Whole-Food Guide for Breast Cancer Survivors (19 page)

“Nature Will Castigate Those Who Don’t Masticate”

Horace Fletcher (1849–1919), also known as “The Great Masticator,” coined this phrase as part of a Victorian-era campaign to get people to chew their food more vigorously. Fletcher maintained that people should chew their food about thirty-two times before swallowing it. The eccentric masticator and his adherents took it to the limit, even arguing that liquids, too, had to be chewed in order to correctly mix with saliva.

While we certainly don’t advocate chewing your vegetable broth, we’re sympathetic to Fletcher’s basic premise: chewing your food thoroughly may be one of the most important habits you can cultivate to improve your digestion. Chewing thoroughly helps all the other players on your digestive team do their best work. And as a bonus, your food will taste better!

The Importance of Loving Your Liver

The largest organ in the body, the liver weighs three to four pounds. It’s a complex chemical factory and master orchestrator of bodily functions that works twenty-four hours a day. All the blood that circulates throughout the body to and from the heart passes through the liver. This means that every calorie, nutrient, and chemical we digest passes through the liver for a round of enzymatic activity before being absorbed into the bloodstream.

The protective role of the liver makes it an organ of utmost importance. The liver plays a crucial role in helping the body to break down nutrients and to build new tissues, while it serves as a storage depot for several essential nutrients, such as vitamins A and D, and the minerals iron and copper. The liver is also the body’s mastermind when it comes to detoxifying, or getting rid of foreign substances or toxins, whether they come from outside the body (pollutants, plastics, pesticides, and so on) or from metabolic by-products inside it (aggressive estrogens [see chapter 10] and by-products from intestinal bacteria).

Your Liver Does the “Two-Step”

Using a two-step process, a healthy liver mobilizes an army of specialized enzymes designed to neutralize harmful substances, food additives, and pharmaceutical drugs. In what’s commonly known as phase I of the process, the liver neutralizes offending compounds immediately. But if they are fat soluble (that is, they dissolve in fats or oils, not water), the liver must convert them to a water-soluble form first so that they can be excreted in urine or in
bile
, which carries toxins from the liver to the intestines. This second step is known as phase II. The liver generally uses whatever route is needed to rid the body of the chemical as quickly and safely as possible. That’s why it’s so vital that both phases of the detoxification process coordinate and run smoothly.

Compromised Detoxification and Cancer Promotion

A well-functioning liver is an essential component of your breast-cancer prevention program, because the liver is a fundamental part of your body’s natural filtration system. The activity of your liver’s detoxification enzymes is unique, based on your genetics, your level of toxic exposures, and your nutritional status. A well-cared-for liver will function to clear excess estrogens from the body, particularly those that can be carcinogenic. (For a more complete explanation, see chapter 10). The more nutritional support you give your liver, the less damage it will take on as it works to keep your body free of carcinogens.

The most important antioxidant for neutralizing toxins produced in phase I is glutathione, sometimes known as the “master antioxidant.” Our bodies synthesize glutathione from three amino acids: glycine, cysteine, and glutamate. If our bodies cannot make enough glutathione to keep up with the toxic load from infections and toxins, we can damage the liver, cause immune dysfunction, or both. Stress can also deplete glutathione, because increased adrenaline suppresses its production (Michelle Alpert, DO, pers. comm.).

Vitamin E and selenium are important precursors to glutathione activity, as well as powerful antioxidants in their own right. Although glutathione is poorly absorbed as an oral supplement, some doctors offer it as an intravenous drip in their offices, while specialized supplement companies sell liposomal glutathione creams that are reputed to have far better absorption rates. We’ve seen better results with these liposomal forms.

SOME PRECAUTIONS CONCERNING DETOXIFICATION

Grapefruit juice and certain pharmaceuticals can have a potent effect on both phase I and phase II detoxification tasks. Grapefruit juice, which contains the phytonutrient
naringenin, slows down phase I enzyme activity, making the effect of many medications stronger. For this reason, we suggest that you not eat more than half a grapefruit or 4 ounces of grapefruit juice per day if you are on medication. In addition, do not eat grapefruit near the time that you take the medication. Medications such as acetaminophen (for example, Tylenol) interfere with phase II activities and, when combined with alcohol, can be highly toxic to the liver.

Assessing Your Liver Status

Your health care practitioner can tell a great deal about your liver health by looking at some basic blood work. For example, if your liver cells have been damaged by disease, alcohol, or other toxins, levels of certain enzymes in your blood will be high.

What your blood work
won’t
tell you is exactly how well your liver is carrying out its detoxification duties. A
comprehensive metabolic profile test (CMP) that measures all the by-products of your liver’s several detoxification “pathways” can give you and your health care practitioner a better idea of exactly how well your liver is functioning (see appendix B for details).

50 (or So) Ways to Love Your Liver

Vitamins and minerals, especially the B vitamins, play starring roles in activating the enzymes involved in liver detoxification. Healthy whole grains supply plentiful amounts of B vitamins, which assist the liver with its many detoxification tasks.

We can shore up our liver health by eating clean food and by drinking plenty of nourishing beverages, such as purified water, herbal teas, green tea, fresh juices, and mineral broths found on the Eating for Health food model. Excessive coffee, black tea, soft drinks, diet drinks, sport drinks, and alcohol, especially when combined with environmental chemicals and medications, can harm the liver and interfere with its ability to function.

Support the health of your liver by eating green, yellow, orange, and purple foods from plant sources. Antioxidant vitamins and minerals, such as vitamins A, C, and E; zinc; and selenium are also very helpful. And, the sulfur found in eggs, broccoli, and cabbage—along with the amino acids glycine, cysteine, and glutamine mentioned earlier—help the liver make glutathione.

“When Life Gives You a Lemon…

…squeeze it, mix it with 6 ounces of distilled water, and drink twice daily,” quipped Ann Heustad, RN, in a 2004 newspaper column. Lemon juice helps stimulate the cleansing action of the liver. Although lemon tastes acidic, it helps raise the pH of your saliva, making it more alkaline. This helps you better absorb your nutrients.

Try the juice of half a lemon in a glass of water when you wake up, for a powerful, cleansing way to start the day. Or mix lemon with olive oil in the evening for a potent liver and gallbladder flush while you sleep. Don’t undervalue the effectiveness of this underappreciated fruit.

Oranges and tangerines are also powerful liver-supportive fruits, because they, too, contain
limonene
, a phytochemical that has been found to thwart cancer in animal models (Patil et al. 2009). The protective characteristics of limonene are likely due to the fact that it is a strong stimulator of both phase I and phase II detoxification enzymes.

Fiber Packs a Punch—Again

Every day, the liver produces about a quart of bile, which transports toxins to be dumped into the intestines. Once inside the intestines, the bile, with its toxic cargo, gets absorbed by fiber and is eliminated. A diet low in fiber will undermine this process, so please recall that the Eating for Health model recommends 30 to 40 grams of fiber daily.

Beets

Beets improve liver function primarily by thinning the bile so that it can move more freely through the liver and into the small intestine. There, it breaks down fat and fuels peristalsis, helping to efficiently move waste out of the body. Look for organically grown beets, because as a root crop, beets are notoriously prone to absorbing toxins in the soil. We like to roast beets in the oven in pieces, covered with a thin layer of olive oil and thickly sliced organic onions.

Onions and Garlic

We already know that onions and garlic are tasty complements to some of our favorite dishes, but they have proven medicinal, liver cleansing qualities as well. In recent years, researchers have found that the benefits of these vegetables extend to cancer prevention as well. The NCI administered a variety of studies attesting to this fact and even published a fact sheet called
Garlic and Cancer Prevention
(Thomas 2010), in which it asserts, “A host of studies provide compelling evidence that garlic and its organic allyl sulfur components are effective inhibitors of the cancer process.” What’s more, “These studies reveal that the benefits of garlic are not limited to a specific species, to a particular tissue, or to a specific carcinogen.” Could this be part of the secret sauce that makes adherents of the Mediterranean diet so healthful? We suspect so!

Other foods containing liver-cleansing factors include eggs, which, like onions and garlic, are high in sulfur; high-fiber foods, such as apples, celery, legumes, oat bran, and pears; brassica vegetables, such as bok choy, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts; and the spices cinnamon, licorice, and turmeric.

Liver-Loving Herbs

Used in various civilizations for over two thousand years as a therapy for liver and gallbladder problems, milk thistle is probably the herb most recognized in association with liver health. Milk thistle seems to help the liver in three distinct ways: First, it appears to help the liver regenerate via its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties (Song et al. 2006). Second, the active ingredient, silymarin, can help prevent the uptake of toxins into the cells. And third, milk thistle actually helps repair damaged liver cells. In other words, milk thistle may have direct anticancer properties by virtue of its anti-inflammatory, antimetastatic, and regulatory effects on the cancer cell cycle (Ramasamy and Agarwal 2008).

Along with milk thistle, the herbs yellow dock, Oregon grape root, dandelion, Schisandra, and orange peel have also long been associated with liver vitality.

Before using herbs medicinally, always check with a competent herbalist or other qualified practitioner for possible interactions with medications and other herbs or supplements you may be taking.

Another Word about Exercise

Along with its other virtues, exercise benefits the liver, because it gets the blood and lymph circulating, promoting detoxification. As we mentioned in chapter 7, the movement of lymph relies completely on muscle contraction through physical exercise. Without sufficient lymphatic circulation, cells are left to fester in their own waste. This may contribute to not only cancer but also arthritis and other degenerative diseases, as well as the aging process itself. Aerobic exercise increases lymphatic flow, which means that the body can eliminate more toxins with regular aerobic exercise. The very best way to do this is by jumping rope or bouncing on a mini trampoline, but any aerobic exercise is useful.

Keep in mind, however, that restrictive clothing inhibits the flow of both lymph and blood. Underwire bras and sports bras particularly tend to thwart normal lymphatic flow. If possible, take off your bra while walking and doing other exercise. Doing so will lightly massage the breasts by helping to pump the lymph through the breast tissue.

To Do

• Increase your lignan intake by adding seeds (especially flaxseeds), legumes, grains, and vegetables to your diet.
  
• Make sure you are getting a healthy dose of friendly bacteria, either through fermented foods or via a multistrain, well-balanced probiotic supplement.
  
• Assess your digestive status with the help of a professional to see if you need supportive enzymes or extra hydrochloric acid.
  
• Be mindful of your bowel health and eat a diet high in fiber and whole foods, supplementing with magnesium, if necessary, to keep things moving.
  
• Eat plenty of sulfur-rich foods, such as cruciferous vegetables and garlic, daily to keep your liver’s detoxification process in top form.
  
• Drink the juice of half a lemon in 6 ounces of water every morning as a good detoxifying start to your day.
  
• Consider the liver-loving herb milk thistle, due to its liver-protective
  and
  cancer-protective effects.
  
• Exercise regularly to enhance lymphatic flow. Jumping on a mini trampoline, or rebounder, is a wonderful choice for this.
  
• Limit your use of sports bras and underwire bras to when you feel they are absolutely necessary.
  

Last Word

Cleansing and detoxifying are things I never thought about until after my diagnosis. Now they’re a part of my everyday life. I started by adding more water and tea; I used to just drink coffee in the morning and a soda or two after that. Now I drink six to eight cups of hot water with lemon or herb tea (or both) every day. The first thing I noticed was that my bowels moved more freely and I wasn’t bloated anymore. Later I added kefir and kombucha to my routine for the probiotics. My gut never felt so good! I was really surprised to find how much better my skin looked too and how much better my clothes fit. I guess I’d just not given all that much thought to the idea of cleaning my “insides.” My breast cancer changed all that.

—Karla J., breast cancer survivor