Chris Walcott of Hamden found he was changing his diet almost subconsciously last year as his father underwent surgery, then radiation and chemotherapy, for colon cancer. Instead of eating sweets and drinking coffee, the younger Walcott would grab a banana or an orange. It was actually a lot tastier than what I was used to eating, he says, and I found myself losing weight just by changing foods. It only makes sense Ronald Vender, M.D., section chief of Gastroenterology at the Hospital of Saint Raphael and medical director of the hospital s Digestive Disease Center, says he and his associates advise patients with many different types of disease, including colon cancer, to aim for a diet high in fiber and low in fat, with three pieces of fruit and three helpings of vegetables each day. Vender admits, though, that physicians traditionally have not emphasized nutrition.
Physicians typically take the medical model.
Treatment and diagnosis are what they re used to dealing with, he explains. But prevention is getting more emphasis. A high-fat diet has been implicated in certain prostate cancers in men, breast cancer in women and also cancers of the colon, according to Francis Cardinale, M.D., Saint Raphael s associate director of Radiation Oncology. Vender says diet plays a large role in treating gastroesophageal reflux, which in extreme cases can develop into a cancer of the esophagus. While some opt for a total vegetarian lifestyle, Brian Clark, a manager of Orchard Hill Market, a health food store in Branford, says he went the vegetarian route years ago and found my body didn t work that well on it.