I agree - women in developing countries just dont have the screening we do or the diagnosis, so the true figures are just not available. Its also worth a mention that these women for centuries have been living a lifestyle that is protective towards BC. One of the most significant factors is that our genes are affected by our ancestors so even if our own lifestyle is very healthy, what our grandmothers etc did has an impact - one report recently suggests that if your grandmother ate a diet high in fat, then your risk of BC is increased. I know that my grandmother would have done as she was very poor and they ate all sorts of rubbish to eek out meals.
Cathy I don’t think that is the case. If you take China for instance, there are high, and growing, rates for certain cancers. Cancer of the oesophagus for instance, which is attributed to pollution. They may not be detected early enough for good outcomes, but they are known and studied. The difference is that specifically breast cancer and prostate cancer rates are lower. I don’t see why just one type of cancer would go undetected or unreported.
I don’t see genetics being a big factor in the East vs West breast cancer debate. It is known that when Asian women move to the west, within three generations they have a similar rate of bc as their adopted country. To me that suggest environmental factors, not genetics.
They say these things increase risk of BC,but we have already had or have BC and I think if I go on to get recurrence or secondary cancer it would be because cancer cells were still in my body and not having dairy wont stop it or will it?.Maybe i’m looking at it all wrong.It all baffles me.
Mel xx
Hi Melly
The dairy debate is controversial, but if you google Jane Plant you will get one side of the debate. She believes she stopped her cancer in its tracks by giving up dairy - she had 4 recurrences in 7 months and had run out of treatment options - chemo and rads had failed. After making various diet changes, her latest tumour disappeared and she has been cancer free for 17 years. Is it proof? No. Is it worth a try? With my diagnosis (stage 4), absolutely.
Melly also, it is my understanding that we all have cancer cells in our body, the question is why some people go on to develop cancer, and others don’t. And why some have recurrences and others don’t. That suggests to me that if you have had cancer once, and make no changes whatsoever, whatever caused the cancer to develop the first time will still be there.
I know there are many on here who are not great fans of Jane Plant.I have not read her book so cant really comment on her.But I have trouble in believing that diet change can cure cancer,but thats just my take on it.As you say for you it’s worth a try and maybe I would do the same.I would still have conventional medicine though.
Mel xx
Finty, when you say environmental factors, do you mean pollutants, food additives etc or do you mean lifestyle? One of the reasons Asian women who move over here are more at risk is the adopt the western lifestyle. As for genetics, lifestyle factors and envirnomental factors have a huge impact on genes, which in turn, can affect how a cell switches on to cancer. I have been searching for years why my son developed cancer as a baby, thought to have developed at conception. They ruled out anything I had done or my husband and felt there were rogue cells that turned cancerous, triggered by a virus. He had the tumour removed, had chemo, rads etc and hasnt had a recurrence. So whatever caused it in the first place may still remain, but to date he is fine and unlikely to have a recurrence after so many years. There are so many tiny but important factors that have to be in place to cause cancer.
I would include almost everything in lifestyle - food, alcohol, childbirth issues, fitness levels, hormone therapies, stress. Pollutants are a big factor, not just in air and water, but in the food chain, in the plastic bottles we all drink from, in animal feed, in our clothes, furniture. I suspect they all contribute. But we can do more about some than others.
Your point about the Asian women is exactly what I was saying, as soon as they adopt a western lifestyle, they have the same risks as us. So genetics can’t be the main factor - and as pollution is a factor almost everywhere, it points towards diet.
I found this
Question. Do we already have cancer cells in our body
Answer. No. “Everyone has cells that have mutant proteins from DNA damage, but to say that that’s cancer would be alarmist,” says Jennifer Loros, Ph.D, a professor of biochemistry and genetics at Dartmouth medical school. A cell’s natural cycle has checkpoints when it determines whether it’s in a healthy state and should divide, or is damaged and should repair or kill itself. “Cancer can occur when the normal checkpoints in the cell cycle are misregulated somehow and the [unhealthy] cell starts dividing,” Loros says. Usually, a powerful protein called P-53 will trigger tumor suppression if damage is detected at the checkpoint, causing a potential cancer to stop dead in its tracks.
Recently, Loros’s research team found that cell damage can trigger the body’s biological clock to reset itself. She suspects that protective proteins might fool these cells into thinking they’re at the time in their cycle when cell division doesn’t occur, thus averting cancer in the making
mel xx
Thanks Melly, that’s really interesting - I think that is what I meant but didn’t express it very well. It makes you realise how fragile the whole process is. Still to me it doesn’t seem unreasonable to posit that the proteins in our food can cause the disruption that provokes some cells to carry on dividing.
its all to much for my little brain.I shall carry on walking and trying to eat healthy and loose weight.
mel xx
I know how you feel Melly - and felt much the same until recently. But having secondaries does tend to kick you into gear! But if you change your mind the Anti-Cancer book is very easy to read, and the advice is very simple to follow too.
I think I might just take a look at that book, cant do any harm can it 
Mel xx
finty - Thanks for the links. The Independent report does not exactly say that oestrogen definitely gets through to our drinking water, does it? The last sentence reads:-
“So we cannot be sure that some of these compounds, albeit at very low concentrations, aren’t getting into our drinking water”.
The University of Ulster article is pretty old, so are we certain the water companies have not implemented this procedure already?
I understand what you are saying and, to be honest, there are so many of these scare stories that, having done lots of research, I became overloaded after I finished rads. Now, I feel that worrying about them all is more likely to cause a recurrence, since I believe the strong factors in my case were many years of being on HRT, combined with many years of severe stress, rather than the fact that I drank milk, etc. I have come to the conclusion that a good, varied diet - not too much of any one thing - is the best way for me.
Ann
Ann I can’t find any links to suggest the water companies have addressed the issue in the years since the article was written.
Problem with tap water is that there are so many additives in it to make it safe to drink, otherwise we would all die from typhoid or the like. Don’t know anything about oestrogens, but I bet you can find many elements that have been added that are shown to be cariogenic if consumed in large amounts.
Sorry haven’t had time to read the entire thread in full, but refering to the original subject - re fighting cancer with diet alone.
I do know (of) a few people who have beaten cancer with diet & naturopathic methods, rejecting chemo/rads though they did have surgery I believe. Also someone who keeps a breast lump ‘stable’ with diet, but rejected surgery. Unfortunately these are ‘friends of friends’ so don’t know the exact details, but I can believe it’s possible for certain cancers/people (not all). It’s a gamble, just like conventional treatments, even chemo has pretty pathetic success rates despite being considered ‘proven’.
Personally I’m gambling on Xeloda at present but do think diet is massively important - we literally are what we eat (and have always eaten, and water drunk) and it would be madness to rely totally on conventional medicine. Agree with Dr Servan-Schreiber on that one. Do think it would be nice if we had more freedom/choice in which treatments we choose/reject - don’t think there are many health insurance companies out there that cover ‘alternative treatments’ diet-based or otherwise, but there should be if people prefer that approach and choose to spend their hard earned cash/tax on that rather than the (usually more expensive) pharmaceutical drugs. I’d prefer to do my own research than rely on the NHS/government to decide what’s best for me, anyway.
Oooops - I may be ranting. excuse me just got back from hospital after a mega-intravenous session of steroids for my autoimmune condition. Feels like I’ve been off on some 3-day rave/bender, and not likely to sleep for another week at least! Time for my vegetable juice…
Re the original topic Fighting Cancer with just Diet, I would never be brave enough to forgo conventional treatments in favour of Diet alone to fight Cancer. i think that is a huge gamble, i also dont believe that people can beat cancer just by changeing their diet either, no matter what some people try to proclaim. If changeing our diet was the answer then the medical profession would have cottoned on to that fact a long time ago. and wouldnt be wasteing vast amounts of money on research and treatments . And for those who say that they have “beaten cancer” through diet alone ,well they cant possibly say that surely untill they grow old and die of something else ?
Cancer is a very complex busisness, and there are very likely many factors at play, including genetics, I have changed my diet to mostly organic since DX because im sick of the additives and pesticides in our food, i also stopped using deoderants after DX after reading the study which found parabens on 20 breast tumours which were removed for the study, i know current thinking says there is no proof deoderants or parabens cause BC but still i dont think its right that parabens were found on all of the tumours removed so that was a red light to me.
The fact is we now live in a chemical world ,we are all exposed to a chemical overload everything from our food, water, cleaning products and even the cosmetics and lotions and potions we use on our skin , and these are only the tip of the iceberg ,Plastics, Phone Masts,microwaves, ect ect you could go on and on. Cancer is expected to increase 30% over the next 10-20yrs and thats frightning ,though treatments and survival rates are getting better.
For those of us to have got cancer in the first place we have somehow had a weakened immune system , something went wrong with our DNA the on/off switch with our cell division, i do believe our enviorment/and stress are huge factors, but i think changeing diet alone (although everyone should quite rightly do what feels right for them ) is not the definitive answer by a long shot.Its far to simplistic .
Not everyone gets Cancer , even though we all eat the same foods and are all exposed to the same chemicals ect so there are lots of different factors individualy at play.
We all do the research and look for reasons when we are DX with cancer , but the truth is none knows why one person gets cancer and another doesnt, we all have to do what feels right for ourselves at the end of the day and just hope it makes some difference only time will tell i guess.
All the best
Linda
Linda I agree with much of what you say - but not that if diet was the answer the medical profession would have cottoned on to it. Most Doctors rely on drug reps to keep them informed, and publication of drug trials. There is no money in food research - no patents to be had, and no money to sponsor the research - hence no “proof” to offer to doctors. A new chemo drug costs in excess of 0.5 billion to develop and market - who is going to pay that amount to show that green tea works in the same way as Avastin? And as for warning against certain foods (sugar, animal products, alcohol)- it would be career suicide for any health official (remember Edwina Currie and eggs). There are many diseases that can be controlled by diet, but people don’t want to know that. They don’t want to think their condition is in some ways their “fault” - they want a drug solution. There are well documented cases of people controlling their cancer with diet alongside conventional medicine, but the information has to be sought out. People are resistant to doing that - thinking it is faddy, or as you said, it can’t be true because my doctor hasn’t told me. And sadly some sufferers don’t want to change their lifestyles - even if their life literally depended on it. I am also curious as to why you think diet is too simplistic an answer to why our immune systems are compromised - it’s hard to think of anything that has a more direct impact on our health than what we eat every day of our lives.