How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

So how does curcumin affect this process? It appears to have the ability to reprogram the self-destruct mechanism back into cancer cells. All cells contain so-called death receptors that trigger the self-destruction sequence, but cancer cells can disable their own death receptors. Curcumin, however, appears able to reactivate them.17 Curcumin can a

Researchers rounded up a group of longtime smokers and asked them to consume twenty-five times more broccoli than the average American—in other words, a single stalk a day. Compared to broccoli-avoiding smokers, the broccoli-eating smokers suffered 41 percent fewer DNA mutations in their bloodstream over ten days. Is that just because the broccoli

With more speaking requests than I could accept, I started putting all my annual research findings into a DVD series, Latest in Clinical Nutrition. It’s hard to believe I’m almost up to volume 30. Every penny I receive from those DVDs, then and now, goes directly to charity, as does the money from my speaking engagements and book sales, including t

When meat is grilled, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are also produced, one of the probable carcinogens in cigarette smoke. The researchers discovered that not only was the ingestion of grilled meat in the third trimester associated with smaller birth weights, mothers merely exposed to the fumes tended to give birth to babies with a birth

Cancer risk may also depend on what’s being fried. A study of women in China found that smokers who stir-fried meat every day had nearly three times the odds of lung cancer compared to smokers who stir-fried foods other than meat on a daily basis.25 This is thought to be because of a group of carcinogens called heterocyclic amines that are formed w

Five years later, their telomeres were even longer on average than when they started, suggesting a healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular

But when the smokers were given turmeric, the DNA-mutation rate dropped by up to 38 percent.15 They weren’t given curcumin pills; they merely got less than a teaspoon a day of just the regular turmeric spice you’d find at the grocery store. Of course, turmeric can’t completely mitigate the effects of smoking. Even after the participants ate turmeri

as the fumes from pan-fried fish have been found to contain high levels of PAHs capable of damaging the DNA of human lung cells.29 Given the excess cancer risk, the researchers concluded that it wouldn’t be safe to live near the exhaust of a Chinese restaurant for more than a day or two a month.30

On the other hand, a twin pair of studies from Columbia and Harvard Universities found that consumption of cured meat—like bacon, bologna, ham, hot dogs, sausage, and salami—may increase the risk of COPD.38,39 It’s thought to be due to the nitrite preservatives in meat, which may mimic the lung-damaging properties of the nitrite by-products of ciga