A Vegan Diet and Cancer – Prevention Tips

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Cancer and Vegan diet are in happy relationship! Yes you heard it right, for cancer fighting patients or cancer survivors the vegan diet can prove to be a good friend that will help in recovering and improving the health. Now question comes up, what exactly is this vegan diet? It is the diet which includes complete abstinence from the food which comes from exploitation of animals that includes all the dairy products or animal products like honey, eggs, meat, fish, animal’s milk etc.

A cancer patient’s lifestyle requires a huge change during and after the treatment to prevent further progress of disease or relapse of cancer, once treated. Eating is usually the first step towards this changed lifestyle. Whatever we eat have a direct impact on our health, so in ailment like cancer as we all the patient’s body is hugely drained of the nutrients and taking anything bad even in small amount can affect the health a lot. Taking healthy food can help in prolonging the life of cancer survivors and cancer patients. For example as we sees vegetarian people are less at risk of being obese as compared to the non-vegetarians, and obesity is one of the risk factor for certain types of Cancer.

Cancer is a disease which affects an individual wholly and weakens every part of the body, making to more prone to other serious illness like cardiovascular diseases, as compared to the relatively healthy people. Cancer treatments are also very tough on the body which affects healthy cells while killing the cancerous cells. This means your body needs more of healthy diet and nutrition as compared to other healthy people.

Now let’s learn all about vegan diet and its effect on cancer patient’s body. Vegan means no to animal products be it meat, fish, dairy products and honey. When one takes too much of red meat, bacon, deli meat, hot dogs, they introduced too much of substance in the body which can cause cancer. Specifically talking about kidney cancer, taking too much of barbequed, pan fried or meat cooked at high temperatures increases the risk of developing it. For protein you can go for plant proteins like legumes and beans.

Before learning about how vegan diet can help in preventing the cancer, we must know that what its components are.

• As if you are going vegan its must that you should get all the nutrients from your diet and do not starve your body for any of it. So as you cannot take normal milk, you can have almond milk or coconut milk
• Sugar is a big no for a vegan person also avoid foods containing high fiber
• Take lots of vegetables and fruits along with lentils and pulses too
• You have to quit animal products completely, can be said heart of the vegan diet. So you cannot take ghee, cheese, eggs, honey and dairy products
• Diet is to be completely vegetarian as there certain chemical preservatives in the processed meat which triggers and aggravates the condition in some of the cancers like esophageal and colon
• However if you do not maintain a proper balance of nutrients in your vegan diet it can be unhealthy for you as your body do not get the things it wants. So do take help of an expert nutritionist while preparing your diet chart

However no any research have yet prove anything for guaranteeing the preventive effect of the vegan diet on cancer patients but yes when you take more of plant based food in your diet which means good amount of phytochemicals which are fighting agents for your immune system against the diseases like cancer. Fiber intake have known effects on decreasing the risk developing cancer, vegan diet is full of it. Vegan diet also make you feel full for longer period of time that helps in preventing obesity, lowers the cholesterol level, maintain a healthy blood sugar levels and maintain a good digestive system.

Along with the positive aspects everything has a negative side as well. In vegan diet it is found to be missing many important nutrients that our essential for our body like people following the vegan diet are usually found to be deficient in vitamin B12. If you want to go for the vegan diet, you must make sure that the diet is completely balanced and do not miss any of these nutrients. A proper planning is require to follow a vegan or vegetarian diet as one of the major issue in this is that the choices are very limited. The main challenge in front of such people is for making their diet a balanced one. Usually people do mistake of replacing the animal product with something noxious or processed, do take care of that otherwise it can be worse than taking an animal product. Do not forget that improper diet can lead to several diseases like lifestyle diseases.

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Vegan diet can help in cutting down many products which are potentially cancer causing (in long run) and unhealthy for certain other factors. The main aim of vegan diet for cancer patients will be of stopping the progression of the disease, preventing a relapse after treatment and maintaining a healthy life. Vegan diet is high in fiber and low in saturated fats which make it an ideal diet for cancer patients when followed correctly. Include more of legumes like kidney beans, beans, black, yellow, split peas and red lentils. Also take whole grains in your diet like barley, brown rice, oatmeal, quinoa, millet, whole wheat bread and faro. Always keep a fact in mind that grains even taken the processed one like white bread, it won’t show the healthy effect on your body.

After going through all the facts about vegan diet, pros as well as cons, I hope your doubts must be clear about it and now you can choose more wisely. Their cannot be given a guarantee of anything regarding the relation of vegan diet and preventing cancer but yes the nutrients found in it like minerals, vitamins, fiber and phytochemicals have proven to give the positive result in showing the preventing effects in certain types of cancer.

Do remember, also for an Ox to be strong he eats grass not the meat. So eat veggies not meat!