Please note: This transcript is not 100% accurate.
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The thing with sugar, it’s tricky because they demonize it in so many different ways. They say it causes inflammation. It says that it’s going to ruin your gut. It’s giving you cancer. There’s so many myths circulating about sugar. I guess based on what you said, let’s shift our focus to feeding the healthy cells. They found the only two foods at any consumption in humans, strong data, that increase cancer risk. Or another thing you can do is get 30 grams of fiber a day to reduce your risk of cancer, specifically breast and colon cancer. So if you feel like, gosh, I wish there was…
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one person or one thing that could tell me how to eat well and simplify it, then I’m your girl.
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Welcome to Uncover Your Eyes, where we break down the most pressing health topics shaping lives today. We are going to dive deep into the complex world of cancer care through the power of nutrition. There is so much fear and misinformation surrounding food and cancer, and there’s a lack of education.
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about the importance of the role that food plays in prevention, treatment and recovery. Nichole Andrews is a registered dietitian nutritionist and the owner of Nutrition with Nichole. Her passion for combating misinformation and cancer nutrition led her to her social media where she has built a supportive community of hundreds of thousands of followers. She uses her platform to debunk myths,
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dispel fear-based diet trends, and provide clear, evidence-based guidance to empower cancer survivors to take back control of their health. So welcome, Nichole. Thank you so much for being on this morning. Thank you so much for having me here. I’m very excited to talk about cancer nutrition and all the good stuff. Absolutely. So, you know, I think there’s always this fear around cancer onset. I want to say
02:04
So tell me how you feel sugar plays such a big role in that. Yeah, absolutely. So yes, for individuals, the general public and especially cancer survivors who either have cancer or have had cancer are really worried about like, what foods do I need to avoid? What foods are gonna have my cancer come back? Or what foods are giving me cancer? And one of those main concerns is sugar. The sugar feeds cancer, that’s a myth that circulates so much. And it’s because it’s difficult because
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there’s a lot of and kind of aside from sugar, there’s so many different studies that are animal studies or, you know, early studies that have just started or they’re in the lab and that those studies are being misconstrued as things that are causing cancer. And we could talk more about the foods that actually do increase cancer risk. But coming back to sugar. So sugar is like sugary foods, desserts. OK, it’s just a car.
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Right. It doesn’t have a lot of nutrients, but it does have glucose. It will give you a burst of energy. That’s pretty much where it ends. All right. So sugary foods, desserts, cookies, things like that. They’ll be lower nutrition, but they have a place in your diet. Right. So as long as you’re not having a very high sugar diet, because then you wouldn’t be having plant foods. You know, you’d probably be hungry all the time because you’re just eating carbs. You need to have a well balanced diet. Sugar can fit in. So your desserts, your cookies, things like that around.
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a higher fiber diet, lean proteins, lean dairy, things like that is okay. The thing with sugar, it’s tricky because they demonize it in so many different ways. They say it causes inflammation. It says that it’s gonna ruin your gut. It’s giving you cancer. There’s so many myths circulating about sugar, but please note that the up-to-date evidence, sugar is not linking directly to any disease or cancer. What’s happening is if you’re an individual who has a very high sugary diet, a very high fat diet,
03:51
You’re having excess of calories all the time, low fiber. You’re not exercising. Now you’re gaining weight. Now you have extra fat tissue that goes on for years. That’s where it’s coming in. So it’s the indirect relationship of how you’re eating, you know, excess calories that could then increase your risk of disease and cancer. Okay. It’s the fat tissue. It’s not the sugar. It’s a whole lifestyle and sugar can fit in. It tastes good. It’s within our society. We don’t need to demonize it. You’re not, it’s not getting causing inflammation. You are not addicted to sugar. Everyone thinks you’re addicted to sugar, but really they probably just don’t have balanced meals.
04:21
That’s why they keep feeling hungry because all they eat is carbs and they need more protein. Carbs aren’t bad, but only carbs is not good. So it’s not causing any disease or cancer. right. Sugar is fine. The other part of it is then when you’re already diagnosed with cancer or you have cancer, now you’re worried about it growing. OK, so we know that cancer. Well, I can just tell you. So cancer is going to have its own unique metabolism. It’s very different than a healthy cell. All right. When we don’t eat really well, our healthy cells wither down. All right. They’re struggling and they have to use different sources.
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You know, you’re breaking down tissue and organs to try to feel your body cancer. However, on the other hand, does not slow down a bit without your treatments, right? Surgery, only surgery would be ideal, even though it’s invasive. We’d to just get rid of cancer with surgery. If not that, then you go into your chemo, radiation, your immunotherapy, different modalities because cancer is so complex and it’s very hard to target and you cannot target with food. So the thing with cancer metabolism is it has a unique way of uptake in nutrients and it takes up a lot of nutrients and it takes up more carbs.
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Okay, that’s just as cancer metabolism is what scientists have discussed. So from that, even though we have that information, you can’t manipulate it with food or diet. And that’s where the information just kind of floats away when you hear about sugar feeding cancer is that people think, okay, higher take of glucose or carbs. Perfect. I’ll just remove all carbs and my, my cancer will be gone. First of all.
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That’s way too simple. I know that everyone who’s ever had chemo would definitely wish they could just take out a food group and be done with it versus the chemo, right? You can’t manipulate and control cancer metabolism with food. So if you were to have all the carbs in the world, your cancer is not going to grow quicker. If you were to have no carbs, zero carbs, your cancer would not slow down in growth. It has a way of uptake in nutrients, sadly, and unfortunately, and this is a real issue.
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cancer survivors who aren’t eating well because maybe the cancer being present or the treatments, they’re not able to eat really well, they’re malnourished. They’re now struggling because of healthy cells and healthy organs are being properly nourished. However, unfortunately, the cancer is still thriving, it’s still growing, it’s still expanding, no matter how an individual eats. So when it comes to someone with cancer, we wanna focus on how to eat really well for your healthy cells and organs, because then you’ll have, this is what studies have shown, better treatment outcomes, less missed doses.
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you know, less reduced doses, you’ll have a less severity of side effects. So I understand, yes, cancer has a higher uptake of carbs. And now you’re thinking, okay, what has a higher take of my desserts, right? The thing is though, whether you eat the desserts or not, it’s not gonna change cancer’s metabolism. We need to make sure we’re attending those treatments and that’s gonna be, you’re gonna have the best chance of that from eating really well to nourish your healthy cells.
06:59
That’s such a great way to put it. I don’t think I would have ever thought like that. you know, I would probably one of those, you know, people who believes or thought that sugar was feeding the cancer cells. And that was a problem. you know, I guess based on what you said, let’s shift our focus to feeding the healthy cells. you know, I’m assuming that’s the focus then. So what are the foods that help to fuel these healthy cells or are there? Yeah, absolutely. 100%. So.
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Do you want to kind of talk about maybe someone without, well, guess there’s, it’s different. So someone within cancer, we can talk about that and then we can talk about someone reducing risk of recurrence. So someone within cancer treatment, maybe you’re just diagnosed, you just started, maybe you’re going from one modality to the next and you want to eat, right? So first off, you’re probably hearing so many foods are not right for you. I just want to put it out there real quick. It’s alcohol and processed meats are the only two foods that will increase your cancer risk. Okay.
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Now, even beyond that, if you’re during cancer treatment, really want to focus on you eating really well. So if the only protein you get is from a processed meat, I’m not going to stress you on that. I just want you to get protein. And then also I’m hoping you’re not drinking alcohol during cancer treatment because now it’s just that’s just more of a load onto your liver that has to cross out things among your treatments. So how to eat well during cancer treatment. Well, first off, like we already mentioned, the cancer is going to uptake the nutrients that you’re eating.
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You’re not wrong for that. Nothing’s wrong with that. It’s just doing that. Okay. So now we’re looking at, okay, you’re going to have an increased protein and calorie needs because the cancer is taking nutrition, which you can’t control and it’s not your fault. is okay. Okay. Your body is now being damaged. you’re like stressed. guess we should say stress your organs and cells are being stressed from whatever treatment modality have. And then you have just you, you as a person, everyday metabolism that needs nutrition. Okay.
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So you can see that now your needs of more calories and protein to fuel your whole body goes up. So the most important thing is you want to maintain your weight as someone in cancer treatment. So you may have to have more calories and you’ll definitely have to have more protein to repair all your healthy cells through treatments. And I want you to just have calories and protein. I want you to focus on lean protein. So like your chicken, your fish, you can have some red meat, that’s fine.
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protein powders, protein drinks. You can also have soy, beans, nuts, seeds. You can have all those different types of proteins. right. So I want you to include those more during the meal. With that, you also want to have whole grains. You want to have fruits and veggies and whatever fruits and veggies you can get. A lot of people are told that organics are superior. You never want to have a frozen or a canned food, but that’s just simply not true. Conventional is fine. Both conventional and organics use pesticides. They just use different farming methods.
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Neither one is safer, neither one is better. They’re going to be the same. So you might as buy the $3 blueberry versus the $9 one, right? Organics is just a type of farming. It’s a personal preference. It’s not a requirement to have, you know, better nutrients or better blueberry that’s organic versus blueberry that’s conventional. The nutrition is equal. So I want you to have more fruits and veggies. I want you to have as many whole grains as you can. I want you to be hydrating really well. You know, taking out alcohol is it, but you can still have your coffee. You can still have your tea. I want you to be drinking water.
10:03
I want you to have a well-balanced diet as much as you can. think that as a cancer survivor, lead each of your meals and your snacks with protein, but don’t forget about grains and bread. That’s okay. Unless you have celiac, you can have gluten, have fruits and veggies, have nuts and seeds and have that dessert in there. It’s okay. It’s normal. It’s normal for you. It’s normal for pretty much everyone to have around 300 calories of a dessert or snacky food, like a chip, like chips or, you know, it’s there every day.
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That’s normal, that’s sustainable. You’re going to be living for decades. Are you never going to have birthday cake again? Like, no, that’s not realistic. So just 300 calories a day, some snackier, sugary foods, and then all the other calories can be the foods I just listed off. Oh, dairy is also good. Dairy has carbs, protein, and fat. I would get like 1 to 2%. Dairy is shown from the World Cancer Research Fund to reduce risk of colon cancer. Again, it’s a high source of protein. So dairy is also fine. If you don’t like dairy, you can take it out. I’m just saying that’s another great choice that you can have.
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Perfect. You know, you mentioned at the beginning about alcohol and processed meats are the two foods. So I’m assuming the only two foods that you feel are the increase your risk of onset of cancer. Is that what you, can you clarify that and why? The two foods, and this is shared by the World Cancer Research Fund. It’s so amazing. It’s a global continuous update project. So what the World Cancer Research Fund is in charge of, it’s a panel of scientists and a bunch of other people that are analyzing the current and update data on humans.
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That’s the important part on humans. Hey, what are the foods, what are the lifestyles that are truly increasing cancer risk for the globe? Right. And they try to hit as many populations as they can. They’re not going to be able to hit absolutely everyone around the world, but they sure hit a lot of people. OK, so this is global. They found the only two foods at any consumption in humans strong data that increase cancer risk are alcohol and processed meats. Processed meats is just colon cancer. OK, so specific to colon cancer, processed meats are those precooked meats
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sausages, hot dogs, bacon, usually, well here in the USA at least, it’s all in one section, the precooked meats versus the raw, minced and cut some meat. So those precooked meats has the high heat, the way they’ve been preserved processed and foods that are preserved aren’t bad, but the meats are, okay? So the additives, the high sodium, those two carcinogenic byproducts that comes from really high heat cooking of meats, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
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and then heterocyclic amines, those are those two carcinogenic byproducts, and those can increase your risk of colon cancer. So it’s best to do fresh meats, canned meats, they’re processed, but they don’t fall underneath the ones we just listed off through the World Cancer Research Fund. You can do canned meats, fresh meats, rotisserie chicken is cooked fresh. You have to think when you go to the grocery store, is this shelf stable for just a couple of days and then I have to cook it? That’s a raw meat, that’s safe. Or is this something that can sit in my fridge for two or three weeks? Okay, we know that’s been precooked and processed, that’s a processed meat.
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So that’s for colon cancer. The other one is alcohol. And I’m so excited because they just are now talking about it so much more as being something that increases cancer risk, which makes me really happy. But it’s really been there for quite some time. Again, the World Cancer Research Fund, it comes from the ethanol. So all different types of alcohol. And when someone says, well, what about my red wine? You know, that was supposed to have antioxidants. I was supposed to have heart healthy. No, antioxidants are going to come, or resveratrol will come from your grapes. So I you to have grapes, not wine.
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And then heart healthy is not alcohol. You’re you’re getting ethanol. All right. So I wouldn’t use alcohol as any type of health promoter. That’s just not true. The ethanol within there is going to increase your risk of mouth, throat, esophageal, breast, colon, liver, and stomach cancers. So I believe it’s seven cancers. I know like the mouth and throat esophageal is kind of, kind of all connected, but they are different. So those seven cancers.
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Again, it’s the ethanol within there will damage your cells. Also, unfortunately, when you consume alcohol, it disrupts your body’s natural metabolism. So now it’s working on metabolizing the alcohol and not prioritizing carbs, protein and fat to metabolize and use this energy. So that’s hard on your body as well. It’ll block certain nutrients from being absorbed, meaning you’re not getting all the nutrients you need into your cells as well. But the big thing is it’s just the ethanol damaging your cells. What how has cancer come about? Right.
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So really every day as humans our bodies will break down from age, from injury, from sun, from living, it’s just normal. And every day our body’s amazing in how it rebuilds all those cells. Well, if you’re give it so much more damage, for example, by a ton of tobacco, a ton of alcohol, and you’re just damaging, damaging, damaging, it’s gonna be harder for those cells to repair. And a cancer cell ultimately is a cancer cell DNA that was damaged and then goes through the process and it was never able to be repaired and then it becomes a cancer cell. Cause that DNA was never able to be.
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So when we’re thinking about, right, we want to reduce our cancer risk. We don’t want cancer to come on. You want to nourish and take care of your body as good as you can to always help it, you know, with those damaged cells coming back and being repaired. And that comes through exercise, no processed meats, you no alcohol, you know, more fiber. Just a lot of things you probably already heard, but we need to start doing them on a regular basis. Absolutely. So, you know, you talked about the diet during cancer treatment and how that is important.
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How important is that? Like does nutrition play a big role during cancer treatment? Oh yeah, huge game changer. Absolutely. 100%. So studies have shown that for certain cancers like liver cancer, for example, if you’re going into those treatments, well-nourished have not lost weight. You’ll have better treatment outcomes. Studies will show that. Lesser severity of side effects is huge. So if you get enough calories and protein, like kind of like we mentioned before to support your healthy cells and organs,
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you’ll have less severity of side effects to be able to withstand and heal. Because based on your treatment plan, you’re going to have your chemo, or your radiation, chemo, and then you’ll have a break from it. And then that break, basically what they’re doing, they prescribe you chemo so you get just enough to, and it is poison, I chemo is poison, right? But they’re trying to target just the cancer cells, but it’s still affecting your healthy cells. So they give you just enough to target those cancer cells. They give you that break, and then you go in for your next cycle. Well, during that break, you’re going to recover quicker.
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your healthy cells and organs are gonna bounce back quicker, as studies have shown when you have the right nutrition into play. Exercise is also really important during cancer treatment too. So I would really pair those together. It’s just, there’s so much evidence with exercise for like everything, but especially for cancer survivors, I just like can’t leave that out. if you were not to eat very well, you know, and it’s not easy to eat on chemo. You have crazy side effects, taste changes, temperature changes.
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weird side effects, how are you sleeping? Things are not always easy, but if you get ahead of the nutrition and you eat well to maintain your weight, get enough protein, you always can work with me, go over to my social media, send me a message so that you can figure out exactly how to eat well, your side effects will be minimal or not at all. I have some clients who, you
16:57
They read that they would have 25 different side effects and they have none or a couple because the nutrition is right, because it’s supporting your healthy cells and organs and they can regenerate quicker in between those breaks of treatment. And what about during remission? So during remission, would the same type of diet help to decrease the chance of recurrence? Correct. So what’s really cool, the World Cancer Research Fund talks all about ways to reduce cancer risk. And a lot of people will then ask that, well, like, okay, thanks, Nicole.
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for the cancer prevention information, but I already had cancer. Well, good news, the World Cancer Research Fund, clearly state this, that all recommendations to reduce cancer risk, the gold standard ones that they share, also will apply to someone who’s had cancer. So if you wanna reduce risk of cancer never had or reduce risk of recurrence, then you want to follow the same cancer prevention guidelines. And we can kind of go through that too, if you’d like. But you can reduce your risk of recurrence. And that’s the huge thing.
17:53
For cancer survivors, it’s hard because they have huge support team, all these appointments, almost too many appointments, right? And then when their treatments are done, they just stop. And so then what happens is cancer survivors now don’t have their oncology team around them. They’re not going to these appointments all the time. And what are they left with? They’re left with, hey, I don’t want this to come back. What do I do? And there’s not a lot of guidance that may be a handout. There’s not really a survivorship clinic. And that’s a big part of what I do is I teach you, now the treatments are done, let’s still support you and build a cancer prevention lifestyle to reduce risk of recurrence.
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so much control on that and you should feel very confident. There’s a lot of research to show how you can reduce risk of recurrence of cancers with diet and lifestyle. And it’s just amazing. So once you have a handle on that, you can rest easy that you’re doing all you can to reduce risk of recurrence. You talked about the biggest myth or misconception, which was sugar. I didn’t know that. I was a strong believer that sugar was feeding cancer. So what are the other kind of common myths that you hear about certain foods?
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that really aren’t affecting cancer cells, but you hear they are. Yeah. So a lot all the time. mean, influencers, some influencers who are just not actually out of integrity, it’s really their mission and job to always be sharing to you what’s the new thing that’s increasing cancer risk and it’s frustrating. know, someone, you know, they should be working within oncology. They should have a credential and expertise in oncology, be working with actual cancer survivors. And some actually even work with cancer survivors and they’re not.
19:18
giving up today evidence-based information is hard out there, but really try to, when you follow people on social media or read books, you need to look at like how they should be more neutral. People who are sharing the information, the facts are gonna be more neutral. If they’re coming out with, will die if you eat this food. That’s a little extreme. So we shouldn’t be following those people. So I know it’s hard on who to follow out there. Definitely please come over and follow my page, but let’s go through these foods. So one right now, for example, that just came out,
19:48
They’re talking about the Bayonne on red food diet number three and the headlines are causing cancer finally banned, know, you know, these headlines are, you know, I make content too. I know how to, you know, hook people as well, but unfortunately they’re hooking them in a, you know, in a misleading way. So there’s what’s called the Delaney clause. This is a clause that says, Hey, if there’s ever a moment where there is an animal study that shows that an ingredient is going to cause cancer and animal at thousand times the dose.
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we’re going to ban that. So you have to understand there is no evidence to show that red dye number three increases risk of cancer in humans. All right. It’s based on a clause that says, Hey, if it happens in the animal, we’re going to pull it out. Well, that’s a lot of different ingredients. Animals aren’t going to have the same metabolism as a human also went to a thousand times a dose and it’s in the, you know, the eyeball of a rat. That’s just not the same as human. with, because of the clause, that’s why it’s being removed. Not because it actually causes risk in, um,
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are cancer in humans and then also under that clause other foods have been banned due to like animal studies. And then what ends up happening is a lot of work is done to, you know, just make sure to continue to show it doesn’t cause cancer in humans and then it’s removed from that list. So that ban won’t take an effect for a while and we just have to kind of wait and see and why they’re banning it. They’re banning it because the clause in the clause is related to animal studies. So, you know, it’s not causing, you know, the alcohol in process means that was in humans.
21:13
The other one is aspartame. Aspartame is that zero calorie sweetener that’s added to lot of foods like diet sodas. I’m not saying you have to have diet sodas at all, but let’s say you did, or you saw someone who did, or you saw content that said it’s gonna give you cancer. It’s not. So aspartame has also been studied over four decades, and they just reaffirmed its safety a couple summers ago about the adequate daily intake. 160, 70 pound person would have to have 30 cans of soda a day to reach the safe limit. And honestly, you could
21:43
You could have way more than that and it still wouldn’t even reach like the level with adverse effects. You could truly have so many sodas a day. So you’re probably not having 30 sodas a day. If you did, you’d still be at the safe dose. Aspartame, those artificial sweeteners, they’re studied really, really well. And we need to note that that’s a way to get in zero calories. So some people may want to have diet sodas or zero calories sweeteners to save on calories, because they’re on a weight loss journey to reduce the risk of cancer. And that’s really cool. And that will make a big impact. You don’t have to have those at all.
22:12
But if you do just know they’re not giving you cancer. Another one is soy, soy estrogen, increasing risk of hormones and cancer. So that’s not true. Estrogen comes from the human body, human organs. know, soy is a plant, has phytoestrogens. It does not, that does not, it’s plant like estrogen, not human. It will not give you hormones. It will not give you cancer. Soy is actually an amazing food choice with tons of nutrients.
22:35
That’s another one plant oils is going around is causing inflammation as long as you’re not burning your oils, which you shouldn’t be. And you know, you use the appropriate smoke point. They’re going to have so many heart healthy benefits in there and be a great choice. You can have over butter butter has a lot of saturated fat. You know, you have a limit saturated fat a day. That’s recommended to keep, you know, your heart risk or heart disease risk down. So plant oils is another one.
22:59
Sugar, we went through that one. Sugar is fine. It’s just a high sugary diet. It could lead to excessive calories, which would lead to excess fat tissue. That would increase your cancer risk. Conventional produce, the pesticides, that’s not true. They have very safe levels. Organics have pesticides too. It’s just, they use natural pesticides versus synthetic, but also that’s not enough of a reason to be like, well, I just want natural. Well, at the right dose, those natural pesticides are gonna be poisonous too.
23:26
But guess what? Both your organic and conventional produce have safe levels. The most important thing people need to remember is you need to be eating more fruits and veggies. You want to reduce risk of cancer and disease. You got to have at least five to six servings of fruits and veggies a day that you like. I never advocate to eat foods you don’t like, but you need more fruits and veggies. So stop thinking that pesticides are holding you back. You’re holding yourself back if you believe that there’s toxic levels of pesticides, because there’s really not. think that’s most of us. was another one I wanted to ask you about. Intermittent fasting is
23:55
taking the world by storm. Everybody asks, it in fasting? I know people do it for weight loss, but is there some talk about cancer? Yeah, right. Fasting or intermittent fasting, periods that you’re not going to eat based on your weight loss goals, that may work for lot of individuals and that’s fine. When it comes to reducing risk of cancer, the only connection there would be individuals who chose fasting as a weight loss method. They lost weight and now guess what? You’ve lost some fat tissue, you’re reducing your
24:24
That’s another thing I want to point out. If you have weight loss goals, whether it’s 20 pounds, 40, 60, 100 pounds or more, if you just lose a percentage of fat, you’ll start to reduce your risk of cancer. So I want to encourage you with that. A lot of people are like, well, yeah, have a 20 pound or 30 pound weight loss goal, I’ve only lost five. That five pounds you just lost is starting to reduce your risk. So every single, like I need you to be celebrating if you’re on a weight loss journey, every single milestone. So when it comes to cancer, no, it’s not going to kill off the cancer. I see that myth a lot.
24:53
On social media just a couple of days ago, one influencer has asked if you were to, actually several were asked this. It’s a seven day fast, it’s a really big thing. Seven day water fast. That is not going to treat your cancer. It’s a little root to even say that taking out sugar or fasting would just simply evaporate your cancer. When we have millions of cancer survivors working their butts off, going to chemo, radiation, surgery, and getting cured.
25:20
What about that? It’s just really frustrating that people think that fasting is a ticket when these people are working so hard. So fasting’s not gonna touch your cancer metabolism, it doesn’t care. Like I said before, cachexia, is a type of malnourishment in an individual with cancer, those types of things come from not eating. We really wanna be eating really well as a cancer survivor to nourish your healthy cells. If you try to fast and mitigate your cancer,
25:48
Your cancer doesn’t care. It’s got its own thing going on. That’s why we have those crazy treatments that are so intense to kill off the cancer. Fasting will not touch or do anything to your cancer. But if you want to fast for religious reasons, preferences, you feel better, you want to lose weight, that’s, I’m down with that. But you know, and even that it may lead to binge eating later. That’s a whole different topic. But for treating cancer, no, that’s not up to date. There’s no evidence to show that. Absolutely not. need to file your oncologist’s prescription to cure your cancer.
26:18
And you touched on fiber a little bit. So my understanding is there is a good role of fiber. Thoughts on that and how much fiber? Yeah, absolutely. There’s so many things we can do to reduce risk of recurrence. Let’s talk more about that. So I mentioned earlier, removing processed meats and alcohol, more movement, and 50 minutes of moderate physical activity a week. That’ll reduce your risk of several cancers. Another thing you can do is get 30 grams of fiber a day to reduce your risk of cancer, specifically breast and colon cancer.
26:46
The reason for that, higher fiber diet is going to help you volumize your meals, feel really full. You’re going to end up eating less throughout the day, which can help with weight loss, which you lose fat tissue. You’re going to reduce your risk of breast cancer. And then for colon cancer, it’s just healthy colon, healthy gut. A lot of people are talking about gut health. How do we do it? What supplements should we take for gut health? Please don’t take any supplements for gut health. If you want to support your gut and have a happy, healthy gut and lower your risk of colon cancer, higher fiber.
27:13
Okay, so that will be 30 grams of fiber a day. Fiberous food or plant foods. Your fruits, your cheese, your whole grains, your nuts, seeds, your beans, and your legumes. You will get fiber from all of that. Go over to my page. I have tons of content on high fiber foods, but really any of those foods are gonna be a great ticket. They’re gonna, like let’s say, it’ll also help you with your irregularity for your bowel movements, which is so important because your stool is gonna contain toxins, right? Maybe you did have some processed meats. You had a hot dog on 4th of July.
27:42
All right, once a year is really not gonna do anything to you, but you had it and you wanna support your gut health and you know that, know, a hot dog would increase your colon cancer risk, but you’re someone who gets 30 grams of fiber a day. What’s gonna happen with that? Your stool will not be hanging out in your colon very long. You have regular bowel movements. The toxins are moving out because you’re regular, because you have a lot of fiber. So just having a lot more fiber is gonna help you in so many different ways. Gut health, reducing risk of cancer, but you really wanna aim for that 30 grams of fiber a day.
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And it’s not as hard as you think. People think, oh, that’s such a task. But if you are someone who has more plant foods throughout the day, you’ll hit that fiber pretty easily. And it does not include fiber supplements. I get asked that a lot. So the World Cancer Research Fund says, hey, dietary fiber, which would be from your diet of 30 grams reduced to your risk of cancer, not in that supplement form. You know, I’m glad you mentioned supplements because that was one of my questions.
28:33
I don’t know, people have a whole pill, you know, those little containers. I got six pills for Monday and six for Tuesday. And I’m like, why do you take all those pills? And they’re like, you know, to reduce this cancer and this and this. like what pills are evidence based to help or not? Yeah. So none is best. I’m so glad you said that. People pay a lot of money for that. I know some poor cancer survivors that, you know, once they worked with me, they realized they had garbage bags of supplements they were throwing away. They had $800.
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supplement regimen subscriptions they were on that they canceled. So it’s huge myth and about 70 % of cancer survivors will try or consider a supplement at some point. So cancer survivors are particularly susceptible to supplements as treating or curing cancer or making sure it doesn’t come back and it is a scam. right. The things we already talked about here, the exercise, the fiber, the alcohol, the process needs, that’s where you gotta be and that’s where you gotta stay.
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All right. And I know sometimes it doesn’t feel as sexy or the supplement marketing is really sexy, is really catchy, is really beautiful. So you believe it, but you don’t don’t be over here with the supplements. Come back over here with the things we talked about. So it is an official statement from the World Cancer Research Fund. Do not seek out supplements to reduce cancer risk. It doesn’t work that way. So unless you are truly deficient, like let’s say you got a blood draw, you got a blood draw and your doctor’s like you’re low in vitamin D, you’re low in iron.
29:53
You’re low in magnesium or these things and you can’t get it up with food. You don’t need supplements. There are a place for supplements, elderly, pregnant, deficiencies during cancer treatment. A lot of cancer survivors need to supplement with calcium and vitamin D. That’s fine. We need your micronutrient levels to be on point. The thing is when you go seek out a bunch of supplements just based on somebody’s opinion, what’s going to end up happening with those supplements, they got to be processed through by your liver.
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They got to go throughout your body. Okay. So excess supplementation acts as a free radical. Free radicals are things that go throughout your body that damage you. All right. So you’re thinking a lot of people will think vitamin C, let’s just blast this into our bodies. You know, it’s going to help support our immunity. No, you really don’t need to do that. You just need to eat like an orange and a couple of kiwis and you have enough vitamin C to support your immune system. When you have 50,000 milligrams or whatever of vitamin C,
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All that excess becomes a free radical. Free radicals are what damage cell DNA. So your body doesn’t want the highest dose possible of every micronutrient. It to damage cells and now your liver has to work really hard to process those things out. I’ve had clients take, one client, were taking a tumor supplement, their ALT-AST was really high, so their liver was stressed. This was during cancer treatment, which we’re trying to help support the liver for detox, for an actual detox as much as we can. They took out that tumor supplement, ALT-AST was fine. Okay, so the supplements.
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They don’t just pee them out. They don’t just slide through your body. Your organs are processing it. Your cells are battling it. I need you to have normal micronutrient levels. And until you have a deficiency, don’t seek that out. It is, however, important for you to have healthy levels of your micronutrients. So like I mentioned, a lot of cancer survivors will supplement with calcium and vitamin D. A lot of women will take prenatal pills. These are good things. But if you’re trying to take these as an extra thing and you have no lab results, it could potentially damage your cells and they don’t want that.
31:41
Absolutely. I have to ask you something more for myself. You know, I have a lot of patients that say to me, know, we have an eye mask that we use and you have to use a microwave for it. And they’re like, oh, we don’t have a microwave, you know, due to cancer risks. And a lot of people don’t use a microwave anymore. And I didn’t realize how common that’s becoming. Do you have any thoughts on the microwave and people feeling that it increases the cancer risk? Because
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I use mine like crazy. So, you know, that’s my best friend for when I come home and I’m tired and I need to get something in the microwave with the kids. tell me, you know, should I be scared? You should not be scared. I’m so glad you use your microwave. I use a microwave too. Everyone should. It’s convenient, right? You have a long day and there’s so many things you microwave really well. You know, you’re frozen, you know, frozen veggies. They even make pre-made rice and pasta that you can microwave all of a sudden. Bam. You’re having a homemade meal so quick just from microwaving.
32:34
So as long as you microwave safe containers, you’re to go. So you don’t get any radiation from microwaves. People think, oh, you know, there’s radiation. No, it’s different type. There’s different types of radiation. Like the ones that you’re getting at the treatment center for your cancer. You know, that’s scary kind, right? Now they have certain, you know, ways to make sure they’re just getting radiation to your cancer. Okay, I’m not trying to scare you there. It’s good that you’re at the radiation center. I’m just saying the is different in a microwave. So within a microwave,
33:03
It’s not radiation heating up your food. It’s the way the microwave works where it creates like the moisture within the food to vibrate. And that vibration of the moisture in the food is warming it up. Radiation is not zapping your food. There’s no radiation in your food. There’s no radiation in your microwave. It’s the way that it warms up those water molecules that vibrate that then warm up your food. You will never, you’re not getting, there’s just, that’s a huge myth. I know people who’ve thrown them out.
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to get their microwave back. There’s no radiation in there. It’s the vibration of the water molecules in the food that are heating up your food. That’s it. Thank you for debunking that to make me feel like a better mom. Yeah, you’re an amazing mom. You’re good. Microwaves are smart because they’re convenient and you can have healthy, quick food versus, I don’t know, maybe you would have had fast food instead and that would not have been nutrient dense. So I think you’re doing amazing. I love that. You are so practical. Like I love that about you. And I think
33:57
You know, I connected with you on social media because you’re so practical. I love that. And it’s not about forcing people to do certain things that they’re uncomfortable with, but how do we kind of work around it and do what’s best and right for them? You have to tell our listeners, viewers where they can find you and what your social media page is. Oh, yeah, please. So you can find on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Instagram is where I’m the most active. But we have fun on YouTube and TikTok.
34:26
So it’s at oncology.nutrition.rd. Go check out my stories, my highlights, my content. post every day, multiple times a day. You can DM me. We have so much fun over there. And I help cancer survivors. have programs. It’s a business of mine. So I help survivors during treatment, after treatment. I have master classes, guidebooks, all the fun things. So if you feel like, gosh, I wish there was one person or one thing that could tell me how to eat well and simplify it, then I’m your girl. So come check me out. Yeah.
34:55
Thank you so much, Nichole, for your time today. Thank you. Yeah, I had a great time. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, listeners and viewers for tuning in. If you want to catch more episodes of Uncover Your Eyes, make sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube. To learn more about me, follow me on Instagram @Dr.MeenalAgarwal Until next time, keep those eyes uncovered!
35:26
See comfortably, near and far.
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with total multifocal contact lenses. Feels like nothing!