Fruits and Veggies for Cancer Prevention and Childhood Cancer Prevention

As I have always stated, fruits and vegetables should be staples in your daily diet regime.  They are great to include in meals, or compound them with other food sources for a meal (ex: fruit mixed in with yogurt and granola for breakfast, banana in your whole grain cereal, a banana with almond, peanut, sunflower or cashew butter, raisins and wheat germ, or an apple prepared the same way, etc.).  Fruits and veggies are always great snacks as well and are easy to pick up and go with when leaving your house in the morning, or if you're like me, flying out of the door!  Bottom line:  eating fruits and vegetables will allow you to get tons of antioxidants into your body to help ward off cancer, and as the research has shown in some cases, will also allow some childhood cancer cells to be alleviated and destroyed.  The text in quotation comes from a former athlete I've trained named John Fasciane.  John is a great man, and is in his Junior year at LSU right now in Kinesiology and Nutrition.  He is going to be a great coach, mentor, and nutritionist!  John also sent over the information on white, green and black tea, and its effectiveness in buffering the mercury from fish out of your body when eating fish and drinking tea together.  Hopefully you will see John's name more and more on our blogs, and one day, on staff with us!

 

"Researchers have found a new reason for why people who eat the most fruits and veggies are less likely to get cancer.  They found that a fragment released by pectin, in all fruits and vegetables, binds to a specific protein that plays a significant role in all the stages of cancer progression.  The pectin suppresses the protein's ability to progress the cancer.

 

Strawberries, blueberries, and grapes contain some compounds that not only prevent cancer but also compounds that have been observed killing cells of childhood cancer!  The phytochemicals in the fruits caused the mitochondria of the cancer cells to stop producing energy, and without energy the cancer cells died. One of the pytochemicals mentioned was reservatrol so wine might help too if this is the case for all cancers."

 

Since kids cannot obviously drink wine, there are some reservatrol supplements out there now that you can buy over the counter.  In addition to purchasing a reservatrol supplement, make sure to incorporate at least 1-3 servings of both fruits and veggies every day!