Cancer is one of the most frightening words in the English language.  How do we go about turning off cancer?

Through the years many chemicals have been identified as causing cancer.

• Aflatoxin the fungal toxin we talked about in the last posting found on moldy peanuts and corn
• Dioxin from Agent Orange
• Many artificial sweeteners including cyclamates and saccharin
• Nitrites a meat preservative found in hot dogs and bacon
• DDT
• Aminotriazole a herbicide used on cranberry crops in 1959
• More recently the product Round Up for killing weeds.

So, what is our best defense?  Read labels and educate yourself on the chemicals in your food.  Some of these chemicals may take years to show up in the body, while others rear their ugly heads early after consumption.

T. Colin Campbell tells us that the three stages of cancer are: initiation, promotion and progression.  Think of it this way, initiation is similar to planting a seed in the soil, promotion is the stage when the seed starts to grow, and progression is when the roots send out runners and the plant gets out of control.

Just like the seeds that were planted in the soil, the initial cancer cells with not grow and multiply without the right conditions.  The seeds need the right amount of water, air, temperate, sunlight, and nutrients before they will grow.  It’s the same with cancer.  The cancer cell may set dormant until the right circumstances make it grow.  Promotion will not take place until these conditions are met.  However, once these conditions of growth are met, then the cancer cells will take hold and grow out of control.

Without getting to technical, protein intake such as the peanut or corn with the aflatoxin on it is metabolized by an enzyme.  What are the ways to reduce the effect of the protein causing cancer?  As we learned in past postings, low-protein diets reduced tumors by:

1. less aflatoxin entering the cell
2. cells multiply more slowly
3. multiple changes occur within the enzyme complex to reduced its activity
4. the quantity of critical components of the relevant enzymes was reduced
5. less aflatoxin-DNA adducts were formed

Dr. Campbell and his team discovered that a low-protein diet could decrease favorable conditions at the time of “planting” the seeds in our cancerous soil.   They learned that tiny clusters of cancer-like cells appear right after initiation is complete.  These clusters were called foci.  By studying the effects of protein on the promotion of foci they could indirectly see how tumors developed.  Foci development was almost entirely dependent on how much protein was consumed, regardless of how much aflatoxin was consumed.

Remember, not all proteins are alike.  For all of these experiments casein, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein was used.  So, were the results the same with plant protein?  No.  These experiments did not promote cancer growth, not even at higher intake levels.

The studies showed that animals switched from a low-protein diet to a high-protein diet developed higher rates of cancer.

At this point in the research, a pattern was emerging.  Nutrients from animal-based foods increased tumor development while nutrients from plant-based foods decreased tumor development.

We will take a further look under the nutrition section on foods that promote health with plant-based proteins.