This thread helps people, who may have heard that stress causes cancer, that there are many options open to them to deal with the stress.
I am quite evangelical about diet and lifestyle management in regards to cancer as I was on the is forum for 4 months before there was any decent discussion on diet and the role it plays in reducing not just the risks of cancer but managing the side effects. It made such a huge difference to me and I believe that many people put it into the ‘too hard’ basket, because it is difficult to make changes.
BTW, now chemo is completed I still have have chocolate and treats and cheese on a pizza etc. If I had secondaries though, I think I would be 100% strict.
I’m with Msmolly on this one but agree that a healthy diet, lifestyle etc is important for everyone - but don’t deny yourself the pleasures as well.
In my case I have had a very stressful life in the past, nursing two loved ones with terminal cancer, bringing up three children on my own, loosing everything in house fire, working full time in stressful job. And yet I got my bc after the three least stressful years of my life when things had become so much easier for me. I also was always slim, fit etc and was very low risk of developing it. I’m afraid until much more is know it is sometimes just sods law and looking for reasons as Debs said can add to the stress. It is no-one’s ‘fault’ they develop bc and putting yourself under more stress is not good for anyone’s general wellbeing. Be sensible but enjoy life to the full.
I apologise for not answering your post to your complete satisfaction Finty - I am a single parent with a 3 year old to collect from nursery and cannot fritter away hours on the internet. However I will happily address each of your issues later tonight if I have time.
While I have 5 minutes - there is NOTHING whatsoever contradictory about my reasoning. Plant et al focus on diet as a route to prevention. Therefore I used my dietary experience as an exemplar to show that their claims are twaddle. Nothing contradictory in that at all. I don’t think diet has any relationship to cancer prevention or cure other than in managing weight which DOES have a relationship to cancer. Is that clear enough?
As for Plant - well I could go on forever about her but do you not recall the part in Your Life In Your Hands where Plant tells us how all of the people who followed her diet lived and all of those who didn’t died? If that isn’t someone claiming to have found a cure I don’t know what is. And you haven’t answered my question in relation to Plant’s other “areas of expertise”. She is a geologist - what the hell does she know about depression and osteoporosis? Simply studying chemistry doesn’t make you an expert in human biology and cancer.
I have to feed my son now but in the meantime I would be interested to know why some people are so keen to suck up all this stuff without any questions asked when not one major cancer centre - Sloan-Kettering, Marsden etc supports the notion that diet controls/prevents cancer.
Over the years I have engaged in this type of conversation many times. It always becomes tribal. Evangelical is very appropriate Gretchen because subscribing fully to this stuff does seem to require the same leap of faith as religion. And whenever someone questions it it appears to provoke the same anger and drive to convert too.
Yes it was the “the part in Your Life In Your Hands where Plant tells us how all of the people who followed her diet lived and all of those who didn’t died” which upset me a lot - tantamount to a threat, and based on only a handful of people! It’s the reason why I never recommend the book to anyone, even though I think it has interesting theories and some good advice. Plus, she glosses over the fact that her cancer started to improve form teh time she was put on conventional chemo!
It’s such a pity that poeple like her can’t stop at soem sensible and well balanced arguements, but have to throw in that evangelical twist.
Sarah
Gretchen, unless you have secondaries you cannot possibly know how you will feel.
My cancer came back after 8 years. I tried all the dairy free stuff and now look upon it as almost like a phase,taken in order to feel like you are in control.
I have seen my organic, dairy free friends die. I have seen other friends live. The comment that it is ‘too hard’ is patronising as most of us would do anything in order to be there for our children !!!
When you know your life is limited, living whatever life you have, to the full is the only thing.
We are all individuals, with our own beliefs and perceptions.
By the way I have been coming on this site for years and this is not new< in fact it is boringly old. many old timers do not bother to respond as we have heard it all before, many times and our friends have now died and still continue to do so…
I’ve not been on this forum for long, but this is the second time I’ve seen heated debate around the issue of diet. This is a subject which seems to divide people along very tribal lines and I simply don’t get why.
We are all individuals and in our handling of cancer …
some of us don’t want to know and will blindly do whatever our medical team tells us to
some of us need to investigate and question every aspect of our treatment programme
some of us need to look in the dark places and prepare ourselves for the worst possible outcome
some of us need to avoid anything scary and deal only with what’s immediately in front of us
some of us will seek alternative paths
There is no right or wrong, there are only differences.
My pre-disposition is towards the natural - homeopathy, nutrition and chiropractic all forming part of my “belief” package. I recommend these things, but I do not find it necessary to force my views onto others. I support individual choice. I am a believer in each person finding the path that is right for them. If someone recommends something to me, I do not base my decision on how heartfelt their advice is or how evangelical they are, instead I go away and do my homework. If what I find chimes with me, then I’m likely to give it a try. If not, I won’t.
I think suggesting that the reason people don’t follow the anti cancer diet is because its “too hard” is rather dismissive. That may be the case for some people, equally others will have done their homework but come to a different conclusion. Evangelism - of any sort - comes from a good place, but it has a bad name because the fervour with which the views are held and expressed is overwhelming, sometimes even intrusive. We all know (or know of) people for whom the diet “has worked” and people for whom it has not. This is a matter of personal choice and personal belief and we should respect each other’s choices and decisions rather than trying to insist that any one is right or wrong.
msmolly I am also busy with children, so here is one quick response - I will try to get to others later.
You ask why no serious cancer authorities are backing claims about diet and cancer. They are. Here is a link to an Oxford University study: ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2008/081008.html
The above study shows evidence for the link between IGF’s and prostate cancer - pretty much exactly as Prof Plant hypothesised. The following study shows the link between IGF’s and hormone responsive breast cancers:
It identifies IGF receptors on cancer cells and suggest a potential treatment for breast cancer that switches off the IGF receptors in the same way that Tamoxifen does for oestrogen. It is the presence of IGFs in dairy that is central to Plant’s theory.
This is a long way from a definitive proof that dairy can promote cancer - but are you really sure it is “twaddle” sucked up by ignorant dupes?
Gretchen if you are so convinced that diet can prevent cancer or stop it recurring why would you wait until you had secondaries to stick to it a 100%? that seems a bit silly if you are so convinced it works.
I agree we are all individuals and make our own choices and we should respect all views.I also think the “to hard” comment was patronising.I eat more healthily now and I also walk a lot, not because I think it will keep my cancer away,but because I want to feel better and lose weight.
Mel xx
I’m sure we have been through this before.IGF’s are not given to cows in the UK or Europe,so unless you are importing foods from the US it does not apply to us.
Mel IGFs occur naturally in milk, as they do in our own bodies. The levels in milk are increased by the addition of hormones such as those added to milk in the US, and by milking cows at certain stages of their cycle - I believe when pregnant, but would have to check.
IGF-1 is also a naturally occuring hormone that we (and cows) all make. The IGF-1 levels in milk vary greatly depending on many things - mostly how long the cow has been producing milk. Levels in cows that have recently calved are much, much higher. The normal IGF-1 level in humans is 100 times higher than the level in the average pint of milk. It may be that IGF-1 is important in the development of cancer. But it may be that our natural levels and how they vary between people that is the issue. So, we don’t know yet whether drinking milk with high IGF-1 levels can increases IGF-1 levels in humans. As UK and European cattle don’t get this hormone, our milk does not contain high IGF-1 levels. If you are worried, you may want to avoid foods imported from the US that contain milk or dairy products, as many US cattle are given this drug.
We just seem to be going over the same old issues. deja-vu.We should just do what we do and not be pressured by other members to do what they do.
Mel I hope I haven’t pressured you to do anything, now would I ever do so. I am simply responding to msmolly’s dismissal of diet books as twaddle, and specifically in this instance Plant’s hypothesis of a link between high levels of IGF and cancer, when there is in fact evidence supporting a link between IGF and hormone responsive breast cancer. Plus pointing out that all our milk contains IGF, but not as much as milk boosted with rBGH which is thankfully banned in the UK.
Julie, I have had a second primary diagnosed and had a 2 month wait to confirm that I didn’t have lung secondariness, not quite the same as actually having secondariness, but still pretty close.
Sorry to the old timers who have heard it all before. I just wish that I had read a thread like this when first diagnosed so I could have assimilated and investigate the info to come to my own conclusions.
I am also a very busy (single mum of two with my own business), but would gladly take my time to pass on my experiences of surviving the treatment through diet and lifestyle, it made such a huge and measurable difference to me. Who knows if diet will cure cancer, and I am sure that it is virtually impossible to prove, but with a greater than 20% chance of reoccurrence, I’m hedging my bets. And nowhere is there evidence to say that a bad diet will cure cancer!
For those of you who do follow a very healthy and holistic diet, I am sure that you would have to agree that in life, not just cancer circles, most people want a conventional quick-fix rather than a holistic approach to their ills.
Mel, yoga is great, who knows, maybe that is the cure for cancer. Probably not, but it makes me feel good and is a great stress reliever.
I’m sorry Gretchen but waiting for results is not “pretty close” to having secondary cancer,most of us have had tests and scans for one reason or another and had to wait for results.It’s fine to share your experience with others but it’s not fine to tell other’s what they should be doing or telling them that if they stick to your diet they will have no problems with their blood count through chemo or using the term pill popping.The yoga is for stress alone not a cure.
For two months I thought I had secondaries, it impacted on how I viewed my life and my attitude to treatment. I fully appreciate that it is not the same as actually having a diagnosis confirmed.
Suggesting a major diet change to avoid the horrendous and debilitating aches caused by the blood count injections is, in my mind, a good thing to do. I took a fair amount of time typing those posts and don’t take back a word of it. I hope there are a few women out there who read the post and used my experience to aid them in getting through the treatment. Why is it ok for someone to recommend an old wives tale for side effects, but someone offering a more comprehensive and researched opinion, it is somehow offensive?
In fact I took up the diet to survive chemo and keep my business and home, NOT to think I was curing cancer. It made me feel so much better that I now find it quite easy to continue as a lifestyle choice. I read the Jane Plant book with a grain of salt, but did not completely give up dairy until I looked at the impact on of dairy my liver during chemo.
This thread changed when Flinty recommended a well respected book that has helped her, and her views and opinion was attacked in a very negative way, but that is ok?
Any newbies reading this, of course you can make up your own mind, but there are many women with cancer who use diet and lifestyle changes to manage the treatment and give them much greater hope of surviving this terrible disease.
I’m not entering into the diet, stress debate but having a secondaries scare is not pretty close and a million miles from having the diagnosis actually confirmed. I’ve been living with secondaries for seven years.
You did not offer an opinion you told someone that if they follow your diet they would have no problems with their blood count,There is a difference.As I said we can share our experiences and the things that work for us but we can not tell people what they should be doing.Enough said by me I have to go to work.
All the best Melxx
