How to support health and recovery
It won’t be unusual as a specialist juice therapist or wellness coach if your path crosses with a person who has cancer. This disease pushes individuals to reassess and alter their diet, daily habits, and lifestyle.
Whether they are recovering from surgery or undergoing radiation, chemotherapy, or any other kind of treatment, they often seek alternative forms of help to support their therapy.
Juicing for cancer is an indispensable part of treatment protocols in both conventional and alternative treatment programs across the nation. This is often because a diverse range of professionals recognize the advantages of life-enhancing and health-supporting benefits of juicing for the patient with cancer.
Why Should Cancer Patients Juice?
There are going to be days when the person experiencing cancer doesn’t feel like eating anything. Whether it’s from chemotherapy-induced nausea, stress, ulcerations in the mouth, or reactive depression – food is just not high on the agenda. Treatment can also change the way food tastes – often for the worst.
Most cancer treatments are more effective when the body has enough nutrients to support health. Juicing will help them rebuild healthy cells and tissues. It can give them strength and boost their immune system to help fight infection through the power of antioxidants that are packed into the juices.
Juicing for cancer offers numerous life-enhancing benefits and is a more efficient way to absorb nutrients, vitamins, and enzymes needed for holistic health and wellbeing. Juicing doesn’t require a large amount of energy to digest, reserving the body’s energy for healing.
Juicing helps the body become more alkaline, which research shows are beneficial in decreasing cancer cells’ proliferation. It also helps in hydration and lowering inflammation, which is present in all cancer patients.
Various vegetables and fruits have the added bonus of having a cleansing action on the liver and releasing bile. Others are potent detoxifiers helping to eliminate toxins from the body.
What to keep in mind when Helping a Cancer Patient?
It’s important to remind any person going through immune-suppressing treatment or have high inflammation levels in their body to decrease their risk of food contamination. This risk can be minimized by making sure the vegetables and fruits are thoroughly cleansed.
You should also make it clear to your customer that there is such a thing as overuse of juicing. It can result in diarrhea, something they will also be prone to if they are on chemotherapy.
As with all dietary changes, it’s essential to have your customer inform their doctor before making any significant changes. Juicing for cancer should also not be used in place of professional medical care. Even if a patient chooses not to undergo conventional treatment, they should be regularly monitored by a health care provider of their choosing. If they are concerned about the over-medicalization of their treatment, suggest seeking out an integrative health professional that comes from a place of client-centered care.
The best Vegetables and Fruits to Incorporate
It is widely believed that juicing is one of the best ways to counteract chronic illnesses. Juicing for cancer offers plenty of essential micronutrients and vitamins to inhibit, destroy, and eliminate dangerous cancer cells.
To make a great juice combination, you have to think about two things—palatability and health-supporting elements. You may design a juice full of cancer-killing nutrients, but the mix needs to be palatable. They are already fighting a desire not to consume anything.
What are some of the best cancer-fighting juices to support your customer? We’ll start with the vegetables and then move on to the sweeteners.
Kale
The king of the cruciferous vegetables. These vegetables contain elevated levels of carotenoids that help alleviate the inflammatory impacts of cancer. Kale is packed with minerals and vitamins such as Vit C that display anti-cancer properties. Animal studies have proven that kale prevents various forms of cancer and has powerful antioxidant properties to prevent tumor formation.
Spinach
Spinach helps reverse the side-effects of pollutants roaming through the body caused by cooked meat consumption. It also helps promote normal immune function that is hindered by an unhealthy lifestyle and diet.
Broccoli
This little vegetable reduces the possibility of developing numerous types of cancers. It also keeps you living in good condition, which is essential in protecting and eliminating toxins from your body. Broccoli is full of sulforaphane, which is a compound that is excellent at combating cancer cells.
Cucumber
Cucumbers have highly effective anti-tumor characteristics. They also contain numerous antioxidants. This all helps to prohibit cancer cells from metastasizing (spreading).
Coconut
Coconut is packed with healthy nutrients that trigger the immune system to fight infections and other chronic diseases. It is also known to inhibit inflammatory growth, restricting the formation of malignant cancer cells.
Ginger
Gingerol is the crucial active compound present in ginger and contributes to its powerful preventative and therapeutic powers. It has a distinct flavor that has been used for centuries as an antiemetic (anti-nausea). Those who have undergone chemotherapy know the restorative powers of ginger on their gut and their life when used for this purpose. Ginger also has micronutrients to protect healthy tissue from cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Grapes
Grapes contain large amounts of resveratrol, a compound of polyphenols (micronutrients that prevent degenerative diseases). It’s suggested that resveratrol is associated with inhibiting cancer cell growth and progression. It can also slow down inflammation and oxidative stress linked with cancer development.
Mangoes
These are a powerhouse of antioxidants. They play an essential role in hindering and inhibiting cancer cell growth. The compounds in this fruit also help suppress inflammation in cells, which reduces cancer activity.
Blueberries
It’s no secret that blueberries contain potent antioxidants that prohibit cancer development and promote gut health. In animal studies, blueberries have been shown to destroy specific cancer driven genes and proinflammatory markers. It also plays a role in lowering low-density lipoproteins, leading to many chronic diseases.
Grapefruit
Grapefruit has been widely claimed to offer countless health advantages. One of them is combating cancer. It contains loads of Vitamin C, a well-known antioxidant that impedes nitrogen compounds’ progress that leads to cancer. Grapefruit also contains a flavonoid – naringenin – known to promote DNA repair. This is essential as the body can actively seek out and kill cancer cells.
Other cancer-fighting fruits include pineapple, banana, apple, watermelon, kiwi, and strawberries.
Vegetables and Fruits to use in moderation
Although vegetables and fruits all contain some amount of glucose, those containing significant amounts such as pomegranate and beets should be avoided in high doses. This is to reduce glucose overload at such a critical time.
There is nothing more satisfying than supporting someone to develop resilience, health, and strength. As a juice therapist and health coach, you are in a perfect position to play a critical role in facilitating a person to optimize their health through a difficult period.
By choosing life-enhancing and palatable juice combinations, you can positively impact a person’s life. Helping them absorb essential nutrients and vitamins that supply them with the strength and capacity to fight their cancer.
Register for our landmark program “Healing from Cancer Naturally” with Dr. Thomas Lodi here.
