Building Your Strength Against Cancer - Foods and Immunity

In spite of our best efforts, cancer cells will arise in the body from time to time. Luckily, we have white blood cells that roam our bloodstreams looking for these troublemakers. Some of them, called natural killer cells, seek out and destroy cancer cells and bacteria. They engulf and destroy aberrant cells before they can cause damage. The function of natural killer cells and other white blood cells is improved by as little as 30 milligrams of beta-carotene per day, the amount in two large carrots.^11,12

Although beta-carotene is safe, even in fairly substantial amounts, the best way to get beta-carotene is not in pills, but in the carrots, spinach, kale, and other packages in which nature supplies it. Beta-carotene is only one of perhaps two dozen related substances called carotenoids which occur naturally in vegetables and fruits, and which have varying degrees of biological activity.

Vitamins C and E and selenium bolster immune function in addition to their antioxidant effects, but the importance of these effects against cancer is not yet clear.^13-15

Fats impair immunity, and cutting fat out of the diet helps strengthen the immune defenses against cells that turn cancerous. Researchers in New York tested the effect of low-fat diets on immunity.¹⁶ They put healthy volunteers on a diet that limited fat content to 20 percent, reducing all fats and oils—not just saturated or unsaturated fats. Three months later, the researchers took blood samples from the volunteers and examined their natural killer cells. The natural killer cell activity was greatly improved.

Although vegetable oils are far superior to animal fats for heart patients, when it comes to the immune system, vegetable oils are no better than animal fats. In experiments, researchers have found that when they infuse soybean oil intravenously into volunteers, their white blood cells no longer work as well,¹⁷ and test-tube experiments show similar results.¹⁸

Likewise, omega 3 fatty acids, which are found in fish oils, green vegetables, and soybean, flax seed, and canola oils, also compromise immune function.^19-21 The bottom line on fats and oils is to greatly reduce your intake of all of them.

It should come as no surprise that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than do meat-eaters. Studies of white blood cell samples from vegetarians have shown them to have more than double the cancer cell-destroying ability of their non-vegetarian counterparts.²² The immune-boosting power of vegetarian diets is partly due to their vitamin content, their low fat content, and perhaps other contributors, such as reduced exposure to toxic chemicals and animal proteins.

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