Weight Issues

Weight Issues

One of the side benefits of eating a high-fiber, plant-based, cancer-protective diet is that you'll likely eat fewer calories and lose weight, too-both important factors for keeping cancer at bay.

"There is no question that eating too many calories and being 20 percent heavier than your ideal body weight-which a third of the population now is -increases your risk for cancer," says Abby Bloch, R.D., Ph. D., coordinator of clinical research at the GI Nutrition Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Low-fat, high-fiber foods fill you up without all the excess calories, she says. "Add exercise and you'll increase your cancer protection even more."