Published in 1982, Recalled by Life: The Story of My Recovery
from Cancer (1) recounted the autobiographical story of a
physician, Dr. Anthony Sattilaro, who was diagnosed at age
49 y with prostate cancer with multiple bone metastases.
Given a poor prognosis and feeling that he had nothing to
lose, Dr. Sattilaro adopted a macrobiotic, predominantly vegetarian,
whole-foods diet soon after diagnosis. Follow-up examinations
at 1 and 4 y after diagnosis revealed complete
resolution of metastatic bone lesions. Articles recounting his
story appeared in publications such as the Saturday Evening
Post (August, 1980) and Life magazine (August, 1982). Publication
of Dr. Sattilaro’s story was preceded in 1979 by another
autobiographical book, Healing Miracles from Macrobiotics (2),
which described the recovery of a music professor, Dr. Jean
Kohler, from pancreatic cancer, and was followed in 1983 with
the publication of Michio Kushi’s The Cancer Prevention Diet
[reissued in 1993 (3)], which detailed the macrobiotic approach
to cancer. Based on these and other stories of recovery
from cancer [see, for example (4–7)], macrobiotics has become
known popularly as a comprehensive dietary and lifestyle
approach to cancer.
The general notion that diet may influence carcinogenesis
is not new nor particularly out of the mainstream of biomed-