[JessicaV]

Hi, I find this discussion very interesting and also very important.
I have been trying to understand the new information coming in from research about Cancer Stem Cells(CSCs), their role in building tumors and in metastasizing, and the place these anti-cancer food substances can play in disabling and destroying CSCs.
There is a new strong interest in various food plant compounds that runs parallel to the discovery/exploration of the role of Cancer Stem Cells play in building tumors and in seeding and growing metastases.
Drugs like Herceptin block the intracellular pathways through which important signalling and change processes happen. These are the processes by which cells turn into cancers and organise themselves a supporting structure/"skeleton" and develop blood vessels to feed themselves, and prevent their own cell death. So Herceptin blocks off access to important sites and interferes with the pathways the cancer cells need to use to transform themselves and build themselves into a tumor or to metastasise. This leads to a lot of cancer cells dying But the cancer stem cells can then get around this, and can choose to mutate so that their new cell lines use different pathways, eg HER3 or 4 instead of HER2. They then produce new cancer cells that use the new pathway that gets around the blockage created by herceptin or whatever drug it was.This is how the tumors become resistant to the anticancer drugs. (This is a bit similar to the way flu viruses mutate to get around our resistance to flu, becoming different so the antibodies and antigens we have formed will no longer affect them).

However, the foods that are anticancer foods like broccoli, soy, green tea, curcumin etc actually interfere simultaneously with a number of different pathways the cancer stem cells use for different processes. So if the cancer mutates so it does not use one particular pathway, the food still has other points at which to attack it.
There seem to be many things that damage our cells enough to make us at risk of cancer, and also many things that knock our general health and the health of our immune system. Like Lien, many of us have eaten well all our lives yet still got cancer. So how do we understand this?

It seems to me that maintaining good cancer-free health by preventing, primary and metastatic cancer, and then destroying cancer if it does form is a bit like trying to have a good crop of tomatoes where I live in PerthAustralia : I have to contend with parrots, rats, possums, bandicoots, mice, caterpillars, slugs, snails, slaters, plant viruses, heat, frosts, spray drift from my neighbours. I have to grow my plants well at the right time, choose the best variety, water it, feed it, stake it.
However well I do my bit, there is still a risk I will not get a crop at all, or it will be eaten or made inedible by some pest.
If something starts to be a problem, I have to be vigilant and take effective action. If I have several different varieties in several different parts of the garden, there is a higher chance of success. And if I only have one treatment I can offer my tomatoes start to wilt and die, or get nibbled around the edges, I am likely to lose the battle. But if I have a range of treatments, I have a better chance.
And these anti-cancer foods are part of the process of growing and maintaining a healthy cancer-free me. They increase the ways any cancer stem cells in my body are getting knocked down and knocked out of my system. And they also increase my general health, my immune system health.