According to data from the World Health Organization, about 35% of cancer cases are related to a wrong diet. Let the food be your medicine and let your medicine be your food, said Hippocrates . Eating well, along with a healthy lifestyle, helps prevent different types of diseases, including cancers.
The rules of the anti-cancer diet
The rules of correct nutrition can be summarized in the following essential points
- Reduce the consumption of fats, especially animal fats
- Follow a diet that contains many vegetables, rich in antioxidants
- Maintain body weight in the norm.
A diet too rich in fats and sugars causes an increase in fat mass, this is dangerous because it is precisely in the body fat that toxic substances build up at the base of chronic inflammation . Chronic inflammation is the pathological mechanism that underlies many diseases, including cardiovascular disorders and cancer. Preventing chronic inflammation means above all avoiding an accumulation of body fat. Preventing chronic inflammation means helping your body defend itself against the most common diseases.
Fruits and vegetables are very poor in fat and rich in substances very useful to the body: vitamins, fiber and antioxidants . The latter have the ability to neutralize the action of free radicals, substances that, if produced in excessive quantities, cause cell damage.
The antioxidant power of foods is known and can be measured with a scale called ORAC, which stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity .
Find out when is the Day for the fight against cancer
Preventive foods against cancer: what are they?
Among the preventive foods against cancer, the ones listed below certainly appear, particularly rich in antioxidants.
- Extra virgin olive oil
- blueberries
- Pomegranate
- Plums
- Sultana grapes
- Sage
- Kale
- Cauliflower
- spinach
- Kiwi
- White grapes
- Green beans
- onions
- Pere
- tomatoes
In general, however, all fruit and vegetables, especially seasonal ones. Variety is also important, ie the more fruits and vegetables we consume, the more we protect ourselves against cancer and other diseases.
In a healthy diet, the body should be guaranteed at least 5000 ORAC per day. Let's take a few examples: a cup of blueberries contains 3, 480 ORACs, a cup of cooked green cabbage contains 2, 048, 100 grams of sage have a good 32, 004, a kiwi brings 458, a tablespoon of sultanas 396, 1 plum 484 (data taken) from LILT).
Preventive foods against cancer: extra virgin olive oil
The extra virgin olive oil is the king of preventive foods against cancer, for a whole series of characteristics, which we are going to list
- It is very rich in antioxidants.
- It provides essential fatty acids, ie those fatty acids that the body is not able to produce, but which are indispensable to it.
- Facilitates the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K).
- It is able to increase the plasma concentration of lycopene, of which tomatoes are very rich. It has been shown that the quantity of lycopene, a substance considered important in the prevention of cancer, increases considerably if the tomato is cooked in extra virgin olive oil. The sauce with fresh tomatoes and olive oil, typical of the Mediterranean diet, is therefore one of the anticancer dishes par excellence.
- Helps protect the skin from solar radiation, as it reduces the production of free radicals in the skin exposed to the sun.
- It is the most digestible among fats and, thanks to its action, it helps to preserve the health of the intestinal mucosa.
