Is it just me, or does it seem like, these days, almost everyone has cancer somewhere in their family tree? Terrifying? Totally. But the good, absolutely fantastic, news is that regardless of your family history, you can very easily lower your cancer risk. The best way to start: Pile some delicious food on your fork, chew, swallow and repeat.

Read more here: The Anti-Cancer Diet

Move over black raspberries.

New research shows that a variety of other types of berries – including more readily available and affordable blueberries, strawberries and red raspberries – along with more exotic and expensive varieties like noni, acaí (pronounced ah-sye-EE) and wolfberries – may prevent cancer about as well as previously studied black raspberries.

In the first-ever study comparing the cancer preventive properties of berries, researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James), tested seven berry types and found that all seven were about equally effective in preventing the development of esophageal cancer in rodents.

Read more here: New Research Shows Common Berries Fight Cancer As Well As Exotic Varieties

After reviewing the findings of more than 60 existing studies that explore the nutritional aspects of mushrooms, a team of dietary students concluded that overall they have some powerful health benefits, says Kaila Hauck, a fourth-year student at the university.

Read more here: Mushrooms have powerful health benefit: study

Eating lots of fruit and vegetables has only a small effect on warding off cancer, a study published on Wednesday says, although its authors insist that tucking into the recommended “five-a-day” is still good for general health.

Eating lots of fruit and vegetables has only a small effect on warding off cancer, a new study has shown although its authors insist that tucking into the recommended “five-a-day” is still good for general health.

Doctors led by Paolo Boffetta at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, pored over eight years of data from a major European investigation into the relationship between cancer risk and food.

The investigation, which is continuing, covers nearly 470,000 volunteers recruited in 10 Western European countries.

Read more: ‘Five-a-day’ has limited impact on cancer risk

Researchers think that up to 40 percent of cancers are preventable by making lifestyle changes like quitting smoking, eating healthily, limiting alcohol intake and reducing sun exposure, as well as avoiding cancer-causing diseases like HPV and hepatitis. And scientists are looking into the potential effects of plastic, cooking and even cellphones. Find out how to cut your chances with these five tips:

Read more: Cancer prevention secrets

MIAMI (AFP) – Researchers said Tuesday that papaya leaf extract and its tea have dramatic cancer-fighting properties against a broad range of tumors, backing a belief held in a number of folk traditions.

University of Florida researcher Nam Dang and colleagues in Japan, in a report published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, documented papaya’s anticancer effect against tumors of the cervix, breast, liver, lung and pancreas.

The researchers used an extract made from dried papaya leaves, and the effects were stronger when cells received larger doses of papaya leaf tea.

Read more: Researchers back cancer-fighting properties of papaya

Drinking two or more soft drinks a week may nearly double a person’s risk of developing pancreatic cancer, researchers are warning.

Cancer of the pancreas, the disease that killed actor Patrick Swayze last year, is one of the most rapidly fatal tumours in adults; only 6% of people are alive five years after a diagnosis. The pancreas makes insulin, and scientists believe high concentrations of insulin can drive the growth of pancreatic cancer cells.

Read more: Weekly pop may double pancreatic cancer risk

Red grapes and dark chocolate join blueberries, garlic, soy, and teas as ingredients that starve cancer while feeding bodies, Angiogenesis Foundation head William Li said at a prestigious TED Conference.

“We are rating foods based on their cancer-fighting qualities,” Li said. “What we eat is really our chemotherapy three times a day.”

The Massachusetts-based foundation is identifying foods containing chemicals that evidently choke-off blood supplies to tumors, starving them to death.

Li cited a Harvard Medical School study showing that men who ate cooked tomatoes several times weekly were 30 to 50 percent less likely to have prostate cancer.

“There is a medical revolution happening all around us,” Li said. “If we’re right, it could impact on consumer education, food service, public health, and even insurance agencies.”

About a dozen drugs are already in use to deprive tumors of blood supplies in a treatment tactic called “anti-angiogenesis.

The foundation pitted some foods against approved drugs and found that soy, parsley, red grapes, berries and other comestibles were either as effective or more potent in battling cancer cells.

Eaten together, the foods were even more effective in fighting cancer.

“We discovered that Mother Nature laced a large number of foods and herbs with anti-angiogenesis features,” Li said.

“For many people around the world, dietary cancer treatment may be the only solution because not everyone can afford cancer drugs.”

The foundation also discovered that anti-angiogenesis properties of foods melt away fat, which relies heavily on blood flow to sustain itself.

Tests showed that mice genetically prone to be chubby could be trimmed to average mouse size using the approach.

“It got weight down to a set point for normal mice,” Li said. “In other words, we can’t create supermodel mice.”

Analyses of data collected on 60,524 Singapore Chinese adults showed that people who drank two or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks a week were at greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared with individuals who did not, the study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention says.

No link was found between drinking juice and pancreatic cancer, which is one of the most rapidly fatal cancers in adults, with less than five percent of patients surviving five years or more after being diagnosed with the illness.

The study was the first to look at the role fizzy drinks and juice play in the development of pancreatic cancer in Asians, whose diet and lifestyle are becoming more and more Western, the study says. Previous studies had looked at Europeans and Americans.

Participants in the study who consumed two or more sodas per week tended to be younger men who smoke, drink alcohol, eat higher-calorie diets and are less physically active.

They also ate more red meat, the study found.

The findings of the study were adjusted for other dietary factors which have been linked with pancreatic cancer, such as consumption of red meat.

“But the adjustments did not change the link between soda and the risk of pancreas cancer,” said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota’s division of epidemiology and community health, one of the authors of the study.

“We suspect sugar is the culprit, but we cannot prove it from this study,” Pereira told AFP, adding that the researchers only looked at carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages, not sports drinks or diet soft drinks.

“A typical serving of soda is 20 ounces and contains 65 grams of sugar. By comparison, a typical serving of orange juice is eight ounces and contains 21 grams of sugar,” Pereira said.

Fizzy drinks are “the leading sources of added sugar in the US diet” and greatly contribute to hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, and hyperinsulemia — when the amount of insulin in the blood is higher than normal — the study says.

Insulin is produced by the pancreas and helps regulate blood sugar.

If the findings of the study are confirmed, then cutting out sugar-sweetened sodas would be a way to reduce the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, and this would be “important due to the poor prognosis and minimal effect of conventional treatment methods” for the cancer, the study says.

The data analyzed for the soda study came from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, which enrolled more than 63,000 Singapore Chinese who lived in government housing estates — as nearly nine in 10 people in Singapore do — and looked at their diets, physical activity and medical history, among others.

Cancer is no longer thought to be solely the product of factors outside of our control such as heredity or accidental contact with toxic pollutants. In fact, scientists believe there is a great deal we can do to reduce our risk of developing the disease.

The 2007 Expert Report by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) found that the food we eat and other lifestyle choices such as daily physical activity and maintaining a healthy body weight are key to preventing cancer. This epic report – which was five years in the making and reviewed 7,000 large-scale studies – found that an unhealthy diet is linked to about one third of all cancer cases.

Shopping list of food linked to cancer prevention

• Plant-based food
• Cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, kale
• Foods containing folate, including liver, spinach, beans, broccoli, oranges, lettuce, avocado, and asparagus
• Onions, chives, leeks and garlic
• Carrots & sweet potatoes
• Mushrooms, including shitake, maitake, and reishi
• Fruits- grapefruits, red grapes, papayas, berries (rasberries, blueberries, strawberries)
• Tomatoes
• Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds and fish

Avoid these

• Salty foods and foods processed with salt
• Alcohol consumption
• Sugary drinks
• Energy-dense foods, such as high in fats and/or sugars & low in nutrients and fiber

The entire article is here: Foods that prevent cancer.