Cancer Fighting Foods
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SYNERGY OF HEALTHY LIFESTYLE CHANGES
FOR COMBATING CANCER
Body’s Natural Forces
Fortunately, we can protect ourselves against the biological mechanisms of cancer. The body is a huge system in equilibrium, where each function interacts with all the others. After just one of these functions, the whole body is inevitably affected. Thus each one of us choose where we want to start: with diet, physical exercise or psychological work, or any other approach that brings more meaning and awareness to our lives. Every situation, every person, is unique; everyone’s way forward will be different too. What matters above all is nourishing the desire to live. Some will do it by participating in a choir, or by watching funny comedies, others by writing poetry, or keeping a diary or by getting more involved in social work or in the lives of their children or grand children.
We discover that increasing awareness in one domain almost automatically leads to progress in others. The practice of meditation or yoga links awareness to the body. Little by little we lose the taste for an unbalanced diet – whose ‘heaviness’ on the stomach and overall impact begins to weigh on the body. We lose the taste for tobacco – whose effect on breathing and on an accelerating heartbeat becomes more tangible, as is its odour on hair and fingers. We also lose our attraction to alcohol, whose influence on clear-thinking and fluid movement is more easily detected. Health is a whole and every step taken toward greater equilibrium makes the next ones easier.
All the scientific evidence shows that we can have a substantial impact on our body’s capacity to diffuse the mechanisms of cancer. This is exactly what the resounding report of the World Cancer Research Fund emphasised when it stated that “in principle, most cancer is preventable”. Everyone of us can decode for him or herself what fits their situation.
Body’s Immune System and Natural Killer Cells
The body’s resources and its potential for dealing with cancer and other chronic diseases is still too often underestimated by modern medical science. By strengthening the immune system of the body with change in lifestyle, adopting a nutritious diet, increasing physical activity and by practicing relaxation techniques many people recover completely from their cancers while others can expect a good quality of life for many years.
Several studies show that, like soldiers, human immune cells fight all the harder when: (i) they are treated with respect (i.e. they are well fed with natural foods and protected from toxins) and (ii) their commanding officer keeps a cool head (i.e. deals with his emotions and acts calmly with poise).
Natural killer (NK) cells are very special agents of the immune system. Like all white blood cells, they patrol the body organism continually in search of harmful bacteria, viruses or new cancer cells. But while other cells of the immune system need previous exposure to disease agents in order to recognise and combat them, NK cells don’t need prior introduction to an antigen in order to mobilise. As soon as they detect an enemy, they gather around the intruders, seeking membrane to membrane contact and aim their internal equipment at their target turret. This equipment carries vesicles (blisters) filled with poisons. On contact with the cancer cell’s surface, the contents of the vesicles are released and the chemical weapons of the NK cells — perforin and granzymes — penetrate through the membrane. The molecules of perforin take the shape of rings. They are assembled in the form of a tube, forming a passage through the cancer cell’s membrane for the granzymes. At the core of the cancer cell the granzymes then activate the mechanisms of programmed self-destruction of cancer cell. It is as if they give the cancer cell an order to commit suicide, an order it has no choice but to obey. In response to this order, its nucleus crumbles, leading to the cancer cell’s collapse. The deflated remains of the cancer cell are then ready to be digested by microphages, which are the garbage collectors of the immune system and are always found in the wake of NK cells. Human NK cells are capable of killing different types of cancer cells, in particular sarcoma cells such as those found in breast, prostate, lung or colon cancer.
