Dr. Shelby Terstriep, an oncologist, directs the cancer survivorship program at Roger Maris Cancer Center, where Swegarden has been one of her patients in the program.

“People can take some control of themselves,” she said, explaining the idea behind the survivorship program. “Cancer survivors are at increased risks of another cancer.”

Eating a healthy diet is one of the factors Terstriep encourages with her patients. She considers a healthy diet to be “additive, not curative,” and said researchers have had great difficulty in pinpointing what kind of diet can prevent cancer or its recurrence.

“Studying the diet is extremely complicated,” she said. “It’s hard to tease out components because there’s so many of them. It’s extremely difficult to study.”

Nevertheless, Terstriep has boiled down the often contradictory advice about diet and cancer prevention into a few simple tips: Eat whole foods, control carbohydrates, get some exercise, reduce stress, never smoke.

One clear takeaway from the research is that advice to eat lots of meals throughout the day, a practice some call “grazing,” might not be legitimate, she said. Eating only three meals a day might help the body’s metabolism and might have some hormonal benefits, research suggests.