The Epic Study is conducted by Imperial College, and is the largest European study to date to look at the realationship between nutrition, exercise and disease. It refutes the Dean Ornish idea that a low fat vegan diet can prevent/cure breast cancer, and I would recommend that people read the report (see link below)
realy interesting, especially comments about cancers in other parts of the body. We get 4 yearly colon cancer checks in our area.
Fascinating research Lemongrove - thanks for sharing
Fran
Thanks Lemongrove, very interesting. I only looked at the key finding bit (and even then there were some terms I had to google to try to understand). Very interesting to see the different things that increase risk of one type of cancer yet decrease risk for a different type.
Hi Lemongrove
I think its much more complex than that. We’ve discussed these Epic results at some length on the research and diet thread. The key thing is that there is no comparison vegan group. They found the numbers of vegans was too low (probably no good for stats) for them to do the comparison.
What they did find was that vegans had the lowest levels of IGF-1 (a growth factor linked with cancer). Elinda x
A couple of research links for anyone interested. The first is re vegetarian diet and lower rates of cancers (taken from the EPIC study Oxford):
ajcn.org/content/89/5/1620S.short
The second is regarding the IGF-1, the growth factor which may influence cancer development. This shows lower levels in vegans and higher rates of of an IGF-binding protein and is again taken from the EPIC study, Oxford:
cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/11/11/1441.short
I have seen a more in depth paper that shows that drinking soy milk, I think half a pint a day raises IGF-1 too, even in vegans. I’ll post when I find.
Elinda x
Thank you lemongrove that is really interesting about time more of this came forward I think there are alot more onc open minded now as to THIS does make a big difference, but then when you see how our diets have spiralled from 2nd world war & the cancer rates soared It makes sence that DIET is one of the main factors to this … we no longer eat/ farm as we used to
how are you doing huni ? I often thinking of you
keep on keeping on ok
Big Hugs
Mekala xxx
The problem with the EPIC study is in the details. For instance it can’t be used to usefully compare against the Dean Ornish study because the diets weren’t remotely comparable. Also one was an intervention study of cancer patients that put people on a radical diet and precisely tracked cancer progression with scans and measured serum levels of PSA (the Ornish study), and one was a large observational study of people without cancer eating their normal diet, with all the attendant problems of people accurately reporting what they eat and drink (generally they don’t).
The Dean Ornish study had a group eating a near vegan diet with very large amounts of vegetables and whole grains, and taking daily exercise. The average vegetable consumption in the EPIC study was so low that in some countries it equated to just one serving a day - in the UK it was about 2 servings a day. I wouldn’t expect to see any benefit from that at all - so I don’t see how EPIC contradicts Dean Ornish because they weren’t looking at the same thing at all.
Incidentally the Dean Ornish study does not as far as I am aware claim that diet can prevent or cure breast cancer - it observes that the diet his research group ate significantly slowed the progression of early prostate cancer over the two years for which we have statistics, compared to the control group.
The bit I like is that in pre-menopausal women, being overweight is not a cause of BC. So, not my fault then. But better lose weight now.
Much more detailed studies than EPIC on the diets of women who have actually had breast cancer tell a very different story from EPIC’s conclusions.
This study, for instance, measured plasma carotenoids of women with primary breast cancer, as a very accurate measurement of vegetable consumption. It found that those in the highest quartile of vegetable consumption compared with those in the lowest quartile, had a 43% lower risk of having a breast cancer recurrence:
jco.ascopubs.org/content/23/27/6631.full
This study found:
“Women consuming better-quality diets, as defined by higher Healthy Eating Index-2005 scores, had a 60% reduced risk of death from any cause and 88% reduced risk of death from breast cancer. Compared with inactive survivors consuming poor-quality diets, survivors engaging in any recreational physical activity and consuming better-quality diets had an 89% reduced risk of death from any cause and a 91% reduced risk of death from breast cancer. Associations observed were independent of obesity status.” (Edited for brevity)
The huge problem with EPIC is that they had virtually no-one in the cohort eating the type of diet that is associated with reduced risk of cancer or recurrence. What they studied was small variations in an average diet. It’s not at all surprising they found little correlations with cancer.
Thanks for this Lemongrove, ive been following the EPIC study with a great deal of interest over time and have previously been in touch with one of the leading Proffessors conducting this study to ask him a few questions re Diet and BC which ive posted about before.
EPIC concluded in a podcast on CRUK in Aug 2010 that EPIC has found NO strong links between Diet and BC or Diet and Prostrate Cancer .
The EPIC study is unlike any other studies that have looked into Diet and Cancer before and is far superior in its nature, not only because of its size (500,000 people) ,it also spans accross 10 countries all of whom have very varied diets ,only healthy people were recruited and then followed for many yrs (at least 10)so researchers are able to make more reliable assessments,not only were questionaires used but biological samples including plasma,serum, leukocytes and erythrocytes, from approximately 400,000 individuals, have been stored in liquid nitrogen.
Over 9 million samples have been stored,making the EPIC centres, collectively, the largest biorepository in the world that is available for genetic,
metabolic, biochemical and epidemiological data.
Subsets of the EPIC study, called ‘The Eurogast project’ and ‘Genair’, have been initiated to investigate correlations between tumour-associated
genetic mutations, polymorphisms, diet and cancer.
For an indept analysis of what and how very complex the EPIC study is and how it is able to make much more reliable and definative conclusions is below.
toxicology.usu.edu/endnote/DietCancerEu-NutRevCancer2004.pdf
Good news for all of us and should help at last to put the diet myths to rest.
Best Wishes
Linda x
Thank you finty & Linda all very interesting.
I’m so pleased there are some of you posters that are so “on top” of the conflicted research evidence that you can critique methods and findings and share these with us - my conclusion; definitive proof is probably a long way off so we all have to continue to make our own judgements and decisions on implications.
Fran
Hi Fran your absolutely right untill there is more of a definate answer we can only do what we feel best. Although I think alot of it is common sence, its not as if we have been diag with flu we are cancer patients & that tells me something went wrong or is not working ? We have been told for many years now about ‘healthy eating’ & if those of us which im sure many had room for improvement before diag I think theres no greater incentive to start ridding the body of all the artificial muck we been putting into it even those who thought were eating a well balanced diet were putting alot of the artifical foods E numbers & chemicals without realising it you only have to look carefully at the so called ‘low fat’ ‘no added sugar’ labelled foods ! where we are lead to believe we are doing the best when really alot of these products could pontentially be doing more harm ? Personally I think back to basics is the way but thats just my opinion.
Am with you “Mekalar” - I’m very much into “single ingredient” product eating now and organic if possible too. Not that I had a bad diet pre-BC but we did eat a lot of protein (carry over from my USA days of seeing huge steaks as the “ultimate”) and I did do sea-saw dieting - now find my cravings have gone and if I don’t have lots of veg I crave them and actually want a huge salad - so we can change and it’s not too painful and it does help me to stay positive as contributing to my own health - and maybe that’s more important than the detail of what I eat!
Well I was thinking today how some people on here are vegan, either for morals or health reasons, or because they just feel better, Some have never been able to tolerate dairy. Some do not worry about diet at all.
I think we are all different and if we just stop presenting our bodies with processed ingrediants (and sorry that includes sugar, and milled flour products) then we would naturally tend to eat what is best for our particular body type.
I thrive on animal fat. I cook in organic, grass fed beef lard. Eat at least 2 eggs a day,if not more, drink 6% fat organic gersey milk, and choose the fattier cuts of meat. Could not eat any grain or pulses or starchy veg to save my life, and the days I eat a piece of fruit are few and far between. Salad–yuch rabbit food. This is not some self inflicted diet, its just how my eating changed once i cut out processed foods. (only exception is alcohol). I am about 4 pounds more than i was at 30 but that could be age.
I have my annual colestoral check which is normal, and the whole family had to have a lipid test because of a genetic disorder and the doctor said it was nice to see people on a low fat diet.
So it seems to me that we should just eat what makes us feel good. The eyes are the first part of the digestive system, we start secreting digestive juices and enzyms as we look at the food we are about to eat. And if it is not something like sugar, that is stimulating the pleasure centre rather than the digetive system and if it is good plain food that we can recognise, then our natural instincts will kick in and tell us what to eat.
Another OAL crazy idea but it works for me. Oddly enough I had decided to carry on drinking after my DX but perhaps stop during rads, but since my op I just do not fancy alcohol at all–wonder what my body is telling me there?? i am not on tamoxifan yet so it cannot be that.
Hi OAL I had to giggle at your post & your right if it makes you happy then so be it, the LARD bit concerned me though I can’t see that as being part of a low fat diet ? you mention colesterol my mum had high colest few years ago & her doctor told her to make sure she only had 2 eggs a week max I never concidered them to cause a problem. I love eggs I probably have 3 or 4 a week but thats added into foods (Pastry or homemade mayo) as well as eating them fried or in omlet. agree with the sugar, salt flours & white breads dont touch them now, I used to love coissants & danish pastries all home baking done with organic wholegrain/ spelt flours now.
Oh nearly forgot … ask your rad team about the drink, I dont drink but automatically thought they would advice against it but before your 1st session a nurse has a chat & goes over all the do’s & don’ts this was the 1st time drink was brought up regarding Rads (because of it being dehydrating) my nurse said if you fancy a glass of wine in the evening have one !
hi mekalar, But I am not on a low fat diet, cannot see the point of reducing my fat at all if it makes be feel good.