Dietary phytates are “quickly absorbed from the [digestive] tract and rapidly taken up” by cancer cells throughout the body, and has been shown to inhibit the growth of all tested cancerous cell lines. Phytates have been shown to inhibit the growth of human leukemia cells, colon cancer cells, both estrogen receptor-positive and negative breast cancer cells, voicebox cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, liver tumors, pancreatic, melanoma, and muscle cancers. All, at the same time, not affecting normal cells. That’s the “most important expectation of a good anticancer agent,” is for it to only affect cancerous cells, and leave normal cells alone. That’s what phytates appear to do.

What are the mechanisms of action by which phytates battle cancer? How do phytates fight? How don’t they fight? Look at this. Phytate targets cancer through multiple pathways, a combination of antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-enhancing activities: detox, differentiation, anti-angiogenesis. In other words, phytate “affects the principal pathways of malignancy.” And, not just some of them apparently, phytate “targets and acts on all of them.”