10 Cancer Fighting Foods

Are you eating simply to lose weight, or you're eating to rebuild the terrain that cancer hates? There's a difference there. Now, weight loss is not just about vanity or a number on a scale. The deeper goal is a biological transformation. We want to help the body become metabolically flexible, reduce the toxic visceral belly fat that has inflammation that feeds cancer and insulin resistance, lower systemic inflammation and improve insulin sensitivity, and feed a healthy gut-resilient microbiome. Ultimately, the objective is give the immune system the exact nutrients it needs to recognize and eliminate abnormal cancer cells. Things like visceral fat, it's not just stored energy, it acts like an active endocrine tissue that drives inflammation that can lead to cancer growth or spread, even if you have cancer or you're in remission. And so we want to remove that. I'm Dr. Dino Prato, founder of Invita Medical Centers. For the last 25 years, my team and I have helped thousands of cancer patients that have failed the top cancer hospitals across the country, and we did it with precision targeting, testing, custom-built immunotherapy, and it's made a big difference. In this episode, I'm going to talk about the foods we should consume that can help us with the nutrient density of the body, with nutrients, and help us to fight visceral fat and help us to be healthier overall and hydrate even during cancer treatment. Make sure you're working with a doctor before you change anything, and let's get started. Consuming foods that are high in water, fiber, and phytochemicals are actually important, but they also tend to be low in calorie density. So we still need our high nutrient-dense foods like grass-fed beef that are organic, our wild cod fish, and etc. These are really, really important in our organic fruits and vegetables. But when we eat these fruits and vegetables that are high in water, they stretch our stomach receptors. And so for a lot of patients that are trying to lose weight, we can almost get almost like a natural GLP-1 that trigger satiety. A 2022 systemic review of meta-analysis confirmed that lowering the energy density of food is associated with a larger sustainable reduction in daily energy intake without starvation. So we're eating foods that are loaded in nutrients, water, electrolytes, and minerals, and these are going to help us stay full longer, and then we're going to eat our proteins, and that helps us to lose weight. Now, these are for people that are trying to lose weight and belly fat in particular and prevent cancer. That plays a huge role. So I'm going to go right into the 10 metabolic foods that do this. Number 1 is watermelon. Despite the myth that watermelon contains too much sugar, it features a unique metabolic paradox. Its glycemic density is low, meaning there isn't a lot of sugar compared to the water and fiber. This makes it an exceptional high-volume food. So as you— it makes you feel full and it deals with overnight cravings for people that are eating processed foods. It's loaded with lycopene and citrulline and polyphenols. Lycopene is a carotenoid widely studied in humans and animals for its anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory pathways. It contains L-citrulline, which supports atrial health, regulates nitric oxide pathways, relaxes blood vessels, and improves circulation, optimizing immune cells and immune transport throughout the body. That's huge. Food number 2, which is in the family of watermelon, cucumbers. They are ultimately low low-calorie, high-volume foods. They are crunchy, they require your chewing, they give your brain the idea that you're getting full and they're registering fullness. But cucumbers belong to a family that have important biochemical compounds. In preclinical research, these compounds have been studied for their ability to influence apoptosis, get rid of cancer cells, program cell death, inhibit cancer cell proliferation and growth. And so here's a strategy: you slice these with the watermelon in the morning, throughout the day, and whenever you need snacks or something, you use these. But when you go to eat your meals, you're eating the high-quality proteins, your grass-fed beefs and your wild-caught fish and all those nutrient-dense foods, which you can check my other episodes for. And you combine these so it helps you feel full and you're not eating garbage throughout the day, and you've got the fiber and the hydration. It's far better than other processed electrolytes. Food number 3: celery. Far from being a boring food, celery is a powerhouse of phytotherapy. It satisfies the nervous system and it helps with cortisol and cravings. Celery is a primary source apigenin, which has been known as a powerful flavonoid against cancer. A review in Cell and Bioscience highlights apigenin's anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-cancer activities. So imagine you have the celery out, you have some watermelon, cucumber, you can put a wild-caught salmon and a little healthy mayonnaise. You see, this is the combination of these things that you can grab as snacks and get rid of all these processed products. And it's fantastic for the kids and the entire family because it hydrates and gives nutrients and removes the processed food and the binging, which is So powerful to your healing. Food number 4, arugula. One of my favorites. I almost eat it every day. While spinach and lettuce are great, arugula offers a peppery, bitter phytochemical punch. Now you can eat the other vegetables if your body can handle, but arugula is very powerful. The bitter flavor profile is intentional. It stimulates digestive enzymes to help deliver and encourages slower and more mindful eating. And arugula is a cruciferous vegetable, like in the family of broccoli and cauliflower. But arugula is very powerful. National Cancer Institute notes that cruciferous greens contain important chemicals that break down during digestion. And these chemicals have been studied to help inactivate carcinogens that cause cancer. Put a bed of arugula underneath anything you're eating, whether it's your eggs, your chicken, your wild-caught salmon, and there you have more volume in your food and high nutrients and immune-supporting signaling. Food number 5: eggs and egg whites. Very powerful proteins. We need almost 1 gram of protein for every pound of body fat, or close to it. And so we need high-quality protein to help our muscles. And one way to do with eggs. Muscles are very important. They're an important primary glucose sink, if you will. They take all the glucose in so it's not sitting around the body. It drives the insulin sensitivity down, and it provides a vital amino acid reserve for the immune system and detoxification pathways required for health. So get your eggs. Eggs are one of the best breakfasts in the morning. Dietary protein is a fundamental driver of satiety, tissue repair, hormone balance. So you want to get these in the foods, and this is going to help with your blood sugar, visceral fat, insulin. And eggs have choline. I also like to take additional phosphatidylcholine, about 3,000 milligrams a day, because these work. But the egg whites are powerful. You can have them with sautéed fruits, vegetables, and that makes it a very powerful food. Zucchini. Now, zucchini is important for those of us who love pasta. It's a way for us to have more like a pasta without having to make pasta. We can get a spiralator that is sold online, very inexpensive on Amazon, run our organic zucchini through, and now we have a noodle that we created from a vegetable. And we can add our lycopene from our organic tomatoes, dress it up, and of course give a little olive oil, salt and pepper, whatever you oregano, and you now have developed a healthy salad because it's not really pasta, but it's like pasta with much lower glycemic impact. But it's filling because the food has water and fiber, and that goes into the gut microbiome. And we see this with cucumber, zucchini— so important. And we're using things like our watermelon for our dessert. So this is important. This helps us keep our blood sugar down, lose the excess fat if we're overweight, and visceral fat, so that we can prevent heart attacks and heart disease and diabetes and cancers. So I like this idea because it moves us into just making these simple changes and bringing in some of these foods so that it can really help us. Another food is like a psyllium husk. A 2023 meta-analysis found that taking psyllium before meals was significantly associated with a reduction in body weight. And there we don't even need a GLP-1 inhibitor to help with BMI. And it helped particularly those that were overweight. Now, psyllium is soluble and gel-forming, and it can make you feel full. You have to be very careful when you use this. Mix it with water and then drink a whole nother glass of water behind it and start with little doses and build up. But psyllium husk can be really great for people who get hungry all the time at night, or they just need need more fiber in the diet and they can start slow and build that up. Food number 8, fermented foods. And here, fermented pickles, organic. You can make them yourself, you can purchase them. Fermented foods introduce a beneficial live microbiome— sauerkraut, kimchi. This helps your gut microbiome diversity and directly help regulate your systemic immunity and signaling. So this plays a big role in your health. Use one or more of these fermented vegetables throughout the day with all your meals. It's so important. They're crunchy, they have good flavor, and they help with signaling in the gut microbiome. Food number 9 would be things like berries. Blueberries are very powerful. They have strong polyphenols, resveratrol. Some raspberries, some people are sensitive to oxalates, so you may want to not go crazy on those. But berries are very good. They're also loaded with polyphenols, nutrients, as I mentioned, and they're going to help you. They have anthocyanidins. These are anti-cancer properties in these foods, and they're good for the gut microbiome, great in quenching oxidative stress and free radicals. And you want to keep these. Now, one tip here is you can get them organic because they can go bad sometimes when you buy them. So you buy the frozen organic and then just quickly add them to whatever you're doing., and sometimes they're good to eat as a dessert frozen as they are. Low glycemic, high nutrient, high ability to help with polyphenols in the diet and help you. Now, number 10, which I already mentioned, but I'm gonna add it again, cruciferous vegetables. Going beyond arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale. But I particularly like the Brussels sprouts and the broccoli here. And I'll tell you why, because they're very important. You've seen it before. They have sulforaphanes, which are very powerful for cancer. And you can add these into the diet. These sulforaphanes in a 2026 study were premier chemo preventative positive agents, upregulating their two antioxidant pathways, assisting in cellular detox, apoptosis, the dying off of cancer cells and old cells in the body. And they were important in the epigenetic process. So you're now bringing health to the body, and it's easy because you're chewing. It also makes you feel full when you're eating broccoli. And add a little extra virgin olive oil, some fresh garlic, you know, you're starting to see the picture. These are the things you want to put into your diet. So you can look at these 10 powerful foods, and then you've got a master plate strategy for fighting cancer and helping yourself be healthy. So let me break down how you want to eat these on your plate. If you're having a meal, you eat half of the protein, then half of the plant fiber vegetable, and then the starch, and then you can finish the meal. Before you start the meal, you drink green tea or yerba mate or water, wait about 10 to 20 minutes, then eat. And see, you're already fuller. And these are for the people that want to lose weight and prevent cancer. And then after your meals, you want to walk, and you maybe want to walk 3 minutes slow and then speed it up for 3 minutes and alternate till you go about 30 minutes. And now you're changing the world for your body. And of course, make sure these are foods your body can digest. You don't have to follow this religiously. These are just giving ideas of a way to think about eating and incorporating healthier foods. And this is important for cancer patients. Make sure you're getting nutrient-dense foods. If you start eating too many of these foods that are full of water, and let's say you don't have much of an appetite, that's not a good place to start. You actually need more nutrient-dense foods. Sometimes you may need healthy protein shakes that are organic, high-quality proteins that your body can digest to give you a good caloric intake. But for patients that are overweight or have belly fat or want to lose weight or just look good and be healthy, this program works really well because it makes you feel full, gives you energy, and it allows you to bring your health to the next level. Now I'm going to end with a little bonus section: 5 crucial questions for your next oncology appointment. If you're a cancer patient, these are the questions you would ask your doctor. Number 1, metabolic health. What does my fasting insulin look like? What's my A1C hemoglobin, my triglycerides, liver enzymes, fructosamine? What are those numbers? Look at those. I mean, those are usually not run that often on cancer patients. You should run those. Those are your metabolic health. Fix those numbers. Have you done an immune profile on me? Do you know my full immune system and spatial biology? That's critically important. And inflammatory Maybe all they can run is C-reactive protein, but that's a good place to start. And there are other inflammatory markers in a more expanded panel you can run looking at cytokines for cancer patients. Gut function. Did you look at my gut microbiome and my terrain? Can we improve on that? See, these are the things that functional medicine naturopathic doctors do all the time, and it plays a big role to health. What does my muscle mass look like? Am I wasting? Do I need to improve on it? What can I do to protect the cachexia or the sarcopenia occurring in my muscles, depending on where you're at? And can we add these things to my personalized treatment plan so that I can get these things all working in my favor so my body can be stronger and heal. That's the questions you want to ask. And if your doctor says, we don't do that, find a different doctor or add a doctor to your program so that you can reclaim your health and move yourself to a far better quality of life. If you liked this episode on 10 powerful foods you can use to help you lose weight and feel better, you may want to watch this other episode I did on cancer-linked visceral fat. And I think you'll find that it shows you how much this visceral fat impacts cancer and why we need to get rid of it and get our metabolic flexibility back in order. I hope you found this episode helpful, and may the Lord bless you on your journey to healing.