In a previous blog post I have introduced three important foods to fight breast cancer : small berries, salmon and green leaf. Here is the next four key foods:

Whole Grains

You can get brown rice, whole wheat, barley and oatmeal to name a few. By buying refined white bread or white rice, you miss out all the phytochemicals important to fight breast cancer. Actually these refined products are mainly the sugar that cancer feed on. You can test it by leaving a piece of white bread in your mouth for a minute and you will taste the sugar. Try to replace your pasta, bread or tortillas for whole grain ones.

Nuts

You can go nuts. It’s true that nuts are high in fat calories. However, these are filled with good fat and by replacing junk snacks filled with bad fat, you won’t increase your calories intake. Almond, cashews, walnuts or pecan can fill you up for your afternoon snack or add flavor to your salad. A study published by the Marshall University in the journal of Nutrition and Cancer showed beneficial effect of walnut on breast cancer.

Colored fruits and Vegetables

Variation is the key here. Apples, zucchini, onion, olive, squash and carrots can easily be added to your daily meal. You can find them at you local groceries store. A lot of cancer research had found that these foods possess phytochemicals that help fight cancer. A team of researchers for the University of California San Diego found that women who eat the more of these types of functional foods is freed from breast cancer for a longer period than women who ate the less.

Yogurt

This food type brings healthy bacteria into your digestive system. Known as probiotics, these microorganisms work in synergy with you. By breaking down our meals or controlling the growth of pathogens, the probiotics work as soldiers at the first line of defense against cancer. You need to add probiotics like inulin to your meal, which is a sugar that we can’t digest, but will feed your probiotics.

By incorporating all these type of foods to your daily diet, you increase your chance to fight breast cancer. You can do it.

References

Suppression of implanted MDA-MB 231 human breast cancer growth in nude mice by dietary walnut.Hardman WE, Ion G.Nutr Cancer. 2008;60(5):666-74.

Longitudinal biological exposure to carotenoids is associated with breast cancer-free survival in the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study. Rock CL, Natarajan L, Pu M, Thomson CA, Flatt SW, Caan BJ, Gold EB, Al-Delaimy WK, Newman VA, Hajek RA, Stefanick ML, Pierce JP; Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study Group. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009 Feb;18(2):486-94.

The application of probiotics in cancer. de Moreno de LeBlanc A, Matar C, Perdigón G. Br J Nutr. 2007 Oct;98 Suppl 1:S105-10.