#71 The Cancer Series (1 of 3). What to eat for Cancer with Professor Robert Thomas
30th Sep 2020
In today’s podcast we talk about everything to do with the “emperor of all maladies”, the big C.
Myself and Professor Robert have met on a couple of occasions at conferences geared toward healthy lifestyle and cancer, and I could not think of a more educated and enthusiastic person to have on the podcast who is up to date with the evidence and continues to wave the flag for lifestyle medicine and oncology.
Professor Robert Thomas is a Consultant Oncologist at Bedford and Addenbrooke’s Hospitals, a clinical teacher at Cambridge University and visiting Professor of Sports and nutritional science at the University of Bedfordshire. He is lead of a Lifestyle and Cancer Research Unit conducting designing and conducting government backed studies evaluating the impact of exercise, diet and natural therapies.
More recently, he led the analysis of the 155,000 patient data set (PLCO) which has linked sugar with an increased cancer and tea and broccoli with cancer prevention. In 2019, he wrote the book “Keep Healthy after Cancer”, and remains medical advisor for the lifestyle and cancer website Cancernet.co.uk.
We frame our conversation into 3 distinct areas to avoid confusion. What to eat to prevent cancer, during cancer and post cancer with the aim of reducing risk and improving outcomes. As cancer is an extremely broad field and confusing for even medical professionals to understand it’s biology, I want to remind listeners and viewers that this is general information and not to be taken as medical advice.
In today’s pod we talk about
- What Cancer is
- The balance of genetic vs acquired cancer and the influence of lifestyle on risk
- The general principles of how to avoid cancer
- What foods to eat
- How food exerts a positive impact on cancer risk
- How we investigate the anti-cancer impact of food
- Gut health and cancer
- The Warburg effect
- The implication of excess sugar on cancer risk
- What to eat during cancer
- The potential for ‘prehab’ initiatives
- Vitamin D, Polyphenol and Probiotic supplements, Vitamin Supplements
- Post Cancer lifestyle regimens to reduce the risk of recurrence
- What an anti-cancer diet looks like
- The Future of Oncology: Individualised medicine, Immunotherapy and Metabolic Oncology
Episode guests
Professor Robert Thomas is a NHS Consultant Oncologist at Addenbrooke's and Bedford and Hospitals. He is also a Clinical Teacher at Cambridge University, the health journalist for National World News, a colomist for the DailyMail, a Professor of Sports and Nutritional science at the University of Bedfordshire and author of the bestselling book "How to Live"
He was recently appointed Head of Integrative Oncology at The Royal London Hospital for Integrative Medicine, where he advices self care, lifestyle, complementary and nutritional strategies which aim to help well being and improve outcomes.
At Cambridge and Bedford, he manages patients with chemotherapy, hormonal, radiotherapy and biological treatments. He also leads a Lifestyle and Cancer Research Unit which designs university approved scientific national studies that evaluate the impact of exercise, diet, gut health and natural therapies on cancer, long covid, other chronic diseases and exercise performance. He is currently chief investigator of the national covid vaccine nutritional intervention study and the UK YourPhyto study which was the World's first clinical evaluation to show that an intervention to improve gut health (Yourgutplus) combined with a phytochemical rich supplement (Yourphyto) slowed prostate cancer progression, improved urinary symptoms, reduced markers of inflammation and improved overall strength. His over 100 peer viewed scientific papers and presentations published from this research, can be accessed on cancernet.co.uk/rthomas.htm.
For this work, he has been awarded the Royal College of Radiologist and Oncologist research medal, an honorary Fellowship at the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine, and "Oncologist of the Year" by The British Oncology Association.
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