Alkaline diet versus the anti-cancer diet

Jill
I've heard all the stories as well and swear by the Anti cancer book and do follow it. I've been to a nutritionist a few times, finding with our cancer to avoid dairy and watch the meats, as want them to be grass fed. I drink protein drinks twice per day and use Almond milk to replace any dairy...avoiding any cheeses, but use lots of spices. I do have the occasional ice cream but really try to go with fresh fruits.

Alkaline diet is good, but can't say I've been real true to it. A very well known doc in California area who does a lot of studies on vitamin D and other areas, suggested if we have a real good diet (such as Anti-Cancer book) we shouldn't need to monitor as much on alkaline. Now I do know certain foods/beverages are worse such as coffee with acid, so I just stick to my green tea.

I've heard so many things about the grass fed chicken, etc, that I did purchase some of it at Whole Foods. After seeing my grocery bill continually going up, I chose to just go mainly vegetarian with only adding beans, lentils and fish. ONly so much money in the till for all this stuff and in the end, I never was a real heavy meat eater, therefore, it was much easier for me to stop. One thing I've been trying to add is more nuts, such as almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, etc, to get more protein as miss a lot without the meats/dairy.

One area I've really been reading up on is Vitamin D. This is huge with disease and the research out there is astounding, pushing us to take supplements and to really increase our levels, plus adding calcium.

What I take out of all my research and reading, if I read everything and changed with each topic I'd never be set in a "me" way...always changing according to someone elses ideas/research.

Where did you get your list on foods with acid/alkaline? You mentioned -- "The anti-cancer diet seems to go several steps further by ALSO recommended foods that force cancer cells to die through apoptosis or that detoxify cancer-causing toxins or protect against free radicals." Can you expand on this a bit more as not understanding this in PLAIN ENGLISH.

Anxious to hear from others...great topic Jill~

Jan

upsofloating said:

Great issue for those of us into the dietary management!
I too find these two "best" dietary management tools to be in conflict which does keep me from fully embracing either one. I have a tendency to lean toward the Servan-Schreiber anti-cancer approach as the body's natural controls are to maintain the normal physiologic acid-alkaline balance. Does presence of cancer interrupt this process or has something else done so that encourages cancer cell proliferation??? I probably need to do way more research on this subject! So, likewise, "Help, please!"
Annie

Anticancer and alkaline diets
I find the anticancer diet much easier - been following it increasingly since December when I bought the book. The alkaline idea doesn't fit very well with what I know of biochemistry whereas the cell-based explanations in the Servan-Schreiber book make a lot of sense to me. But I suspect there is likely some overlap between the two approaches. I am very interested in the comments about vitamin D. Last year, before I was diagnosed, the link between vitamin D and cancer was brought to my attention by a nutritionist and journalist whose work I respect. So I began on 1000 IU vitamin D after diagnosis, stopped it during chemo, then started again a couple of weeks ago. Had been planning to get my vit D levels measured at private clinic to adjust my dose and then to my surprise my GP has ordered a (free) test as part of a routine blood screen. Though I have an annual lipid profile done and diabetes, kidney, liver, this is the first time vitamin D has been tested - I didn't think to ask but suspect the interest is in osteoporosis rather than cancer on her part. Any of you had a vitamin D level measured? It should be 40-60 ng/mL (100-150 nmol/mL).
Off to make a spinach and orange salad now....
Looking forward to hearing more on this
Susan

upsofloating said:

Earlier this year as part of
Earlier this year as part of my annual, my PCP ordered Vit D level. Mine was just in lower end of "lab normal range" but below 40 you mention. He recommended 1000 IU daily which I started. Why not during chemo? I just restarted chemo yesterday.
Annie

Vitamin D
Good site to go for researching Vit D is:

www.grassrootshealth.net

Two well-know docs and researches are shown at first page of site --

Dr. Heaney
Dr. Garland

I have my serum levels tested (vit D) at each of my follow-up oncologist appts. Mine is around 65 ng which is right where we need it if battling cancer. Sounds high but if you do lots of reading on the site above, you'll gain knowledge and find it helpful. My nutritionist as well is watching my serum and calcium levels. We need both vitamins as they work together. I take 5000 iu of vitamin D and in winter months when we're not exposed to sunlight, increase it to 7000 iu. We depend on vitamins as we just don't get enough D in our diets.

My last DEXA scan showed "normal" as 2 years prior it was "abnormal with thinning at top of hip". I'm a believer, especially when you realize many of these docs have been doing this research for 20 - 30 years.

I've got more links and data if anyone has interest. Happy to share!
Jan


---------------------

Higher Vitamin D Intake Needed to Reduce Cancer Risk ---

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha have reported that markedly higher intake of vitamin D is needed to reach blood levels that can prevent or markedly cut the incidence of breast cancer and several other major diseases than had been originally thought. The findings are published February 21 in the journal Anticancer Research

While these levels are higher than traditional intakes, they are largely in a range deemed safe for daily use in a December 2010 report from the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine.

"We found that daily intakes of vitamin D by adults in the range of 4000-8000 IU are needed to maintain blood levels of vitamin D metabolites in the range needed to reduce by about half the risk of several diseases - breast cancer, colon cancer, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes,” said Cedric Garland, DrPH., professor of family and preventive medicine at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. “I was surprised to find that the intakes required to maintain vitamin D status for disease prevention were so high – much higher than the minimal intake of vitamin D of 400 IU/day that was needed to defeat rickets in the 20th century."

"I was not surprised by this” said Robert P. Heaney, MD, of Creighton University, a distinguished biomedical scientist who has studied vitamin D need for several decades. “This result was what our dose-response studies predicted, but it took a study such as this, of people leading their everyday lives, to confirm it."

The study reports on a survey of several thousand volunteers who were taking vitamin D supplements in the dosage range from 1000 to 10,000 IU/day. Blood studies were conducted to determine the level of 25-vitamin D – the form in which almost all vitamin D circulates in the blood.

"Most scientists who are actively working with vitamin D now believe that 40 to 60 ng/ml is the appropriate target concentration of 25-vitamin D in the blood for preventing the major vitamin D-deficiency related diseases, and have joined in a letter on this topic,” said Garland. “Unfortunately, according a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, only 10 percent of the US population has levels in this range, mainly people who work outdoors."

Interest in larger doses was spurred in December of last year, when a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine committee identified 4000 IU/day of vitamin D as safe for every day use by adults and children nine years and older, with intakes in the range of 1000-3000 IU/day for infants and children through age eight years old.

While the IOM committee states that 4000 IU/day is a safe dosage, the recommended minimum daily intake is only 600 IU/day.

"Now that the results of this study are in, it will become common for almost every adult to take 4000 IU/day," Garland said. “This is comfortably under the 10,000 IU/day that the IOM Committee Report considers as the lower limit of risk, and the benefits are substantial.” He added that people who may have contraindications should discuss their vitamin D needs with their family doctor.

"Now is the time for virtually everyone to take more vitamin D to help prevent some major types of cancer, several other serious illnesses, and fractures," said Heaney said.

Other co-authors of the article were Leo Baggerly, PhD, and Christine French. More useful facts are available from Anticancer Research; www.GrassrootsHealth.net; and the National Academy of Sciences - Institute of Medicine, www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/Dietary-Reference-Intakes-for-Calcium-and-Vitamin-D.aspx.

culka said:

Jill
How many grams of protein do you need?
From www.30bananasaday.com I downloaded cronometer and now I'm almost dead on how many calories, how much water, calcium, omega-3, .... I consume.
According Dr. Doug Graham we should eat 80% carbs, 10% fats and 10% proteins. 2000 kcal a day is 200 kcal from proteins. 1g of protein is 4 kcal, which is about 50 g and even WHO suggested about 50 g of proteins a day.

Jana -I've forgotten if that is your name--
Anywho--I think if you eat like you're a horse with Sicilian lineage, and add a bit of turmeric/pepper/olive oil--you should be fine.I had forgotten that veggies have wonderful omega-3's.

Eat mostly veggies and fruit, some protein from beans and legumes and occasionally fish/turkey/chicken, no peanuts, due to the aflotoxins, which can contribute to liver cancer, you should be fine.

You ever seen an unhealthy horse in the wild where there is adequate forage and a mountain lion hasn't attacked it?????? WEll, there you have it, just pretend that horse has a penchant for fruits and can't you just image him with a cleaver trying to catch a chicken or turkey for dinner. Or sitting by the stream with a fishing pole??? Ah, those horses have the life, don't they.

If you can't laugh --- how in the heck are you going to ever get better??????

All of you be well. I love your strength and spirits.

I'm just saying.

Hi, Jill,
I thought about this question. Came up with, aren't they the same thing with different labels. Just one spells out in acid/alkaline degrees, the other. And the other spells out how the particular foods will effect cancer and in what exact manner. Both use the same premise-that one can and should be aware of how foods can be paramount in the battle against cancer.

If you follow the anti-cancer diet, won't you be in the 80-20----wait, I get it. Not necessarily, eh? So then use the one to refine the other, but neither one isn't saying eat whatever, they both point in the right direction, I would overall use the acid/alkaline knowledge to choose how alkaline I needed to be. and I wholeheartedly think without that core awareness, one can get in a heck of a lot of trouble, such as I did with the preponderance of brown rice, which is good for me but fed my cancer for nearly a year. While I was totally ignorant of what I was doing to myself. With my knowledge came my power, which I used to the fullest degree in the beginning to slow my cancer down enough to be symptom free nearly four years later. I don't kid myself. I know I still have some of those cells. I know if I completely revert to what i had been doing, that I will have the same result, a large tumor. Consequently, I intend on having a basic awareness that leads me to make well thought out choices, but on a more maintenance status, forever.

With knowledge CAN come power.
should be closely followed by
a LITTLE KNOWLEDGE is indeed a dangerous thing.

Were I ever in dire straights, Stage lV say, I would go to wheat grass exclusively for a short period of time, to give me some time to think and formulate a dire straights plan.

I would exclude to the highest degree any meats, proteins, sugars(carbs) milk(casein) alcohol, artificial sweeteners, as these would cause me to have a build up of fluid due to all the waste products of the cancer cells growing like mad along with the burden that those things would put on my liver.

Knowledge only has power, when it is used.

I'm just saying.

And Jill, have a lovely time with your guests in the city.

Rewriter said:

Good morning, dear Claudia, and all of the other lovely women
Thank you for addressing this dilemma. The food charts that I've found for both the anticancer approach and the alkaline/acid diet vary just enough to be frustrating for me. My way of dealing with the differences if to look at a bunch of different (reliable to me) lists and choose my foods based on what the majority thinks. I've found that even the lists of foods' PH vary in their reported numbers. So...these are the dietary approaches that I am inflexible about:

--NO sugar at all, no artificial sweeteners (even agave nectar and stevia). Instead, I puree ripe bananas, figs, and other high alkaline fruit to create a sugary paste. I then add the puree to my oatmeal or to my occasional cup of lowfat yogurt. Stevia is apparently highly alkaline, but I don't trust myself to use it since I want to purge myself of the need to eat very sweet things.

--No high-fat dairy at all. I use almond milk in place of cow's milk and recommend to those women here who have trouble making this switch to start out with a half and half mixture and then gradually remove the cow's milk. Buttermilk is listed on my chart as being alkaline.

--I always use olive oil in place of butter,margarine, and corn oil. Other semi-alkaline oils, according to my chart, include borage oil, flax seed oil, evening primrose oil, sesame oil, and sunflower oil.

--Absolutely no red meat.

--On most of the anti-cancer or alkaline charts I've seen, many fruits are listed as neutral, neither acidic or alkaline. However, ripe (speckled) bananas, sour cherries, fresh coconut, dried and raw figs, lemons, limes, avocados, and tomatoes are either moderately or highly very alkaline. Again, according to THIS list, the fruits that should be avoided include mandarin oranges, pineapples, pomegranates, raspberries, and rose hips.

--Grains and legumes are problematic, and I've found this category to be the most frustrating in terms of variations on the different alkaline and anticancer charts. Brown rice is a no-no on ALL of the charts I've seen, as is wheat. However, buckwheat, kamut, lentils, spelt, and tofu are apparently moderately alkaline; and white navy beans, lima beans, and soy are pretty highly alkaline. I stay away from soy. I have oatmeal for breakfast and eat either a sprouted grain bread (apparently moderately alkaline) or one that includes spelt and/or buckwheat.

--With nuts, almond and pine nuts are the most alkaline, with peanuts and pistachios being highly acidic.

--The best roots are beets and red and black radishes. Other roots are moderately alkaline.

--The vegetable category is probably the easiest, since none of the FRESH ones are very acidic. The most alkaline veggies among those that are most familiar include cucumbers, kale, cabbage, jicama, sprouted seeds, spinach, and wheat grass. These are all extremely alkaline.

--In the beverage category, I stick to vegetable juices (low sodium V8 is not bad if you don't do your own juicing), green tea, and water. Freshly squeezed fruit juices are ok in extreme moderation (like half a cup of OJ a day), with the warning that bombarding our systems with that much concentrated sugar is not a good thing.

I don't know if this list will help, but I guess it helps ME to have written it all out. Also, in going back to my research, Claudia is right: an 80/20 alkaline to acid ratio is the one recommended most often.

Hey, Claudia, thanks for the good wishes about my weekend visitor. We are likely going to spend most of our time at OWS. Hope all is well with you.

Checking body's ph
With all the discussion of this topic, what are you using to test your body's ph levels to assure that the diet is working??