When Urvi Shah was a hematology-oncology fellow, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the lymphatic system, which is essential for a healthy immune response. Shah underwent four months of intensive chemotherapy and cured the disease, but he wondered what role, if any, diet might have played in eradicating the cancer.
“I heard a lot of advice from friends and family about what I should and shouldn’t eat, but I realized we didn’t learn anything in medical school about the role of nutrition in healing,” Shah says. “As a patient, I wanted the confidence that I could do something to support my health.”
Intrigued by evidence that a high-fiber, plant-based diet reduces the incidence and risk of cancer recurrence, Shah refocused his research on modifiable risk factors for cancer, including nutrition, obesity, diabetes and the microbiome. Today, Shah is a myeloma specialist and assistant professor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he leads four dietary intervention studies (the NUTRIVENTION trials) to provide nutritional guidance to cancer patients.
Shah’s work is part of a growing body of research suggesting that a group of metabolic disorders, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides (which affect more than 40 percent of Americans), may be a major driver of the onset and progression of many cancers. There’s even a medical term for people with three or more of these conditions: “metabolic syndrome.” Rates of the syndrome have been on the rise for decades, with Western diets and sedentary lifestyles being a big culprit.
Consuming too much alcohol, refined carbohydrates, and fatty foods, and spending most of your time on the couch or at your desk, creates an inflammatory response that, over time, damages your DNA. Unfortunately, the more DNA damage there is, the more likely healthy cells are to become cancerous.
