The micro-nutrients known as vitamins may lower your cancer risk in a big way. In the 1960s vitamins were widely thought to be only good for the prevention of vitamin deficiency diseases. In the 1970s Linus Pauling, PhD, advanced the view that vitamin C could help prevent and treat colds and flu. Today, numerous studies have confirmed that antioxidant vitamins like C and E and the nutrients known as carotenoids may reduce your risk of cancer.
Free radical Damage
In 1957, Dennis Harman, a scientist, introduced the then-revolutionary concept of free radicals and their association with aging and degenerative disease. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can bind to and destroy body components. Technically, the destructive power of free radicals arises from the absence of an electron. That lack makes them unstable, causing them to react with other substances, wreaking havoc on enzymes and other proteins within cells, and damaging the fragile lipid (fat) membranes that surround cells and the nuclear membrane which holds the DNA.
DNA directs the division of cells. When DNA malfunctions, cells may divide uncontrollably. The result: cancer.
Generated as a part of normal metabolism as well as from stress, smoking, alcohol, exposure to pollution and radiation, this characteristic of free radicals to damage the DNA of normal healthy cells is thought to foment tumors.
Antioxidants Vs Cancer
Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, beta-carotene (one of the carotenoids) and the mineral selenium all play an essential role in our system of defenses.
Antioxidants readily mop up many reactive oxygen and nitrogen compounds defuse free radicals destructive power by being oxidized. That action spares damage to cellular structures.
Nutrients, working together as a team, make antioxidants more effective. Vitamin C, an essential micronutrient required for normal metabolic functioning of the body, is the first line of antioxidant protection. Its primary partners are natural vitamin E and the carotenes, fat-soluble antioxidants.
“Vitamin C tends to fight radicals in the cytosol (liquid portion) of the cell,” says Williams a professor in the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. “Vitamin E is very lipid soluble so it tends to fight the radicals in the membrane. They complement each other. In fact, vitamin C can replenish vitamin E after it’s been oxidized so they have a synergistic effect.” Beta-carotene and vitamin E together have a greater free radical-trapping effect than individually.
When carotenoids, the pigments in hundreds of fruits and vegetables, work together with vitamin E, they’re three to four times more powerful as antioxidants together than alone. Best dietary sources of carotenoids include green leafy vegetables, carrots, apricots, corn, mangoes, squash, apples, oranges, legumes, grains and seeds. Lycopene, a carotenoid found in tomatoes that makes them re, may lower the risk of prostate cancer. Minerals such as selenium, zinc, copper and manganese act as co-factors for certain antioxidant enzymes.
Quench Time
“Every antioxidant acts a little bit differently and so it will quench a different kind of free radical and it will distribute and absorb differently in the body,” says Dr. Labriola, Director of the Northwest Natural Health Specialty Care Clinic in Seattle, “The key is you want to be getting some of everything, Vitamin A, B-6, C and E. You don't need 8000% of everything but you want to get at least 100 to 200% of the daily recommended value of everything in supplementation. Add good food to that and then you're hopefully up where you need to be.”
“Vitamin C studies are ongoing as are all nutrients because of the popularity of nutritional medicine, especially with cancer,” adds Dr. Labriola. “In statistical studies, most antioxidants that have been tested have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, especially a first occurrence. Populations that consume larger amounts of antioxidants measured in studies tend to have much lower rates of many kinds of cancer. We know that for a fact.
Beta carotene power
Numerous population studies have repeatedly demonstrated that a high intake of carotene-rich fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke. Beta-carotene has been described by scientists as one of the most active of the over 600 carotenoids because of it’s ability to be converted into vitamin A.
However, people who smoke probably should talk to their health practitioner before taking beta-carotene.
Bruce Ames, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center, University of California at Berkeley, is about to publish a new cancer study. “It shows that the children of men who smoke and who don’t consume much folic acid (one of the B vitamins) or vitamin C, important nutrients for repairing DNA damaged by oxidation, have a 50% increase in childhood cancers compared to the control group,” says David Jones, MD, and CEO of the Institute of Functional Medicine in Gig Harbor, Washington.
In terms of breast cancer, “it’s been shown very clearly that what hormone you take in replacement is not nearly as important as what your liver does in terms of metabolism,” says Dr. Jones.
You have to get your B vitamins, he notes. “By including in the diet foods rich in cruciferous vegetables along with adequate vitamin supplementation, folate, B-6, B-12, you enhance the metabolism to a benign specie of estrogen metabolite that is then excreted. If those things are insufficient in the diet then they are detoxified into metabolites that have been shown in human epidemiological studies to cause breast cancer.” He refers to a study published in the Journal of Endocrinology.
In order words, the B vitamins help your liver eliminate toxins that can otherwise raise your breast cancer risk.
Rich in Vegetables
A diet rich in fruits and vegetables will probably provide ample vitamin C and other antioxidants, OSU researchers said, along with fiber, phytochemicals and micronutrients. “We strongly support an intake of 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day,” says Frei. Unfortunately, in the real world where people think of French fries and ketchup as vegetables, that type of diet is rare. In fact, according to Frei, 80% of American children and adolescents and 68% of adults do not eat five portions a day.
But even if people do eat what they should, it still may not be enough. “A couple of recent studies show that the food that is being produced now has half the nutrients it used to,” says Dr. Labriola. “It’s best if you could get all your nutrition from foods but supplemental nutrition is important. Adding nutrients is a worthwhile endeavor.”
‘Tis an endeavor devoutly to be wished for a lower cancer risk.
Excerpted form ENERGY TIMES MAY 2001
Disclaimer
Information provided on this page is not intended as substitute for medical advice. Please consult a healthcare professional fro apecific treatment recommendations.
