At this time there does not appear to be a single "magic bullet" that will cure cancer. If one simply continues to eat the chemical garbage that is available

 without proper consideration to adequate nutrition then the survival rates will mirror those listed in the statistic section of this article. These are the averages and most people pay very little attention to dietary considerations even in light of the overwhelming evidence put forth by the National Cancer Institute and other more radical medical practitioners that extend the boundaries of diet and nutrition.

Evidence that nutrition is a formidable foe against cancer is shown by two recent scientific studies. Researchers at the University of Victoria, B.C., studied 200 cancer patients who had experienced a spontaneous regression (unexplained cure or reduction of tumor). They found that 87 of these 200 patients had made major dietary changes, in most cases switching to a vegetarian diet.

An innovative physician, Dr. Abram Hoffer, teamed up with Dr. Linus Pauling to determine whether nutritional treatment extends survival in cancer. Conducting an 11 year study of 129 cancer patients, 98 patients ate a healthy balanced diet and received high doses of key nutrients. (The other 31 patients-who comprised the control group-were not treated with nutrition.)

The National Cancer Institute has recognized the importance of diet in the prevention of cancer and has published a recommended diet to minimize the chances of getting cancer. Numerous other doctors over the past 50 years have studied dietary considerations for preventing and treating cancer. Some are accepted by the NCI and other are yet unproven. It is becoming generally accepted however that excessive intake of the wrong types of fats is very detrimental to one's health.

Lets explore a typical days meal and see what you actually ingest and what your body and digestive system has to cope with. The goal of eating is to supply your system with the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, enzymes, fiber bulk and other required essentials. The typical American diet does not even come close to achieving this goal.

What the American diet does is to supply quick foods that have been made to have a long shelf life, taste good and look good. This has little to do with nutrition.

What you will find in your foods is a mess of chemicals most of which have been put in deliberately and a host of unwanted chemicals that are a result of farming and processing. This list includes pesticides, radioactive isotopes, bleaching agents, heavy metals, aromatics, extenders, emulsifiers, softeners, thickeners, hydrogenators, curing agents, buffers, deodorizers, sprout inhibitors, fungicides, sweeteners, conditioners, stabilizers and preservatives.

If you look on the Internet web and search for food additives you will find an interesting article published by the National Cancer Institute, an organization supported by the U.S. tax payers dollars. This article it states that there are nearly 15,000 substances that are added to the foods we eat.1 It defends the safety of these chemical by stating that careful studies have been done regarding the toxicity of each of these additives. Nothing could be further from the truth. It does not take a mathematician to determine that it is impossible to determine the effects of these chemicals when combined together. There is no amount of testing that is practically possible to establish their safety or toxicity when one additive is used in combination with other additives. It is best just to eliminate them from your diet, especially if you are presently sick. After all the vast majority of additives are put in the food for the convenience of the manufacturer to extend the shelf life, to enhance taste or the appearance of the foods not for your health.

Our ancestors for thousands of years lived without food additives. It has only been in the last 75 years that we have started this insult on our bodies and what a price we pay!

Just what are some of the additives that are deemed so harmless? The herbicide-defoliant Agent Orange gained notoriety after its use in the Vietnam war to kill foliage. Agent orange is a mixture of two common herbicides: 2-4-5-T, banned in the U.S. in 1985 and 2-4-D, which remains the most widely used herbicide in the USA today and is sprayed out on crop land at rate of about 65 million pounds per year. Cancer is the main consequence of 2-4-D exposure and farmers who use these chemicals are at a particularly high risk. 2

Alar is a chemical sprayed on orchards to keep ripening apples on the tree and to improve the appearance of apples when sold. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a ban stating evidence of cancer causing effects. Shortly after Consumer Reports published an article on Alar, Uniroyal, its manufacturer withdrew it from the market. 2

Nitrites in the form of sodium salts are used as preservatives in bacon and other processed meats. The problem with nitrites is that they combine with amino acids in the stomach to form nitrosamines, potentially carcinogenic molecules.

Besides the list of carcinogenic food additives and industrial chemicals that inadvertently get mixed in with the food there are a host of additives that simply suppress the immune system and have negatives effects one ones health. For a more comprehensive explanation of the problems of food additives problem log onto the Internet and go to the second site listed in the references for this section. The author Stephan Gislason MD has supplied at no charge an 11 page article that will list the serious effects of some of these 15,000 additives.

The reason for this section is to convince you of the fact that the average Western diet is short on nutrients, minerals, enzymes, amino acids etc. and long on prepackaged food that are laced with additives and chemicals. In general you would do well to avoid manufactured, bottled, boxed, packaged, preserved and processed foods. This will eliminate the majority of chemical additives. When you shop in a grocery store try to make 90% of your purchases in the fresh fruits and vegetables section. These foods in general are far less adulterated than their boxed or bottled counterparts. Forget the candy bars, the potato chips and the other host of junk foods that add little if anything beneficial to your diet.

Eliminate alcohol, and drinks with caffeine from your diet as well as canned soda pop. Substitute distilled or high quality mineral water and fresh squeezed juices that have enzymes and vitamins present in them.

Even The National Cancer Institute acknowledges the role of diet on Cancer. It has recommended the Americans eat at least 5 servings daily of fruits and vegetables to minimize their fat intake while increasing their fiber intake. Research published by the National Cancer Institute indicates the link between diet and cancer and they state that 60 percent of cancers may be caused by diet. 3

Supplement your diet with vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids and essential fatty acids like flax seed oil. These provide the basic building blocks for good health. Unfortunately most of these critical items are lacking in the processed foods that we buy. Most of the growing soils in the U.S. were stripped of their minerals years ago by over farming. Once the minerals are gone they don't come back on their own. Farmers will put on fertilizers which generally contain only three elements, potassium, nitrogen and potash. These are what makes crops grow and farmers are smart business people, they know that they get paid by the bushel and pound not by the trace mineral content of the foods they grow. These are the only three elements that are needed to produce most vegetables and grains so these are the only ones that are added. Unfortunately your body needs a multitude of trace minerals to function properly but it will not find them in the commercially grown produce that is available so you must supplement these missing elements.

Very often there are magazine articles or reports on the television telling of poeole that have recovered from major illnesses and come back from the brink of death by taking natural supplements and nutrients. These may sound like miracles and truly they are for these people have discovered that by supplying the body with the basic nutrients the body's natural healing ability has provided the stage for repair of damage caused by the original deficiency of the same nutrients.

We are beginning to discover that deficient diseases are infinitely more complex to solve than the commonly known dificiency diseases such as scurvy or beri-beri. Often damage accumulates very slowly as a result of missing nutrients and the end result can be cancer, heart disease or any one of over 60 degenerative diseases. Fortunately it is often possible to reverse the disease process by restoring the missing nutrients.

When the body is deprived of certain nutrients, changes start to take place at the cellular level. Vital enzymes of which nutrients are a building block, become depleted. This in turn brings about changes at the cellular level. Cells that depend upon these enzymes can no longer carry out thier functions. 4 Without the proper combination of enzymes death occurs. Scientists have discovered over 1300 essential enzymes that the body produces that are necessary to life itself. 5

Unfortunately these radical changes in ones eating habits are most difficult to carry out. Sick people will visit a doctor, they will pay a small fortune for medicines to get better, but try to get them to change what they eat or to take nutritional supplements and it is next to impossible. Very often, however, this is exactly what is needed to restore health.

References:

1 Cancer Web http://www.graylab.ac.uk/cancernet/600037.html

2 Toxic Foods http://www.nutramed.com/zeno/chemicals

3 How to fight Cancer and Win by: William L.Fischer

4 Oral Chelation by: Alternative Medical Publishing 800-340-4463

5 Food Enzymes by: Humbart Santillo

6 Cures from the last chance clinic" by The University of Natural Healing.