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Cancer
Can your diet protect against cancer?
- By Matthew Solan, Executive Editor, Harvard Men's Health Watch
Yes, but it’s not clear which specific foods are most important.
Evidence has increasingly shown that following a plant-based eating pattern, such as a vegetarian, vegan, Mediterranean, or DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, helps manage cholesterol and lower the risk for heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death in America. These diets emphasize fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and low-fat dairy products, with no (or minimal) red meat, processed foods, and alcohol.
But what about cancer, the No. 2 cause of death? Can this dietary approach also protect you from cancer, or even slow its progression?
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A Guide to Healthy Eating: Strategies, tips, and recipes to help you make better food choices
Eat real food. That’s the essence of today’s nutrition message. Our knowledge of nutrition has come full circle, back to eating food that is as close as possible to the way nature made it. Based on a solid foundation of current nutrition science, Harvard’s Special Health Report A Guide to Healthy Eating: Strategies, tips, and recipes to help you make better food choices describes how to eat for optimum health.
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