Healthy Grocery Foods list (.pdf)
click to print or download
from M D Anderson website.

Before you head out to the grocery store to stock up on holiday foods you might like to print or download this 45 healthy foods shopping list pulled together by Mary Ellen Herndon, wellness food specialist, and other experts at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Evidence for obesity as a promoter of several types of cancer as well as heart disease and diabetes in increasing. Adults can avoid holiday weight gain, Herndon says, by stocking up on the cancer-fighting foods on this holiday food grocery list. Naturally, the list is rich in vegetables and fruits — from acorn squash, berries and dates to pears, quinces, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard and turnips– and in grains, beans, and lean non-red meat protein sources. Also included are  pecans, pistachios, walnuts, and dark chocolate.

“Plant foods are packed with cancer-fighting nutrients,” Herndon says. “So, make sure you fill two-thirds of your plate with vegetables, fruits, whole grains or beans. On the remaining one-third of your plate, choose a lean animal or plant protein.”

Men should aim for meals with no more than 500 calories, she adds, and women aim for no more than 400 calories.

“People tend to gain weight in colder months because they’re indoors more, less active and overeat high calorie, holiday foods,” said Herndon says. “And, unhealthy weight gain, in the long-run, may make it harder for the body to fight off diseases like cancer.”

Currently, NIH factsheet for Obesity and Cancer Risk lists just 8 types of cancer by name: Esophagus · Pancreas · Colon · and rectum · Breast (after menopause) · Endometrium (lining of the uterus) · Kidney · Thyroid · Gallbladder.

So what about prostate cancer? Studies are beginning to demonstrate that obesity is associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness and survival chances.

Prostate enlargement (BPH) is common with aging and obesity.  But even in men who do not develop BPH, Vanderbilt University researchers have found,  there are links between prostate cancer and obesity.

And by examining what happens to fat genes if a thicker than normal layer of fat builds up around the prostate, a team of Canadian, Portuguese and Spanish geneticists and oncologists have discovered one way that obesity promotes aggressive prostate cancer (more to come on this in our MedNews section).

Meanwhile, to make your holiday food shopping list nice, not naughty (except for a bit of dark chocolate), follow Mary Ellen Herndon’s lead and select from these foods:

Mary Ellen Herndon

 Fresh, in-season fruits and vegetables
Acorn squash
Belgian endive
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Butternut squash
Cauliflower
Cranberries
Dates
Garlic
Kale
Leeks
Mushrooms
Pears
Persimmons
Pomegranates
Pumpkin
Quince
Sweet potatoes
Swiss chard
Turnips

Grains
Quinoa
Wild rice
Brown rice
Lentils

Dairy
Skim milk
Non-fat Greek yogurt

Protein
Lean turkey or chicken
Lean fish such as salmon, halibut, redfish or red snapper
Tofu
Almonds
Pistachios
Walnuts
Pecans
Garbanzo beans/chickpeas (low sodium if canned)
Black, red, pinto or white beans  (low sodium if canned)

Frozen foods
Get more nutrients by buying this out-of-season produce frozen.
Berries (preferably organic)
Carrots
Collard greens
Green beans
Rhubarb
Sweet corn

Baking aisle
Cinnamon
Cooking spray
Dark chocolate
Whole wheat flour

Scientists at Oregon State University and Linus Pauling Institute propose in an article published October 7 that sulforaphane, a compound found in cruciferous vegetables notably broccoli, may be useful as a chemopreventive agent for high-risk prostate cancer patients. Sulforaphane, Emily Ho and colleagues write, acts as a histone deacetylase inhibitor on prostate cancer (and colorectal cancer) cells.

A large, long-term study in the U.K. has found that people who eat fish or who are vegetarians are less likely to develop cancer than people who describe themselves as meat-eaters. Surprisingly, for some types of cancer, risk was lower for those who ate fish than for strict vegetarians.

Led by a team at Oxford University, researchers studied 61,566 British men and women for several years. More than half of the people enrolled or 32,403 identified as meat eaters, 8562 as non-meat eaters who did eat fish (“fish eaters”‘) and 20,601 as vegetarians.

Some of the difference favoring fish consumption over vegetarianism may arise from known benefits of fish oil and some from known or risks from high consumption of dairy foods.

Men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression, according to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

March 24, 2009 /PHILADELPHIA, AACR / – Omega-3 fatty acids appear protective against advanced prostate cancer, and this effect may be modified by a genetic variant in the COX-2 gene, according to a report in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

“The COX-2 increased risk of disease was essentially reversed by increasing omega-3 fatty acid intake by a half a gram per day,” said John S. Witte, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco.

If men want to interpret the results in terms of adding omega-3 rich fish to their regular diet, he said, “the strongest effect was seen from eating dark fish such as salmon one or more times per week.”

An anti-cancer compound in broccoli and cabbage, indole-3-carbinol, is undergoing clinical trials in men with prostate cancer and women with breast cancer because it was found to stop the growth of these cancers in mice.

Now scientists have discovered more about how it works. They’ve found that in breast cancer it lowers the activity of an enzyme associated with rapidly advancing cancer growth, according to a University of California, Berkeley, study appearing this week in the online early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new findings are claimed as the first to explain how indole-3-carbinol (I3C) stops cell growth. This new understanding is expected to speed designs for improved versions of the chemical that would be more effective as a drug and could work against a broader range of breast as well as prostate tumors.

Canadian researchers report that men who eat fish several times a week may protect themselves from prostate cancer, while men who eat meat, ham or sausage 5 times a week may have a 3-fold increased risk of prostate cancer. These findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting a relationship between diet and prostate cancer risk.

“Many studies have suggested that nutritional factors may affect prostate cancer development,” says Armen Aprikian, MD. of the urology division McGill University Health Centre, Montréal, Que. ” The aim of our study was to evaluate the relationship between dietary habits and prostate cancer detection.”

Tomato paste

Tomato paste made from dried tomato powder may not strike you as the most delicious way to prepare this nutritious food, but new research suggests that this is the form in which tomatoes have most prostate cancer-prevention potential.

A positive anti-prostate cancer effect for tomato products has been suggested in many studies. This effect has often been attributed to lycopene. But it’s starting to look as though lycopene is only part of the story.

New cancer research from the University of Missouri, published in the June 1 issue of Cancer Research, suggests that dehydrating tomatoes and rehydrating the powder is key.

Pectin, a type of fiber found in fruits and vegetables and used in making jams and other foods, kills prostate cancer cells according to a new University of Georgia study.

“What this paper shows is that if you take human prostate cancer cells and add pectin, you can induce programmed cell death,” said Debra Mohnen, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. “If you do the same with non-cancerous cells, cell death doesn’t occur.”

Mohnen’s study, published in the August issue of the journal Glycobiology, found that exposing prostate cancer cells to pectin under laboratory conditions reduced the number of cells by up to 40 percent. Mohnen, a UGA Cancer Center researcher, her UGA colleagues and Vijay Kumar, chief of research and development at the VA Medical Center in Augusta, found that the cells self-destructed in a process known as apoptosis. Pectin even killed cells that aren’t sensitive to hormone therapy and therefore are difficult to treat with current medications.

Hello, I’m a 69-year-old retired carpenter and published writer. I’ve never had a Free PSA reading, only two biopsies and 5 Finger-Waves (and two of those almost made me jump through the wall).

My diet is centered around ocean fish (tuna and salmon), veggies (a lot of brocolli and other cruciferous veggies — cauliflower, Brussel sprouts), fruits (in particular apricots, which are high in selenium), vitamins (E, A, D3, a good one-a-day vitamin), Essiac Tea at five in the A.M. (when my stomach is empty), heavy sprinkling of turmeric on my food (in Ayurvedic medicine of India this herb has been in usage for almost 2 millenia — it shrinks tumors), cayenne (for the capsicum), garlic powder (both sprinkled over food, like the turmeric).