Has anyone tried this. I have read it is good for preventing breast cancer?
Fay
It is oestrogenic, and should not be taken by anyone who had ER+ breast cancer.
Mcgle
Definitely and don’t touch Red Clover either. Any of these things needs to be certified free of plant oestrogens and The Nutricentre are pretty good at that.
We could do with a category on supplements and complementary therapies as the other day a lady on here wrote a good post about Vitamin C and then we got on to Iron supplements etc.
D
Woah there! Don’t damn everything oestrogenic! It depends on what it is, how concentrated it is and what your hormone receptors are and what medication you are taking and, and, and, a multitude of factors and some phyto-oestrogens are present in some essential foods. There is no such thing as a healthy diet free of plant oestrogens. To contrive such a diet would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
There is strong evidence which points at phyto-oestrogens as being healing and protective of our healthy cells and damaging to tumour cells. This is still controversial as there is some research which contradicts this, but for concentrates and extracts and mostly in vitro - in test tube cultures of cells directly exposed to the plant chemical extract. Naturally occuring plant oestrogens don’t only affect oestrogen receptors but also other biochemical pathways at the cell surface and within, including within the cell nucleus, in positive and healthy ways.
As I 've mentioned before, there are at least 20 different phyto-oestrogens - chemicals in plants which mimic natural human oestrogens but at from a five hundredth to a thousanth of the concentration, found in over 300 different food plants.
Until you have got professional advice from a cancer nutritionist (a rare breed!) or studied all the evidence for yourself, I suggest you don’t supplement anything, (herb concentrates, extracts etc.) but eat a really wide variety of foods from beans to strawberries to citrus to broccoli and sprouts, etc. etc. in fact as many different veggies and fruits as you can and whole grains, make sure you’re covering your basic needs such as folic acid and vit. B12 from your food, omega 3 from flaxseeds, walnuts or fish, trace elements from brewer’s yeast, sprouted seeds etc. and iodine from seafoods.
Wishing you well,
Jenny
I thought you’d all be interested in the latest research on Black Cohosh (the original paper apparently also refers to red clover and ginger but the Doc. who reviews this research in this link only draws attention to Black Cohosh). She says it is not a source of phyto-oestrogen though most people claim it is. But read it for yourself and see what you think.
torihudson.com/
Wishing you well,
Jenny