Mel - Unless you are vegetarian, I don’t get the argument about cow’s milk versus baby milk. If you eat other parts of the cow, what’s the difference?
I don’t know if it’s my brain lol, but I don’t understand this 
Mel xx
Linda - I have just read your linked article. It seems that we could drive ourselves mad with worry over all of this - and probably are! As we have both said, the amount of oestrogen that may be in milk seems to pale into insignificance when faced with all these other dangerous products. I am absolutely certain that being on HRT for many years, together with many years of intense stress were the major causes of my bc. The stress of worrying about this is probably doing most harm!
Mel - What I meant was that cow’s milk is just a food for us. It is a source of many nutrients that we require from some source or other. We are not having milk as a replacement for baby milk. You could say that eggs are not for human consumption, or any other animal product. Why single out milk?
Ann
Oh I see lol,you are referring to what my sister in law said,her words not mine
Mel xx
Goodness me I get swayed one way then another lol.I have just read the link that linda put on here,I have now come to the conclusion that the only way to reduce the risk would be to stop eating,drinking,living.I don’t think I will worry about it.
Mel xx
Ann,
I feel exactly the same , if we are not carefull we could drive ourselves absolutely nuts over all of this, and im sure the stress of it all would proberly cause us much more damage than anything else.
The Dairy debate has been discussed many times on these forums and no doubt will continue to do so for a long time to come, but whatever peoples views and beliefs (and everyone is entiltled to their own views and beliefs and to follow the path which feels right for them) i think it is so important to do the research and then we can begin to realise just how complex all of this is. Diet/Dairy alone is not going to cure breast cancer, if it was as simple as that we would have a cure, i just think its sad sometimes to read of others who deny themselves things in life that they would have otherwise enjoyed based on some claims by the likes of Jane Plant and others, without looking at all the available evidence that there is regarding the oestrogen issue as a whole.
Linda
Here is another Link which makes very interesting reading for anyone who hasnt read it. i was astounded a couple of yrs ago when i came accross this ,
Mel, Exactly, my sentiments too.
Mel, Anne - I think the comment about baby milk and cows milk is relevant in terms of exposure. A baby human or cow would be fed it’s mothers milk for a few months at a time when it is required to grow very quickly. We however consume the same milk, with all the growth hormones intended for the baby cow, for our whole lifetimes - huge difference!
We know that lifetime exposure to oestrogen is a cause of breast cancer - early periods and late menopause are highly significant. So even if the amount of oestrogen and IGF in milk is low, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that it could contribute to hormone positive breast cancers over a lifetime of exposure - most of the carcinogens we are exposed to are in tiny quantities.
Linda - I would totally agree that we are exposed to oestrogens everywhere - and I am doing my best to avoid them everywhere - which is why I chucked out ALL my toiletries a couple weeks ago and started again. But to me it makes sense to cut them out where possible - and cutting out a food group to me is quite easy.
Diet may not cure cancer - although I will dig out a very interesting link for you in a minute - and I totally get that this is something that you feel isn’t appropriate for you and I’m not trying to convince you to start - but it’s horses for courses. I am trying lots if things and hope that TOGETHER they will have some impact - even if it only gives me another 6 months I’d happily do it. I find it pretty easy, I don’t feel at all stressed about it - quite the opposite - I feel better than I have done in ages. I’ve lost weight, my skin is fantastic and I have more energy.
Hi Linda - this is the link that didn’t work - or one of them anyway. I hope it works this time - but can’t tell until I post the comment.
en-gb.www.mozilla.com/en-GB/firefox/central/
This is a highly significant study because it is the only research I am aware of where a group of people with active hormone related cancer were treated ONLY with diet and lifestyle changes. These were men with early stage prostate cancer - which can be left untreated if PSA (hormone) levels are monitored and if they stay low. One group adopted a near vegan diet, took exercise and had some form of counselling. The other group were a control and continued as before. The group that changed their diet did very significantly better, measurable by their PSA levels, and did not go on to require further treatment - some men in the control group did require further treatment. This is precisely the claim for prostate cancer that Jane Plant makes - that a near vegan diet with other lifestyle changes can keep PSA levels low enough to avoid further treatment.
The link above is to an abstract - to get the full details of the research you have to read some links that track back to the original article.
Link still doesn’t work - will try and sort out why.
Sorry Linda I can’t make the link work, but if you’re intereested a google search of this sentence:
intensive lifestyle changes may affect the progression of prostate cancer
will take you to the article.
Summary of findings: Of the group that changed their diet, none had any progression of their prostate cancer after a year as confirmed by MRI scans and PSA levels. Of the control group 6 had sufficient progression to require treatment (rads or chemo).
PSA levels dropped 4% in the diet group, and were raised 6% in the control group - a 10% swing.
Unfortunately no such experiment will ever be conducted to measure the effect of diet on breast cancer, because it simply cannot be left untreated for a year. But this study is enough to convince me it is worth a try.
finty - I really do understand why you are trying everything you can regarding diet, etc, but I do wonder what exactly you have been left to eat, other than organic vegetables. Even then, have they been grown using animal manure? (I don’t know if this is done.) Does this contain oestrogen? Can you let us know what your diet contains now?
I certainly wouldn’t substitute soya for milk. Have you come across this article?
theecologist.org/green_green_living/behind_the_label/269552/behind_the_label_soya.html
Mel - Yes, sorry, it was about your sister-in-law’s words. Also, someone said the same thing as you on an old thread, about giving up food and drink altogether and slowly killing ourselves that way!
Linda - Totally agree.
Ann x
Like flinty, I have no problem cutting out a food group and eating a diet of approx 70% fresh fruit and vege is not difficult, lots of nuts and seeds, organic eggs and chicken too. I feel amazing and my skin is the best it has been in 20 years. My nails are stronger than ever too.
I don’t 100% cut out dairy, but apart from all the previous discussion, simply it is not good for humans. It clogs the liver and produces mucus. I agree farming standards in the uk are not as bad as the USA, but still, mass produced milk is not a quality product. Milk and its so called benefits are a part of a massive marketing programme and a mulit-billion pound business.
Most of my cosmetics, cleaning products and perfumes are in the bin too. I have always hated the smell of cleaning products and have been sensitive to their effects. There are many natural alternatives.
I take lots of supplements. Flinty, you may be interested in the Chris Woollams books. I think he is a bit more scientific than the main book you recommend (which you obviously love the technical side of things!), and is not just about diet and lifestyle but about synthetic oestrogens. It encourages a lot of supplements too.
Another good book is “Whats In This Stuff?”. Many food and cleaning additives are still in food in this country and yet are banned in other western countries.
Ann I actually enjoy my diet - I eat loads of fruit and veg, cereals, porridge, nuts, bread, fish, eggs, houmous, peanut butter, soya ice cream, sorbets, red wine, dark chocolate, occasionally biscuits, chinese, japanese, thai and indian food, soups, casseroles, stir fries, curries …
In fact my diet now is what I used to eat before on a good day - I’ve just cut out the bad days!
I don’t know too much about manure and organic vegetables - but I am happy that a near vegan diet is the diet most closely associated with low levels of breast cancer (Japan, China etc). But there is much more to fruit vegetables than just not being animal products - they contain very many helpful phtyochemicals with properties that may help in fighting cancer, and more are being discovered all the time.
I know there are many with concern about soya. The evidence is certainly mixed - but again a soya diet is associated with low levels of breast cancer in asian countries, and I personally believe the evidence tilts towards phtyoestrogens behaving differently from animal oestrogen. I think soya supplements are dangerous, so I only eat a small amount - usually just milk with cereal.
Thanks Gretchen - I have read Chris Woolhams website, so will try the books. My favourite though is Foods that Fight Cancer by Prof Beliveau and Dr Gingras. For me the diet issue isn’t just cutting out certain foods, but adding in foods that help the immune system and have shown some promising cancer fighting properties.
Ann I read that article and found it very superficial, with very few references to the underlying research. The US research that it did mention is very suspect - I have read it - as it didn’t discount enough variables. For instance, it included someone as having a high soya diet if they ate a conventional (ie very unhealthy) american diet, but added soy sauce to the occasional take away! I’m not surprised they discovered a high soya diet had no health benefits!!
I found David Servan-Schreiber’s “Anti-cancer - a new way of life” a really good read full of easy to follow advice on foods that fight cancer. Anyone can incorporate some of these foods into their diet while maybe avoiding the ‘baddies’ - refined carbs.
I would also recommend “Trick and Treat” (Barry Groves) and Gary Taubes “The Diet delusion” to anyone.
Both refer to hundreds of scientific studies suggestive that the high carb/low fat diet is not the optimum one for health. They suggest that the low carb/high fat diet is actually much better overall.
I try to keep the carbs under control, eat berries, nuts, dark chocolate, a glass of red wine a day and as few packaged foods as possible. I don’t curtail my fat content but do try to avoid junk processed fatty rubbish! Will it work? who knows but I believe it’s worth a try. My logical mind tells me that our bodies are not evolved to cope with junk foods and the indidence of cancer has grown rapidly since the move to a high carbohydrate diet.
alex
Hi Alex I also liked Servan Schreiber’s book - I am going to read up the others you suggested now. Thanks. finty x
finty - Didn’t you recently draw our attention to high insulin being a risk factor? Your diet seems to contain many sugars/carbohydrates. Alcohol is also a risk factor and the jury is out on phyto-oestrogens/isoflavones, whatever you say. This is what I meant by what is there left to eat?
Just because a population has a lower incidence of a disease, it is not scientifically possible to point to one area of diet as being the reason. They probably do not import their soya from the USA and they treat it differently in preparation. They eat more fish. They are a different nationality genetically and may be less susceptible to bc. There are all number of reason why they have a lower incidence.
This discussion can go on and on because, basically, no-one knows. We don’t know what is right individually, as we are all different. We must all do what we think is right for us, but I think we can agree that the whole thing is very worrying.
Ann x
Ann - yes I did point out the link with IGF and sugar, and no I eat virtually no refined sugar - mainly just sugar that occurs naturally in fruit (fructose). What gave you the idea that I did? Apart from the occasional ice cream or biscuit - about once a week - I can’t think of anything that I eat that has more than minimal sugar content.
Re alcohol I drink one glass of red wine per day, for which there is plenty of research showing the benefits outweigh the risk factors for breast cancer. Resveratol in red wine was the first molecule of dietary origin identified as being capable of interfering with the progression of cancer by inhibiting all three stages necessary for the development of the disease - initiation, promotion, and progression. But moderation is the key here!
I completely agree about the population and diet - which is why I eat a diet very close to a typical asian one and don’t just adopt one food as significant. But genetics can really be discounted as a significant factor, as asian women moving to the west and adopting a western lifestyle will very soon develop western levels of breast cancer. It generally happens in three generations - which is how long it takes immigrant families to fully assimilate into their host culture. This is a micro second in genetic terms.
I agree with your last paragraph that we must all do what is right for us - but I don’t agree that no-one knows. The prostate cancer research I discussed is what everyone has been asking for - evidence that diet alone affects cancer outcomes, with no medical treatment or intervention to cloud the issue. The conclusion was unequivocal - diet and lifestyle changes alone can prevent early stage cancer from progressing.
HI Finty,
Thanks for trying to get the links on,I googled the intensive lifestyle change study re prostrate cancer, and whilst it is encourageing to read , i think we need to remember a few points.
First The study was relatively small (93 men participents), all of these men had Early Stage Prostrate Cancer, they also had a Gleason Score below 7{ which actualy indicates a less aggressive Tumour)apart from an extreamly strict vegan diet they also did regular exercise which included walking 30 mins 6 times a week ,they did Yoga,meditation ,and participated in support groups which was also part of the study.
While The study shows that there “may be some benefit” to following such a strict diet with the other lifestyle changes but only once prostate cancer has been diagnosed, the findings aren’t conclusive. The study only measured PSA and other lab results – it did not look at survival or whether the disease had spread. Also, the follow up period was only a year, which is not long enough ,the follow up was brief!
Lichtenfeld notes also that the Ornish plan is very strict and may be very hard for some people to stick to. In the study, 3 men quit the plan because it was too difficult.
Lichtenfeld also said he would not recommend following this plan instead of conventional treatments .
Unfortunately because studies like this are small and the follow up is not long term it cannot prove a definate link, and even if it did i think for most people it would be very difficult to follow.
We also need to remember that Breast Cancer and Prostrate Cancer are two entirely different cancers, so cannot possibly be compared.
Linda