I don’t think that diet is the only issue when looking at factors that may/may not contribute to breast cancer. I think there is a lot more research to be done on the toxic load that our bodies incur over the years. I live in the Tees Valley which reports higher than the national average for a number of cancers and also has the highest concentration of petro chemical and steel manufacturing in Europe. I’m aware that there is also a North/ South divide when it comes to cancer with the North in general experiencing higher than national average rates of cancer. I grew up in the Durham coal fields with the former Consett steel works also on the dorrstep. I remember the rust red cloud that used to hang over Consett and drift along the valley during it’s operation. Interestingly building was n’t allowed on the former steel works site for a number of years due to the toxins that had built up in the soil but no-one could do anything about the toxins we had all probably ingested. Put stuff like this together with whatever is in food that we eat, whatever we rub into our skins, etc and the toxic load must be very worrying to say the least. Also I spent the first 19 years of my life living with a parent who smoked, including during her pregnancy with me. Look at all the other exposures to poison and pollutants during the course of an adults life, pollutants that are routinely used in household goods, (e.g flame retardant in furnishings, white goods). there is only so much control that any of us have over these things. I choose to control as much as I can but more pressure needs to be brought to bear on government and manufacturers to take some responsibility for some of these other areas. I don’t feel that they particulalry care, choosing to push the responsibiltiy back solely on the individual. The incentive certainly does n’t appear to be there to fund research into environmental factors.
I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years and initially most of my protein was derived from soya products, not dairy and I don’t eat fish. I was diagnosed with oes + cancer so soya certainly does n’t appear to have afforded me any protection. I don’t touch the stuff now.
Geraldine
Singing the praises of dairy After a week of enyoyable over indulgence I would like to sing the praises of seasonal dairy…
delicious cheeses, stilton, mature cheddar, runny brie
Green and Blacks organic vanilla icecream
half fat creme fraiche poured ver M and S luxury mincepies
Belgian chocolates
Good food…whether meat, dairy, veggie or occasionally vegan has been one of the joys of my life pre and since breast cancer.
Yes I have read Jane Plant carefully and though her arguments are persuasive they are not proven, in fact I think they are deeply flawed, (and also I think can be wilfully scaremongering) and I choose to believe that going dairy free won’t make an iota of difference to whether I survive or die of breast cancer.
Yes capitalism works in nasty ways…whether the dairy industry or any other industry, but this is not to prove that there is a link with breast cancer.
I respect the reputable reserach which demonstrates that a low fat diet may lessen the risk of recurrence in er- and pr- cancer (which I have) and so come New Year I’ll be back on the salads and organic veg but I won’t ever deny good eating which is one of life’s joys.
I was chatting to a friend the other day about how privileged I feel to be three years on from a poor prognosis. She pointed out that if I’d been on a weird diet or practised chanting and visualisation I’d be able to write a book about it by now.
But I put my survival down to the treatment I got and being just plain lucky to fall this far on the good side of bad statistics. Cancer is unpredictable, we don’t know what causes it or how to cure it…very hard facts to live with.
Jane
Vegans, recurrence, toxic load around us Thanks, Geraldine, for your response.
My principle is firstly to do myself no harm - so Vegan’s OK there, secondly to work with my treatments - i.e. be as fit and well as possible in mind and body so that they have the best chance of working, and thirdly avoid loading my body with toxic chemicals, from the environment in my home and elsewhere in general and food and body care products in particular.
I was a farm worker for 3 years and also later worked for an agro-chemical company for 3 years, so though I’m a country-woman I’ve had high exposure to nasty chemicals. I also enjoy driving and have inhaled a goodly share of petrol and diesel fumes and exhaust gasses and flown tens of thousands of miles during my career and had high doses of ionising radiation and inhaled plane exhaust fumes in the air-conditioning.
Farm workers are more likely to develop breast cancer than other occupations. City dwellers are more likely to develop asthma and even die of it. You choose your environmental pollutants and toxic loads with your lifestyle choices. An airhostess friend of mine died of lung cancer - an occupational hazard, it seems.
If, by following the Plant Programme, I can motivate myself to work to avoid pollutants inside and out, gratuitous doses of growth factors, excess proteins and aicd-producing foods, so much the better.
I can only deal with where I am now and where I’m going. It doesn’t help to sweat over how we got to here as we cannot change it!!
There is breast cancer in my family but I haven’t been tested for BC genes and don’t intend to be as there is no gene treatment. I know I’m HER-2 neg. An aunt died when only 29. I’m 56 and have had breast cancer 3 times and think I may be headed for the 4th. encounter. But the fact I’ve lived nearly twice as long as her is due to a combination of things including excellent and prompt surgery and much better dietary and stress management information and a personal potential to live longer.
Vegans get cancer, of course. All humans carry cancer cells around in their bodies - thus the Cancer Embryonic Antigen values are normally between 1-5 (the upper part of this range only in smokers). Like the rest of us, some are more susceptible to certain diseases, including cancer, than others.
Vegans can also have challenges to their immune systems but they suffer significantly LESS cancer, arthritis of both types and many other degenerative diseases. This is probably because they trigger fewer challenges to their body’s defences through eating less problematic food. But they breathe the same polluted air, drink the same fluoridated water and have DDT in their bone marrow just like the penguins at the South Pole. Vegans also die!
For all of you Vegans out there who still sadly developed breast cancer, I’m sure you don’t want to start eating animal products, including dairy as you’ve had the health benefits all these years.
(The greatest risk from dairy products is the collection of growth-factors which are responsible for rapid growth of healthy calves and hugely and continuously productive udders - not good for human bones or breasts.)
I have improved my fitness thru exercise but will never run a marathon or a 4 minute mile - that’s not in my make-up. Sadly a susceptibility to breast cancer, despite a healthy life, IS in my make-up. So I think it’s best to accept that’s where I am and go with the resources, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual, to seek timely help with whatever problems come my way, including the best medical diagnosis and treatment. What I do with that is up to me.
There’s no need for blaming and shaming people who “do dairy” or people who don’t or to feel guilty for past years of overweight, or smoking, or heavy drinking, or workaholism or whatever it is you beat yourself up with. We are not just a collection of pigeon-holed behavioural classes. People are changing categories all the time - people give up dairy, give up smoking, take to drink!!
There is a need for acceptance of where we are and some confidence that what we’ve decided to do about it is right for us. There’s no-one else we need to satisfy however much we may be pressurised. Whether we follow a particular person’s advice or not, be it Jane Plant or any other writer of self-help books, is purely personal choice.
People read different books and make different choices.
The dilemma of who’s giving the best advice is much the same for every parent wanting to do the best for their child. Books, doctors, friends, neighbours, Mums and Dads, brothers and sisters, they all have opinions on what’s the best way and will offer help AND criticism and we can be baffled as to what to do for the best.
We have our own instincts perhaps and our own intuition. We have to be our own wise parents in this - we have to find our way through the maze, with many a wrong turn perhaps, but that’s just how it is.
I’ve looked at my limited options, my cancer being triple negative and on its 3rd recurrence. I have been prescribed Arimidex for 2.5 years now, which I take every day though I know it has a borderline benefit for me and will be weakening my bones.
I find for myself that the arguments against high dietary intakes of fats and alcohol and consumption of animal proteins and dairy as POTENTIAL cancer promoters convincing.
Ditto, the use of body care products with synthetic chemicals.
I am convinced that certain foods are POTENTIALLY highly beneficial in actively fighting cancer - such as lignans in flax seed, seaweeds, most phyto-oestrogens,etc.
I also exercise a lot - gardening, dog walking, swimming, forestry work and practice Chi-Kung and Tai-Chi.
None of this does me ANY HARM. I feel good. Just now, I also feel particularly strong and well.
I am not prepared to say that “I WILL NOT follow this or that one’s advice UNTIL IT IS PROVEN”. The proof of what works against cancer may one day be agreed upon, in our great-granddaughters’ generation.
All I have is now - this one fleeting lifetime.
No scientist is going to convince me that I need ABSOLUTE proof that a particular regime works before I can opt to follow it. I need to know it does me no harm.
The vanity of the scientific community leads them to believe that one day they will have THE answer and until then, people can go on dying from lack of absolute certainty.
It puts me in mind of George Bush’s arguments about climate change - until he has absolute proof that human activity is causing global warming (by which time it will be too late!) he will not let his vast polluting nation take responsibility for the contribution to this damage its emissions cause, irrespective of how many polar bears may perish as the polar ice cap melts.
There may be a parallel here between the dairy industry and its responsibility for adulterating the natural lives of cows and the emissions of their industry which are in all probability contributing to the global rise in growth factor-driven cancers.
50 years after the irrefutable link between smoking and cancer was established, the tobacco industry has entered its greatest era of worldwide expansion.
How sure do we have to be?
I am a gardener. Do you know how many different ways there are to make a seed germinate? to make peppers ripen to red on the bush in a cool summer? to get a wisteria to bear flowers or a vine to produce grapes adequate for a great wine? And what about that great imponderable, how to control or deter slugs and snails…? As many different ways as there are people to write gardening books. All you gardeners out there will have your favourite methods because they have worked for you.
I just need to find that the balance of probabilities is in favour of health and wellbeing to follow the package of approaches that suit me and my temperament and life circumstances.
I am LIVING with breast cancer and getting a lot out of life in the meantime. I hope it stays in remission for a very long time, but I’m not sure it will ever be there. Equally, I’m not sure that tomorrow I’m not going to contract a fatal meningitis infection or walk under the proverbial bus.
So, for now, with no absolute proof, I follow the Plant Programme - the whole thing - diet, lifestyle, avoiding cancer-promoting products and endocrine-disrupting factors and embracing cancer-fighting foods, meditation and stress management.
Unless you are immortal and have the time to wait for the ABSOLUTE proof, I suggest you have another look for yourselves at the evidence and then follow what you find is the best way to care for yourself in your own particular circumstances. I tried looking up Joanna Bugweed, by the way, but neither Yahoo nor Google have every heard of her. You might like to check out Suzannah Olivier, apart from her pre-Jane Plant approach to dairy products, she has a lot of detailed nutritional information about cancer-fighting foods.
I’m not going to try to convince anyone any more. Just wanted to share my approach and reasoning which brought me to it and challenge a few sacred cows.(Ooo… sorry for the pun…) So forgive my long, last post on this thread. Think I’ll join the other gardeners…
Wishing you well,
Jenny
for Jenny Jenny it’s Johanna Budwig- google again! dilly
Thanks, Jenny, for your long post and thanks to you too Jane.
We do, of course, have to find our own route through. Personally, I have cut dairy down considerably but don’t know if I have the willpower to become a vegan. Life has to be about pleasure too - at least as little. Besides which, there are dangers everywhere. I bought some bok choy for example, to make a recipe from Jane Plant’s book. They then loitered at the back of my fridge and I forgot about them. Pulling them out about a month later, I was shocked to see that they still looked as fresh as the day I got them. What has been done to them to turn them into an ever-lasting vegetable? That’s just not right. They’ve gone straight to the compost bin. I think a bar of chocolate would be healthier!