It's best to get nutrients from food, but it’s not always possible to get a therapeutic dose that way. In this video, integrative medicine specialist Dr. Stephen Atkins discusses the benefits of popping nutrient-packed pills.
I think it's always better if you can get your nutrients in the form of whole food, because that's how the body recognizes and utilize the various nutrients. However, sometimes you can't get a therapeutic dose high enough found in the food stores. For instance, let's say you want to eat bits to help cleans your liver, but you'd have to drink a whole or rather eat a whole bushel of beets in order to get the amount of beet extract that you need, that you could actually find in one small concentrated pill.
One of the benefits of eating or taking supplements versus eating a lot of food is that, depending on how the body's breaking down and how the digestive system works, will depend on how much, how many of the nutrients do you have to absorb in the food that you're eating. It's important to get a therapeutic dose, that's why supplements can sometimes be a better choice.
I think some typical foods that are probably best for cancer prevention would be almost any fruit or vegetable. You wouldn't want to eat fruits that have too high of a glycemic index, so the topical fruits you should probably stay away from but low glycemic fruits like berries or green apples would really be ideal.
Else remember that sugar feeds cancer, so you want to keep the diet as low glycemic as possible.
Stephen H. Atkins, PhD, has 28 years of experience in holistic medicine. He is owner of Atkins Wellness Solutions in Huntington, NY.
View Profile