Interview with Cristiana Paul MS
 on Nutrition Interventions for Cancer Prevention
Excerpt from the book Knockout-by Suzanne Somers
(Reprinted with permission)

 Cristiana Paul, MS Nutrition is an independent nutrition consultant in the Los Angeles area

Cristiana Paul is my nutritionist.  In my last book, Breakthrough, she explained the basics of supplementation for health.  For Knockout, I asked her to give us information on supplementation that protects and prevents cancer.  If this is a possibility, why wouldn’t we take these supplements on a daily basis to prevent this dreaded disease?

She is an avid researcher and has a tremendous grasp of nutrition and supplementation.  My health has never been better than under her guidance.

You get out of life what you put into it.  I desire and treasure good health.  It is available to all of us if we make simples changes.  The mystery of supplementation is over.  Now, through blood work with Designs for Health or Life Extension you can determine your body’s exact needs.  You put back what is missing.  The benefits are vitality, energy, and a strong immune system.  These are the tools I believe are necessary for survival in today’s world.

SS:  Cristiana, I know you review a lot of nutrition research, especially on the effect of nutritional supplements on disease prevention and treatment.  Can you explain and summarize for us how the right nutrition can help reduce cancer risk?
CP:  The fact is, hundreds of studies come out every day about diet, nutrients, herbal extracts, and their effects on various diseases.  [PubMed is an online resource provided by the US National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.]

SS:  On one hand, it’s great that there is so much research being done with nutrients and herbs; on the other hand, no wonder not all doctors or nutritionists can keep up with all the information available and the most recent findings.  There is quite a bit of contradictory information put out there as well.  Which facts do you feel are most important to understand and try to implement every day?
CP:  I will take you step by step through the journey of an accidental cancer cell and show you how good nutrition and specific nutrients can intervene at many points in its pathways.  They can reduce the chance of it occurring in the first place, or the chances of it surviving, multiplying, and spreading in the body.

SS:  I have to ask about this first, though.  In the past, vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) and vitamin A from beta-carotene were considered good antioxidants, and we assumed that taking them would reduce our risk of cancer.  But then a few studies showed that supplementing with theses caused an increased overall mortality for certain cancers.  What do we do with this information?  Whom do we believe?
CP:  You are right, it’s very confusing sometimes scary.  We know and expect to hear that toxins and unhealthy foods may cause cancer, but to hear this about nutritional supplements as well can shake even a nutritionist’s core beliefs.  The problem is that the media oversimplifies; they do not tell you which form of vitamin E caused this, that many studies from which they derived theses conclusions used the unnatural, synthetic forms of vitamin E.  They also did not tell you that there is a big difference between synthetic beta-carotene and mixed natural carotenoids found in fruits and vegetables.  We are reminded again and again that we have to pay attention to how things occur in nature and learn from it.  Things are much more complex than they appear in the media reports, and you really do not get the whole story because a quick statement is the wrong way to report such study findings.

First | Previous | Next | Last
Chart