Elinda - a great point about people joining this thread and feeling they can ask questions about cures without being ridiculed, as they are on other threads. It reminded me that I wrote a long post yesterday to nas - welcome nas:) - about her query on apricot kernels. The post disappeared into the ether and I didn’t have time to re-write it - and in the meantime others had answered anyway.
But just for the sake of it, this trial found no benefit for laetrile (apricot kernels):
Lemongrove - happy to clear up the confusion. But I would also agree with Leadie that it is ultimately a personal choice, however misguided and painful for loved ones, nobody can force treatment on people that do not want it.
Hi Elinda, I completely agree that you shouldn’t force healthcare on people, unless they are incapable of making the decision for themselves. All you can do is show them the evidence and hope that they can make a reasoned decision. But as this thread is about informing people who may not be familiar with all the research, I think there is a duty of care so to speak. If someone suggests that it is OK or just annother lifeestyle choice to abandon orthodox medicine, and go the alternative route someone needs to chip in and say that might not be sensible - and that is what I have done.
Couldn’t agree more Lemongrove, and we do reiterate this from time to time.
I can’t speak for Leadie and her view on conventional treatments but she’s been on this thread for a long time and I’m sure has been in previous discussions on this. I also don’t know what treatment she has or hasn’t had.
We do try to keep this thread as research based as possible so much of the stuff on diet is not only about cancer risk but applies to generally eating well such as increasing fibre, vegetables etc.
Women will bring up other topics of course, and i would prefer that this continues so we can discuss things such as the example from Finty re apricot kernals rather than women feeling that they can’t raise them and going off and doing their own thing without any evidence.
So all in all I think we fundamentally agree on this subject! I do think its also good to discuss and raise this from time to time on this thread.
Lemongrove - you raised an interesting question on the CRUK thread (I don’t know if it got answered as I shan’t be bothering to go there again and get my head bitten off for correcting a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of the discussion). You asked whether weight loss does in fact lead to a reduction in oestrogen, and therefore a reduced risk of breast cancer. There is very little research on this, and I haven’t yet been able to find a study that directly measures oestrogen levels during weight loss. But The Iowa Women’s Health Study did indeed find that women who had at some stage lost weight - even if they then regained it - had a lowered risk of all obesity related cancers. So whilst that is by no means conclusive, it does suggest oestrogen levels can be lowered by weight loss.
It’s also my understanding that the number of fat cells we have remains fairly constant - about 10% die every year just as with our other cells and get replaced by new ones - and that gaining weight involves the fat cells expanding, not creating new cells. I know obesity is enormously complex, and this is a very simplistic thought, but I’m not sure why if a cell expanding with fat creates more oestrogen, that process isn’t reversed when it shrinks.
The key finding in the Iowa study for those that don’t want to read all the way through it:
“As shown in Table 2, after adjusting for age and BMI, a history of intentional weight loss episodes of 20 pounds or more by itself was associated with a 12% decreased risk of any incident cancer, 21% decreased risk of breast cancer, 18% reduced risk of colon cancer, 7% reduced risk of endometrial cancer, and 18% reduced risk of obesity-related cancers, compared with never having lost greater than or equal to 20 pounds.”
Yes - bigger than I was expecting for a relatively modest weight loss. Of course there could be lots of other factors in play - for instance what food/exercise changes they made to achieve the weight loss. But encouraging nonetheless.
Hi Cornishgirl sorry if I caused offence in anyway it was just my opinion … I just see the previous posts being critisized as to “Pushing opinions on diets into peoples faces” thats why I said I cant see it as that & if some do see it as that they have a choice not to read it.
Im sure we all know someone who has tried certain diets or suppliment which we may see as a bit iffy but its also good to put it into prospective
I think the majority of ladies who read/ post here find the info given helpful & no way do I see this as using diet as an alternative, quite the opposite, I too read the links you have added & find them as interesting too, it all helps to get some sort of a balance for the to’s for’s & against
Sorry if my post has been taken the wrong way I tend to speak as I find its just the way I am … I do have a soft heart & wouldn’t harm or cause offence deliberately to anybody & always be willing to help anyone in any way I can
Hi finty I just brought some scales that you type your height age & you have to put your feet on the 2 metal strips thought they were a great idea but im sure they get confussed … the error comes up alot, not sure if ive done something wrong but finding them a bit of a pain at the moment
Finty
Thanks again for that link about weight loss, quite incentivising.
Lemongrove,
As far as I know I am the only person on this thread who has refused any conventional treatment. I refused radiotherapy but I would never recommend this to anyone else and I am trying to make sure I maximise my chances of avoiding recurrance by eating as well as I can.
The hospital faffed around and instead of treatment 6 weeks after surgery it was scheduled at over 3 months. Also I dreaded losing any function in my arm as I am the main lifter in the house. One onc did look at my hideous looking breast and kindly pointed out where I would get possibly permanent red streaks or red veins. It did seem overkill to want to irradiate an area of 13 x4 x 6 cm - nearly the whole breast, when the tumour was only 7mm, and stuck firmly to the wire when they cut it out.
I admire your cyberknife campaign enormously and I am very pleased to see you on this thread.
hi ladies, have just read all the threads and want to pick up on lemongroves comments on my previous thread.
I do believe that people have the choice to choose not to go down the conventional medical route and I know of some who have not and are still fit and healthy. What I was trying to say is that we need to make informed choices. This can be a hard one as actually what is an informed choice? If I listened to my oncologist she would tell me one way to go about treatment, and that is a particular drug to take. I don’t think that is an informed choice.
If I lived in China my treatment plan for cancer may be very different from the western medical model.If I went to a naturopath he would advise me in a very different way again. So an informed choice is a complicated one. That’s why I like this thread that finty started. Looking at avalailable research into differents areas and opening up discussions is informative and really highlights too just how complicated research and findings are to interpret.
I am not here to tell ladies not to accept treatment, that’s not my intention. But if anything it is more about being open minded to other possibilities with conventional treatment that may make positive outcomes to being healthy.
I had a lumpectomy and rads but chose not to take tamoxifen. That I felt was an informed choice I made in light of all the different evidence I’d read.
My friend chose not to have any surgery on her tumour on her neck and succesfully treated it and is still fit and healthy 5 years on. Another friend had all the conventional treatment but died within 2 years.
My father-in-law who was 80 chose not to have heart surgery which may have given him another 5 years. He didn’t want to go through any operations. That was his choice and his life. Sometimes it’s hard to accept others choosing different life style choices that we wouldn’t make.
Sorry I’m rambling but hope that’s cleared up a few mis-understanding!
Well put Leadie - I love this thread as it provides me with more information to help “me” make my own decisions and I don’t expect to advise others or have anyone tell me what to do - but the sharing of info in invaluable in helping me make personal decisions and the personal experience of other posters enlightens me in a way that complements the scientific evidence that “comes at us” in such volumes. Plus I love the mixture of knowledge and skills we all bring from previous and past experience of studies, work, families etc that also enriches our exchange of info and insights to help me to be more analytical.
Finty, for me it’s indisputable that there is a strong link between obesity and oestrogen receptive BC in post-menopausal women, because oestrogen is produced in fat cells. The IOWA study you kindly highlight, confirms that weight loss reduces the incidence of BC (so weight loss is clearly beneficial in terms of preventing BC), but my question is, does weight loss make any difference once someone has BC - given that the number of fat cells remains the same.
Presumably the reason that weight loss decreased risk in the IOWA study was because weight loss led to a reduction of oestrogen, but I wonder how that came about given that it’s the fat cells that are crucial and not the fat. Basically, I just wonder if there is something a bit more complex going on? Could it be that the reason weight loss decreases the incidence of cancer is not only that it reduces oestrogen somehow, but it reactivates the immune system or killer cells that keep cancer in check?. I know it sounds a bit outlandish, but I recently read that scientists have discovered that they can cure type 2 diabetes, by weight loss (apparently it re-awakens insulin producing cells). If diet can re-awaken insulin producing cells, can it awaken other cells?
It’s not outlandish at all, it’s absolutely possible to cure Type 2 diabetes, and it can be done purely with a change of diet and some fairly intense exercise. Weight loss isn’t even necessary although it does of course help considerably. The incredible thing is for some people it can be achieved in just a few weeks, yet few diabetics are aware of this, and are just given drugs. A system exhausted by bombardment with a high sugar diet can start working again when the sugar is removed and the system is allowed to rest and recover.
I think I disagree about the fat cells. I don’t think the number of fat cells changes significantly over a lifetime, just their size - so if oestrogen levels vary with weight, I tend to think its the fat in the cells not the number of cells that is significant. So by that reasoning, it is always worth keeping a healthy weight.
Re awakening killer cells - I’m considering joining a vaccine trial that hopes to do just that - so I will be finding out more about that over the next few weeks.
Hi Finty, just a couple more things:
(1) The trial sounds amazing, please let me know more about it.
(2) I think you might find the following article about fat cells quite interesting Klein, S., Fontana, L., Young, V.L., Coggan, A.R., Kilo, C., Patterson, B.W., & Mohammed, B.S. (2004). Absence of an effect of liposuction on insulin action and risk factors for coronary heart diseases. The New England Journal of Medicine; 350(25), 2549-2557
The article say’s that it was once thought that fat cells developed during adolescence, and that after this, the number of fat cell became fixed. However, scientists now know that significant weight gain triggers the body to produce more fat cells. Each fat cell can hold about 1.0 microgram of fat (normal is approximately 0.5 - 0.6 of a microgram), so when the body needs to store more fat it has to create more cells. Pregnancy also seems to permit formation of new fat cells.
The trouble is that once these cells are formed, they remain even with weight loss, and the only thing that can get rid of them is things like liposuction.
(3) The other thing that occurred to me about the link between obesity and oestrogen receptive BC, is perhaps there is something about the fat itself being a starage tank for oestrogen. I was looking at an article written by a scientist at Harvard University, and she said that while there is hardly any oestrogen in skimmed milk, and low fat yoghurt, there is loads in milk fat, such as butter, cheese and cream. This suggests to me that fat i our bodies might be a good holding tank for oestrogen.
I guess what I’m saying is, that in view of the fact that fat cells don’t disappear with weight loss, and presumably can therefore carry on creating oestrogen, what is it about weight loss that decreases the incidence of BC. Could it be that weight loss re-activates killer cells, and could it be that getting rid of fat, rids the body of oestrogen storage?.
finty,can you recommend an easy to follow book that i can change my diet to increase recovery and reoccurance,there seem so many out there.i want to inspire myself with positive thinking and feel that changing to as more healthy diet would be one of those ways.it has to abe acheivable as i have 4 young kids!
I am really interested in the debate about fat cells and oestrogen. I lost a lot of weight last year as a result of diet and a lot of exercise and I am currently struggling to keep the weight off. My surgeon was very pleased and said losing weight and increasing exercise were both very important. She has always acknowledged that there is some connection between diet and cancer as almost as soon as I was diagnosed, over 4 years ago, she told me to cut down on dairy as much as I could.
It’s important to say first of all that there is not an ‘anti breast cancer’ diet as such. Many of us do feel though that there are important things you can do with your diet based on the available research evidence. We have to be very careful on this thread about making recommendations as we’ve been in trouble for it before!
I got several books when I first diagnosed, Prof Jane Plant’s book ‘Your life in your hands’, David Servan Schrieber ‘Anticancer: a new way of life’ and also the ‘Rainbow Diet’ by Chris Woollam.
These were all okay as starting points but are only that. There are what I think are some dubious approaches in all of them. We’ve discussed some of the things that these books advocate at some length, for example, the pros and cons of soya (Jane Plant), the use of agave nectar (David S-Schrieber) and, as I recall both his book and the Woollam’s recommended drinking a glass of red wine each day. All of those things are not as straight forward as they may seem on reading those books.
With four young children you’ll be very busy, but if you have time to read a couple of books it would be good. Many things are about diet are not straight forward and hotly debated.
One thing that isn’t, is vegetables. As a starting point, my view would be to increase your vegetables (and fruit) aiming for higher than 5 portions per day and a good mixture of colours.
I’m sure Finty will also advise further. take care, Elinda x