ing fats can do the same. In addition, carbohydrate intolerance can
promote tumor growth through the action of excess insulin. Hormone
imbalance can also contribute; for example, excess estrogens may pro-
mote tumor growth in the proliferation stage.
These first two stages of cancer evolution are also termed pre-can-
cerous or pre-malignant. They may be accompanied by signs or symp-
toms, and sometimes discovered through medical tests. But more
often they are difficult to detect and usually go unnoticed. Most peo-
ple have these two phases going on all the time, and they can last
decades. During these two phases, your best chance to avoid a diagno-
sis of cancer is through diet, nutrition and lifestyle improvements. So
you have plenty of time to eat right and avoid chemical stresses if you
start early.
Give the body enough time and eventually a cancerous area
enters the third step, the invasion phase. Here, tumor growth increas-
es significantly, and is more commonly accompanied by signs and
symptoms. And, the cancer is relatively easy to diagnose. Also in this
phase the cancer can metastasize, spreading to other areas of the
body. While this is the most common time period in which people
turn to nutrition for help, it is also the phase in which this approach
is least effective. Not that food and nutrition can’t help a person in
this phase of cancer, but relative to how much benefit a person can
obtain by eating well in phases one and two, when the cancer can be
avoided, it’s the phase in which these measures have the least thera-
peutic value. Depending on the person, overall level of health, age
and other factors, more radical therapy is usually necessary.
How Foods Can Prevent Cancer
We live in a “pill for every ill” world, and many people want to know
which vitamin pill prevents cancer. But in fact, there is none.
Pharmaceutical companies continue looking for this magic pill — a
silver bullet to stop cancer in the early stages. If they find it, it will be
something that already exists in foods we should be eating regularly
as part of a healthy diet.
Rather than any one nutrient that can be obtained from a pill, it’s
the combination of nutrients from a variety of healthy foods that is by
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