Liquorice
Liquorice, a popular spice and a flavouring agent, is an anti-cancer food. It has the properties, which not only help prevent cancer but also retard its spread. Triterpenoids contained in liquorice may block quick-growing cancer cells and cause some pre-cancerous cells to return to normal growth. This spice can be used either in the form of powder, decoction or infusion. These preparations can be taken mixed with honey.
Margosa
The use of margosa leaves is considered beneficial as a supportive treatment of cancer according to Ayurveda. From the point of view of this system of medicine, the blood gets toxicated and body heat increases in this disease. Margosa leaves help in purifying the blood and in reducing body heat. The patient should therefore chew 10-12 margosa leaves daily in the morning.
Milk
Milk as a rich source of vitamin D and calcium, is an important food, which can reduce the risk of colon cancer. Both these nutrients are potential cancer suppressor. Dr. Cedric Garland, Director of the Cancer Centre at the University of California at San Diego, says vitamin D blood levels can predict colon cancer risk. He examined 25,620 blood samples collected in Maryland in 1974 for vitamin D content, and then he compared colon cancer rates over the next eight years.
His conclusion was that those with high blood levels of vitamin D were 70 per cent less likely to develop colon cancer then those with low levels. Calcium appears to suppress disastrous physiological events leading to colon cancer, as established by some studies. Dr. Garland has noted that men who drank two glasses of milk daily over a 20-year period were only one-third as prone to developing colon cancer as non-milk drinkers. Dr. Garland estimates that 1,200-1,400 mg of calcium per day might prevent as much as 65-75 per cent of colon cancers.
One reason is that calcium can suppress the proliferation of surface cells on the inner lining of the colon, thereby preventing the rapid cell growth that is a sign of developing cancer. Rich sources of calcium, besides milk and milk products are, whole wheat, leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, and cabbage, carrot, watercress, orange, lemon, almond, fig and walnut.
Olive Oil
The use of olive oil is considered beneficial in the prevention and treatment of cancer. Eating too much fat has been linked with breast cancer. This has been adequately proved by a research study on 750 Italian women. It was found in this study that the women who eat the most saturated fats had three times the risk of breast cancer compared with those eating the least. Eating too much fat can influence the spread and harshness of an existing breast cancer, its recurrence and survival chances.
Some researches show that the more the saturated animal fat in the diet, the greater the odds of axillary lymph node involvement or spread of the cancer, and the more the total fat in a diet, the greater the chances of dying from breast cancer. Mediterranean women who eat lots of olive oil have low rates of breast cancer, as do Japanese women who eat lots of fish oils but little animal fat. In countries where animal fat consumption is high, breast cancer rates are also high.
Papaya Leaves
Success in the treatment of cancer has been claimed by a 74-year old lady from Australia by the use of leaves of papaya, a delicious tropical fruit, in a letter to “Weekend Bulletin”, Gold coast, Australia. She had undergone a surgical operation for her bladder cancer, but cancer could not be completely removed. While undergoing further treatment in Brisbane, she used papaya leaves and subsequently used boiled skin of papaya, when her stock of leaves had run out.
After 3 months, when she went to her doctor for a checkup, it was found that her cancer had been healed. In U.S.A. also, the American scientist Dr. Jerry McLaughlin of the University of Purdue, used papaya in the fight against cancer. According to him, he has found a chemical component in the papaya tree that is “one million times stronger than the strongest anti-cancer medicine.” There are many reports that cancer sufferers have been healed by drinking papaya leaf concentrate.