A study conducted at Loma Linda University, California, on 100,000 Californian Seventh Day Adventists, with emphasis on diet showed that their cancer rate (all kinds) is half that of the national average.

   The Australian, June 10, 1975 reported: "According to a survey of 800 Adventists in Sydney, incidence of common malignant diseases such as lung cancer and stomach cancer is only one-third that of the rest of the community. Incidence of abnormal blood pressure and high cholesterol levels was about 10% of that of the rest of the community".

   Upon investigation, the connection between bad diet and cancer becomes just as obvious as its implication with the other degenerative diseases.

   The pollution and oxygen deprivation in the fluids of the body which form the environment surrounding the cells of all tissues is directly attributable to bad diet, and the factors causing lipotoxemia have already been fully described. In the cancers common in industrial countries, once again fat appears to be the main villain (see Figs 20.2, 20.3, 20.5), followed by cholesterol and excess protein. Apart from its contribution to lipotoxemia, fat adds further to the cancer risk, as already mentioned, by causing increased production of the growth stimulating hormone, estrogen. As previously explained, red cell aggregation, platelet stickiness and high blood viscosity invariably accompany a diet high in these substances, and are made worse by sugar, alcohol, tea, coffee, salt, and the rest of the tasty junk with which our bodies are assaulted.

Breast cancer mortality (age adjusted) vs per capita consumption of animal fat. 

Italy, Israel and Malta, with low animal fat

intake, still have high cancer mortality. This is accountable to the high 

intake of vegetable oils by these people.

Colon cancer mortality (age adjusted) vs per capital consumption of 

total dietary fat, both animal and vegetable.

   Moreover, the Western diet, as discussed earlier, is very deficient in Vitamin C due to inadequate amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables. Vitamin C is essential for building and maintaining collagen, the protein substance which binds the tissue cells together; it is necessary for proper utilization of oxygen by the cells, for the integrity of the immune system, and for detoxifying the body. All vitamins and minerals of course are essential, especially Vitamins A and E, in preventing cancer, but Vitamin C is the most difficult to obtain from normal food sources in adequate amounts.

   Dr F.W. Forbes Ross of England, in his book Cancer: Its Genesis and Treatment (published in 1912) emphasized the paramount importance of potassium in the diet in the prevention and reversal of the cancer process. He ensured all his regular patients maintained an adequate intake of potassium and claimed that not one of them ever developed cancer, notwithstanding that many had come to him with an obscure internal disease which he suspected may have been cancer. Dr Forbes Ross also claimed a high success rate in treating patients who came to him with cancer, by supplementing their diets with bicarbonate of potash.

   On a good diet it is unnecessary to use supplementary vitamins or minerals (with perhaps the exception of Vitamin C, as previously discussed) and it should be noted that both potassium and magnesium are inadequately provided in meat, eggs, cheese, fat, sugar and grains.

   The chemical circumstances which directly influence the behavior of body cells is determined, moreover, not only by the substances of which the food is formed, but also by whether they are cooked or raw and by the way in which they are digested and assimilated and the wastes eliminated.

   Constipation: For over a hundred years it has been observed by doctors that the most common factor associated with all forms of cancer is the condition of constipation. Not only does the Western diet cause blood pollution and high blood viscosity, it is guaranteed also to cause constipation. In most respectable homes can be found, along with all the other patent medicines, some form or other of bowel-opening preparation, and perhaps one or two magazines in the bathroom.

   Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, the famous British surgeon,* repeatedly emphasized that he had never known a single case of cancer which had not been preceded by prolonged intestinal stasis. Professor Aviles of the Biochemistry of Cancer Department, Guadalajara, Mexico, in an article entitled "The Anti-cancerous Properties of Vitamin F" (Let's Live, September 1954), said that out of 7,715 cancer patients examined over a 15 year period, 99% had suffered from constipation and that the degree of malignancy was parallel to the degree of constipation.

*Sir Arbuthnot Lane considered the large intestine (colon) to be the seat of many diseases and at one time specialized in completely removing this organ. This drastic measure worked inasmuch as metabolic disorders such as arthritis symptoms, gall bladder "involvements", thyroid difficulties etc. would disappear in a few days following the operation. (See The Health Secrets of a Naturopathic Doctor, M. 0. Garten, 1967.)

   Dr Denis Burkitt and Dr Hugh Trowell of England both spent 25 years as doctors in areas of rural Africa. These doctors observed over that time that constipation in these areas was virtually non-existent, and so too was cancer. Dr Burkitt noted that the rural Africans passed about one pound of fecal matter per day, about four times the amount of English people and that the Africans' feces were soft, bulky and almost odorless.

   Investigation showed another significant thing. The transit time from eating to elimination was for the African about 24 hours whereas with the English it was three days or more. This meant that, even with a daily bowel movement, the wastes of food eaten by the English remained within them three times as long.

   The obvious cause of these differences was the sort of food eaten. The average African villager ate mainly cornmeal, beans, bananas and potatoes. This diet was low in fat and animal protein, devoid of refined carbohydrate, and contained about three times the amount of vegetable fiber of the English diet.

   The researchers analyzed countless medical records, and this is what became evident:

1. Cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in Western countries, was virtually unknown in rural Africa.
2. The cancers of civilized populations were also virtually unknown.
3. So too were diabetes, hypertension, appendicitis, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, varicose veins, phlebitis, obesity and hernia.

   The "civilized" Western diet not only causes lipotoxemia and high blood viscosity by virtue of excess fat, cholesterol, protein and so on entering the system from the digestion, but in addition causes autointoxication when unexpelled wastes putrefy in the colon (large bowel). The digestive process involves bile from the liver and the action of bacteria normal to the colon. These bacteria comprise 20-30% of the bulk of the feces. There are different types of colon bacteria. Healthy people have a type which requires oxygen to live, called aerobic bacteria. With the putrefying remains of a high fat, high protein, low fiber diet, the bacteria change to a form called anaerobic bacteria, which take over the colon, and these react with acids in the bite to form poisons, which include apcholic acid and deoxycholic acid which are carcinogenic. Not only is the colon therefore constantly exposed to these carcinogens in an oxygenless situation, but at the same time the toxins are taken up by the bile fluid which circulates back to the liver, and so enter the already toxic bloodstream to exert their carcinogenic effect throughout the entire body.

   The Western diet is further conducive to cancer in that it lacks not only the necessary fiber but lacks also the anti-carcinogenic substances contained in the missing raw fruit and vegetables.

   On the other hand, with a low fat, high fiber diet, normal aerobic bacteria operate free of toxins, the high fiber feces contain a much higher proportion of intact bile, and the fecal matter stays in the colon less than 18 hours. This study was described by Dr M.G. Hall of the Bacterial Metabolism Research Laboratory, London, in the papers, "Fecal Bile Acids and Clostridea in Patients with Cancer of the Large Bowel" (Lancet, March 8, 1975) and "Steroid Nuclear Dehydration and Colon Cancer" (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, December 27, 1974)

   Appendicitis is caused by poisons and harmful bacteria of the colon. As described by Dr Norman Walker in his book, Colon Health, the appendix secretes a powerful germicidal fluid into the cecum, which is located between the small intestine and the colon. This germicide acts as a barrier protecting the intestine from the entry of colon bacteria and likewise protecting the colon from any harmful substance entering it from the intestine. So constant sometimes is the demand upon the appendix that it may lose function and become inflamed. This is appendicitis.

   At the end of his long medical career, Dr Ernest Tipper (referred to at the start of this chapter) stated explicitly: "In the case of cancer, constipation and excessive meat eating should be the two suspects; when they are present cancer is rife, where absent there is none".

   High protein: Correlations between dietary fat and cancer have been evident for many years, and similar correlations exist with high protein intake. When dietary tests are conducted with animals, the "test" animals are compared with animals on a standard diet which are called the "controls". Both groups are subjected to chemicals known to cause cancer and the two groups are compared. In a test using the virulent carcinogen aflatoxin, rats on a diet containing 20% protein all developed cancer, but those on a 5% protein diet developed no cancer at all. A similar test in which large amounts of sugar were added to the diets of both groups was described by Dr M. H. Ross ("Proteins, Calories and Life Expectancy", Federation Proceedings, 18:1190, 1959): "40% of the rats still alive after one year, whose intake of both milk protein and sugar was high, developed spontaneous tumors of all kinds throughout their bodies. In contrast, only 20% of the rats on low protein, high sugar intake developed tumors. Further, coronary arterial athermatoid lesions and unusually high blood levels of cholesterol were found in rats maintained on high protein diets, even without extra fat. And after one year, 75% of the rats on high protein developed kidney disease".

   Cooked protein is difficult to digest, and when incompletely digested protein enters the colon it putrefies and ammonia is formed.

   Dr Willard Visek, Professor of Clinical Sciences, University of Illinois Medical School, said recently: "In the digestion of proteins, we are constantly exposed to large amounts of ammonia in our intestinal tract. Ammonia behaves like chemicals that cause cancer or promote its growth. It kills cells, it increases virus infection, it affects the rate at which cells divide, and it increases the mass of the lining of the intestines. What is intriguing is that within the colon, the incidence of cancer parallels the concentration of ammonia".

   Dr Broda Barnes (mentioned earlier for his studies of heart disease) ascribes the association of high protein diet with cancer as being due mainly to hypothyroidism brought about by the demands of protein metabolism upon the thyroid. (See Hypothyroidism. )

   Meat: Consumption of meat is strongly suspected to be conducive to cancer. Dr John Berg and associates of the US National Cancer Institute and Tohoku University School of Medicine (Japan), studied 179 colon cancer patients and 357 non-cancer patients, all Japanese of varying origin and background, and found that consumption of beef was the only factor common to all the cancer patients. Dr Raymond Shamberger of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation told the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in San Diego in May, 1975, that he has identified in beef, and to a lesser degree in pork, chicken and fish, the potent carcinogen malonaldehyde. This chemical begins to form in flesh soon after death. Leftover food contains more of it than fresh. The measurement of malonaldehyde content has been used in the food industry for years to determine if food is stale or rancid, but was not known to be carcinogenic.

   As described in Chapter 15, cooked meat causes damage to all vital organs, and it must be clearly understood that in order to prevent cancer or reverse it, these organs must be capable of reasonable function.

   One hundred years ago, Dr Charles de Lacy Evans, who had been a surgeon in an English cancer hospital before devoting his career to natural medicine, described the cancer inducing properties of meat. He added: "When meat is given, it should be boiled, and the liquid broth, soup or beef tea, thrown away. It contains the irritating constituents of the flesh which encourage the growth of cancer".

   In 1977, the International Agency for Research on Cancer reported a comparison between Copenhagen and rural Finland. In Copenhagen the consumption of meat was very, high compared to Finland whereas the Finns consumed a great deal more fat. However, despite the much lower consumption of fat in Copenhagen the incidence of colon cancer there was four times higher than in Finland. A comparison between New York and Finland revealed the same situation.*

*Other factors to be taken into account in this comparison are: 1. The Finnish diet is much higher in fiber. 2. The consumption of beer has been related to colon cancer and in both Copenhagen and New York the beer consumption is much higher than in Finland. 3. The stress factor in cities is much greater than in rural areas.

   Meat not only contributes large amounts of fat, cholesterol, protein and substances known to be carcinogenic, at the same time it contains no fiber and therefore causes constipation. In addition, growth hormones given to beef cattle to make them grow faster can have the same artificial stimulating effect within the body of someone who eventually eats the beef. Furthermore, it has also been recently demonstrated that dietary cholesterol specifically inhibits the anti-cancer action of macrophages, the large white cells of the body's immune system.

   An animal experiment reported in Nature, December 1978, showed that dietary cholesterol paralyzes the macrophages. Two groups of animals were fed a synthetic diet containing 8.5% protein and only 1% fat, the same diet which has been shown to support healthy growth in children. Cholesterol, the equivalent of two eggs a day (600mg) for a human, was added to the diet of the test group and both groups were given a carcinogen to promote cancer. At the end of one year, 100% of the cholesterol group had cancer with 90% deaths, whereas the other group suffered only a 20% incidence, all of which died; however, the remaining 80% remained perfectly healthy and free of cancer.

   Most human studies comparing the incidence of cancer with blood cholesterol levels have shown the expected positive relationship. However, the Framingham study, in the case of males, showed an inverse relationship in which colon cancer incidence was 2.7 times higher at blood cholesterol levels below 190 mg%, and because of this observation some health authorities have recommended that levels above 190 be maintained. This advice is wrong, because the Framingham conclusion did not take all factors into account. The error is explained in a paper titled "Diet and Colon Cancer", from the Pritikin Research Foundation, May 1982. In the Framingham cases, says Pritikin, the cancers are still related to the intake of cholesterol although not to the level of cholesterol in the blood. The blood cholesterol level is relatively low only because it is being used up to produce the large amounts of bile acids needed to process the large amount of fat in the diet, and it is the excess of bile acids in the colon that increases the cancer risk.

   Processed starch and sugar: In a 43-country survey by the British Cancer Institute, sugar featured as the primary dietary factor in breast cancer, fat second and protein third.

   Dr Victor Bagnall, writing in "Nutrition: Its Relation to Cancer" (Cancer News Journal ), showed sugar consumption to be correlated to breast, prostatic, ovarian, bladder, intestinal and rectal cancer. Dr Joseph Issels of Germany also has made this correlation.

   Processed starch food taken in large quantities is associated with stomach cancer. An Israel study described in You Can Fight Cancer and Win by Jane Brody and Arthur Holleb (1977), showed that stomach cancer incidence was greater among people consuming high levels of bread, noodles, cereals, beans and nuts.

   Salt: As mentioned in Chapter 14, salt is a powerful irritant and a strong inhibitor of enzymes, as well as interfering with circulation by causing fluid retention in the tissues. Even in small quantities, salt has been observed to increase the rate of cancer growth.

   Dr E. D. Robinson of the National Biochemical Laboratory, Mount Vernon, New York, considered common salt "the most active cancer cause among inorganic agents". Dr Albert Schweitzer, when he went to work in Africa in 1913, said he knew of no cancer there among natives and put this down to their diet. "The most significant difference," he said, "was that natives 200 miles from the coast consumed no salt. Later, when these natives started using salt, we have seen cases of cancer in growing numbers on our region . . . Salt is the chemical enemy of potassium, and can cause body chemical imbalance."

   Raw food vs cooked food (refer to Chapter 15 ): The main factor underlying the disease called cancer is the cooking of food--not just because of the deleterious effects on the food--but chiefly because cooking renders palatable the animal protein and fats which cause most of the harm. Foods which in their natural uncooked state would be rejected by humans, are made edible and tasty by cooking and flavoring.

   As long ago as 1829, Vincent Priessnitz of Silesia discovered the adverse effects of eating cooked food. He fed two pigs on experimental diets--one on cold raw foods, the other on hot cooked foods. When he killed them, he discovered that the pig fed on the raw food had firm healthy flesh but the flesh of the pig fed on cooked food was inflamed and brittle.

   Not only does the cooking of any food deplete its nutritional value and tend to produce pathogenic substances, it also destroys natural enzymes which normally assist in the digestive process. Whereas a healthy person can supply from body sources the necessary enzymes in adequate amounts regardless of whether enzymes are contained in the food or not, ailing people or the elderly may to a varying extent lack this capability. In this latter case, eating cooked food may deplete enzyme reserves to the detriment of proper metabolism elsewhere in the body.

   In addition to the depletion or destruction of enzymes, vitamins and minerals, other pathological changes occur in food when it is cooked and this is indicated by the excited reaction of the immune system when the food is eaten. The white blood cell count of the healthy person increases to a level proportional to the degree to which the food has been heated or processed, and may double or even treble. This effect, already described, is called leucocytosis.

   The greatest demand on the digestive organs is the digestion of cooked food, particularly meat and cereals, and it will be remembered that the constant consumption of cooked food produces marked hypertrophy of the pancreas.

   Dr Edward Howell of Chicago pointed out over fifty years ago that the hypertrophy of organs consequential to excessive function often proceeds to the atrophy of exhaustion, and that atrophy of the pancreas occurs in many terminal wasting disease.

   Vitamin, mineral, enzyme deficiencies: Most people in Western countries, mainly by virtue of the fact that most of the food they eat is cooked or processed in some way, are likely to be marginally supplied with many vitamins and minerals. At the same time their enzyme systems will be overtaxed, often to the extent of damaging the pancreas, and it is not surprising that patients with chronic disease conditions usually display a number of deficiencies. As already mentioned, cancer patients usually have low enzyme levels and low body temperatures. Drs A. Goth and I. Littmann in a paper entitled "Ascorbic Acid Content in Human Cancer Tissue" (Cancer Research, Vol 8, 1948) described how cancer most frequently originates in organs whose ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) levels are below 4.5 mg% and rarely grows in organs containing ascorbic acid above this concentration.

   Other deficiencies most commonly associated with cancer are those of Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and the minerals iodine, selenium magnesium, potassium and germanium, and many people as a protection take these substances in synthetic form. As already discussed, it is far better to follow proper dietary rules rather than work with the guesswork associated with synthetic products.

Anti-cancer diets

   As a person with cancer, or developing the early stages of cancer, has already defective blood chemistry, with marginal function of vital organs and diminished enzyme activity, it is imperative that only the simplest, purest, most easily digestible foods such as fresh ripe fruit be eaten. Ripe fruit is virtually pre-digested and its digestion demands very little enzyme activity.

   The principles of correct dietary procedures have been used in the prevention and correction of cancer and other conditions for at least as far back as 1809, and probably throughout history. There are today probably hundreds of special diets designed to promote good health, and by this stage the reader should be qualified to assess them.

   The Gerson diet: The Gerson diet, based on raw fruit and vegetables, low in sodium and high in potassium, has proven most effective in the restoration of cancer patients and patients with all manner of other metabolic diseases. Although, as mentioned, similar diets have been used successfully since the early 1800s to restore cancer patients, Dr Gerson's diet, which includes supplementary enzymes,* was developed more scientifically in the light of 20th Century research over many years of successful cancer treatment, and today forms the basis of all successful cancer therapy.

*Dr Gerson provided his patients with supplementary enzymes by giving them raw calves' liver juice to drink. Enzymes of many kinds derived from both plant and animal sources are now available in powdered or tablet form.

   Sir Arbuthnot Lane summed it up over fifty years ago, thus:

   "What we should do then if we would avoid cancer is to eat wholewheat bread and raw fruit and vegetables, shunning all meat. First that we may be better nourished, second that we may more easily eliminate waste products and thus adequately drain the house in which our cells live. * Whoever will correct his diet to a reasonable extent, take reasonable exercise, and keep his digestive tract absolutely clean, need have no fear of cancer."

*Dr A Garten in his book The Health Secrets of a Naturopathic Doctor, described how Dr Senator founded the concept of autointoxication in 1888 and how Dr Melke in 1897 observed that a dietary change from meat to bread, fruits and vegetables resulted in a complete alteration in the intestinal bacteria and the disappearance of poisonous substances.

   Vegetables and herbs: Early in 1984 the National Cancer Institute reported a study in North Carolina which showed that women who ate less than two servings of fresh fruit or vegetables a day were three times more likely to develop cancer as women who ate four or more servings a day.

   It is recognized that all the many nutrients, some of them still possibly undiscovered, play a part in the chemistry of every cell. Dr Leo Wattenberg, working at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, discovered that rats fed a balanced, highly purified diet containing all know vitamins and nutrients were not able to make certain enzymes (biological catalysts) in the liver which inactivate cancer-causing chemicals. However, when the rats were fed a crude diet containing alfalfa (known in Australia as lucerne) they were able to produce the enzymes. And when alfalfa alone was added to the purified diet, this caused the enzyme to be made. Other experiments showed that this enzyme increased protection against cancer even when cancer-causing chemicals were added to their diet. Dr Wattenberg found that cabbage, Brussels sprouts, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, dill and celery caused the enzyme to be made but varied in effectiveness according to their freshness and the soil in which they were grown.

   Dr Wattenberg identified the actual chemicals in the vegetables which cause the protective enzymes to be formed. They belong to a well-known family of organic chemicals called indoles. He also found that citrus fruits contain chemicals called flavones which have the same effect as indoles. Beans and seeds are rich in plant proteins called lectins which have been found to protect animals against cancer in laboratory experiments.

   In other experiments by Dr M. R. Mainlow at the Oregon Primate Research Center, alfalfa, when added to experimental diets had been shown to lower assimilation of cholesterol from food. In tests on monkeys and rabbits, assimilation was reduced from 76% to 47%. The active substances in alfalfa are known as saponins, a type of glycoside found 'in plants. Saponins lower the surface tension of water, and historically have been used as wetting agents for cleaning purposes. Cast into rivers, saponins kill fish without rendering them poisonous to eat. They are hemolytic if injected into the bloodstream, but are not absorbed into the bloodstream from the intestines. It would appear these substances dissolve fat and thereby lower blood viscosity.

   As indoles derive also from glycosides, the protective actions of alfalfa and other vegetables may be related in a similar manner to those of ginseng and eleuthococcus. (See Relief of Stress. )

   Amygdalin is a substance contained in many kinds of plants and is claimed by many people in the field of cancer treatment to be capable of inhibiting or destroying cancer cells. Amygdalin is also known as Laetrile or Vitamin B17, and is in common use by unorthodox practitioners as a primary anti-cancer agent. The results obtained from its use have varied widely and have been inconsistent and inconclusive, and there has been great controversy in medical circles about it. Some amygdalin proponents claim it works as a vitamin (usually deficient in the diet), while others say that its anti-cancer action is brought about by cyanide released specifically only in cancer cells triggered by a substance in the cell, and therefore harmless to normal cells.

   It is evident, however, that when good results have been obtained using amygdalin it has always been in conjunction with modified diet usually supported by supplementary digestive enzymes, as well as in association with other lifestyle changes.

   In addition to amygdalin, there are countless other herbs and herbal extracts claimed over hundreds of years in folk medicine to inhibit and sometimes cure cancer. Many of these are currently being investigated by medical researchers.

   There is no question that many complete remissions of cancer have been achieved by herbal medicines taken internally and in some cases applied directly to external cancers. The famous Hoxsey Clinic in Texas successfully employed this form of treatment for many years, but although an independent investigation in 1954 by ten senior physicians from different states certified to the superiority of Dr Hoxsey's methods, the AMA eventually had his clinic closed.

   Apart from inhibiting or reversing the growth of cancer, herbal mixtures have been reported to alleviate angina and reduce symptoms of diabetes, in which cases it is clear that fat metabolism and blood viscosity must be favorably influenced.

   Obviously the correction of any errors, be they deficiencies or excesses, must favorably affect cellular chemistry. This may explain why, in the history of folk medicine, an enormous variety of herbal substances and extracts, used singly or in combinations, have been shown to favorably influence the course of various diseases, often effecting cures. There are far too many reports and claims of this kind, from all over the world, to be disregarded.

   However, what works in one case may not work in another, and with so many variables involved in the processes of cell chemistry leading to cancer, consistent results cannot be expected unless all factors are optimised.