Take heart disease as an example. Doctors and patients rely on intermediate markers, the most well known of which is the cholesterol test. Patients take great satisfaction in lowering their cholesterol levels, although it does not guarantee that they will avoid a heart attack. As foods are increasingly put to the test in the lab and in clinical trials, more and more doctors are beginning to view diet as nutritional therapy. Dr Ernst Wynder, the late founder of the American Health Foundation, pioneered the term nutritional therapy, that is, using specific foods to treat an actual illness or prevent a latent one from becoming full blown.
Researchers use for foods the words chemoprevention and chemoprotection.
Protection is taking foods or substances, such as lycopene or soy, that may actively protect you against a potentially cancerous process in your body. You'll find both of these strategies used in this book. Many men look somewhat askance at the idea of foods as therapy, perhaps believing that I mean foods work through some kind of mystical force. Some strategies, such as soy protein intake, may slow or stop a microscopic tumor from becoming an important clinical case of prostate cancer. Other strategies, such as decreasing animal fat intake, may decrease the risk of Metastasis, while still others could help prevent a recurrence.