Whole foods & Fasting w/diagnosis, treatment, & survivorship

Anonymous

Whole foods & Fasting w/diagnosis, treatment, & survivorship

exercise_guru

A Thread for those who are using Whole Foods Vegan Diets( any kind), juicing, Fasting ( any kind) in support of Diagnosis, treatment, and Survivorship.

exercise_guru

I recently started to research different ways diet can impact cancer survivor ship and prevention. For example Vegan Whole foods, Raw foods, Fasting diets in cooperation with cancer treatment. I have watched every video on nutritionfacts.org as it relates to cancer.

I would have significantly changed my diet through treatment knowing what I know now. Fortunately I did know about Fasting and pursued that through chemotherapy. I water fasted during chemo but so much research has come out that I am reevaluating my perspective on "healing through treatment" I personally owned a pressure cooker, vitamix and a juicer but used none of these things through my treatment.

It was only just a few months ago ( 2.5 years from diagnosis) that I started to educate myself on nutrition and cancer survivorship/treatment/prevention. in August I switched to a whole foods Vegan diet to try to help my persistent and debilitating neuropathy , post survivorship depression, medical induced menopause. Tamoxifen rage, high liver enzymes and cholesterol. I have had some significant and encouraging results.

"Forks over knives" came out the year before I was diagnosed. I wish I had watched that video then. I did watch "Eat , Fast, Live" which is why I was familiar with Longo's work when I was diagnosed. If I were to do it again I would have immediately switched to a whole food diet and fasted prior to my surgery to shrink the tumor.

This thread is to support those interested in pursuing whole foods diets, Fasting etc. There is a lot of focus on Canabis and tumeric and supplements but hardly any focus on eating a nurturing whole foods healing lifestyle. If you would like to post please do. I am interested whether any one is working with whole foods through treatment or fasting directly through either diagnosis, treatment, or survivor ship. It is specifically for Vegan whole foods, ( can be raw whole foods, Mcdougal or any combination even Gerson. I believe there are Cancer patients trying conventional treatments who need support with health and healing with good foods.

I have a friend who has failed two Bone Marrow transplants and is in a position where she is looking to find a compliment to her existing treatment. There is so much unscientific broad stuff out there I am not sure where to advice her to read. She is wanting support with conventional treatments no going all out and abandoning the medical therapies. Her bone marrow transplant eradicated all but 1% of the cancer cells. So the treatment basically failed and she is running out of options. In my friends case I think she needs to look at more options and explore combining fasting, and a whole foods diet in conjunction with future treatment.Also there needs to be more research in supporting the body while you are trying to kill the cancer.. I can only think of what I would do in her situation or in a similar situation. If I were to be diagnosed Stage 4 I would certainly use Valter Longo's Fasting Medical Diet in conjunction with conventional imunotherapy or whatever treatment in or out of the united states showed the best possibility of pushing the cancer into remission. When not fasting I would also eat a 100% whole foods diet perhaps even the 80/10/10 program by Douglas Graham. I guess at that point I would pull the juicer out or get my juice from our little local juice stand that is pretty awesome but expensive.

I strongly believe this is the worst part of the conventional medicine route. There is no cooperation and support of healing the body while trying to kill the cancer. Then when conventional cancer treatment fails they just keep trying experimental stuff without every looking at the importance of whole foods or fasting. Valter Longo is a hero to me as he is working to combine the best practices in a scientific way.

I would be interested to know thoughts on this. Is anyone pursuing the Longo, Whole foods, complimentary treatment route? I do not want to watch another one of my friends die while the hospital tells her to eat doughnuts if she wants to.

Jessica Bowen: Stage 3 Breast Cancer Survivor I find this story so inspiring and It mirrors what I saw during treatment. I personally believe that the chemo did help her survive and I would have liked to find another patients story who followed fasting and whole foods diet and conventional treatment.

I also like this video on Valter Longo . I recomended that to my friend Fasting: Awakening the Rejuvenation from Within | Valter Longo

I like the "Chris Beat Cancer" interviews because I do believe that diet can make a body inhospitable to cancer.The area I am most concerned about the website is that Chris does not post updates in his patients and deletes the videos without comment if someone passes away. He also discourages surgery which he did undergo for his Stage 3 Colon Cancer. Even the Fasting research does not show complete eradication of a solid tumor with a blood supply. I believe that more is needed than raw Fruits and vegetables.

strongly believe this is the worst part of the conventional medicine route. There is no cooperation and support of healing the body while trying to kill the cancer. Then when conventional cancer treatment fails they just keep trying experimental stuff without every looking at the importance of whole foods or fasting. Valter Longo is a hero to me as he is working to combine the best practices in a scientific way.

Jessica Bowen: Stage 3 Breast Cancer Survivor I find this story so inspiring and It mirrors what I saw during treatment. I personally believe that the chemo did help her survive and I would have liked to find another patients story who followed fasting and whole foods diet and conventional treatment.

I also like this video on Valter Longo . I recomended that to my friend Fasting: Awakening the Rejuvenation from Within | Valter Longo

I would be interested to know Thoughts on this. Is anyone pursuing the Longo, Whole foods, Treatment route? I do not want to watch another one of my friends die while the hospital tells her to eat doughnuts if she wants to and that there is nothing she can do to help herself heal from cancer.

Krose53

Hi, I was diagnosed 1yr ago with ILC stage 2 . 1.6 cm and .9 cm and ER+PR+ Her2- and 2/5 lymph nodes.

I fasted before each chemo and after. I had no nausea in anyway. I was tired though and had some bone pain

Recently, I saw Ernie Bodhi. He is a breast cancer specialist. First as a breast cancer surgeon for 30 yrs and now head of a Breast Cancer Survivorship program he has created. He has been studying BC survivorship for 5 yrs and has a specialty in it. I met with him for 2 hrs. He went over my diagnosed completely and had recommendations. First was to go completely vegan. Secondly, he listed foods to eat and not eat. He also gave me a list of supplements to take. Everything he recommends has been proven to decrease your chance of recurrence. I also fast every day from 8pm to 12pm. This was not his recommendation we didn't discuss it

I haven't researched fasting for breast cancer recurrence. I would love to know if this is actually helpful.

Iamloved

I am only a few months out from my dx and surgery. I am working with a naturopathic Dr. Big changes for me...no sugars or at least as few as I can see in food. No alcohol, net carbs of 20 per day. Trying to follow the ketogenic diet. But the one thing that I have started about 6 weeks ago was a one day fast once a week and intermittent fasting the rest of the days. Have lost 35 pounds which is a plus. I feel great but like I said I am only a few months out. Anxious to see others stories.

exercise_guru

Krose : it's not exactly studying reoccurrence but he studies are happening regarding BRCA women and prevention using the fasting mimicking diet. It will take years to get published results. I have quite a bit of damage from treatment so I hope to eventually get to where I could do the fasting mimiking diet for 5 days. I hope it will help with reoccur ence but also help my nerves from neuropathy.

Here is the link to the Longo BRCA study

https://youtu.be/NNqkWVyykyEg

iloved you might be interested in in reading the longevity book by Valter Longo or watching those links by him. He has some interesting ideas and research about long-term Keto. The cell regeneration happens after fasting so that was eye opening to me.

Has anyone read "radical remission? "I want to give that book to my friend who has multiple myeloma but I haven't read it. Don't have time for a few weeks but it's sitting here on my bookshelf. I feel like she needs some hope and ideas before the doctors give up on her.

santabarbarian

I have done Fasting mimicking for all my chemos, and they have gone well. One more to go. I played around with the timing and the best way for me was to do 5 days of F-M, beginning 2 days before chemo day and ending 2 days after. It's so much easier on your body.

I am eating keto most of the time, but I will have some carbs if I crave them, when my appetite is waking back up after chemo. My SEs have been fatigue and mental tiredness but I have not felt horrible or sick. My version of keto is low meat and dairy. Mostly veggies, nuts, and fish.

exercise_guru

That that is very cool when I did chemo fasting there was no fasting mimicking diet. I started two days before drink tons of water all through the day on chemo and then one day after. If you read dr. Longos research he is trying really hard to get the steroids out of the morning of chemo because it makes the cells that are healthy far more susceptible to the chemo agents and is less likely to put the cancer cells at a disadvantage. Knowing what I know now I would have asked my doctor to let me try chemo without steroids but I didn't have that information at the time.

I also didn't eat my coming out meal very thoughtfully back then there was no guidance on it. The new research claims that this is when the body really starts to release new Growth cells and stem cells and so I wish I had thought that through a bit more. Longo claims the refeeding cycle is one of the most important elements of the fasting mimicking diet.

I just accept I did the best I could at the time but when I was not on chemo I just ate meat and vegetables and really whatever. I had a hard time having an appetite through chemo and my gut could not digest food so raw foods would have been out unless I had been more thoughtful about my Approach To That.

Then I remember that I had read about broccoli sprouts and research those on nutritionfacts.org. they are easy to prepare and very inexpensive but it took a long time for my gut to be able to digest them I had a horrible gas pains when I first started. That was actually the same thing with beans and a lot of grains. in hindsight I would have been better if I had gotten the juicer out and just try to get my whole foods that way well my body was recovering. A smoothie would have been a good idea as well but I was so scared of getting sugar I didn't have the knowledge that I have now.

I wish they would have a door at the hospital to a decent nutritionist who could tell us these things. I'm people who were not interested in making Lifestyle Changes would not have to go through the door and get the consultation. Everything I learned from the hospital nutritionalist was mostly useless so she did give me a strong advice to you as many fruits and vegetables as I could and to try to keep my protein at a very reasonable level. She told me no nitrates red meat and encourage the doctor to test me for pernicious anemia. I guess it wasn't all for nothing.

The longo longevity studies recommend a mostly high vegan Whole Foods eating program. With the addition of nuts ,olive oil regularly and fish twice a week. Personally I just eat the olives because I no longer consumed overt oils.

I am going to Google Ernie Bodhi. I would so much like to go consult him but I am in a Tiny Town in the Intermountain West. if you are comfortable posting other recommendations that he gave you I would so appreciate it. If that is an appropriate and you are more comfortable pming me I would most welcome that.

My protocol right now for prevention is consuming broccoli Sprouts, flaxseed, a small amount of soy, a serving of cooked mushrooms, leafy greens and Beets Daily. Other than that I basically Follow The Forks Over Knives eating plan, which is very similar to the McDougall plan. The Whole Foods vegan plants are all pretty close to the same they just differ in the last 5%. Some allow nuts, some discourage oils, McDougall is not a big fan of too many beans.Fuhrman is not a big fan of flour products.

As of now I don't supplement other than vitamin B12 and the vitamin B's because I have such strong neuropathy.

I don't juice right now I could see him almost all of my calories from Whole Foods, one tortilla or pasta a day, and a smoothie a few times a week.

couragement

Love this topic. Thank you for starting it and it is so interesting to see how we are doing on this important part of healing. I had heard about Longo's work while going through chemo, but honestly wasn't up for it due to other serious medical issues. However, if I have to do chemo again I will most certainly do the fasting. But I did start with fasting after treatment, and currently fast from 4 pm until 7 am. It has been very easy to do. I joined the Salk Institute's trial via phone app https://mycircadianclock.org (Dr. Panda's work is extraordinary) and it was very helpful in keeping me on the straight and narrow while starting out the process. I was hoping to lose some weight while on the fast (I need to lose about 20 pounds) but I have not lost a pound in over a year. But my risk for recurrence is high and my cardiologist says that losing weight would not be advised at this time. I am unable to take AI's due to an overreactive body to meds (I was unable to tolerate the usual TCPH and was put on Gemzar although not stage IV). I take heart is what over 6 research oncologists have told me which is that surgery is the clutch therapy for breast cancer and is 80% of the healing pie. This is one of my favorite videos of a great breast cancer researcher at UCSD who studies fasting (I have posted it on other threads here as well). Dr. Ruth Patterson, PhD: Sending love and strength to all! May we be well.

exercise_guru

Couragement : thank you I am watching that link now. have you watched "knives over forks"?

Dr.Caldwell Esselstyn developed a program for patients with cardiovascular disease. I know that is not you diagnosis but his program is amazing and inspiring and honestly delicious. He has saves people's lives who had hopeless heart situations. Everything he recommenda preventive foe cancer and supportive of weight loss.

It's similiar to John mcdougals program and the china study program but so great for people who need help healing the heart and cardiovascular system.