If Food Is Information For Your Cells What Are You Sending

Food can act like information, and your cells are listening. We sit down with Aditi to explore dietary oncopharmacognosy, an emerging area of oncology nutrition that looks at how bioactive compounds from plants (and even microbes and marine sources) may influence cancer prevention and support recovery alongside standard care. If you’ve ever wondered why dietitians keep talking about patterns instead of miracle foods, this conversation puts real science behind that message. 

We dig into how phytochemicals and antioxidants show up in real meals, why fiber matters so much, and what “food synergy” actually means when you’re choosing what to eat. We also talk practical, plant-forward building blocks you can start using right away: cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, berries, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and easy options like soups and smoothies. You’ll hear why a Mediterranean-style, plant-based pattern is frequently cited for protective benefits, and how refined, ultra-processed foods can displace the nutrient-dense choices your body needs. 

We also keep it grounded in the realities of cancer treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation can bring appetite loss, nausea, weight loss, and muscle loss, so nutrition support has to be flexible, sensitive, and realistic, including when liquid nutrition or clinical feeding support is necessary. Finally, we tackle supplements versus real food: when supplements may be helpful, why they can’t fully copy whole-food complexity, and why third-party testing matters. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Big Idea

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hey hey everyone, welcome back to Simple Nutrition Insights. I'm your host, Leonilla Campos, registered dietitian and founder of Fuel Biele, where we focus on evidence-based nutrition to help people fuel their lives and their health. Today's episode is fascinating because we're diving into a topic that sits right in the intersection of nutrition, natural compounds, and cancer science. We'll be talking about something called dietary oncopharmal cognosi. It's even a word that I can't pronounce very well. Which may sound like a big scientific word, but the concept is incredibly powerful. In simple terms, it looks at how compounds found in foods and plants may influence cancer prevention, treatment, and overall health. To help us break this down, I'm joined by Aditi, who is deeply involved in this field and will help us understand how food-derived compounds interrupt with the body and what the science currently tell us. Aditi, welcome to the show.

Aditi’s Path Into Oncology Nutrition

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Thank you, Leonela. And uh it's a really a pleasure to be in the show once again. And uh since I've uh last time I spoke about plant nutrition and also plant-based dessert, so my topic is somehow related to this style and how exactly we can deal with the most chronic disease and uh definitely the most deadly disease that is cancer with plant nutrition. So that is a very, very important topic for today, and it is called dietary onko uh pharmacognosi. So you can do it. Uh it may sound a little bit a very big word in it, but actually it is uh science-driven, as you know. A lot of research work is going on into this, and I just thought that it would be the perfect topic because I'm also dealing with oncology nutrition norm, and uh to know about it and to make the dietary plans accordingly to deal with cancer is my objective this time.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

What first sparked your interest in this field?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Truly speaking, like I was always interested in the field because I was, as a former microbiologist, uh, I was dealing with uh the shelf life of different canned foods and different uh using the beneficial microorganisms as well. And working into that field, making the shelf life of canned foods, extending them, working with different cultures, what I felt is like why not work in uh food nutrition as such and develop uh new ways how to improve the human body, how to deal with different kinds of diseases into clinical nutrition and help combat the diseases. So, with uh a very medically proven diet-based plan, that is uh what we call as medical therapy, so that led move to this field that I'm very much happy with what I'm doing today.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, I love that answer. So, what does your current work focus on? Like, what would what's um what does it look like in a day of RDT?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, like since this is the National Nutrition Month, once again, March, so it's really very exciting. And every time uh at this point of time, I always think of doing something very unique. So I'm enrolled for a certification in oncology nutrition. And while I'm doing this, I'm also relating myself to uh this particular field of using the bioactive compounds, the bioactive small molecules that might actually help to uh reduce the cases and reduce the growth of the tumor if uh the person would opt for plant-based diets. So I would talk more elaborately about what kind of diets can be followed and um definitely reduction of animal protein as such and only focusing on plant-based. So, with this thought, I just thought that maybe uh uh this is the correct time because uh in the National Nutrition Month this year, 2026, as per the uh like hypocritic uh law of uh they they are saying that um like food is thy medicine and medicine is thy foods. With that concept uh of uh actually maintaining it, uh making food as the most effective medicine to work for the most deadliest disease is what we should look on with a lot of other ways and strategic uh technology and also with artificial intelligence, the drug development ways that have been formulated to specifically treat tissues which are targeted to inhibit the growth of the genome, is what would uh be focused on during this phase. So that is my main motive to bring in more awareness of plant-based proteins and how they can help our for long.

Defining Dietary Oncopharmacognosy

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah, awesome. I love the saying of the food is medicine, right? And medicine is food, because it's very accurately put. Okay, so let's start with the basics, right? For someone hearing this term for the first time, right? And you mentioned that a little bit. How is different how is that different from general nutrition or phytochemistry?

How Food Compounds Affect Cancer

Nutrition During Chemo And Radiation

Phytochemicals Fiber And Plant Patterns

SPEAKER_00 5:38

It is actually not very different, I would say, just because of the term being more elaborate and it uh being dealing with cancer science, we think that it is, but it is the basic plant protein that we are using. So uh when we come to actually dietary oncopharmacognosy, it is a specialized field in pharmacognosi, which is actually very much prevalent these days. If you uh would go through the medical journals, you would come across this term, and the thing is that it focuses on the identification, on the extraction, and the development of bioactive compounds, and the natural sources are the plants as usual, and we are dealing with marine um marine uh organisms and also microorganisms. So it is plants, it is microorganisms, and it is marine organisms also, and for the treatment of cancer. Now, when we come exactly to what is dietary on coharmacognosi, it is an emerging feed as such, which is um into managing precision nutrition. Precision nutrition, I would say, as such as that it is actually targeting the cancer cells and with the drug development, focusing and identifying bioactive small molecules within the food patterns, like the food that we are eating, if we completely follow a plant-based diet, and uh these kind of food patterns would be exhibiting drug-like effects against the cancer. So when they are exhibiting drug-like effects against the cancer, like uh like if you go into traditional medicine, you would know that uh with traditional medicine in the previous years also, people have treated different sorts of uh diseases which were once upon a time and which causes which uh used to cause a lot of epidemics, and these were treated very well. And most of the diseases have been eradicated. So now when we are facing with cancer, there is stem cell, there is a lot of other research is going on, and uh this has been found that uh uh during research that when a plant-based diet is followed, how these plant bioactive compounds in the form of phyto uh the phytochemicals that we have, the antioxidants that we have, how these are actually helping the cell. Uh the damaged cell, the cancer cells are usually the damaged cells. So these uh cancer cells are need a lot of nourishment to grow, and the nourishment is being provided by the sugar intake. A lot of fast food that we are having, the lot of um processed food that are having, these all are having a lot of sugar. The sugar in the refined form, uh the sugar uh uh in the refined form is uh actually helping these cells grow, and also these cells are proliferating, they are growing, and what we call there's a process called apoptosis, that is called cell death, is not happening. And uh due to this, uh there is more and more growth of the cancer cells. So, now to prevent this, there is something in nature already which can actually nourish our body in a healthy way and also counteract with these kinds of damage cells and stop their growth immediately. So, uh, as I said, that uh with uh the plant-based proteins, they are developing or they have uh gotten to drug development, and these uh are the effects that have been produced so that uh the cell growth completely stops or is inhibited for a certain period of time, then the plant-based diet is formed, and the patient can recover, and whether it is during the uh usually what happens is when the patient is diagnosed with a particular disease, it is actually before the treatment, during the treatment, and after the treatment. Nutrition plays a very vital role in the entire stage of diagnosing the disease and also the treatment. At the treatment procedure, uh whether we are using the chemotherapy, whether you are using the radiation process, it is a very complicated process. And there is a lot of weight loss as we know that it is malnutrition happening to the cancer patient, there's anorexia, there's cacasia, where it's a lot of muscle loss for the patient. So, what happens is the patient has um a lot of complications. There is growth, there is a tumor growth, and there are different sites where the cancer has developed. And so there, and when the body doesn't get any kind of nourishment, and also there is uh continuous weight loss, there is no way that the recovery process can be started. So, with all these complications, the diet can be uh actually made effective uh along with the medicines that the person is being taking, along with the radiation process, the chemotherapy, and everything that is being done with the nutrition support for the betterment of the patient in the neural. So, with this, uh like I would say it shifts from a single nutrient study in investigating the complex dietary pattern and the plant-based diet can be followed, as we already know, that the Meditarian diet, the plant-based Meditarian diet, is a very effective diet, uh, and it's a very effective diet pattern that can actually help the to stop the carcinogenic processes. So, um, now there are some certain key aspects to it, like um the food eaten during the day. Um what happens is the food needs to be digested. So there is some synergistic and antagonistic and collective uh actions that is taking place inside the body, and um these are actually uh helping the carcinogenic process to stop at a certain point when there is a counter-reaction happening. So um there is uh what we can do is with the with these uh plant-based proteins, we can have a mechanistic target and uh to investigate new dietary components that is which can affect the cancer pathways, and we can also aim to bridge precision nutrition with pharmacology. So, as I would explain this in more simpler terms, that is, bioactive compounds or the phytochemicals that we are dealing with. These phytochemicals are nothing but they are certain food compounds that come from plants, that is, the antioxidants, the anti-inflammatory compounds, which are having the anti-cancer properties and also the flevinols, which most of us are familiar with, where we have the curacetin, we have the cathasins, we have the polyphenols, we also have the resvertol, that is the EgEG, uh, EGCG, and fiber. Fiber is very much essential, and even in the food synergy, it is seen that instead of isolating the nutrients particularly, there are approaches which recognize the food consumed, preventing and stopping the growth. Now, um, these kinds of food sources that can be provided from plant-based protein, they have emphasis, and um, these are the normal uh these can come from normal cruciferous vegetables that we are taking, uh, every everyday vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, berries, nuts, with the good fats that we are taking. Berries have a lot of antioxidants in them. We have legumes again, we have whole grains. So, uh, like I would say, cut off all the refined foods from our diet and have the whole grain grains uh uh including the brown rice, even we can go for brown pasta with the legumes. We can make a lot of soups and add into our diet with the berries, we can have a good uh smoothies, and it's very effective way in our daily routine we can easily follow as for a normal person as well as for a cancer patient to actually because uh mostly what we see for a normal person uh it is easier to actually consume food in any form, but for a cancer patient, especially head and neck cancer, oral cancer, uh there uh for them to digest the food for the intake of the food, it is actually uh quite difficult for the patient to consume the food in uh the form that they can take it. So, liquid form, they can go for enteral or parenteral form of uh taking consuming the food wherein there is tube feeding, wherein there is uh feeding uh through intravenous um way of feeding where uh it has the food is being injected when uh the tube feeding also stops at certain points. So, these kinds of um uh nutrition here uh is very important because we have to be very sensitive in dealing with the patient, and uh a lot of plant proteins can actually be included in the form of smoothies, as I said, from a liquid diet given to the patient, which is easier for the body to absorb. Obviously, the digestion process will be very slow here. More of fiber intake would be difficult because the digestion would be much complicated. But comparatively, if we go for this diet, it's been seen that the improvement of the patient is much more. The muscle loss, which has been seen, like most of the cases, can be actually regained after a certain period of time if we uh follow this kind of diet and on a continuous basis. So, um for cancer prevention and management, while we are focusing on the prevention, the research also looks into specific diets which can actually complement. I'm not telling to replace the diet, but to complement the diet along with the treatment and managing the side effects because with cancer there are a lot of side effects, and we can we what we need to it uh need to do is our main goal should be reducing the cancer risk of the patient if the patient recovers during the remission stage. So uh the key dietary components here with the plant uh proteins that we have are phytochemicals which are polyphenols, resvertol, flavonoids, curcetin, carotenoids. We have fiber, the higher consumption of fiber, particularly from the grains and the vegetables, and it reduces the risk of certain cancers, definitely. Then we have the dietary patterns of Mediterranean and completely vegetarian diets, and frequently cited for their protective properties. Then uh this feast also aims to provide evidence-based dietary recommendations to reduce cancer mortality through uh personalized nutrient-dense foods, and that is mostly which are coming from plants as bioactive rich food choices. So, with all this, diet and cancer definitely have a big relationship because the patient's recovery without salt would not be possible at all in any of the stages of cancer. Considering this, uh relative contribution, where we know that there are certain determinant drivers of cancer risk, and uh the factors can be any of it, like uh relative um contribution of genetic factors, we have environmental factors. We also have replicative errors in the stem cell division wherein the cells divide continuously and uh there is a lot of growth in the cancer cells. In all these factors, it is very crucial for us to actually determine how diet can act as a protective barrier for the human body to recover the damaged cell and uh work towards it to make it into a normal cell which stops its unnatural growth and definitely make the patient more uh in a cute state and gives the patient a lot of nutrition. Uh and also I would like to add to this is that there are a lot of effects of dietary um and um uh sorry, diet diet and nutrition on uh the the carcinogenic factors. Uh so that would be across most of the populations. It is, as I said, that it is a world widespread disease which is uncontrollable, like uh it uh from uh like it is not restricted to certain parts of uh the world or something like that, it is widely spread totally. So, and there are various uh types of uh tumors which are arising and uh it is organ-specific definitely. So, uh, if we would say that one size fits all, uh, with this concept, we would say that if the plant-based diet can be introduced, it definitely can be managed and can be taken care of. So, coming to this while investigating, as I said, the targeted cells, so we see it as precision nutrition, and we also follow a particular pattern while we are implementing this kind of diet. So, when we are implementing this kind of diet, we have taken an approach, and mostly our approach would be uh very different uh while introducing it, would not be like a normal diet that would be introduced, it would be mostly into a drug form uh and then uh implement it for the patient. So, understanding the pharmacology is very essential into this field, and what we also need is um there are certain concept experiments um that can actually integrate into the existing knowledge uh about a lot of research work is actually going on now and it is still in process, and we are hopeful that the drum development with these natural products would be more progressive in the coming days, and there would be like uh the with the development uh into testing with artificial intelligence and the dietary patterns used, uh a food meta volume would be developed wherein to elicit the drug-like uh drug-like effects to target the tissues for cancer prevention and control, and um actually helping to completely eradicate the disease and going into better forms as much as we can also.

Real Food Versus Supplements

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, fascinating information, right? And just knowing that the food that we eat, right, plays a huge role in the recovery, obviously the prevention. And I think as dietitians, right, we tell clients that food is not just calories, right? It's information for our cells. And so I think describing this, you know, from a biological standpoint helps the uh the listeners to understand, right, like how how food really affects our cells, right? Which is essentially the foundation for everything, right? For recovering and just for our day-to-day prevention in our immune system. It's really, really great to really understand that. But the other thing too, right, is that we also emphasize with our clients that um dietary patterns, right, matter more than simple, simple superfoods, right? Because you do hear a lot, and this is like such a word that has been misused, more so by like the supplement industry, right? Like they're trying to sell you like these really expensive supplements with the superfoods, right? But it's not one particular food. Like we cannot just focus on like eating tons of broccoli and that's it, right? Like it's a combination of all these foods that are gonna give us those components that are cancer protective, you know, from our broccoli, our cruciferous veggies, our grapes, or green tea, apples, right, turmeric, whatever. And so it is the combination of all that, right, that is gonna help us versus like just choosing a pill for something. So, what are your thoughts on like you know, supplements versus like real food?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

My thoughts would be mostly going into real foods rather than supplements, because uh like when we are dealing with the Raw kind of thing, I think it is in a better form. It's in a more organic form. With supplements, definitely it needs to be to uh be going through a lot of processes and um it will not be uh into completely into its original form, it will be modified and we have to actually look into uh like uh when we are actually dealing with uh dietary and uh aspect of it, we have to see that it is directly targeted uh to something which is into a good form. And if uh supplements because most of the supplements that are in the market they are uh actually combined with a they have a chemical comp composition to it too. So uh with that chemical composition, I feel that um like it can be worked out, but um when we are mostly uh when uh the body is already going through a lot of processes, especially for a cancer patient, a lot of um drug management happening with uh the cancer patient having going through chemotherapy and radiation therapy with so many processes going on. Again, the supplements would be another way of um supporting the patient, but uh like introducing a lot of unnecessary chemical um formulations in the body which might not be as beneficial like taking in the original form of the good.

Final Takeaways And Listener Ask

SPEAKER_01 23:50

This is really fascinating, right? Understanding that the components in food are not just, and this is what I talk to my patients about, it's not just a particular, let's say, vitamin C, right, or vitamin A. There's thousands of components in the food, right, that work synerg synergistically, so together, right, to make this magic happen, essentially, that it is healing your body, healing your cells. And it's something that oftentimes supplements cannot fully replicate. Now, not to say that I'm against them, absolutely not, because supplements definitely have a place in time to support patients that truly are not able to meet their needs, right, through nutrition, which is oftentimes what happens with our cancer patients, right, that are going through treatment or even that have already done treatment and their appetite is so low, or there's lots of nausea and vomiting, where we really need to come in and add a supplement to fill in those gaps, right? But if we're able to get our nutrients through food, that should be the very first thing that we talk that we focus on. Supplements after, and you also have to, and I think I've done an episode on this a while back, and I should bring it back on, but really, really investigating where your supplements are coming from because they are not FDA regulated. And so a company can say, oh, we put that, and we don't know, right? So it you have to make sure that it's NSF approved, that it's third-party tested, right? To make sure that what they're saying is actually true. And you're not wasting your money in supplements that um probably don't even have what they're saying that they have in them. So what we want to really close up here, right, is that food is medicine. And we should should see it as it is and think of our bodies as like like this amazing, not even machine, right? Because machines don't need this level of nourishment, but just this organism, right, that has so many parts. If you were to just analyze and study your body, you would be so surprised as like how amazing it is, right? So, and the way that we keep our bodies going and healing our bodies is through food, right? So we are gonna be exposed to environmental toxins and these other things that will affect our cells. And so the way that we help our bodies to be able to heal, right, at a cellular level is through food, through adding all this variety of foods, right? Think of all your colors of your fruits and veggies, think of your legumes, right? Your beans that give you all those antioxidants and phytochemicals to really heal your body. Um, as Adity mentioned, right, like we don't have to replace everything. We should complement the foods that we're eating, the foods that we consume with these other foods. But we do have to look into, okay, are my foods mostly, you know, these plant sources, these foods that are healing my body, or it's the other way around, right? Like I'm having a lot of processed foods. And so I think it's important to you to really understand that and make a change, right? You can start, you can start slow, but that's okay, right? So no focusing on one, but also to really look into like, are we having, are our meals, right, our diets composed or mostly processed foods, right? And not adding those components that our bodies need to heal and repair. So it's which is important to to do that. So a few final questions here to wrap up. What is one food you personal personally try to include regularly for its health benefits?

SPEAKER_00 27:19

I have a combination of all the nuts and seeds, and I have personally felt that it suits my body. I'm now uh going uh mostly into a plant-based diet for myself too. Uh so it's not just the words that I speak, I'm implementing for myself. So I I I have noticed a lot of difference with that. Like with my entire metabolic process, the response is far more better, like uh because with I am 40. Which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Um just preaching what um or doing what you're preaching you, right? Essentially. Okay, Aditi, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us today. This was such was such a fascinating conversation, and I know our listeners are going to walk away with a deeper appreciation for the science behind food. And to everyone listening, remember, nutrition doesn't have to be complicated. Small, consistent habits can have powerful effects on long term health. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, share it with someone who might benefit, and leave a review. Until next time, this is Lionela Campos, Simple Nutrition Insights, reminding you to fuel your life with knowledge and intention. Bye bye for now.