Book "Let Food be your medicine" by D... - Advanced Prostate...

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Book "Let Food be your medicine" by Don Colbert, MD

Graham49 profile image
21 Replies

He covers a number of common illnesses. I only summarise what I consider the main points from the section on cancer with the hope of stimulating discussion.

He does not claim to cure cancer and says "but it does help, and we have helped hundreds of patients treat (manage or control) their cancer".

He does not mention PCa in particular.

He usually refers cancer patients to the oncologists at M D Anderson. He gives patients advice on diet and appears to give the same dietary advice to all Stage 1 and 2 patients for all cancer patients. His modified Mediteranean diet is meant to reduce inflammation in the body. For Stages 3 and 4 cancer patients he advises a mainly plant based ketogenic diet.

Stage 1 and 2 Cancers

For stages 1 and 2 cancers he also advises supplements and exercise and to eliminate their problem foods, as determined using the Alcat test which measures "non-IgE mediated reactions to foods, chemicals and other substances".

He does not say much about supplements for cancer patients but there is an appendix which lists four supplements which appear to be marketed by him for general health.

He advises patients to avoid or minimize corn, gluten, and breads, except sprouted or fermented bread on occasion and in moderation.

He states the following foods help prevent cancer:

1. broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach, kale cabbage 2. Wild salmon, wild trout, wild sardines 3. Green tea 4. Flax seeds 5. Sea vegetables (kelp, dulse, red and brown seaweed 6. Curry 7. Apples, citrus fruits, pomegrananates, berries.

Regarding apples he recommends the Granny Smith variety as having a lower glycemic level.

Regarding fats, he recommends omega 3 and monounsaturated fats.

He gives a 7 layered pyramid of suggested foods. At the bottom are foods you eat daily and at the top are foods that you eat only occasionally. This pyramid of foods is too detailed to put here but most of the foods are low glycemic index plant based foods although small amounts of cheese, yogurt and meats are allowed occasionally.

He suggests that all fried foods are eliminated from your diet and that 2 to 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and one handful of raw almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews, walnuts or macadamia are eaten daily.

He recommends that low Mercury fish are eaten.

Fish are eaten more than other meats.

At Level 7 red meats are eaten only a few times a month.

Do not eat the same foods every day.

Stage 3 and 4 Cancers

He gives detailed lists of foods. This is just a summary.

It is a ketogenic diet. He mentions the work of Dr Thomas Seyfried on ketogenic diets but has modified it to use more healthy oils.

80% healthy plant based fats, 15% greens, 5% protein, mostly from plants but some organic/free range turkey, chicken and eggs and wild salmon, sardines and trout are allowed.

For herbs and spices he mentions basil, black pepper, cardamom, cilantro, garlic, ginger, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, turmeric and curry.

Tomatoes, carrots, beets, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice and most fruit are out because of higher sugar. A slice of lemon or lime and a few berries are allowed in ketosis.

"You also need a good multivitamin and vitamin C as the diet eliminates most fruits".

For exercise he suggests starting with15 to 30 minutes a day brisk walking.

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Graham49
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21 Replies
cesces profile image
cesces

Sounds like good dietary advice for pretty much anyone

treedown profile image
treedown

Anybody interested in this should check out the Angiogenesis Foundation as well angio.org/. They get into specific strains of foods (i.e produced in certain regions) as well as offer a long list of foods each with some form of study to back it up. The founder wrote a book Eat to Beat Disease. However, I in no way think food can cure cancer but eating to be the healthiest person you can be seems a wise choice IMO.

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply totreedown

Thanks for the interesting link.

tallguy2 profile image
tallguy2

This is hogwash. Just ask my friend who told me that eating chicken causes cancer. He is now undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer but it’s way too late.

Sorry, but food is NOT proven medicine that can be used to treat cancer so this is wrong starting with the title.

He does not claim to cure cancer and says "but it does help, and we have helped hundreds of patients treat (manage or control) their cancer".

This is also not true. Food has not been proven to treat, manage or control cancer as stated here.

It's likely that whoever wrote this book is not a cancer patient, much less likely one who has a life-threatening stage 4 diagnosis like many here. It's really to easy to make suggestions for OTHERS to follow when it's not your life on the line.

When your life is on the line with cancer, you need to follow the proven science regarding treatments and not stuff like this. I lost a friend who thought he could do diets and supplements and a lot of unproven "sounds good" non-treatments.

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply to

The author works with oncologists to treat cancer. He is not a cancer patient. He is a family doctor. Treating his own illnesses (not cancer) got him interested in an integrative approach to medicine. He does not suggest diets instead of drugs or other treatments, rather as an adjuvant therapy. I agree the title of the book could be better, for example 'Food as an Adjuvant Medicine' but I can't see the Publisher agreeing to that.

questionanything profile image
questionanything

No tomatoes or berries?

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply toquestionanything

I was surprised about this as well. His diet for stage 3 and 4 cancer patients is a ketogenic diet. He says that a few berries (handful) can be eaten when ketogenasis is achieved. I presume the same would apply for tomatoes. He recommends that you monitor your ketones daily using ketone strips, used to measure the ketone in your urine.

treedown profile image
treedown in reply toGraham49

A clinical ketogenic diet is pretty extreme at least according to the book Keto for Cancer. You need to monitor glucose like a diabetic. I thought about it and then ruled it out. I am on the gut microbiome thing and diet diversity, plant based and leaning to Mediterranean in nature. Not saying I am right but it seems more logical to me that getting all kinds of food with all the micronutrients each has to offer is the way to go. I love food and restricting my diet like a Ketogenic requires does not appeal to me at all.That said I have read a few books on metabolic cause of cancer and the Warburg Effect and have been to a Naturopath in my past, but I haven't yet found anything that would give me a reason to go all in. I would really like to believe in it whole heartedly because I am that kind of person, but I just can't.

I should say there's people on this forum that have an extensive understanding of supplements, naturopathy, etc . I just don't have the time or desire to be cancer 24/7, which is what it would take for me to catchup.

Also I love berries of all types, I have 3 types of dried and we have 5 or 6 types locally that I eat as often as possible.

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply totreedown

I am on a diet similar to you, although I don't eat dried berries. I might change some things after reading the book such as increasing virgin olive oil and nut intake, but doubt that I will go ketogenic unless I am convinced by compelling evidence. The author states: " I prefer that you have your ketogenic diet for cancer supervised by a knowledgeable nutritionist, dietician, or doctor".

treedown profile image
treedown in reply toGraham49

Nuts are high on my list I eat 6 different kind unsalted and organic regularly. I like dried fruit, dates , figs, mango, apricots, prunes. My only requirements are organic, no sugar or sunflower oil added.Your last line goes in hand with what I read. Seemed like a lot of work.

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply totreedown

I like dried fruit too, unfortunately they are quite high in sugar and it's very easy to eat a lot of dried fruit. The spike in insulin is not good for PCa, see PJ Oshea posts on insulin and PCa (with references).

treedown profile image
treedown in reply toGraham49

I agree you can't eat a lot but its good it does not expire quickly. The same goes for real fruit of which red plums are now ripe and I have to limit myself to 2 per day. I don't monitor insulin so while I have little doubt Patrick has a keen insight on this I am not concerned I will overeat.

raybrand profile image
raybrand

I'm exhausted!

I feel that when people use words like "treat, manage or control" cancer with diet, that crosses a line and we need to step in.

The idea that foods are an adjuvant to treatment is the fall-back position when challenged. If there is no objection to these unproven claims, the next step is to attack the Standard of Care as unnecessary and harmful.

This forum is for people to get support for their (or a loved one's) advanced prostate cancer, not to be used to promote an alternative, unscientific agenda as some do here.

The burden of proof is on the ones making the claims, not on me.

People who throw around nonsense regarding diets and supplements don't feel an obligation to prove anything. The "we" is those of us who feel a responsibility to point this out. I lost a good friend to this kind of nonsense so there are real consequences here.

I would like to mention that when I was diagnosed with PC cancer I had the high risk but I caught it early , only 1 of 12 samples of the my prostate was postive , so I decided to have radiation therapy , my PSA went from 8 to 0.2 . then a year later it went to 0.3 it was rising so being diabetic I decided to quit the sugar and carbs . the next PSA stayed at 0.3 so I decided to take CBD and THC gummies, I did change my diet more related to the keto diet but not totally into it, so I eat low carb bread and tortillas and not eating a lot of it, just to feel I can. I also did intermittent fasting from 10 pm till noon the next day plus taking vitamin D3 with vitamin K2 and a garlic supplement. I went to my oncologist yesterday and my PSA dropped to 0.2 , I have trying to make it come down but since I got real serious about how I eat and eating a lot of organic veggies and everything I mentioned, it really worked I have been staying positive too. I think meditation really works also to bring down the cortisol that I have created by being stressed. I hope these things I have done will help you to learn that food is medicine and meditation works, my oncologist mentioned to me about mediation too. I was like wow coming from a cancer specialist that was so great to hear. I know most people don't believe that food can make us healthy or it can make us sick. I do believe in western medicine but I think we can use both holistic healing and western healing at the same time to fight off the immortal cancer. To me its like fighting the war on all fronts. if you can understand what I am saying. when I went to my oncologist yesterday , I mentioned to the secretary there that I changed my food intake and started to mention about meditation and she didn't give me a chance to finish and said it might help a little bit but not much, I say she doesn't have cancer so when we are dealing with it , we try to find out ways that we can help ourselves to keep the cancer from coming back or our PSA from rising after going thru all the treatments, she really doesn't understand the journey that all of us PC cancer survivors are doing or just trying to figure out what to do to keep the Big C away. I say try it and you have nothing to lose, but to know that you are doing something about it on

your own plus going thru the treatments from your oncologist . to me its a real no brainer. I know my A1C also is getting close to being normal. 5.5 and I plan to drop it to 5.1. because insulin resistance is a real problem for diabetics and non diabetics, you can be a non diabetic and still have a insulin resistance , that means you have insulin running all over the blood system and creating all kinds of health problems, like autoimmune diseases. I say with all the information I have mentioned , I ask you to do your own research and learn about eating the right foods and organic too.

God Bless us all

Robert

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply to

There's a section on diabetes in the same book. It's basically the modified Mediterranean diet, not very different from that suggested for Stage 1 and 2 cancer.

When talking about treatments for cancer, we should refer to medical journals, articles written by qualified medical personnel, clinical trials, etc. I also try to tell people to discuss my comments with their doctor because as Nameless said many times: "but what do I know" :)

Chugach profile image
Chugach

I’m on a wild game (elk, deer, moose, …), coffee and beer diet. So far so good!!!

Graham49 profile image
Graham49 in reply toChugach

You could be on the high protein ketogenic diet.

"High protein ketogenic diet: This is similar to a standard ketogenic diet, but includes more protein. The ratio is often 60% fat, 35% protein, and 5% carbs."

It might depend on how much beer you are drinking. No idea whether it's good for cancer. Sounds like fun anyway.😊

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