An ounce of prevention The word cancer sends chills down anyone's spine. But there are some forms of the disease that have relatively good remission and survival rates if you take action early on. Kidney cancer isn't one of them. In fact, according to an article I read recently, "in the UK alone, around 6600 new cases of kidney cancer are diagnosed each year, and the disease results in around 3600 deaths." Those are downright dismal odds. But there's apparently a very simple way to swing those odds back in your favor: Make sure you're getting enough vitamins C and E. These two nutrients are antioxidants, meaning they fight free-radical damage in the body. Free radical damage is one of the key factors involved in cancer formation. So it stands to reason that vitamins C and E would fight cancer. But what's intriguing about this finding is that other antioxidants like beta carotene, lycopene, folate, and the other B vitamins didn't appear to have a significant effect on kidney cancer. Here's how the study panned out: Researchers assessed the dietary intakes of 767 kidney cancer patients and 1534 controls. After adjusting for certain potentially confounding factors, they determined that people who got more than 17.5 micrograms per day of vitamin E from their food had a 44 percent lower risk of kidney cancer compared to those with an intake around 11.9 micrograms per day. They also found that people who ate foods containing at least 186 micrograms of vitamin C per day had a 44 percent reduced risk of kidney cancer compared to those with an intake of around 89 micrograms per day. What amazes me about this is just how small those amounts really are. A microgram is even smaller than a milligram, so that 17.5 micrograms of vitamin E translates into a daily intake of just .0175 milligrams. And 186 micrograms of vitamin C is only .186 milligrams. Those amounts are nowhere near the recommended daily allowances of these nutrients -- and even the RDAs are too low. In fact, Dr. Wright routinely advises his patients to take 400 IU of vitamin E and 2-4 grams (that's 2000-4000 milligrams) of vitamin C per day. Imagine how much protection against this deadly disease you would get from following those basic health guidelines. So if we can't move kidney cancer to the list of highly curable forms of the disease, at least we can reduce the number of cases that occur in the first place. Nutrition & Healing Sources:
"Vitamins C and E linked to lower kidney cancer risk," NutraIngredients.com USA, 1/24/07
"Micronutrients and the risk of renal cell cancer: A case-controlled study from Italy," International Journal of Cancer 2007; 120(4): 892-896 | 
