Eat Enough, Eat Healthfully

The importance of diet for health has been known since ancient times, with Hippocrates and Galen1. In his writings, Hippocrates recommended the following treatment for melancholia (severe depression he attributed to an excess of black bile): “Donkey’s milk should be prescribed. The patient should eat very little food, if not weak; this food should be cold, relaxing, nothing sour, nothing salty, nothing oily, nothing sweet2”.

Nutrition is one of the pillars of cancer prevention. It also plays an essential role as a complement to cancer therapies. Clinical research in the field of nutrition is advancing, establishing a solid evidence base. This evidence should also help debunk some of the myths and common misconceptions often spread online. To gain a better understanding of the link between nutrition and prevention, we asked Dr Alain Toledano, oncologist, chairman and co-founder of the Institut Rafaël, to give us an update.

Eating well to stay well as we get older means balancing two seemingly contradictory priorities. On the one hand, we need to maintain muscle and bone mass, which tends to diminish with age, by taking in proteins with a high biological value, i.e. animal proteins. On the other hand, we need to combat the “acidification” of the body caused by these same foods. This acidification promotes osteoporosis as well as having other harmful effects on the body, including fatigue. Antacid – therefore alkaline – food is provided by plants (fruit and vegetables). So how do we go about making sure our diets contain the right food combinations, in terms of both quality and quantity?