Stanford-trained gastroenterologist Dr. Saurabh Sethi highlights three top anti-cancer foods—broccoli, garlic, and carrots—and emphasizes the importance of lifestyle modifications like regular exercise, healthy diet, and avoiding processed foods to reduce cancer risk.
While there is no known cure for cancer, making simple lifestyle changes such as improving diet can help reduce the risk of developing cancer. Limiting sugary foods, highly processed foods, fast foods, red meat, alcohol, and fat is a good start for maintaining good health. Incorporating foods like beans, cruciferous vegetables, carrots, olive oil, berries, and tomatoes, which are known for their anti-cancer properties, can also be advantageous. These foods have been associated with a reduced risk of certain cancers and contain compounds that have cancer-fighting properties, such as fiber, carotenoids, phytochemicals, and lycopene.
Eating foods containing natural compounds can help prevent cancer. Berries, broccoli, apples, tomatoes, and turmeric are some of the best anti-cancer foods containing powerful antioxidants, vitamins, and key nutrients. Berries are high in anthocyanins, plant pigments that have antioxidant properties and may be associated with a reduced risk of cancer. Broccoli contains sulforaphane, a plant compound found in cruciferous vegetables that may have potent anticancer properties. Tomatoes have anti-cancer properties, thanks to glycoalkaloids, which are naturally-occurring compounds found in the fruit. Turmeric contains curcumin extracts which help alleviate the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.