Search Weight Loss Topics:

Home » Diet » U2’s The Edge pushes for research into diet’s role in cancer – Philly.com

The lead guitarist of U2, the popular rock band that just played Philadelphia,has more on his mind than music. In 2006, The Edges 7-year-olddaughter was diagnosed with leukemia, something that he says sent him into a complete tailspin. Sian recovered and is now 19.

The experience heightened the legendary musicians interest in health and cancer, and especially in angiogenesis, which focuses on the formation of new bloodvessels. In recent years, several antiangiogenesis drugs have been developed to disrupt the blood supply that cancers need to grow.

Yet The Edge, whose real name is David Evans, is convinced that certain foods can play a similar role, and hes pressing for more research. Hes a boardmember of the Angiogenesis Foundation, a Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit headed by William Li, an internal medicine physician who studied underangiogenesis pioneer Judah Folkman.

Interest in using food as an anti-cancer weapon is intense among consumers looking to reduce their risks. But the idea that foods like green tea or blueberriescan starve tumors is controversial unsettled science, as Otis Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, puts it.

The cancer society avoids saying that any particular food will ward off the disease, though it stresses that eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is linked toa reduced risk. Still, Brawley is enthusiastic about The Edges emphasis on a healthy diet, saying the recommendations could help combat obesity, which itself islinked to an increased possibility of cancer.

Similarly, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins praises The Edges interest in angiogenesis. (Collins met Monday with Li and the guitarist andjoined the latter in playing Hallelujah on their respective guitars.) He also notes, however, that theres no definitive evidence of certain foods beinganti-angiogenic.

During his visit to Washington, The Edge and Li visited Capitol Hill on Monday to argue for more research on the issue. They also talked to the Post. The following has been edited for length and clarity:

Q: How did your daughters experience affect you?

The Edge: When my daughter was first diagnosed with leukemia I was, I guess like any parent would be, sent into a complete tailspin. Coming out of that, partof what I was determined to do was to fully understand what this meant. The good news is that chemotherapy protocols are very well understood and the success rate is high. So you dont need to try anything different. As ithappens, we were able to take advantage of to provide dietary changes to offer additional support to combat the disease.

What I really felt acutely, having brought my daughter through this treatment, is we can do better than chemotherapy. Its brutal, its very crude; you basicallyare killing cancer cells at a slightly higher rate than you are killing normal cells. As a strategy, it seemed like a blunt instrument. I couldnt imagine that wecouldnt do better.

When I discovered the angiogenesis approach, I thought, This is part of the future. It might not be the whole future, but its part of it.

Q: How are you tryingto promote that approach?

The Edge: Were communicating with scientists from other fields, talking to government officials about what we know and where we see the future and alsodoing public outreach. . . . Were just trying to encourage greater interest in this area.

The emphasis surely has to be on focusing more on prevention, and angiogenesis and diet is an obvious place to look.

Li: We want to use the tools of biotechnology to ask questions about how foods actually work in the body. This is almost a redefinition or reconceptualizationof nutrition itself, away from macro- and micronutrients to ask: What happens to foods when they encounter human cells? We are really at the beginning ofthis era of research to begin understanding how whole foods, combinations of whole foods, and even how they are prepared and even the variations between thedifferent varieties of food can make a difference.

Q: Its hard to prove that any particular food can prevent cancer. What is the evidence that the specific foods might actually protect people from the disease?

The Edge: Some of it is in the state of being a very good theory, a theory that has a lot of evidence around it, population studies, there are actually laboratorytests that the foundation has funded where you literally grow human cells in a petri dish and see what happens when certain foods are added.Of course, that wouldnt pass muster as hard, scientific, FDA-approved, proof. But its really compelling when you start to see in petri dish that these foodsare really having an effect which in some cases rivals pharmacology. What we really need is for the government to step in and fund this research . . . the systemis set up for Big Pharma developing drugs with big profit margins. We dont want them to stop, but what isnt being done right now is a lot of funding of greaterunderstanding of these molecules in food.

Li:Its tempting for all of us in biomedicine to want the magic bullet, the one thing to make everything else go away, but the body of research has shown thatboth health and disease are much more complicated. We think that food is one of the pieces of the puzzle of life that deserves the kind of modern scientificapproach that has taken biotech to where it is today. And when you marry together all the tools that are available with what we put on our plate and the choiceswe make in the grocery store and the market, we think there is literally an undiscovered country that can contribute to the health of society.What were really trying to do is develop a platform of understanding not just one food but many foods and combinations of foods. One of our first priorities isto systematically study whole, unprocessed foods using laboratory assays that have been used traditionally for drug discovery.

Q: What do you eat?

The Edge: I actually do eat berries every day, different ones, and whole food as much as I can. I eat foods with antiangiogenic properties.

Published: June 20, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: June 20, 2017 4:50 PM EDT

We recently asked you to support our journalism. The response, in a word, is heartening. You have encouraged us in our mission to provide quality news and watchdog journalism. Some of you have even followed through with subscriptions, which is especially gratifying. Our role as an independent, fact-based news organization has never been clearer. And our promise to you is that we will always strive to provide indispensable journalism to our community. Subscriptions are available for home delivery of the print edition and for a digital replica viewable on your mobile device or computer. Subscriptions start as low as 25 per day. We're thankful for your support in every way.

Read the rest here:
U2's The Edge pushes for research into diet's role in cancer - Philly.com

Your Full Name
Your Email
Your Phone Number
Select your age (30+ only)	30313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120
Select Your US State	Select Your StateAlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWashington,DCWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming
Program Choice	Select Your ProgramInjectable HGHInjectable TestoteroneInjectable SermorelinInjectable Weight LossInjectable HCG DietInjectable Vitamins
Confirm over 30 years old	Yes
Confirm that you resident in USA	Yes
This is a Serious Inquiry	Yes
Message:

Home » Diet » U2’s The Edge pushes for research into diet’s role in cancer – Philly.com