Episode 157: How Diet Impacts the Risk of Cancer, with Fred Tabung, PhD, and Candice Schreiber, RDN

The foods we eat can reduce or increase the risk of developing cancer over the course of a lifetime, according to Fred Tabung, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine. “Think of food as medicine,” he said, adding that “what you eat should be enjoyable, but we should also eat in a healthy way to reduce the risk of cancer.” In this episode, Tabung joined with Candice Schreiber, RDN, LS, CSO, a James dietician, to discuss the importance of a healthy diet, including what it entails, how and why what we eat impacts the risk of cancer, and tasty ways to eat healthier. “A plant-focused diet is what I encourage people to eat,” Schreiber said. “It doesn’t have to be vegan or vegetarian, the goal is to fill the majority of your plate with fruits and vegetables and whole grains.” In his James lab, Tabung studies “combinations of food and beverages that effect the metabolism, specifically inflammation and the insulin response,” he said, adding that too much inflammation and insulin can increase the risk of cancer. “High levels of insulin [from consuming too much sugar] can tell the cells to divide when they’re not supposed to divide, and this can lead to cells becoming cancerous.” Red meat, processed meats, such as sausage and hot dogs, as well are highly processed foods chock full of preservatives and sugar increase the risk of cancer. “In these highly processed foods, the nutritious parts are removed … the cancer-fighting parts of the foods have been stripped away,” Tabung said. His lab is involved in a new clinical trial in which women with a high risk of developing breast cancer are placed on a diet designed to reduce the risk. “We’re really excited about this,” he said. Tabung and Schreiber provided numerous tips and suggestions on how to eat healthier. For example, when it comes to beverages, unsweetened coffee and tea are metabolically active and provide healthy nutrients, while diet soda “is metabolically active, but not in a good way,” Tabung said. “My pet peeve is that people often think that healthy food doesn’t taste good, but it absolutely does,” Schreiber said.