Healthy Habits - Eat For Your Health, Not Just Weight Loss. How So Much Of The American Diet Is Making Us Sick And Increasing Our Cancer Risk.

 Tips and Tricks from culinary expert, Hackensack Meridian John Theurer Cancer Center Chief Physician and French chef, Dr. Andre Goy

This time of year many people resolve to eat healthier, but for too many people the focus is on weight loss and not improving overall health. This coupled with a reliance on convenience rather than cooking fresh foods at home is believed to be linked to the increased instances of cancers. Many prepared and packaged foods lack key nutrients and have chemical preservatives that can increase the risk of developing cancer.

The connection between a healthy gut microbiome and cancer is an area of active research, and scientists are investigating how the trillions of microorganisms that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract may influence cancer development, progression, and treatment.  

Andre Goy, M.D., Chief Physician of Hackensack Meridian Health’s John Theurer Cancer Center, believes our microbiome–an internal community of trillions of microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract, plays a crucial role in our overall health. From the marriage of his work in cancer prevention and treatment, and his lifelong love of cooking, Dr. Goy believes leveraging the relationship between the human gut microbiome health and cancer prevention is a practice anyone can take on from the comfort of their own kitchen. 

The problem is, not enough Americans are eating at home anymore. A recent Gallup poll found the number of meals Americans eat at home on average hit a historic low in 2022 of 8.2 meals a week. Statistics like this could possibly be the reason behind an increase in colorectal cancers in young adults for example.

“Having worked as a chef in my family’s Inn in the French Alps, it is a great pleasure to combine this into my practice of medicine and oncology,” adds Goy. “Over 50% of cancers are preventable, which should empower people to take action from not smoking and drinking to eating a plant-based diet and exercising. This year, do the right thing for you and your loved ones. It is not a constraint, it is an empowerment.”

Dr. Goy says cooking from home gives us the power to prevent chronic and systemic inflammation through feeding our microbiome, metabolizing nutritious and gut-friendly foods to create an environment within our own bodies that polices and helps to thwart the development of cancer. Eating different foods rich in fiber, probiotics, prebiotics, essential fatty acids, collagen, and anti-inflammatory properties is easier than you think. 

“People need to move to home cooking and more of a plant-based diet,” says Goy. 

To start, add anti-inflammatory foods into your diet including tomatoes, olive oil, green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, kale, and collards, nuts, fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, tuna, and sardines and fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and oranges. Avoid inflammatory foods including refined carbohydrates and red meat. 

It is also important to incorporate more fiber into your diet. Metabolizing of certain dietary fibers by gut bacteria produces short-chain fatty acids, which have been associated with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects.

“The future of medicine will place food and microbiome health at the core of medicine, no doubt about it,” Goy explains.