Health reformers and pioneer researchers linked cancer with diet back in the early 1800's.  However, modern medicine generally ignored this connection until the 1980's when the US government, the major scientific and medical organizations, and private cancer foundations issued the first dietary guidelines.  Since then the modern way of eating has been linked with virtually every major form of cancer.  While admitting the role of diet in the origin and development of many malignancies, the medical profession continues to treat cancer largely with chemotherapy, radiation, hormone therapy, or surgery.  These methods sometimes can eliminate symptoms but do not address the origin of the disease, which is underlying dietary and environmental imbalance.  In many cases, conventional treatments are harmful and make the condition worse. 

With the rise of alternative and complementary medicine, many physicians and health care professionals have recently adopted an integrated approach, combining nutrition, visualization, and lifestyle changes with conventional therapies.  Over the last generation, thousands of people have followed a macrobiotic way of eating to prevent or relieve cancer, including many terminal cases.  Researchers at Tulane University, the University of Minnesota, the  National Tumor Institute of Milan, Italy, and elsewhere have documented the efficacy of this approach.  The National Cancer Institute was so impressed with individual recovery cases that it just approved clinical trials of the macrobiotic approach." 

1. Cancer is primarily a disease of dietary excess. It is the final stage in the progressive development of illness through which individuals in the modern world tend to bypass because they fail to appreciate the beneficial nature of disease symptoms.

2. A healthy person can deal with a limited amount of excess nutrients or toxic materials consumed in his or her daily food.  This imbalance can be naturally eliminated through sweating, urination, bowed movement, perspiration, or daily activity that burns off excess metabolic energy.  However, if the person continues to take in too much excess, the body resorts to abnormal measures of discharge, including colds, fever, coughing, skin rashes, and other symptoms.  Such sickness is a natural adjustment, the result of the body maintaining natural balance. 

However, in modern society, these symptoms are commonly suppressed by over-the-counter medications, prescription drugs, and other artificial methods that separate people from the natural workings of their own bodies.  If minor ailments are treated in this symptomatic way, discharge begins to be directed inwardly rather than externally.  Fatty-acid deposits and chronic mucus begin to gather in the form of kidney stones, breast or ovarian cysts, prostate enlargement, vaginal discharge, and other internal disorders.  These can be considered precancerous conditions.

3.  In this state, the body is still able to localize the excess and toxins ingested.  By gathering the superfluous material in local areas, the remainder of the body is maintained in a relatively clean condition and can function smoothly.  Localization of excess is a natural healing mechanism, preventing the body from completely breaking down.  However, the modern view regards these manifestations as invasive enemies that have to be removed or destroyed.

4. As long as excessive nutrients and energy from daily food continue to accumulate and exceed the body's normal or abnormal discharge capacity, they will continue to be stored inside the body.  These storage areas gradually grow and develop into tumors.  When they reach their limit, they spread and overflow into new storage areas (metastasize).

5. As long as the person continues to eat animal protein, saturated fat, dietary cholesterol, simple sugars, refined salt, chemicals, and other dietary extremes, excess will continue to gather, accumulate, and spread in order to continue normal living functions.  If tumors did not isolate this excess, it would spread through the bloodstream and entire body, resulting in the total collapse of vital functions and death by toxemia.  Cancer is the last stage of a long process.  It is the body's healthy effort to isolate extreme foods and toxins consumed and accumulated through years of eating the artificial modern diet and living in a unnatural environment.  Cancer serves to prolong life a few more months or years.

6. If the person awakens to the underlying origin and cause of the cancer, this entire process can often be reversed naturally.  Through proper food, including special dishes, drinks, and sometimes compresses and other home remedies, the tumor or malignancy can often be discharged gently and peacefully without the need for drugs, chemicals, or surgery that can weaken the body and interfere with its natural healing ability.  In some case, however, medical attention, including chemotherapy, radiation, hormone treatment, or surgery, may be necessary and can be combined with the macrobiotic approach.

7. The rise of cancer in the modern world has accompanied the change from a way of eating based on organic and natural-quality food to chemically grown and artificially processed food.  White flour, white rice, and other refined or polished grains replaced whole grains.  Beef, pork, chicken, eggs, cheese, and other animal products high in protein and fat became the center of modern way of eating.  Canned, bottled, and frozen vegetables and fruits replaced fresh produce.  Tropical foods, oils, spices, and other items from radically different climates and environments became available all year round.  Many local and regional foods disappeared with the influx of mass-produced, artificially aged and preserved foods.  Hardy heirloom and open-pollinated varieties of seed gave way to new hybrid and genetically modified strains.  All of these trends have contributed to the rise of cancer.

8. Through the blood, the lymph, and other bodily fluids, excessive protein, fat, sugar, and other nutrients from high-energy foods enter the cells and tissues of the body.  Eventually, the cells' storage capacity reaches a limit and the cells start to divide.  Rapidly increasing cell division is the immediate cause of cancer.

9. Cancer develops in different locations in the body according to the person's constitution and condition, the energetic quality of the overall way of eating, and the relative influence of specific foods and combinations of foods.

10. Excessive intake of meat, eggs, poultry, cheese, fish, seafood and other animal foods, as well as too much hard baked flour products, salt, and other contractive foods, tends to gather and accumulate downward and deep in the body, leading to tumors in the colon, rectum, prostate, ovary, liver, pancreas, bone, and inner regions of the brain.  These include the harder types of tumors, including most carcinomas.

11. Excessive intake of sugar and other concentrated sweeteners; refined or polished grains, oil and dressing; milk, ice cream, and other light dairy products; fruits and juices; raw foods; foods of tropical origin; potatoes, tomatoes, and bananas; spices; stimulants; alcohol; drugs; and other expansive substances tends to gather and accumulate upward and in the peripheral parts of the body, leading to malignancies in the breast, skin, upper part of the stomach, mouth, esophagus, lymphatic system, outer regions of the brain, and blood (leukemia).  These include the softer types of tumors, including most sarcomas.

12. Excessive intake of both extreme yang and yin foods causes excess to be localized in the more central regions, organs, or systems of the body, leading to tumors in the lung, kidney, bladder, uterus, spleen, lower part of the stomach, tongue, and intermediate regions of the skin (melanoma).

13. An array of environmental and lifestyle factors may contribute to the development of cancer.  In most cases, these are not the primary cause, but may contribute to an overall decline in natural immune function, reduce the ability to discharge excess, and accelerate the spread of tumor growth.  These include many over-the-counter medications, prescription drugs, and treatments; exposure to x rays, mammograms, CT scan, MRIs, and other invasive medical procedures; industrial chemicals, pollutants, and pesticides; exposure to artificial electromagnetic radiation from computers, cell phones, and other electronics equipment; exposure to nuclear energy or fallout; synthetic clothing, household products, and building materials; chemically treated body care products; electric or microwave cooking; and use of tobacco or exposure to cigarette smoke.

14.  A lack of physical activity, sedentary jobs, mental and psychological stress, and other lifestyle factors can weaken the body, inhibit discharge of excess, and contribute to the development of disease. "