The disease we hear more and more about today is cancer. Skin cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer. No matter where it occurs in the body, cancer is a disease killing millions of people. We always hear of radiation and chemotherapy as treatments for cancer, but you can help prevent cancer from developing by eating anti-angiogenic foods.
Angiogenesis is the cause of arthritis, obesity, and cancer. Dr. William Li gave a TED talk about angiogenesis, and said that it is the process of building blood vessels. We all have cancerous cells in our bodies, but for most of us these are microscopic and will never become life threatening. To grow and spread, these cancer cells need a blood supply. They become dangerous when they recruit their own blood supply allowing them to grow. Several common foods help prevent the spread of cancer by cutting off the blood supply and causing the tumor to starve and die. These foods include, but are not limited to, pumpkin, berries, dark chocolate, pineapple, tomatoes and garlic. Dr. Li's approach was instead of removing things from our diet, what could be added.
This was a really interesting video. Before we watched it in class, I had no idea that the foods in your diet could actually effect your chances of developing cancer. Kids are always joking that certain foods are "cancer in a bottle," or that they're going to get cancer from eating something. I don't know if that's true, but it's possible knowing how big of an impact the food we eat has. It was interesting to me which foods were anti-angiogenic and which were not. Red grapes are anti-angiogenic, but green grapes aren't. Lemons but not limes. It makes me feel better knowing that I'm probably keeping my body healthy by eating these foods, plus who doesn't want an excuse to eat chocolate?
