The best diet to fight cancer – according to real science (not ‘woo’)

Cancer rates in the West are rising all the time and many believe it is down to our fondness for ultra-processed food, as well as too much alcohol and red meat – things the King, who has just announced his own diagnosis, is generally known to avoid. But with so much conflicting information out there, what advice should we be listening to? Maria Lally sifts the evidence for facts

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On Sunday 4 February, King Charles was photographed waving happily to onlookers on his way to church on the Sandringham estate, the first time he had been seen since treatment for an enlarged prostate. 

It seems ironic now that Sunday was also World Cancer Day, given that the following day Buckingham Palace made the shock announcement that the 75-year-old King has cancer. Messages from world leaders flooded in, Prince Harry flew from LA to London to be by his father’s side, and well-wishers gathered outside Buckingham Palace.

Up until this year, the King has enjoyed fairly good health, save for two bouts of Covid. In Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, he revealed that his father does daily headstands to offset neck and back pain resulting from years of playing polo. And while the then Prince of Wales told an interviewer in 2020 that keeping his weight steady in his 70s was a “never-ending battle”, in the same year Camilla told an interviewer, “He is probably the fittest man I know… He’ll walk and walk and walk. He’s like a mountain goat.”