. No one food can provide a complete nutritious diet. Food choices are fruits and vegetables, whole cereals, lean meats, poultry without skin, fish, dry peas and beans, low-fat dairy products.
Limit saturated fat and avoid trans-fat. The total amount of fat you eat, whether high or low, isn't really linked with disease. What really matters is the type of fat you eat. Saturated fats are found in animal products and processed foods, such as meats, dairy products, chips, and pastries. Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, are found in foods such as nuts, avocados, and olives. They are liquid at room temperature and differ from saturated fats in that their chemical structure contains double bonds.
Trans fat is created through a process called hydrogenation. More recently, University of Maryland researched Dr Mary Enig proved in 1978 that the increased cancer rates were directly associated with total fat intake and vegetable fat intake but not with consumption of animal fat. Dr Enig, who is a consultant clinician, specialising in nutrition has since spent the last 25 years warning of the dangers of trans fats and the relative safety of animal fats.
Foods that usually contain high levels of trans fats: Pastries and cakes French fries (unless fried in lard / dripping) Doughnuts Cookies / biscuits Chocolate Margarine Shortening Fried chicken Crackers Potato chips
Eat foods with adequate starch and fiber. A high fiber diet may reduce the risk of colon and rectal cancer. It is now known that people can inherit the risk of developing colon cancer, but diet is important, too. There is a very low rate of colon cancer in residents of countries where grains are unprocessed and retain their fiber.
Avoid too much sugar. When you eat a lot of sugar, your body produces a lot of insulin. Insulin is a natural substance made by the body. Insulin can tell cells to grow. However, cancer cells can be encouraged to grow more, too, when our bodies produce too much insulin. So while some insulin in the body is normal, excess insulin may encourage cancer cells to grow more, which is not a good thing.
Avoid too much sodium. Our kidneys regulate the amount of sodium kept in our bodies. When levels are too high, it gets passed through our urine. But "if your kidneys can't eliminate enough sodium, the sodium starts to accumulate in your blood," so we retain fluid, which increases blood volume. Along with cardiovascular risks, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that salted foods can increase cancer risks. A possible factor in this increase is the presence of nitrate and nitrite preservatives in salted foods.
Avoid alcoholic drinks. Heavy drinking combines with smoking is associated with cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus and liver. This may be because alcohol can act as a solvent, helping harmful chemicals in tobacco to get into the cells lining the digestive tract. Alcohol may also slow down these cells' ability to repair DNA damage caused by chemicals in tobacco.
There are anti-cancer tips to help protect yourself and your family from the disease. Making healthy food choices, the beverages you drink and lifestyle habits may reduce your risk of getting cancer.
About one-third of all cancer deaths may be related to what we eat. Good nutrition promotes good health. Here are seven simple guidelines to help people eat a healthy diet.
Eat a Variety of Foods. it is important to eat a variety of foods each day to provide the nutrients a person needs. No one food can provide a complete nutritious diet. Food choices are fruits and vegetables, whole cereals, lean meats, poultry without skin, fish, dry peas and beans, low-fat dairy products.
Limit saturated fat and avoid trans-fat. The total amount of fat you eat, whether high or low, isn't really linked with disease. What really matters is the type of fat you eat. Saturated fats are found in animal products and processed foods, such as meats, dairy products, chips, and pastries. Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, are found in foods such as nuts, avocados, and olives. They are liquid at room temperature and differ from saturated fats in that their chemical structure contains double bonds.
Trans fat is created through a process called hydrogenation. More recently, University of Maryland researched Dr Mary Enig proved in 1978 that the increased cancer rates were directly associated with total fat intake and vegetable fat intake but not with consumption of animal fat. Dr Enig, who is a consultant clinician, specialising in nutrition has since spent the last 25 years warning of the dangers of trans fats and the relative safety of animal fats.
Foods that usually contain high levels of trans fats: Pastries and cakes French fries (unless fried in lard / dripping) Doughnuts Cookies / biscuits Chocolate Margarine Shortening Fried chicken Crackers Potato chips
Eat foods with adequate starch and fiber. A high fiber diet may reduce the risk of colon and rectal cancer. It is now known that people can inherit the risk of developing colon cancer, but diet is important, too. There is a very low rate of colon cancer in residents of countries where grains are unprocessed and retain their fiber.
Avoid too much sugar. When you eat a lot of sugar, your body produces a lot of insulin. Insulin is a natural substance made by the body. Insulin can tell cells to grow. However, cancer cells can be encouraged to grow more, too, when our bodies produce too much insulin. So while some insulin in the body is normal, excess insulin may encourage cancer cells to grow more, which is not a good thing.
Avoid too much sodium. Our kidneys regulate the amount of sodium kept in our bodies. When levels are too high, it gets passed through our urine. But "if your kidneys can't eliminate enough sodium, the sodium starts to accumulate in your blood," so we retain fluid, which increases blood volume. Along with cardiovascular risks, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that salted foods can increase cancer risks. A possible factor in this increase is the presence of nitrate and nitrite preservatives in salted foods.
Avoid alcoholic drinks. Heavy drinking combines with smoking is associated with cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus and liver. This may be because alcohol can act as a solvent, helping harmful chemicals in tobacco to get into the cells lining the digestive tract. Alcohol may also slow down these cells' ability to repair DNA damage caused by chemicals in tobacco.
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