We know that following a healthy diet can help prevent certain forms of cancer, just as an unhealthy diet can promote cancer. It has also been shown that a radical change of diet will help in the fight against established cancer when used in combination with traditional treatments, but can nutrition alone reverse cancer? The Environmental News Network (ENN) reports that Dr Plaskett, a respected biochemist and food expert believes it can.

In his new book, The Nutritional Therapy Of Cancer, Dr Plaskett puts forward a case stating that changes in nutrition can cause established cancers to regress. His ideas are based on the rationale that the body has its own natural mechanisms that fight cancer and nutrition plays a key role in these mechanisms.

To understand better the basis for his theory, it's necessary to look at the reasons why cancers happen. Cancers occur when weakened cells succumb to certain environmental influences. Plaskett says that one of the main reasons cells become weakened is due to a lack of proper nutrition. But it's his suggestion that nutrition alone can help the body reject established cancers without chemotherapy or radiation treatment that is the greatest bone of contention

The only real evidence for his claims comes from The Nutritional Therapy Cancer Trust - his own organisation. Plaskett states that between 1997 and 2006, more than half of all cancer patients treated there using his techniques went into remission. Significantly, he says that many of these patients had been categorised as 'untreatable' by their own doctors. However, as many of his treatments centre round the consumption of fruit and vegetable juices, as well as coffee enemas, it's not hard to understand why his claims have been called into question.

In The Nutritional Therapy Of Cancer, Plaskett calls for properly regulated trials by medical professionals on order to prove his theories and make nutritional therapy part of the mainstream treatments for cancer. It's worth pointing out that Plaskett does not suggest that traditional therapies should be avoided altogether. In fact, he advocates surgical removal of the primary tumour.

It remains to be seen whether or not the medical profession will take Plaskett up on his claims, but in a world where cancer is one of the biggest killers of all human diseases, his theories are clearly worthy of investigation and could make a major contribution towards the development of cancer treatments in the future.