Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes

by Tom Rath

Eat to Beat Cancer Half of all men and one-third of all women in America will be diagnosed with cancer. Even if you are not formally diagnosed, you probably have microscopic cancer cells in your body that are too small to see on an MRI or CT scan. When researchers conduct autopsies of people who die in car accidents, for example, they often find undiagnosed cancers. According to one leading researcher, microscopic cancers are likely forming in our bodies all the time. Most of these microscopic cancers never grow large enough to pose a threat. They sit dormant in the organ where they live, as small as the tip of a ballpoint pen, lacking an adequate blood supply. This is where your lifestyle and diet play a major role, for better or worse. What you eat can greatly reduce the risk of cancers growing and spreading. Diet and physical activity have been shown to reduce recurrences of cancer and to extend survival. In my own experience, many of my largest tumors have not changed in size over the last decade. While there is no way to know how much my dietary changes have slowed this growth over time, they certainly help my odds. Maintaining a lean body weight is a good place to start to curb cancerous growth. According to recent studies, obesity acts as a “bona fide tumor promoter.” Obesity creates a chronic inflammatory state that makes it easier for cancer to grow and spread throughout the body. Epidemiological studies suggest that obese people have about a 50 percent increase i...