Page 24 - EatingWell Special Edition Superfoods 2019

DOES A CANCER-

PREVENTION DIET

REALLY EXIST?

The thinking about how lifestyle and diet affect your risk of cancer
is always shifting. Here’s what you need to know now.

BY LAURA BEIL

T his year, more than 1.7 million Ameri- veggies to fight cancer and other chronic diseases,
convincing
and
cans will learn they have cancer. Re-
body
backed
a
by
was
“diverse
searchers have been working for de-
of evidence.” Now there’s evidence that is more
to
that
bring
cades
headlines
sug-
The Nurses Health Study and the Health Profes-
and—despite recent number down diverse—and less convincing.
gesting that a lot of cancer is just “bad luck”—the sionals Study, which combined followed more than
American Association for Cancer Research says 100,000 men and women for more than a decade,
at least half of all cancer deaths are, in fact, pre- reported in 2004 that fruit and vegetable consump-
ventable if we keep a normal weight, exercise, use tion did not affect cancer risk. That was followed

sunscreen, eat a healthy diet, don’t smoke, etc. by similar findings from Greece and Japan. And
Straightforward, right? If we only knew what an finally, a 2010 analysis of 500,000 Europeans had

anticancer diet looked like. results so disheartening that some skeptics went
A generation ago, eating fruits and vegetables so far as to declare the five-a-day “promise” sim-

seemed like the answer, with estimates that they ply a myth perpetuated by the produce industry.
might lower your risk of 78% of all cancers. At one So should we pass the bacon cheese burgers
point, experts at the National Institutes of Health and ditch broccoli and salads? Not exactly. Rather
confi rmed that the multimillion- dollar 5-A-Day than negating the value of vegetables, the under-
campaign, which encouraged eating fruits and lying message is: you can’t count on easy, singular

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