Our diets can save us. (part 1)

The Ketogenic Diet

All cells, including cancer cells, are fueled by glucose. But if you deprive them of glucose, they switch to the alternate fuel, ketone bodies.  Except cancer cells. A defect prevents them from making the switch to using ketone bodies as fuel and therefore, cancer cells can only survive on glucose. All other cells can use either glucose or ketone bodies.

"Your normal cells have the metabolic flexibility to adapt from using glucose to using ketone bodies. But cancer cells lack this metabolic flexibility. So we can exploit that," Dr. D'Agostino explained.

People like Hatfield, who want to deprive their cells of glucose and fuel them with ketone bodies instead, eat what's known as a ketogenic diet. It consists of almost zero carbohydrates, but lots of natural proteins and fats.

Gloria said the food on the ketogenic diet is in every grocery store and is pretty easy to prepare.

"You can go online and there's cook books," she said, "It's clean eating. Just very clean eating, none of the sugars, the salts, the trash food."

"Natural" proteins are ones that are in their original form. On the other hand, "processed" meats, like cold cuts and hot dogs, are off-limits because often carbohydrates have been added to them.

Similarly, "natural" fats are whole foods, like olive oil, avocados, and nuts. Stay away from "trans" fats, such as shortening or margarine, any oil that is hydrogenated. Trans fats are man-made.

Safe & Healthy

Sometimes people are afraid to try the ketogenic diet because they think eating fat like this is bad for your heart. But more doctors say as long as it's natural, fat is good for you, even saturated fat like coconut oil and butter.

"Is cholesterol the major cause of heart disease?" cardiologist Dr. Stephen Sinatra asked. "Absolutely not."

In his book, The Great Cholesterol Myth, Dr. Sinatra said the real cause of heart disease is inflammation, which comes from eating too many carbohydrates.(sugar)

"We need to coach our patients and empower our patients about the dangers of sugar," he said. "Unfortunately, they're not hearing that. They're hearing the converse, the dangers of fat. Fat is healthy for you, as long as you avoid trans fats."

So by cutting back on carbohydrates and eating natural fats and proteins, you could improve your heart health and even wipe out cancer.

The above information can also be found on the CBN show.