抄録
“Ishoku Dogen” means “Food is Medicine” and can also be translated as “Food is the Key to Health.” The idea that medicine and food have the similar function leads to the concept that daily healthy meal can prevent and cure diseases. It has been shown that lifestyle diseases are caused by an accumulation of undesirable lifestyle habits such as unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, stress, smoking and excessive drinking. Specifically, diet is the major factor thought to influence susceptibility to many lifestyle diseases including cancer, stroke, and coronary heart disease. Unhealthy diets include high intake of calories, fats, and salt and low intake of fruits and vegetables. Although the number of deaths due to stroke and coronary artery disease is decreasing, cancer mortality rate has increased in recent years, with estimated rates being one in three people to one in two in 2020. Diet-related cancers having high morbidity rate in the Western countries are cancer of the breast, prostate, and colons, and are currently increasing in Japan. Therefore, from the viewpoint of “Ishoku Dogen”, modification of dietary habits is extremely important for prevention of lifestyle diseases including cancer. Here we focus on diet and cancer, and review the relationship between food and cancer prevention based on the mechanism of carcinogenesis.
