Eating a healthy wholefoods and plant-based diet could help women with breast cancer.
The diet reduces levels of IGF-1, a growth factor that helps cancers spread and raises inflammation levels. It also helps the women lose weight and improves metabolic markers, say researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Centre.
Thirty women with stage 4 breast cancer—considered the final stage before death—were put on the eight-week diet, which included fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, potatoes, nuts and seeds, but excluded animal produce, such as meat, eggs and dairy. They
also took a daily multivitamin.
The women had an average BMI score of 29.7 at the beginning of the study, and they lost around one to two pounds a week for eight weeks without exercising.
The researchers said the study was too small to definitively state that the diet halted the cancer, but there were several promising biological markers to suggest it might.
As well as reducing IGF-1 levels, it also lowered amino acids in the blood, and cancer cells need them to survive.
Stay Healthy,
Janice