Cancer & Paleo (PIOG) page

[emmarobinson]

Hello,
My name is Emma and I just turned 25. I have a dear friend who directed me here. I've heard wonderful things about the Paleo lifestyle and helping with auto immune diseases, etc. But what about cancer? I recently had thyroid cancer, and had my thyroid removed, and turned down radioactive iodine treatment and instead am currently doing a detox program. After detox, I'd like to "go Paleo" but I worry about some of the foods. For example, what about red meat? It's acidic and cancer lives in acidic environment. I haven't heard a story of cancer and Paleo. If anyone has any knowledge or know where to direct me, I would appreciate it.
Thank you.

[Stacy15]

My mom has lymphoma and it was recommended to her to go very low-carb. Basically cancer sells need glucose to grow/survive, so cut off the glucose (sugar/carbs) and starve them out.... Just repeating what I heard - I'm no expert!!

Will it work? No idea - i hope so. She has been battling her cancer for 10 years and gone through many rounds of chemo, but it keeps coming back. Since finding out it is back again, they want to watch it before starting treatment. She has been VLC (less then 10g carbs) a day for past 3 months. She said she has never felt better in her life! She is basically on meat only diet. 2-weeks ago she went in for a physical and besides her cancer, her health is perfect. Never been better. Next month she goes back in to find out if cancer has grown, stayed same, or grown. i will try remember to update when she gets results.

here is a link to some articles you might find interesting:
Cancer | DietDoctor.com

[Wulf]

For example, what about red meat? It's acidic and cancer lives in acidic environment.

oh my f g

PLEASE don't just pick up and believe every little snippet of info about "what cancer lives in" on the internet.

Sorry if I seem irritated but I am really, really tired of all the horrible misinformation and cute little totally wrong anecdotes about how things work that are out there, put forward by completely ignorant people uneducated enough to be dangerous to others.

First I would like to direct you to a real biology or physiology book as a good source of information. People make up all kinds of things about cancer and everything else, taking a very tiny bit of information, totally misinterpreting it, and then applying it to everything, like this whole acid and cancer or acidic/basic food garbage, which not only over-simplifies the situation but is entirely wrong. Orange juice is acidic, too, much moreso than meat. I don't even think meat is particularly acidic, but no one goes around crying about all the cancer due to all those horrible citrus fruits ( File:PH Scale.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ); probably this acidic meat = cancer thing is just some vegan scare tactic, besides being completely flat out wrong. Any carbonated beverage is much more acidic than any meat. The truth is, the pH of your food has NO effect on the pH of the rest of your body, besides too much carbonated beverage consumption sometimes causing kidney stones. The pH of all your living tissue is VERY finely regulated by the body to pH 7.2 - 7.5, you would die it if was not. Therefore, meat, which is animal tissue, is not acidic, it is actually basic (>7), at least to begin with.

Cancer CREATES it's own acidic environment because it is, by nature, the uncontrolled growth of cells, which respirate and a by-product of their metabolism is extra CO2, which raises the local acidity level in and near the tumor. So it's true that a tumor will be more acidic than normal tissue which does not respirate as fast, but that has NOTHING to do with what you eat.

However, there may be truth to sugar fueling the growth of cancer, because cancer cells want to grow very very fast so they tend to favor glycolysis (getting energy from sugars) over other energy sources, because it is faster and easier than fat metabolism. From wikipedia for glycolysis: "There is ongoing research to affect mitochondrial metabolism and treat cancer by reducing glycolysis and thus starving cancerous cells in various new ways, including a ketogenic diet." Therefore, a low carb diet can inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Paleo is one kind of low carb diet, which by it's nature of being low carb in general and favoring fresh healthy food instead of processed with various toxins and lacking benefical nutrients, is inherently anti-carcinogenic.

My own advice in addition to a low carb diet is, eat A LOT and a wide variety of fresh vegetables and herbs daily, they contain a lot of known AND unknown plant chemicals that inhibit cancer, such as apigenin in parsley and celery:
MU News Bureau | MU News Bureau

I am a biologist, my job is to test various novel drugs to see if they inhibit cancer cell growth, I have tested apigenin myself and seen it slow the growth of cancer cells with my own eyes, and it is completely nontoxic.

Eat your vegetables and organic meat (meat is perfectly fine too, but avoid non-organic because of possible hormone supplements that may fuel cancer growth), and don't believe everything you read on the internets without educating yourself from real scientific sources first...

[canuck416]

This is a great video on treating cancer with a ketogenic diet -

Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D.!

[Kakes]

Contact our Paleobird. She's kicked cancer's behind.

[Primal123]

I just watched a news report about using a ketogenic diet to cure cancer and also prevent it's return. I bet you can find it if you google ketogenic diet cure for cancer or something similar. Good luck to you and I wish you good health.

[Paleobird]

This is a great video on treating cancer with a ketogenic diet -
Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D.!

Contact our Paleobird. She's kicked cancer's behind.

Hehe. Yes I replied to this thread that was also posted elsewhere. Dr Georgia Ede on her website "Diagnosis: Diet" has done a highly readable breakdown of Dr. Seyfried's excellent but highly technical book. Please check it out.