Five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily will help you prevent cancer. A serving equals 1/2 cup of fruit or vegetables, a cup of raw leafy vegetables, a medium-sized piece of raw fruit, or 170 g of fruit or vegetable juice. It is best to eat the fruits and vegetables raw. Cooking destroys nutrients, except phytochemicals, which are not affected in the preparation of food.
Scientists recently found the people in northern Italy who ate 7 or more servings of raw tomatoes (containing the phytochemical lycopene) every week had a 60% less chance of developing colon, rectal and stomach cancer than those who ate two servings or less.
Cornell university researchers reported that tomatoes contain an estimated 10,000 phytochemicals including coumaric acid and chlorogenic acid, which stop the formation of cancer-causing substances. Tomato acids remove the nitrosamines before they can do any damage. Cornell’s Joseph Hotchkiss gave volunteers tomato juice and found less nitrosamines in their body.
Herbert Pearson, PH.D., former project director with the National Cancer Institute, says that bioflavonoids enhance the body’s detoxification system, protect cell membranes, and help regulate enzymes that go unchecked when a cell becomes malignant. Almost every fruit and vegetable, from berries to yams to citrus to cucumbers, contain bioflavonoids. In a cellular version of musical chairs, bioflavonoids race to sites on the cell where cancer-causing hormones, including estrogen, attach themselves. When the music stops, the bioflavonoids keep the hormones from sitting down on the cell surface. This is especially important regarding the role of estrogen in breast cancer.
Dr. Terrence Leighton, a biochemist professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a world authority on phytochemicals and believes that, Quercetin is one of the strongest anticancer agents known.
Anticancer enzymes, found only in whole foods, vegetables and grains, are what make the difference between people who get cancer and those who don’t. You need enough free floating enzymes in your system to conquer cancer everyday!
Enzymes are needed for the body to use many nutrients, especially proteins. More than 2,000 varieties play vital roles in every human physical function. Historically, enzyme therapy has been used in cancer treatment successfully for decades.
Dr. Paul Talalay, of Johns Hopkins medical Institute, added the phytochemical sulphorane to human cells growing in a lab dish and reported that it boosted the growth of anticancer enzymes. In April 1994 issue of “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, his team reported conclusively that the compound protects living animal against cancer. We should be eager to eat fruits and vegetables, since we automatically benefit from the protective qualities of their phytochemicals.