What role does food play in cancer prevention?

by | Cancer Care, Gastrointestinal Health, Hormone Health, Videos

What role does food play in cancer prevention?

Diet plays an important role in cancer, and there are many different ways in which this happens.

At a basic level, high fibre diets and low fat diets can change the likelihood of you getting bowel cancer, and almost certainly that is a local effect on the bowel.

But we know that it goes way beyond that, because we know that high-fat diets, which contribute to obesity, change the hormones in your body and can change your risk of getting breast cancer, can probably change your risk of getting prostate cancer, and these are cancers that are hormonally associated.

Beyond that, there are probably effects we just do not understand, except we know if you look at a national level and actually an international level, those people who have good in inverted commas, diets, and good means high vegetables, high fibre, low saturated fats, low total fats, low animal fats, have better survival from cancer.

Professor Michael Boyer is Medical Oncologist at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse