We will have to continue to agree to disagree about alcohol. Dr Susan love said that whereas as a contributing factor on its own it increases risk of getting cancer, when combined with other risks it does not increase the overall risk. Anyway I no longer care about getting cancer, i have got it.
As we have discussed before my son is a cancer research statistician. He has pulled out the detailed charts from the latest metastudies and and has said that there is such a small risk of alcohol contributing to re-occurance for someone like me that it is not worth giving it up. Also giving up alcohol would increase my chance of dying of heart attack or stroke. And it would severely interfere with my life syle.
But that is my choice and I respect anyone who decides that for them it is no big thing to give up alcohol. If it makes someone feel safer and therefore have a better quality of life then thats great.
Elinda -
Do you think that human and cow oestrogen are identical substances?
Do you think all mammals’ oestrogen have identical molecular structures?
Why do you think oestrogen for IVF and HRT is administered by patches, pessaries and creams?
Oral administration of oestrogen is hopeless - it can’t survive our stomach acid.
I am sorry but I am not understanding the distinction between before and after a cancer diagnosis.
Either something is a carcinogen and encourages cancer development and growth or it doesn’t.
i drink raw milk. i love it and unless someone can show me a report that says that all cancer patients drank milk and all people who did not drink milk did not get cancer will I stop–mmmm 8% fat–nectar.
i think the theory is that if you have had cancer it shows that there is something going wrong with your body that lets cancer develop, so there is something a bit different between those that have never had it and those that are getting it a second time.
i get a bit sceptical about all this oestrogen discussion, even in the human body we produce one sort pre menopausal, and another after menopause and then there are plant oestrogen s and as you say animal types.
i have wondered if the receptors on cancer can take all types(like a skeleton key) or if only certain oestrogen’s satisfy them.
I have a thyroid problem and i am only just discovring that the drugs i am getting might not be the correct thyroid type. Whats more if i take it orally it might not be getting through my digestive system properly, but if i dissolve it under my tongue it would go striaght into my blood and work better.
i just think its so hard to work out. i have not got the time to research it, and so so it is good that there are people on here that do and tell us what they think the research means. its up to us to follow that or not.
Old and lumpy, excuse me for butting in, but I don’t think MS Molly is saying that cancer patients shouldn’t drink milk - quite the opposite. From what she has posted, I think she has a similar view to yourself (and me if I’m totally honest), in that she is sceptical about diet, and would require more evidence before changing what she eats/drinks.
It’s a shame that people frequently seem to misunderstand what the other has said on this thread, and I think that perhaaps this is because topics seem to get so muddled. One minute there is talk about the diet in China, then Japan, followed by the Eastern Mediterranean, and now the Eskimo diet. Similarly, it is never clear if we are discussing all these diets in relation to preventing cancer, or stopping recurrence or progression. As a result, logical replies can seem absurd and provoke exasperated responses - and then sadly things become increasingly heated.
Like you O&L, I enjoy reading about research on diet etc, but I do worry slightly that people might make drastic changes to their diet, without having all the information - and that’s why it’s important that people with different views post.
hi, lemongrove, I must have expressed myself badly I should have started off with something like, i agree with you about cows oestrogen or something. as you say msmolly and i seem to be coming form the same direction
Lemongrove - of course I agree that medical therapy gives me the best chance - what I meant, of course, is in addition to that, I think my diet changes give be the best chance of improving survival - it is after all about the only change I can make.
Aol - I don’t think discussing eskimos is going to help much, but they didn’t eat fruit and veg before they adopted a more western diet - they just ate an enormous amount of fish - so you really can’t come to any conclusions about fruit and veg from their experience.
msmolly it has actually been demonstrated that bovine oestrogen does survive stomach acid. There have been human experiments where drinking a glass of milk has lead to an immediate spike in oestrogen in the blood stream - this effected men, women and children. We’ve discussed the research on this thread several times.
aol - I’m sorry but I would have to disagree strongly with you about alcohol - the research is pretty clear. For very small amounts of intake (I think for women it was 0.5 units per day), there can be a balancing benefit of decreasing heart disease. But as my understanding is that you regularly drink 6 -10 units a day, that would actually increase your risk of heart disease as well. I think it would be very misleading to tell people on this thread that such high levels of consumption are good for you.
Old and Lumpy, you didn’t express yourself badly at all. I just wondered if perhaps you had formed the impression that MSMolly was saying something different.
Like yourself, MSMolly and Cornishgirl, I am both interested in the role of diet, but also quite sceptical about it. Because of that,I take the approach that instead of removing things from my diet, I just make alterations to the type of food I eat. For example, like you I have raw organic milk because, in addition to it’s flavour, it means I can enjoy the benefits of milk (if there are any), without the disadvantages (again if there are any). I have also started putting small amounts of ground flaxseed in my bread because that allows me to enjoy any advantages, without too much risk.
Yup OAL we are singing from the same hymn sheet with the oestrogen thing. On another issue you should know that Susan Love has been out of the loop for a while now and isn’t up to speed with a lot of recent developments - prognostic significance of LVI etc.
I would really like it if someone who has opted to avoid dairy for its alleged oestrogenic properties answered the questions I posted for Elinda.
I hope this doesn’t appear as too beligerent - it isn’t meant to be.
I just keep hearing how people have thought very carefully about all this dairy abstention business - so I assume they have considered those questions and have persuasive answers for them.
I am interested in any research of value associated with this disease. But I am also very interested in the culture of mythology and bunkum that surrounds this disease and the charlatanism that exploits patients.
It infuriates me that the dairy thing has filtered into general public’s consciousness so much that people who haven’t got a bloody clue about cancer will assume I have quit dairy. And then I am exposed to a lecture straight out of the lifestyle pages of the Daily Mail about why I really should.
Have any of the famous anti-cancer diet authors donated much of their royalty millions towards cancer research?
If you believe you have discovered the key to stopping cancer then why not gift that precious information to the world for free?
Why are they making people pay through the nose for it?
This is the age of the internet after all.
msmolly I think I did answer the relevant question you posed to Elinda - but maybe we cross posted - drinking milk containing bovine oestrogen has been proved to spike human blood oestrogen levels, and in blood serum is indistinguishable from human oestrogen - whether that makes it biologically identical or not I don’t know.
Regarding charity - Jane Plant donates all her earnings from her books to a cancer charity. I don’t know about other authors.
No i don’t think bovine oestrogen or progesterone is identical to that in human’s. However, a small research study does suggest that it has some effect on human hormone levels:
I have struggled to find studies on milk and hormones that looks at things like blood serum etc. I’d love to see the evidence that says categorically those hormones do not affect ours. I cannot find a similar study that suggests it is safe and is destroyed by stomach acid. If you are aware of such a study please do post it. I am very wary of any research conducted by the dairy industry as I am of anything conducted by the soy industry to prove those things are safe and nutritious. I would rather see something independent.
There is an enormous fuss made of phytooestrogens yet these aren’t the same as human oestrogen either. I find it baffling that one thing is worried about so much and the other is seen as okay.
It is not though solely because of the hormones that I’ve stopped milk and dairy products. There is also the issue of IGF-1 which I’m trying to limit. The evidence on IGF-1 and cancer is not conclusive and is one area that is currently being looked at. We’ve discussed this a lot on the thread.
It is also of interest to me the number of pharmacologically active substances that are found in milk such as antibacterials, painkillers etc. Whilst I am not naive enough to think these won’t be in other things I eat, I do want to limit them.
I’ve absolutely no idea if anyone writing books is donating money to charity. As i’ve said, I don’t follow any particular book with my diet. Elinda x
msmollly you also asked yesterday - and I didn’t have time to respond, something along the lines of, what is the logic of cows milk effecting human breast tissue? Of course nobody knows the answer, but I have read hypotheses that go something like this:
Cows milk is an enormously strong growth promoter - full of growth factors and hormones. An infant cow will grow from about 50lbs at birth to about 375lbs at weaning 6 or 7 months later. This is compared to human milk, which results in a much slower rate of growth in human infants. Of course, any milk is a substances designed to only be consumed at the stage of maximum growth in the infant.
We know that the growth factors in milk are biologically active in humans. Numerous studies have shown that adding dairy to the diets of children results in immediate growth spurts, over and above the levels of other foods with comparable amounts of protein and calcium. This has also been demonstrated in adults that are no longer growing, in that dairy effects bone turnover at a higher rate than any other food, and at a higher rate than foods with comparable amounts of protein and calcium. (This alone is enough to concern me - with active bone mets I don’t want any stimulus to higher cell division in my bones). So it has been hypothesised by researchers in this field that it is the growth factors in milk that account for this enhanced growth effect in humans - a reasonable hypothesis to me. Other studies support this with evidence that milk raises IGF 1 levels more than any other food.
So, then you have the human breast which is primed to receive chemical messages concerning development during key phases such as puberty and pregnancy. As we know that the hormones (including oestrogen) and growth factors in milk do survive the human digestive system to be detectable in the blood stream, then we must assume that tissues in the breast are also exposed to these additional hormones and growth factors. Given that the bovine hormones perform a similar function to human hormones, it isn’t perhaps a great leap to suggest that a lifetimes exposure to these additional chemical messages, to a system only designed to receive these messages for a few months as an infant, could at some stage cause breast cells to become “confused” and initiate cancer.
Interestingly, there is some evidence to suggest that some breast cancers are initiated when we are teenagers, but only begin to grow when we hit menopause.
I agree with you MSMolly. I was just reading an amusing article by Dr Harriet Hall, who say’s most research into Alternative Medicine is ‘tooth fairy science’. In other words, scientists could apply the most stringent scientific methods to the study of the tooth fairy, but still draw the wrong conclusion because they miss the main point - the tooth fairy simply doesn’t exist.
A classic case of this is the field of psychonueroimmunology, which posits the view that the mind can influence the immune system. If someone googles the term NMI and cancer, they will discover thousands of studies - but all of them miss the main point, which is, that in most cancers (certainly breast cancer), the immune system is irrelevant, as it simply doesn’t recognise cancer as a foreign body.
Similarly studies that advocate a particular diet for it’s ability to boost the immune system, also miss the point.
If anyone else can find studies looking at tumour growth, blood serum levels etc that show milk has no effect please post them. I can’t find them. There’s not much of anything, at least that I can find.
Until I see conclusive evidence it’s safe, I’d rather avoid it.
As I have recently been reported to the moderators all my postings are going through the moderator which causes a time delay. As such, I’m probably not going to be much at the moment. A bit of time away from the computer will probably do me good anyway.
I’m astonished that anyone has reported Elinda’s comments - it would be hard to find someone who is more considerate and careful in her posting. Just ridiculous.
Anyway I agree with you Lemongrove. I tend to err on the side of “lies, damned lies and statistics” with most things. You could take a sample of 500 women with BC and find that 350 of them had blue eyes. The extrapolation would then be that blue eyed women are at increased risk of cancer. Of course that is absurd - but this is how so much research is conducted. And small trials are hopeless.
I also don’t pay much attention to anything until it gets well beyond the rat and mice trial stage.
Elinda and Finty - thanks for taking the time to post. I don’t have time to digest it all just now but I will have a good read and write later.
Just on the issue of orally administered oestrogen - the primary issue with oral oestrogens is not so much the stomach acid that impedes absorption but the fact that the liver renders it inactive very fast. That is why oestrogen mimicking oral contraceptives like Ovranette (now banned) use synthetic hormones like ethinylestradiol to bypass the problem. Transdermal application of oestrogens (HRT and luteal support for preganancy) favour oestradiol.
Meat and dairy food consumption and breast cancer: a pooled analysis of cohort studies - HARVARD UNI. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11914299
“We found no significant association between intakes of total meat, red meat, white meat, total dairy fluids, or total dairy solids and breast cancer risk.”
Consumption of dairy products and the risk of breast cancer: a review of the literature - DUKE UNI ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15213021
“The available epidemiologic evidence does not support a strong association between the consumption of milk or other dairy products and breast cancer risk.”
Intake of dairy products, calcium, and vitamin d and risk of breast cancer - HARVARD UNI ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12208895
“We found no association between intake of dairy products and breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Among premenopausal women, high intake of low-fat dairy foods, especially skim/low-fat milk, was associated with reduced risk of breast cancer.”
Dairy consumption and risk of breast cancer: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies - SOOCHOW, CHINA. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21442197
“In conclusion, findings of the present meta-analysis indicate that increased consumption of total dairy food, but not milk, may be associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer.”
Dairy products, calcium intake, and breast cancer risk: a case-control study in China - UNI OF HONG KONG ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21128178
“No significant association was found between dairy products measured either by dry weight of dairy product or dairy product protein intake and breast cancer risk. Our study supports a protective effect of high intake of dietary calcium on breast cancer risk, and no association with dairy product intake.”
Dairy consumption and calcium intake and risk of breast cancer in a prospective cohort: the Norwegian Women and Cancer study. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20658314
“Dairy consumption is not strongly related to breast cancer risk in this prospective study. A non-significant negative association between calcium intake and breast cancer risk was seen, particularly among premenopausal women.”
I do wonder exactly how many studies it will take to convince people that dairy products really aren’t a factor in BC?
MSMolly the links are excellent, but as they relate to whether dairy increases/decreases the risk of getting cancer, I wonder if there is any research that considers whether Dairy stimulates cancer in those who already have it?
Like Finty, I also have bone mets, and can understand her point about milk being a growth promoter and potentially increasing bone turn-over. However, I was under the impression that those of us with bone mets, are actually losing bone (that’s why we have bisphosphonates), so I would have thought that anything that helps replace bone is good (but I could have that completely wrong).
On another point, I do hope BCC allow everyone back into the classroom soon. We all have disagreements from time to time, especially when we have strong views.