I’ve been very busy last few days so haven’t had time to look into further yet.
Thanks so much for the links on rural chinese diet. I’ll have a proper read through tomorrow or Weds - really interested in this.
I don’t know the answer to your question about Campbell’s three stages of cancer. I had assumed it was probably well-known, basic science - perhaps Jane Plant book can enlighten us on that one. I think she goes into it in more detail.
I actually hadn’t gone back to Jane Plant’s book so you’ve picked up something very interesting there. It does mean that original research might be available somewhere so we can see the detail.
At this point, I can say I’m definitely not going down the vegan route myself. I have cut back so much on meat though. I had veg and rice every lunchtime and a lot of vegan meals last week but by the weekend I felt I couldn’t face another one and made a dairy free moussaka (delicious) with some lamb mince. Knowing that I will be having some meat makes it far easier for me to have a mainly vegan diet. Even in doing this I’ve started losing weight which is a real bonus and my veg intake has gone up hugely.
DG - has reading the book made you make any further changes to your diet? Elinda x
i would never knock anyones dietry choice. but i do think if you eat unprocessed foods from natural sources with no addictive additives (eg sugar, msg etc) then your body knows what it wants and you crave what you are missing and do not fancy what is lacking your basic needs. (no scientific evidence, my own crackpot theory)
so you wanting a bit of meat means that is right for you.
Have not read any thing about three stages of cancer. but my son ( the cancer reasearcher) was telling me this weekend that statistically they can see that there are 5 stages of cancer, but for the life of them they cannot work out what they are. —yet!!
I think you’re right about not eating processed foods etc. I have to confess though I can’t give up sugar entirely. I have really tried so now I keep it limited - I have a small treat each evening.
I’m happy with my diet at the moment and for me, having a bit of meat and fish and eggs feels right. My decision to cut back on meat was not soley based on the China Study anyway it was more because I wanted to up my intake of veg and legumes.
Like you I wouldn’t be critical of someone who wanted to eat more meat or someone who wanted to be vegan, it’s very much a personal choice and people make those decisions based on lots of things.
Interesting to hear your son saying about 5 stages and they don’t know what they are. That makes me wonder about the accuracy of those 3 stages in the China Study. I’ll have to look into that.
take care all, Elinda x
OAL, I can match any of your crackpot theories, I’m just too chicken to post them on the thread! Anyway, its not crackpot at all, during chemo my body definitely let me know that it needed some meat after 4-5 days of soup, toast and rice pudding when I couldn’t eat anything else!
I could never become vegan, but have upped my veg intake, cut my meat and fat consumption in half and cut out all dairy except for very small amounts of organic milk & goats cheese. I now eat organic whenever I can and only eat organic chicken & pork. I have never been too bothered about sweet things and so it has not been difficult to keep this to a minimum as well.
This is my crackpot theory! On the basis of the 3 stages of cancer, I believe that the damage was done when I was 17 as I smoked and took the pill. I stopped taking the pill at 26 and finally gave up smoking at 31. I have always had a healthy diet and was slim and took regular exercise until my mid 40’s. But I did eat either chicken or pork every day and cheese and cream on a regular basis, and when the menopause struck I put on weight and after 2 years started taking HRT. My cancer was ER+ 7/8 and I think that this was the final thing that tipped me over the edge and the cancer grew. I now view my life as a set of scales and each step I take to reduce oestrogen from my diet, keep my weight down and exercise improves my chances (I am grade 2 stage 3 so not the best prognosis). BUT I want to enjoy my life and so I will always still have the odd sausage sandwich, Indian takeaway or pizza, just not every day! It has been said on this thread many times that it all comes down to personal choice and the correct balance for you personally.
This thread helps me to make decisions that are right for me and long may it continue!
Your attitude sounds so similar to mine.
I try to exercise everyday, and unlike you I do need to lose more weight which I’m struggling but perservering with.
I never beat myself up for having the odd treat. On Sunday when it was my brother’s birthday we had a lovely chinese takeaway - full of meat, sugar, fat and salt. I do though keep those types of things to a very rare treat.
Throughout my teens and twenties I was very slim, exercised a lot, ate well (although ate a huge amount of dairy mainly yoghurts, cottage cheese and other cheese), but also took the pill and drank quite a bit of alcohol.
In my thirties I got extremely ill with endometriosis and was basically pumped full of progesterone to keep it in check. I remember my GP saying not to go back to her if I grew 2 heads with the amount of hormone treatment I was having.
In my early forties, I was still eating loads of dairy, too much meat and probably drinking too much wine.
When I got breast cancer it was a shock but realistically I suppose quite likely. Mine was also stage 3, grade 2.
To me, the treatment was so horrendous and I think if I could put myself through all that then the least I deserve is to try to look after myself now.
You’re so right about the thread, it does help with decisions and usually its a weigh up with the research evidence and also lifestyle. I do hope it continues too. Sadly it doesn’t look like Finty wants to return to the thread or forums at the moment.
Well maybe if we and others (I know you are all lurking!) keep it alive, perhaps after time people generally will feel comfortable about rejoining, for me it is too valuable to allow to die without a bit of a fight!
I’ll post on my own if I have to, but come on everyone, lets give it a go!
I came across this which I think is quite fascinating. Researchers have been looking at the different bacteria in people’s guts and found that a diet rich in meat and saturated fat had more of a certain bacteria; those drinking lots of alcohol and polyunsaturated fats had more of a different type; and those eating lots of carbs again had more of a third type.
It’s a way off yet from being that helpful to us but very interesting nevertheless:
i am facinated by all the new bacteria studies. Did you know that you have 10 times as many bacterial cells living on you than human cells? And they all have different jobs to do. Thats why i am so against this modern ant-bacterial cleaning stuff, what is it doing to our healthy bacteria on our skin?
I think the gut bacteria can weigh several pounds if your gut is healthy.
I read somewhere that research into why people with the same tooth hygiene and diet get cavities and some dont. the ones that dont get cavities have a bacteria in their mouth that the others are lacking. it fights the bad bacteria. It colonises the mouth in the early years and they cannot get it to colonise an adult mouth if it was not there in the first place.
They have discovered a bacteria in babies (but not older people) that fights agains lung diseases and are trying to develop it into a drug for asthma and pneumonia.
sorry this has gone off topic, but it fascinates me
Anyway we were saying earlier that your body tells you what you need–perhaps your bacteria tells you what it needs?? perhaps those three types dont get the different bacteria because of their diets, perhaps they eat differently because of their bacteria.
so its not my weak will that makes me reach for the wine glass every night–its all the fault of my intestinal flora!!
I have always been interested in nutrition so since my diagnosis I have been reading up whats healthy to eat. A friend of mine who works in a health food shop has reccommended Linusit which is golden linseed or flaxseed. From what I have read it is a very healthy food as well as helping to prevent breast cancer. I have started eating it- its easy to add to different foods without noticing. Does anyone else eat it? I add it to my peanut butter on toast and sprinkle it on salads.
Sue
OAL - it is quite incredible all the bacteria business. I’ve just finished a course of antibiotics so I’m taking some probiotics now. I never used to bother in the past but I think its quite important. I understand that in France you get a prescription for both!
Sue - yes, I do have flaxseed. It is also a good source of Omega 3 which is often lacking in our diets. When we looked at this before, we found that the recommendation is to have freshly ground flaxseed as opposed to the ones precrushed. (Whole flaxseeds will just pass through the body.) I use an electric spice grinder to crush mine.
Even though flaxseeds are phytooestrogens, the evidence to date has been positive with regard to breast cancer. However, the research evidence is very limited and more is being conducted in Canada. There is some concern about cadmium levels in flaxseed (see below). For that reason, I keep the amount I have limited. Also it does have quite a laxative effect.
You might like to look at this link from Food for Breast Cancer. Actual research evidence links are at the bottom of the page.
back to the china study. I dont have the stamina to wade through the China Study, so I thought I would see if i could find a summery on line, or perhaps rather than the book some scientific papers based on the research. Didnt get very far but for those of you that are good at picking holes in reasearch and diet I thought this website looked interesting. Again a bit too detailed for me.
Yes, I’ve seen this before - in fact it was one of things that led to all the escalated and unpleasant debate recently!
The problem is that without the raw data it is very difficult to check what is right and what isn’t. The person on the site you posted isn’t a scientist and although she is clearly highly intelligent and makes a good case, it’s difficult to know whether she’s accurate too.
I would love a more academic institution to review the China Study or to try to replicate the findings and take it further to look at animal proteins.
One interesting point I have read when wading through all the stuff on the China Study is that casein (used in the rat study) is only one of the proteins in milk. It does also contain whey protein (although in fact this is a collection of different proteins). From what I’ve read it seems it also contains water, butterfat,lactose, enzymes and vitamins.
We have seen in soy studies that using isolated elements of soy can have a stimulatory effect on BC cells in the test tube that doesn’t seem to stand the test when looking at dietary soy and the risk of getting BC, recurrance and death in studies in women in China.
Would I be convinced not to drink milk or have dairy products on the basis of the China Study - no, not as it stands. There is though the potential for further research on what he found and I dearly wish someone would look into it. At present, my sole reason for not having milk and other dairy is because of the hormones within it especially the oestrogen and progesterone as my tumour was 8/8 ER+ and 8/8 PR+, that to me is logical. Others think differently.
Elinda x
Old and Lumpy. That link you just posted was interesting. I did read it right through, and I do have some experience of analysing statistics in experiments. Obviously having not read the China study I cant really comment on it. However if, as that website suggests, the research from the original study was mostly correlational then it could not be used to prove that animal protein caused cancer as correlational studies cannot prove cause and other factors may be confusing the results.I am a vegetarian.
thanks for that info ladysue, it would take a lot to stop me eating meat and devouring dairy. And even more to make me eat fruit and veg. And if the China Study is just pointing out some links rather than proving causal effect it looks like that is not going to change me either.
you know we happily accept that some people get side effects of tomaxoefen, we are not phased by the fact that 20mg of a substance can cause some women to have quite bad problems and leave others unaffected, we just accept that peoples bodies work differently. I wonder if we should just treat differences in diet the same and accept that some peoples body work well on meat and dairy and others work better on fruit and veg.
a bit like diesel and petrol cars. Both do the same job but need different fuel to do it.
The only thing OAL is that some research suggests that a diet high in meat, dairy and grains and low in veg and fruit could be a cause of osteoporosis.
The reasoning behind this from what I’ve read on this (see link below) is that the proteins in meat, dairy and grains are metabolised into acid which may cause a low-grade acidosis in the body. This is compensated for by the bones which leach out mineral such as calcium to buffer the acid. The article goes on to say that vegetables and fruit are ‘broken down by the body to form alkaline bicarbonate’. So it could be that increasing the amount of veg and fruit could be very important for bone health.
Not since 2 September. I’d been thinking about sending her PM again and have done so tonight. I’m not sure if she’s going on to the BCC site at the moment so not sure if she’ll pick it up.
Another missing Finty…I’ve also sent her a PM but I understand if she’s had enough of the forums at the moment…I’ve had breaks myself, for a vatiety of reasons and I usually feel so much better for having done so.