Chances are you have renewed your commitment to maintaining your good health and taking care of your body when dealing with illness and disease. A great way to help reduce chances of illness is to implement a robust, sickness-fighting diet, especially disease such as breast cancer. This is vital to your overall health.
We all know to stay away from cigarettes to reduce our chances of lung cancer and to keep out of long exposure to the sun to reduce our chances of skin cancer. But many people don’t realize that our diets are powerful. What we eat can affect our overall health. We hear about “superfoods” and “antioxidants” all the time, but we aren’t always aware that these foods and their nutrients can help reduce our chances of disease such as breast cancer. We often talk about yearly mammograms and performing our own breast exams but we leave out the importance of eating a healthy diet.
“New studies have found that eating a plant-based diet, low alcohol consumption and maintaining a healthy body weight significantly reduces the risk for breast cancer,” says Sarah Mirkin, RD a registered dietician and nutritionist.
Next time you are at the grocery store, stay to the outer edges of the store and that is where a majority of the whole food items will be located. When you start weaving in and out of the aisles is where you will start getting more of those artificial ingredients. Each week, try adding one of the below items to your grocery list and expand your horizons when it comes to wellness and whole foods!
Strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries are high in antioxidants, and studies on animals have found that a diet of black raspberries can reduce breast tumor volume by 60-70 percent according to the American Institute for Cancer Research.
Vegetables in this family such as broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower can contain phytochemicals called glucosinates that activate protective enzymes in the body that help fight off cancer. According to studies, such as one done by Cornell University, exposure to estrogen is associated with a women’s risk of breast cancer.
Population studies have found that people who eat more garlic have a significantly reduced risk of breast cancer, and one study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology reported that the effect is even more powerful when garlic is combined with fiber-filled foods and onions.
Foods that contain this carotenoid like sweet potatoes and squash have been linked to a lower risk of getting breast cancer as well as a greater likelihood of breast-cancer survival.
Orange fruits and veggies are rich in beta-carotene and are fabulous anti-oxidants.
Like berries, apples contain antioxidants that fight free radicals that could potentially harm your cells and cause cancer. But it’s not just the fruit of the apple that’s beneficial — the skin contains quercitin, an anti-inflammatory flavonoid that can help prevent and fight against breast cancer tumors, according to a study published in the Journal of Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine.
Black walnuts are American natives, but English walnuts have become one of the most popular nuts in the United States. Although all nuts fit into a robust, healthy diet, walnuts are most studied for cancer. They contain the omega-3 fat – alpha-linolenic acid – which can make walnuts more susceptible to becoming rancid according to the American Institute for Cancer Research.
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