The Cancer Advisor

Natural killer (NK) cells, a specific type of white blood cell, are an important component of your innate immune system. Your immune system consists of two different branches — cell-mediated immunity (innate) and humoral immunity (adaptive). When you contract a viral disease, the pathogen enters your body and infects your cells. NK cell for cancer immunotherapy The subsequent disease process involves your cell-mediated immune response, which activates your NK cells, along with chemicals that attract them to the site of infection, where the white blood cells basically chew up and spit out the infected cells. This process clears the virus and rejuvenates the gel-like water inside your cells. During recovery, your humoral immune system kicks in and starts generating antibodies against the virus to help prevent the same kind of disease process and symptoms from occurring again, should you be exposed to the same virus later on. As long as your cell-mediated immune system i...

Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods may be linked to an increased risk of developing and dying from   cancer , according to a new study based upon the health records of nearly 200,000 people in the United Kingdom. In the study, published online in  eClinicalMedicine  (2023), scientists defines ultra-processed foods (UPFs) as products made by assembling industrially-derived food substances and additives through extensive industrial processes. Most soft drinks, mass-produced packaged breads, breakfast cereals, sweet packaged snacks, and ready-to-eat meals fall under this category. “UPFs contain little or no whole foods and are often energy dense, high in salt, sugar and fat, low in fibre, and liable to overconsumption,” the scientists note. “They are aggressively marketed with strong brands to promote consumption and are gradually displacing traditional dietary patterns based on fresh and minimally processed foods.” Looking at data from UK Biobank, a biomedical data...

Did you know that you can test the healing properties of foods in the same ways in which you test pharmaceutical drugs? It’s true. You can make decisions about what to eat and drink based on scientific evidence gleaned from testing foods with the same systems and methods that have been used to develop certain drug therapies. And the data generated when we study food like medicine clearly show that food can influence our health in beneficial ways. That is why I decided to write my book, Eat to Beat Disease . It examines many of the data-driven ways in which we can use certain foods to combat and prevent illness. But one common factor that many people have a challenging time addressing is how much of a certain food they should eat to achieve optimal health. So, let’s talk about food doses! One key element of the “ food as medicine ” movement is the idea that there are certain doses of food that have been shown to thwart illness. When I say you can eat to beat disease, this is precisely w...