Macrobiotics and Cancer
By Alex and Gale Jack Over the years, hundreds of individuals have recovered from cancer with the help of a macrobiotic diet and way of life. Scientific and medical studies are beginning to show the efficacy of this approach. The following summarizes some of the studies that have been conducted or are on the horizon. For further information, including many individual accounts, please see The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health or The Cancer Prevention Diet by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack. For personal guidance or advice on preventing or relieving cancer, please contact Alex or Gale Jack.
1. National Cancer Institute Approves Clinical Trials on Macrobiotic Approach. The U.S. government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Cancer Advisory Panel on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAPCAM) held a meeting on February 25, 2002 to review the Macrobiotic Best Case Series and unanimously recommended that research funds be made available for the further study of the macrobiotic approach to cancer, including possibly a prospective study. The recommendation followed completion of a best cases study by the University of Minnesota, which included 77 potential best cases of individuals who recovered from cancer with the help of macrobiotics.1 These included cancers of the prostate (20 cases), breast (12 cases), malignant melanoma (8), lymphoma (8), leukemia (6), astrocytoma (5), colorectal (4), endometrium (3), ovary (3), pancreas (3), kidney (2), liver (1), small cell lung (1), multiple myeloma (1), nose plasmacytoma (1), parotic gland (1), sarcoma (1), and small intestine (1).
In his newsletter on cancer research, Dr. Ralph Moss, a cancer expert and member of the CAPCAM committee, explained:
The members of the panel have displayed an extraordinary degree of expertise in their respective fields. Some are top experts in cancer treatment, diagnostic radiology, tumor pathology and statistics... For the last few years, NCI has been asking alternative practitioners to submit their best cases for evaluation... yet surprisingly few alternative practitioners have taken up this challenge.
At this week’s session, one group did. This was macrobiotics, presented by the Kushi Institute of Becket, Mass. Macrobiotics is more than a diet. It is a philosophical system based on the idea of achieving a balance...
The session brought forth strong testimony that sometimes the adoption of a macrobiotic diet is followed by the dramatic regression of advanced cancers. A nurse told how, in 1995, she was diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread all over her body. She received no effective conventional therapy, and reluctantly went on the macrobiotics diet... What makes this case so extraordinary is that her progress was monitored weekly by a sympathetic physician colleague. The shrinkage, and finally the disappearance, of her tumors was documented millimeter by millimeter! She has now been disease-free for over five years.
After this week’s meeting I could definitely say there is real gold in macrobiotics... What is needed now is a serious clinical study in patients, using all the resources the NIH can muster. The Kushi Institute deserves credit for having taken these first steps toward documenting its methods and results. An influential government panel is at last listening.2
2. Annals of Internal Medicine Study on Alternative Approaches to Cancer.
In a review of current evidence on the efficacy and safety of selected complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies that are commonly used by patients with cancer, researchers at Harvard Medical School, the National Institutes of Health, and other institutions concluded in an article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “Several CAM therapies offer potential benefits for patients with cancer. Others, however, seem to be ineffective, and may present risks for direct adverse effects or interactions with conventional treatments. Therefore, it is important for physicians to communicate openly with patients about CAM use. Current evidence, although limited, suggests that physicians may reasonably accept some CAM therapies as adjuncts to conventional care and discourage others. As more data are gathered, the evidence-based recommendation of some CAM therapies and the evidence-based rejection of others will become more definite.”
Reviewing “the opinions of respected authorities, based on clinical evidence, descriptive studies, or reports of expert committees,” the researchers recommended that “it seems reasonable to accept macrobiotics as an adjunct to conventional treatment” for most types of cancer.3
3. Italian Breast Cancer Study on the Benefits of Macrobiotics.
In a random case control study involving 104 middle-aged women, Italian researchers reported that a macrobiotic diet could substantially reduce hormonal levels associated with higher risk of breast cancer.4 Known as the DIANA (Diet and Androgens) Trial, the study was conducted by the National Tumor Institute in Milan, funded by Cancer Program of the European Union, the Italian Association for Research on Cancer, and the CARLIPO Foundation, and published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a major research journal in the United States.
The post-menopausal women were selected from a pool of volunteers living in the Milan area in north Italy who were at high risk for breast cancer on the basis of their hormonal and metabolic values. Half were assigned to the control group and half to the intervention group that received intensive dietary guidance and counseling and ate together twice a week over 4 1/2 months.
The researchers cited accumulating medical evidence that modern dietary habits, especially foods that contribute to hormonal imbalance, raise the risk of breast cancer, an epidemic disease that will afflict one in every eight women in America and Europe. Among Asian women who regularly consume soy products and other traditional foods, the rates of breast cancer are substantially lower than in Western women. However, the efficacy of dietary changes in reducing the availability of sex hormones in high risk women had not been sufficiently investigated.
The women in the study, aged 50 to 65 years, had testosterone levels that were two-thirds or more higher than average and hence put them at elevated risk for breast cancer. All had been postmenopausal for at least 2 years, had at least one ovary, had not taken hormonal replacement therapy for at least the previous 6 months, and were not diabetic. None of the women was following a vegetarian, macrobiotic, or other medically prescribed diet.
The 52 women in the control group were not given any information about the diet but were advised to increase their consumption of fruit and vegetables according to the cancer prevention guidelines of the Europe against Cancer program, a leaflet available to the general public. The 52 women in the intervention group attended macrobiotic cooking classes twice a week for 18 weeks and were encouraged to cook and eat macrobiotically at home, especially one soy product daily such as miso soup, tofu, or tempeh. Every week, the women received whole grains and other products donated by local natural foods manufacturers. During the first month, the women were advised to make dietary changes gradually, but later no advice was given to reduce total food intake or to count calories.
Prior to the trial, both groups of women received about 37% of calories from fat (mainly meat, dairy, and olive oil) and 42% from carbohydrate (bread and pasta). The intervention group shifted from animal to vegetable sources, reducing their meat consumption from daily to 1-2 times a week, dairy was halved, and butter virtually eliminated. Soy products were consumed on average 1.7 times daily and sea vegetables used every other day in various dishes. Brown rice or other whole grains were consumed 2.5 times per day compared to 0.5 times by controls, and consumption of legumes, cruciferous vegetables, and berries were four to eight times higher. Other vegetables and fruits were consumed about equally by both groups.
Total cholesterol decreased from 240 to 206 mg/dl compared to 230 in the control group. The intervention group lost more weight, 4.06 kg compared to 0.54 kg, and underwent statistically significant improvements in the five major hormonal and metabolic values combined: sex hormone-binding globulin, testosterone, estradiol, fasting insulin, and fasting glycemia. Serum sex hormone-binding globulin levels increased 25.2%, testosterone and estradiol decreased 19.5% and 18% respectively.
“We observed significant and favorable changes in hormonal indicators of breast cancer risk in a group of postmenopausal women living in northern Italy,” the researchers concluded. “These results suggest that the multifactorial dietary intervention applied in this study may prevent breast cancer if continued in the long term.” “Compared with the usual Western microflora, the gut of macrobiotic or vegetarian subjects may be richer in lactobacilli and bifidobacteria,” the scientists further noted.
Compared to previous studies that involved a single factor, the DIANA trial involved a multifactorial approach that produced stronger results. “We suggest that these favorable changes are to be attributed to the cumulative effects of a comprehensive dietary strategy that combines lowered total fat intake, lowered proportion of saturated fatty acids, and lowered consumption of high-glycemic-index foods with increased intake of dietary fibers from cereals, legumes, and vegetables, and a high cumulative dose of diverse phytoestrogens from various food sources.”
4. Study on Macrobiotics by the University of South Carolina.
In a two-year grant sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Disease Prevention, the public health arm of the United States, cancer researchers at the School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, investigated the macrobiotic way of life. In a report “Macrobiotics in the United States: An Assessment of Services and Activities,” Sheldon and Guinat Rice interviewed 124 practitioners in 44 locales. Fifty-one people recounted personal healing stories in which macrobiotic practice reversed a serious health condition. Of these, twenty one were instances of cancer and four more were pre-cancerous cysts. The researchers posted a selection of recovery stories from cancer and other chronic diseases on the Internet along with a list of macrobiotic resources, including educational centers, teachers and counselors, and books and other study materials for the use of the general public.5
5. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas, Houston Scientific Review of Macrobiotics.
Cancer researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston posted a historical overview of macrobiotics as a therapy for cancer patients and the general public on their web site in early 2003. “The macrobiotic diet is part of a way of life that attempts to achieve balance by applying the oriental principles of yin and yang to the selection of foods. Grains and vegetables are considered to be the ideal center of a diet that also includes beans, fish, fowl, fruits, seeds, nuts and condiments. Whole no foods are actually forbidden, some may be limited in a therapeutic context.” The site reviews the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) study that found macrobiotics to be among the most popular unconventional cancer approaches; the study of the macrobiotic approach to pancreatic cancer at Tulane University; a review of the book Cancer Free: 30 Who Triumphed Over Cancer Naturally, including prostate cancer (3 cases), melanoma (6), uterus (3), breast (5), stomach, leukemia, and pancreas (2 each), colon (2), astrocytoma, urethra, lung, brain, thyroid, leukemia (CML), bile duct, Hodgkin’s disease, and ovarian (1 each); a best case series of 6 medically-documented cases: pancreatic metastasized to the liver, malignant melanoma; malignant astrocyoma, endometrial stromal sarcoma; adenocarcinoma of the colon, and abdominal leiomyosarcoma; and other retrospective cohort studies, best case series, and case reports.6 According to one study, 63% of cancer patients who received some form of dietary therapy received or were exposed to the macrobiotic diet.
6. Macrobiotic and Vegetarian Women Are at Less Risk for Breast Cancer.
Researchers at New England Medical Center in Boston reported that macrobiotic and vegetarian women process estrogen more efficiently than women eating the modern diet and eliminate it more quickly from their bodies. The study involved 45 pre- and postmenopausal women, about half of whom were macrobiotic and vegetarian and half eating in a conventional way. The women took in about the same number of calories. But the macrobiotic and vegetarian women consumed only one third as much animal protein and fat, and yet excreted two to three times as much estrogen. “The difference in estrogen metabolism may explain the lower incidence of breast cancer in [macrobiotic] and vegetarian women,” the study concluded.
Source: B. R. Goldin et al., “Effect of Diet on Excretion of Estrogens in Pre- and Postmenopausal Incidence of Breast Cancer in Vegetarian Women,” Cancer Research 41:3771-73, 1981.
7. Sea Vegetables Can Reduce the Risk of Induced Breast Cancer in Laboratory Animals.
In experiments at Harvard School of Public Health, researchers reported that kombu resulted in delayed onset of tumors, less tumors, slower spread, and longer life span. The study grew out of population studies showing that Japanese women had nine times less breast cancer than American women, and the scientists theorized that sea vegetables in their diet might be a protective factor. They concluded that it would be prudent for American women immediately to begin incorporating sea vegetables into their daily diets.
Source: J. Teas et al., “Dietary Seaweed [Laminaria] and Mammary Carcinogenesis in Rats,” Cancer Research 44:2758-61, 1984.
8. Miso Protects Against Stomach Cancer.
In a study of 265,000 men and women over forty, Japan’s National Cancer Center reported that those who ate miso soup daily were 33 percent less likely to contract stomach cancer and 10 percent less likely to develop cancer at other sites compared to those who never ate miso soup.
Source: T. Hirayama, “Relationship of Soybean Paste Soup Intake to Gastric Cancer Risk,” Nutrition and Cancer 3:223-33, 1981.
9. A Diet High in Soy Products, Especially Miso Soup, Protects Against Cancer.
German researchers at the Children’s University Hospital in Heidelberg reported that genistein, the active ingredient in the soy foods, retarded the multiplication of cancer cells and choked off the small blood vessels that feed tumors. The scientists concluded that a soy-rich diet could help prevent and relieve solid tumors, including those of the brain, breast, and prostate.
Source: “Chemists Learn Why Vegetables Are Good for You,” New York Times, April 13, 1993.
In laboratory studies, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported that miso, natto, shoyu, and other traditionally fermented soybean foods could reduce or offset the effects of induced breast cancer. “Organic compounds found in fermented soybean-based foods may exert a chemoprotective effect,” the scientists concluded.
Source: J. E. Baggott et al., “Effect of Miso (Japanese Soybean Paste) and NaCl on DMBA-Induced Rat Mammary Tumors,” Nutrition and Cancer 14:103-09, 1990.
10. Macrobiotics Benefits Pancreatic Patients.
Survival rates among pancreatic cancer patients who followed a macrobiotic diet were significantly higher than usual patients. Tulane University researchers reported that the 1-year survival rate for the macrobiotic patients was 52 percent versus 9.7 percent for controls, while overall life expectancy was nearly three times longer on average among those who changed their diet. A case control study of men with metastatic prostate cancer found that those who ate macrobiotically lived on average 177 months and enjoyed an improved quality of life compared to controls who lived 91 months. “This exploratory analysis suggests that a strict macrobiotic diet is more likely to be effective in the long-term management of cancer than are diets that provide a variety of other foods,” the study concluded.
Source: James P. Carter et al., “Hypothesis: Dietary management May Improve Survival from Nutritionally Linked Cancers Based on Analysis of Representative Cases,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 12:209-226, 1993.
11. Whole Grains Protect Against Cancer.
Whole grain consumption lowers the risk of cancer, according to European scientists. In a review of case control studies in Italy between 1983 and 1996 involving 15,000 people, researcher found that high intake of whole grain foods protected again cancers of the oral cavity, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, breast, endometrium, ovary, prostate, bladder, kidney, lymphatic system, and multiple myelomas. Reduced risk ranged from 10 to 80 percent depending on the type of malignancy. The researchers noted that the benefits were observed only with whole grains and their products, not refined grains. Refined bread, pasta, and rice, they stated, are associated with increased risk of stomach and colorectal cancer.
Source: L. Chatenoud et al., “Whole Grain Food Intake and Cancer Risk,” International Journal of Cancer 77(1):24-28, 1998.
1. “Macrobiotic Approach to Cancer,” grant number R21RR09472, by the Office of Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 1993-1997 to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and the Kushi Institute, Lawrence H. Kushi, principal investigator. For further information, see www.nccam.nih.gov/nccam/research/grants/rfb/grant-l/html
2. Ralph Moss, Ph.D., “The Olive Branch Bears Fruit,” The Moss Reports, February 27, 2002. www.cancerdecisions.com/022702.html
3. Wendy A. Weiger, M.D. et al., “Advising patients Who Seek Complementary and Alternative Medical Therpaies for Cancer,” Annals of Internal Medicine 137:11, 2002.
4. Franco Berrino et al., “Reducing Bioavailable Sex Hormones through a Comprehensive Change in Diet: the Diet and Androgens (DIANA) Randomized Trial,” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention 10: 25-33, January 2001.
5. “Macrobiotic Research Project,” Jane Teas, Ph.D., principal investigator; Joan Cunningham, Ph.D., co-principal investigator, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control, October 2000 to September 2002, University of South Carolina, Prevention Research Center, School of Public Health, Charleston, S.C. www.macrobiotics.sph.sc.edu/project.htm
6. “Nutrition and Special Diet: Macrobiotics,” M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas, www.mdanderson.org/departments/cimer.
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