tamoxifen & soya

On another thread there are some postings about soya & tamoxifen… evidently soya can interfere wiht the effects of tamoxifen. I’ve been on Tam.for 2 months & soya milk since diagnosis in May, now I’m not sure what to do does anyone have any more info on this? Why does soya affect tamoxifen?
Thought this thread would be a good place to transfer the question
Cheers all
Manda x

Hi Manda

I think this is because Tamoxifen is an oestrogen blocker and soya contains phyto oestrogen, a natural source of oestrogen, as do many herbs and veggies.

I wish I could be sure as my sister drinks soya milk for hot flushes and it really helps her but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea?

Maybe check some internet sites on soya milk.

Hope this helps

Cecelia. x

This is news to me. Maybe there should be a warning on all soya products.

Hi MandH

You can read recent threads on this subject by using the ‘Search’ tab at the top of the page, just type in soya and you will be able to read what other users have been discussing.

Hope this is useful.

Best wishes
Lucy

Hi Olivia

I agree that if this is true that they should put warnings on soya products but as I say I’m not 100% sure what the story is with it.

Thanks Lucy, I’ll check all the threads too.

Cecelia. x

Cecelia

When you read the back of packets, soya is in almost everything…nearly all loaves of bread have soya flour and most biscuits contain it as do alot of dairy products. Have also discovered that tomatoes and broccolli are full of pyhto oetrogens. All my bc nurse says is everything in moderation.

Debbie
xx

Hi Debbie

I think that’s right , in moderation it is fine I think. I heard that about tomatos which I’m not going to give up… I love them. That would be taking things tooo far!

And broccoli is a super food, recommened to everyone so it’s hard to know what to do.

Cecelia. x

Hi,
Just stumbled upon this thread, I am using rice milk or oat milk instead of soya milk as soya seems to have bad reputation for many things, non of which I understand fully. Anyway, rice milk and oat milk are both good for tea, hot chocolate etc and cooking, rice milk is a bit thin, oat milk a bit creamier - can get both in the longlife milk section of Waitrose or the special diet ailse in Tescos.

Louisa xxx

Thanks Louisa

I will try that. I have swapped my normal tetleys or Yorkshire tea for Redbush which is naturally caffeine free. I was getting a lot of headaches and drink tea all day long so thought I would give it a try. I didn’t like it at first but started to making it weaker and now I really like it and I am sleeping better. I also bought decaff coffee which I have never done before as I read they used chemicals to decaff it. I bought Kenco decaff and it was really nice and I feel ok for the odd cup of coffee I have as I usually drink tea. I will try anything diet wise to help alleviate Tam side effects and the chance of the bc coming back

Debbie
xx

Hi everybody! I am newly diagnosed with breast cancer so am finding things out and getting really scared and/or confused about loads of things, one of which is diet. Jane Plant’s book seemed to make a lot of sense to me, but then I heard about the soya- Tamoxifen connection, so plans to gve up dairy and replace with soya have fallen by the wayside. Incidentally, I very rarely deliberately ate soya before diagnosis- I ate an all natural, organic wholefood diet, including meat, poultry ,fish and dairy. I also loved good real coffee- though didn’t drink masses of it, and I regularly drank alcohol- have for 30 years. Since diagnosis, I have completely given up alcohol and have just one cup of coffee at breakfast. I’ve cut down a lot on dairy, but not completely… In other words, there haven’t been massive changes to what I think was a pretty good diet before. Iam looking for non-dairy foods to give me calcium, but one of my favourites, broccoli, is really high in these phytoestrogens, like soya, so what are you supposed to do?!! Tamoxifen is making me incredibly hungry and I have put on some weight already. I’m not too worried about this at the moment, as I am a bit thin. But if I carry on eating at the present rate, I won’t be able to afford the food bills! Allegra

Eat your broccoli! It’s a very good anti-cancer agent, as are cabbage, cauliflower, brussel spouts etc.

I often wonder if I’ve brought on my BC myself through taking oestrogen products to help me with the menopause.

There is no history of BC in my family at all.

Sixteen years ago, I had to have fertility treatment to have my daughter, then I tried again to have another child, which unfortunately didn’t happen.
I was then told I was going through the menopause, so I decided to use soya milk and take Red Clover Blossom, which I did take for several years, so I do feel that I could have overloaded my body with oestrogen.

So, whether I’ve don’t all this to myself or not, well, I just don’t know, but I really think we should be given more information about herbal products, because we are going into the unknown when we take these things.

Linda x

I was interested in your comment, Linda. After I was diagnosed with lung cancer ( yes, I have BC too ) 5 years ago and after surgery my son sent me an extract from Jane Plant’s book about the evils of dairy and, although that was only related to BC at the time, I decided to give up dairy. So, what do you turn to? Soya, of course. At that time there seemed to be a lot of publicity about the wonders of soya for the menopause too. I used not only the milk but the yoghurts, cream and tofu too. Five years down the line I was shocked to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Now I feel convinced that soya must have been the cause.
Now I am doing without dairy and soya! Hard because I hate oat milk and find rice milk too sickly.
The Plant diet relies heavily on soya and it doesn’t seem to have done her any harm.
Confused
Sarcath

Hi Sarcath,

I went with the reports from places like China, where their diet is full of Soya and where ‘supposedly’ the women never suffer any menopausal effects, but having said that, I don’t know what the statistic are for Breast Cancer in the Eastern countries.

I just feel that because I am / was what they call oestrogen receptive, that I’ve maybe done it to myself.

I know for a fact that taking Red Clover Blossoms caused fibroids in my ovaries, because when I read into the possible side effect of taking RCB, it stated …can cause fibroids…GREAT!!! You take something to help you with one problem and it ends-up causing you other problems, my GP told me to stop taking them immediately.

I’ve also read; since I stopped using it, about Soya products in the Amoena magazine (BC mag), there was quite a long article saying if you use Soya products…basically…stop because of the plant oestrogen.

In a perverse kind of way, I don’t really mind - for want of a better explanation - if I have done this myself because hopefully …it stops with me…maybe my daughter will be OK…I can only hope and pray that she will.

Linda

Hi Linda and Sarcath,

Why do we do it to ourselves? Look for something that maybe we did to cause this blasted horrid disease. Like everyone else on these sites when i was first diagnosed in June last year i thought it must be something i did to myself to get BC. Now 8 months on I think to myself, I took HRT for 3 years, (so did thousands of other women, for longer too, and they did not develop the disease) I drank soya for 5 years prior to diagnosis (so did thousands of other women and they did not develop the disease), I did not, drink, smoke, eat red meat, stuffed myself full of fruit and vegetables, was not obese and still i got the disease. My brother in law is undergoing chemo and rads together for mouth cancer as i write, he has a very very aggressive disease, he never smoked a cigarette in all his 60 years and was an ardent anti smoker!

I don’t believe that we do anything to ourselves to get this disease, we are just very very unlucky. Ok i am also careful what i put into my mouth now and run everything via my friendly pharmacist who herself is also recovering from the disease but to beat ourselves up about it is just so sad, understandable but very sad. I switched from soya milk to rice milk, God that stuff is so vile, i heaved the first time i tried it, now going to try the oaty drink.

Linda, like you i have a beautiful daughter who is the light of my life, my world (I have 3 sons also but my daughter is precious, i always wanted a daughter and was so blessed with the beautiful young women I have) when i was diagnosed the first thing i thought about was her but was assured that it would be rare for her to get the disease, i am adopted myself so have no family history but she will now be more aware, thank God, and if she was diagnosed perhaps in 30 years time then hopefully like cervical cancer there may be a preventive injection by then, we have to hold onto hope.

My very best wishes to you all
Suzzanne

The tamixofen and Soya debate is so confusing, I have just done a google search and found a recent article in the daily mail stating that Soya helps prevent breast cancer if any one wants to read it I just googled “breast cancer and Soya” the article is entilteld “Food that prevents breast cancer/daily mail” and has todays date 20th Jan 2008. To me I think it’s everythink in moderation !

Jo

So what about Goats Milk? Is that safer than Cows milk? Keep reading about oat and rice milk but none seems to mention goats??
Think I’ll just substitute wine for milk!!
Gill x

Gill seems like a good idea I have been driving myself crazy with what I should or shouldnt eat/drink I am a veggie so eat quite a lot of Soya. I did read some where. ( not sure if it was on this site I have read so much my head hurts !!) that the studies into the dangers of soya were sponsered by the mild industry so should be take with a pinch of salt.

Not sure about goats milk though Gill may be its better not to know sometimes ingnorance is bliss.

Jo

Hi there,

I have just tried rice milk (heave, heave it is awful) then tried Oats milk from Holland and Barratt, it is lovely, very similar to soya and also you can have the lowering cholesterol and added calcium varieties. I also have been a soya lady for many years, agree the milk industry would rubbish soya but i also read somewher that cows are fed oestrogens and it comes out in their milk, could this have been from the soya industry in revenge!!!

Like has been stated before, anything that makes life easier and everything in moderation. Try the Oatly and see how you get on if you are worried about the soya, if i had hated it i was going to revert back to soya and dairy milk just plays havoc with my sinuses.

Suzzanne

I have started using Oatly - it’s fine on cereal but not in tea.