Actress Rosario Dawson Says Her Father’s Pancreatic Cancer Battle Got Her ‘Super Into’ Gut Health; What to Know about Diet and Cancer

Detecting Pancreatic Cancer Early Is Crucial

“It was an amazing adventure,” she told PEOPLE. “My family are all in New York. It felt really beautiful and good to start a new chapter of my life in the driver’s seat.”

In a recent interview with Eating Well, The Mandalorian star who will soon have her own Star Wars spin-off show, Ahsoka, shared that her father’s cancer diagnosis got her “super into” food and its connection to gut health.

“I learned a lot about gut health with my dad’s cancer treatment,”  she said. “Gut health is emotional health, physical health, etc.”

Her mainly vegan diet today consists of lots of fiber and probiotic-rich foods with some of her favorites being sauerkraut, kimchi and vegan yogurt. She also says her diet often shifts with the passing seasons. For instance, she typically eats overnight oats for breakfast in the summer, but leans towards warm oatmeal or avocado toast in the winter.

But her emphasis on health does not end with her diet diet. She’s also an advocate for being active outside something her parents emphasized the importance of as a child. She’s recently partnered with Tom’s of Maine for a three-year initiative that funds resources to get children from underserved communities into nature and give them equitable access to outdoor recreation. For her, it’s all about the switch from tech to nature.

“Spending time on our screens all day isn’t natural,” she said. “We’re not computers, we’re not robots, we are alive and need to be in the alive world around us.”

Diet and Cancer

Rosario Dawson has put an even greater emphasis on health since her father’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis. But what does a healthy diet really look like for cancer-related concerns? It depends on who you ask. Studies have shown that diet can influence cancer prevention. Heavy alcohol consumption and obesity have been linked to a number of cancers, so it's a good idea to exercise and maintain a diet that incorporates more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins while decreasing sodium and added sugar intake.

Sugar, specifically, has attracted a lot of attention for a possible role in cancer, but overwhelming medical evidence finds that sugar does not cause cancer. SurvivorNet has previously found that credible sources such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Mayo Clinic all came to that same conclusion as well. But there is still some debate on the subject. Dr. Brian Berman, director of the center for integrative medicine
at the University of Maryland, believes sugar does, in fact, fuel cancer. Below we have shared his views not because it is of equal scientific weight to the sources cited above, but rather because it is a view that does get a lot of attention and press.

Sugar, The Western Diet And Cancer Prevention

There’s also articles that often get published saying ‘this fruit’ or ‘that vegetable’ is the magical cure to cancer. Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily the case. Leading oncologists say it is always hard to use studies of a single food to make sweeping generalizations about their impact on health. There are many factors that can determine health risk and it is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to say that a single food such as mushrooms can have a direct impact on cancer risk. Many other factors such as overall diet, environmental risk, genetics and exercise play a role.

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