Nutrition can turn cancer on and off

Rat (Flickr / Photo by asplosh)

It is a radical notion in the medical community, but research has concluded that something as simple as nutrition can turn off the growth of cancer and turn it back on again.

This is the message of T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Columbia University. Speaking to the 2009 class of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York on July 12, 2009, Dr. Campbell referred to nutrition as “a hidden secret whose time has come.”

Raised on a dairy farm, Dr. Campbell started his research career looking for ways to promote more efficient production of animal protein. After 53 years of research, teaching and influencing public policy, he says that the empirical data now available has led him to not only change his own eating habits, but to question how medical research is conducted, how medicine is practiced and how we create public policy.

The evidence of the link between cancer and nutrition is not new but it is also not widely known.  Dr. Campbell first observed the link in his own research in the Philippines, studying malnutrition and liver cancer. He observed that liver cancer was more common among families who consumed more protein. This was directly contrary to what he expected to find.

At around the same time, Dr. Campbell became aware of a study in India which was consistent with his observations in the Philippines. The 1968 Indian study hypothesized that rats exposed to a strong carcinogen would develop cancer if they did not get enough protein in their diets. The results, however, proved the opposite. All of the rats who were fed a diet with 20% of their calories from protein developed cancers. None of the rats whose protein was limited to 5% of calories developed cancerous tumors.

These early studies suggested to Dr. Campbell that more protein in the diet correlated to more cancer.

Dozens of animal studies were then conducted showing that in early cancers, the rate of tumor growth was faster over a 12 week period with a 20% protein diet. Other studies proved that over the average lifetime of the rats (about 100 weeks), all of the animals on a 20% protein diet were dead prior to 100 weeks but all of the animals on a 5% protein diet were alive at 100 weeks.

Most convincing were studies which showed that cancer growth could be turned on by feeding rats a 20% protein diet for 3 weeks, turned off by changing their diet to 5% the following 3 weeks, and turned back on by again increasing protein to 20% of calories the following 3 weeks. 

Turning cancer on and off with protein?  Is it that simple?  In subsequent articles, we’ll examine the human studies supporting Dr. Campbell’s findings, as well as the type of protein he studied and what it means for your health.