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Dear Friends,

I've been writing for a few months about managing cancer with food, and about Dr. Nasha Winters' new book, The Metabolic Approach to Cancer. Her book is coming out this week, and her workshop for Healing Journeys will be held June 17th. I want to share with you a few of the gems I have gotten from reading a pre-publication copy of her book.

In her chapter on the immune system, she says our immune systems are in trouble because they have become "unarmed, depleted, and confused by a variety of modern lifestyle and nutrition habits, including grain and sugar overload, stress, nutrient depletion, microbial depletion, and medications."

She not only describes the science behind how this happens, but also gives very practical suggestions on how to keep the immune system healthy as the cornerstone to cancer prevention and management.

The most basic idea that most of us have already learned is that sugar consumption severely hampers our immune function. "When sugar enters the body it basically pepper-sprays immune cells, paralyzing them for several hours following consumption." She even suggests that the explanation for why the flu season kicks off around Halloween is not only because of the weather change, but also because of the gobs of candy that we consume.

She also says that not enough emphasis has been placed on grains, lectins, emulsifiers, and food colorings, all of which also conspire to suppress immunity. Emulsifiers (like soy lecithin) are synthetic food additives that are found in most processed foods. They allow oil and water to mix and stay that way. I once heard that if I could make only one healthy change in my eating habits it should be to eliminate commercial salad dressings. And the use of food coloring, found in yogurt, cereal, and candy, has increased 500 percent in the last 50 years. They are also linked to immune problems.

Sugar is also mentioned in her chapter on stress. After saying that "stress is the most powerful carcinogen imaginable," she talks about the many kinds of stressors we experience, including what we ingest. She says, "If you eat more than 30 grams of sugar a day (less for kids) you are living in chronic stress." I noticed on the label of a bottle of ginger beer offered to me by a friend that it had 33 grams of sugar. That was more than my allotment for an entire day.

I've been reading labels and minimizing sugar for years, and I am now motivated to be even more vigilant. I'm just scratching the surface here of the information I'm learning. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all the potential "enemies" that are so ubiquitous in our world. But mostly I am grateful to know what to watch out for, and how to protect myself.

If you are in Northern California, I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to learn from Dr. Nasha Winters in person on June 17th at our Cancer and Nutrition Workshop. The opportunity is there for all of you to read her book, which can be ordered on Amazon here. It's the book I wish I would have had years ago to guide me in managing my cancer with nutrition.

As always, I welcome your comments; to reply please click here.