Dr. Sara Sarafizadeh
Nutritionist and diet therapy specialist
In this video, Dr. Sarafizadeh explains about the treatment regimen and prevention of cancer.
The text of Dr. Sarafizadeh‘s speech
Hello, I am Dr. Sarafizadeh. Nutritionist and diet therapy specialist. Today we are talking about cancer and we are mostly focusing on cancer prevention. And I would like to thank the Noor charity, which supports cancer patients. And anyway, this talk is for you and I hope it will be useful for you. Well, I’ll be talking to you based on my specialty in diet therapy about how we can prevent cancer in general.
You know that cancer is a multifactorial disease, which means that many factors affect it. Genes can lead to getting cancer, the environment we live in, food, and underlying diseases we had. But today we want to provide you with some information about how we can prevent this disease as far as we can. Well, in general, cancer is classified in the group of the diseases that is not contagious, so its prevention is greatly influenced by your lifestyle. The 4 important pillars of lifestyle or lifestyle management are: proper nutrition physical activities during the day, proper sleep and stress management. I want to talk to you about these 4 items and the effect they have.
Well, of course, since I am a nutritionist, I will tell you about a proper diet and some tips that you should keep in mind. First of all, in order to have a healthy and preventive body, having an ideal weight in all stages of life is important as a disease prevention factor. You should focus on whether your weight is appropriate or not. If you are very thin or very overweight, you must control this somehow by knowing your BMI. Which is a range that shows whether you are in the green line of healthy weight or not. That should be your first warning. Your daily intake is very important. Be sure to meet with a nutritionist and dietitian to see if the food you eat is planned according to your physical activity, weight, and height. Be aware of food balance. Do you eat something only to the extent of stomach fullness or cell fullness? Does the food you consume provide all your needs?
Nowadays, we care about more factors than just calories and you can no longer control your weight just based on calories. You may consume less calories but still not have food balance. That can cause irregular weight gain or irregular weight loss. Because what’s important is your metabolism. It is metabolism that is responsible for your weight balance, not necessarily just calories. So knowing whether you have a balanced diet or not is one of the most important things that will help you control and prevent cancer. Because some foods and some minerals and vitamins have antioxidant properties. That is, they prevent the creation of free radicals in your body.
You should know whether or not you’re taking enough antioxidants. The sources of these antioxidants are not only fruits and vegetables, there are many sources and varieties. On the other hand, you should know if these substances are carcinogenic. A small example is “Tahdig”, which is the most delicious part of the food, but because of its burning condition, it can be a cause of cancer in the long run. Or grilled foods for example. Because of the burn we have on the surface of the grilled food. If that becomes a common item in your diet it has the potential to cause cancer. The high-fat or low-fat foods you use have the ability to create free radicals in your diet.
So if you educate yourself or by meeting with a nutritionist, you will become aware of preventive substances. In the old days, there was a lot of talk about focusing on calories, now the choice of food comes first. Should we eat Lavash bread as something that has white flour and is inflammatory? Or should we go for industrial breads that are made from wholemeal flour and bran? So the choice of food is very important. In the simplest case, it is whether you use low-fat or full-fat milk. Now we have a very good variety in the food industry, we have probiotic yogurts. We have Icelandic yogurt or Greek yogurt, the amount of protein in these is more compared to regular yogurts, which can help us in our nutritional balance.
On the other hand, we have foods that contain probiotics and we can even use probiotic cheese. We can use Kefir, which is a buttermilk anyway and contains proper probiotics. Well, we can choose. I will give you an example because it is important to know about the food industry anyway. There’s this type of bread called ‘Pro NAN’ which I believed is produced by the ‘Cenan’ company. If I’m not mistaken, every bread you take contains more protein, it contains more bran. That might make you not want to take a second bite. Well, when you make the right choice, you have definitely taken a preventive approach to diseases, especially cancer, so it is very important for you to raise your awareness of the food industry.
Rather than wanting to talk about height and weight, obesity and thinness, I prefer to mention these about preventive factors. Currently, my advice is to use the food available in industries. There are the categories of ‘organic’ and ‘industrial’ food which is often used incorrectly in Iran. People think that the things that are made in the natural and traditional way is called organic, And the food that comes from industries and is packaged is called non-organic food, but it is not like that.
There are some foods that, if they are not affected by the heat of pasteurization and sterilization, have a great ability to cause cancer. An example is Helicobacter pylori. Well, Helicobacter pylori may be found in traditional foods and we also have many bacteria, and we call them listeria bacteria. Foodborne diseases are bacteria that enter the body due to not being destroyed in the food industry process. In this way, many people think that if they use traditional Iranian food that is not pasteurized, they would have a better choice. It is not so. Industries have come to eliminate food borne illnesses and for people with cancer potential and low immune systems. And cancer patietns, the use of pasteurized foods and the use of sterilization and industries are highly recommended.
Regarding this issue, I mention probiotic foods again. If we use industrial products, many of my good microorganisms may be lost as well. These probiotics are sources that can increase your immune system and have great potential in preventing cancer. And I mention this as a part of nutrition.
My next topic regarding the use of multivitamins is whether to use them as a preventative aspect of cancer or not. Look, if you can’t get the ingredients you need from food in the first place, It means that you cannot supply substances such as zinc, protein, various vitamins, calcium, magnesium, and selenium from your own food, in this case, use multivitamins. Please note that If you are not anemic, you do not need to take iron supplements. Because the iron pill itself creates an opportunity to create free radicals in the body, and free radicals have the potential to make our cells cancerous. so, consumming too much of something in order to prevent cancer without awareness can create a basis for cancer itself. So keep that in mind. There’s a lot of talk regarding multivitamins. Those who have the potential of cancer and increase the size of cells in their body, if they want to use L-arginine, they should consume a large amount of multivitamins and vitamins. So consume food according to the needs of the body. Especially multivitamins.
A lot of talks is happening in regards to the subject of food. In the case of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory foods, they can affect the surface of the cell, creating free radicals for cellular health. I’m gonna name some of them. There are nineteen items. which the American Cancer Society promotes as anti-carcinogenic in food items. I’m gonna mention some of them now. One is adequate use of proteins. Like strawberries, blackberries, cherries. These are a series of things that have both anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. In vegetables, this capability is found in broccoli and carrots. In addition to berries, apples can have anti-cancer properties as well. Also spices we normally use in food.
