OK, here’s a money-spinner coming, for each and every big black bin liner filled with ironing the charge will be - £20 a bag, two bottles of Champagne (Lanson Black Label), one bottle of red wine and 2 chocolate eclairs! Any takers?
Joking aside, yes I quite agree, no guarantees and who knows about those big red buses in any form, having a giggle on here now which I think we all deserve and enjoy.
Love you all
K
Personally I do not think that diet caused my two occurrences of breast cancer - with a 17 year gap in between. I have no family history, breastfed two children, never smoked, drink socially and eat healthily, no weight problem and have always done lots of sport and keep fit. Am now 68 and in the 17 years since first diagnosis I have seen too many contradictory headlines about what to avoid. Until research comes up with something positive as opposed to the may be’s I intend to continue enjoying my current lifestyle. My husband and several members of my close family are doctors and no one knows why some of us get BC out of the blue and others break all the rules and escape.
Really interested to read your opinions.
I was afraid i was the only one who was sceptical about the whole ''breast cancer and diet ‘’ thing.
As far as i’m concerened nothing is proven…so why beat yourself up about what if i’d done this or hadn’t done that.
I feel stress played a part in my BC, but also my grandmother, mum, sister had benign breast lumps removed, my aunt [mums sister] was dx 15 yrs ago and dx with secondaries 2 yrs ago, i was dx in jan., 04.
I sometimes feel i’m not dong enough in helping to prevent a recurrence or secondaries…or is that how all these books about diet etc., make us feel?
A lady at the conference i attended was all for organic everything, yet after my op i remember BCN saying doesn;t have to be organic, just as good to buy fresh fruit and veg etc.,…I guess its individual choice…I’d prefer to try to eat a healthy well balanced diet…but don’t intend to make any drastic changes.
Like the comment…can we sue if we follow diet and things still go wrong…!!!
karen x
Hello sceptics everywhere… I’ve had 11 years living with this disease and its progression to work out where I stand and who I believe and what I want to do about it - for myself - it’s up to you who you want to believe and if you want to do anything about it.
I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone who is reading this thread has an open mind and is curious about what s/he can do about supporting her/his treatment and fighting strongly for life, otherwise, why read it…?
The people out there - doctors and scientists, who contribute to the websites and research papers I suggest are worth reading, of course have 20:20 vision - that is HIND-SIGHT! and are passing on the lessons learned, NOT to make money, but to perhaps reduce the incidence of future cancers and to perhaps reduce the velocity of the cancers we all unfortunately have now. For every 1 diet that is recommended by 20-50 years of research there are probably scores which come out of the imagination of food gurus pushing supplements and seaweeds and much wierder things too, which are as much junk food as the gooh-filled fast foods served in mega-portions in fastfood outlets coast to coast in USA, not to mention the websites of the dairy promotion, meat promotion, sugar promotion and alcohol promotion and drug promotion companies and cartels. I’ve been to the US and gone to fast food outlets and seen how many customers need 2 chairs to sit on - one for each cheek… I’ve lived a normal post-war London lifestyle, drunk the milk, eaten the butter, cream, yogurts and cheese, enjoyed the steak, the sweets, the crisps, the convenience foods, the wine and taken the prescription drugs like a good girl.
However… There seems to be a growing consensus, based on decades of evidence based scientific analysis, about a cancer-hostile diet and now I want some of that!
It is largely (preferably wholly) plant-based and very low fat, virtually (preferably wholly) alcohol free and organic is best. It can do me no harm.
Knowing it prevents disease and can help to put it in check doesn’t mean anyone’s going to follow it!
Also it needs to be backed up by regular exercise and some stress reduction lifestyle changes.
What’s behind this? A growing knowledge of how growth factors and sex hormones and stress hormones and free radicals and endocrine disrupting chemicals (like the pesticides with which most foods are treated), iniciate and promote cell damage, cancer cell growth, and proliferation and that there is a link between our environment: externallly the world around us and how we interact with it and internally, what we put in our bodies. (food, drink and pollutants).
Back in 1958 came the first hint that smoking damages health. How many of you are still waiting for absolute proof and a guarantee that you’re going to die of smoking related coronary heart disease or cancer of the bladder, kidneys, breast or lungs before you give up smoking? I’m sorry if that sounds harsh to smokers out there - personally I don’t mean to be. I’m just making a point that it’s 51 years ago now that the link between smoking and health was made. Around 30 of those years the tobacco farmers and cigarette makers were successfully in silencing all opposition in the western world while they made their money out of us. It’s only this last year that our governments have had the guts to stand up for health and taken the risk of falling tax revenues from cigarettes and the ban in public places is already saving lives. But the tobacco companies are still at it - despite everything we all know (including the World Health Organisation). Only they’re selling smoking as an attractive western lifestyle choice to the masses in China, India, S. America and Africa and their largely non-smoking shareholders don’t care where the profit comes from.
Billions of dollars were paid to US senators and congressmen to get them to vote in favour of the tobacco lobby. This last 30 years, the big food companies’ and durg companies’ have joined in funding the gravy train.
But if even the cancer sufferers and heart attack patients and diabetics don’t turn to a healthier diet and lifestyle when given the information, knowledge and power to do so, they don’t have much to worry about. There’ll be a market for their obesity- driving, cancer causing, diabetic generating, cardiac arresting foods, drinks and life-threatening drugs for decades to come.
Don’t feel guilty about you choices - if you are in the majority. In a democracy, I think that means their shareholdes get your vote and their profit. What makes me sick is the exploitation of the medical profession by drug peddlers and the companies who peddle their nutrition-free, chemical-rich foods to the smallest children and the medical schools and education and children’s health advocates stand by and watch.
I hear what others are saying about their healthy diets and lifestyles that have got them into their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s before they got cancer.My Mum was 83 when she had her mastectomy. Even at that age, she looked around to see if there were changes she could make to help her get over it and is now, still healthily, a few weeks short of 91. She did take tamoxifen and then arimidex. Now she takes neither. If there’s evidence something will help her, she will ask for it or do it herself. She still enjoys a glass of red wine every day - as she has done for the last 30 years - before that it was a few glasses every now and then. She’s given up dairy products and meat and still enjoys some fish and dairy-free chocolate. She’s not surprised she has arthritis and had knee and hip replacements in her 70’s because she was overweight all her adult life. Honestly why do I think she had cancer? I think it was the stress and shock of my Dad dying and me (her youngest) getting breast cancer 2 years later that triggered it. Hers followed 2 years after.
You see, I believe there has to be a trigger. Hers was bereavement and fear of losing me.
(my brother’s daughter died of cancer aged 17 btw, who was a healthy weight all her life, physically active, ate well, etc. and maybe had some genetic defect as it was one of the juvenile cancers, so I understand the argument that not all cancers can be prevented).
But if the scene isn’t set for the cells to respond to the trigger, in other words, if something hasn’t initiated cancer in our bodies that can BE triggered, then it ain’t going to happen and that’s a combination between the susceptibility for the disease and some lifelong exposure or even one-time only exposure to risk which has built up to a critical level, ripe for development.
It is pointless beating ourselves up about how we got to here!!! Really, it doesn’t matter. My oncoloist tried to get me angry 4 years ago when I had my first recurrence because I hadn’t had chemo after the first surgery. I told him it was unimportant - what was important was what he recommended to treat the recurrence. He still mentioned it at the next 3 appointments. Each time I refused to take the bait and get wound up. How I ended up sitting my side of his desk was irrelevant to where we went from ther.
So what matters is what we do each day from now on. If we can tend to look after ourselves better, get more fresh air, exercise, eat well, (only put nutritious food in our mouths and not empty calories or harmful chemicals or hormone and grow factor laden foods), we might even improve our wellbeing - cancer or no cancer. And if not, well, we have free will and live in a democracy where the illusion of free choice still prevails. Whatever we each choose is is just that - personal choice. Once you have the information, you have the choice to take it or leave it. And each new day you have a new choice.
So I’ve had cancer for 11 years. I lived a fairly healthy existence but have managed to become suceptible and the disease was triggered and has progressed. I think I would have got it younger and not enjoyed such wellbeing as I do now, had I not done what I could to find out what to do for the best and acted on some of it. This has changed over the years as more has become known or been released into the public domain. And I act on what I’ve learned, mostly… With hindsight, once I’d got the diagnosis 11 years ago (and I’m not going further back than that…), there are some things I’d have done differently, but I’m here now and looking forward. I’m sure you are too.
Wishing you well,
Jenny
Every single thing mentioned can be counter-argued against. Lets be sure of one thing that is common knowledge to everyone, patients, doctors, the man on the street, there is no guarantee or safety net whatsoever to say who is going to get what. Everything put together is a contributary factor which may or may not lead to disease. As someone said (and I can’t remember where it was on here) if we took notice of everything that was written we would end up dying within a matter of weeks as we would all be too frightened to eat, drink, use toiletries, go outside in the air, drive a car, use a microwave etc etc etc. For goodness sake, look after ourselves yes, but don’t get paranoid about it.
Hi Jenny
Can I ask a question please. You talk about living with cancer for the last 11 years. What stage are you at now? Are you still being treated ?
Norma x
Hi Jenny,
thank you. You are highlighting much that bothers me. It’s not so much about me and now - it is the potential time bomb we’ve released on our children and their children. When teaching I discovered so many children that lived on sugary ceral for breakfast, jam sandwich and crisps for lunch then a McDonalds for tea - and their parents considered this a healthy diet. So many snacks, drinks and sweets targeted directly at children, because manufacturers play on a child nagging power. Add to that the pollutants of the land, the waterways and even inside our homes … frequently known carcinogens … and we are storing up real trouble.
Having been a parent I do know how hard it is. I was “lucky” though, between my daughters there were so many allergies that ready made foods were never an option, so I had to prepare everything from fresh. Oh, and their friends loved our square, home made pizzas and fresh orange jellies…
Governments are only really interested in results within their term, so, anything that will take more than five years to show a result, forget it.
I agree we need to consume better quality food. Food grown without chemicals (I really cannot say organic as that applies to all carbon based compounds), animals fed on grains and vegetables with no drugs to make them bigger or healthier. For those animals to be housed in appropriate ways.
Yes, we will still have the triggers and yes, we may well still get the cancers/ heart disease etc but, the world is not ours to destroy, we have only borrowed it from our grandchildren.
Thanks Jenny for such an interesting post.
When i first picked up this leaflet at the conference i had never heard of this organisation, but i also know that my BCN obviously invited the speaker from the organisation to talk and that she would not of done that if she didn’t feel there was some relevance.
Yes I am very confused by what to do and what not to do…i found jane plants book too intense, and preferred susannah olivers.
I am however, the more i read about this, intrigued by this diet as, has been said, it may not help me but may bear some releveance to our children/grandchildren.
Below are 10 of the key ingredients of the Genesis breast cancer prevention lifestyle…
1…Watch your weight, don’t eat too many calories. If you are overweight losing weight can help reduce your risk.
2…Do more exercise. Aim to include 3-4 hours of exercise each week [ie., five 35-45 minutes sessons each week].
3…Limit your alcohol intake - each drink on a daily basis can increase your risk by 7%, therefore spmeone who has 5 drinks a day will increase their risk by up to 35%.
4…Try and include different coloured fruit and vegetables in your diet to ensure you take in a full range of anti-cancer nutrients - aim for at least 5 portions a day.
5…Limit your intake of saturated [animal] fat by cutting down on fatty meats and high fat dairy products. You should also avoid foods containing trans fatty acids ie., foods which include hydrogenated fat such as baked products and certain margarines.
6… All fat is not bad for us. The fats found in oily fish, and rapeseed, walnut and olive oil and avocado may help protect us from breast cancer and form part of a healthy anti-cancer diet.
7…Include plenty of fish, especially oily fish which is rich in anti cancer vitamin D, vitamin A and omega -3fats.
8…Include low fat dairy products such as yoghurt, low fat milk and cottage cheese. They are a grwat source of calcium and often vitamin D which can help protect us from cancer.
9…Have more wholegrain and less refined [white] starchy foods whenever possible. Wholegrain foods help to control levels of cancer promoting hormones in the body and boost your intake of cancer beating nutrients like selenium and vitamin E.
10…Go easy on well done barbecued meals as these contain some cancer causing substances.
Opinions please ??
karen x
erm, Karen, so that’s it? Sort of sounds like my normal diet except for dairy as i’m lactose intolerant!
Hi, Karen and Quisie. I’ve read the diet too. The point is that it is a breast cancer PREVENTION diet. We haven’t succeeded in prevention so need to do some fine tuning. That’s what I’ve researched for myself from some of the sources I’ve mentioned.
Quisie, I’m so relieved to hear you children’s food allergies has protected them. There should be some way of reducing the influence of junkfood peddlers on the supermarkets but as long as their products are so cheap and profitable and filling the only hope is a buoycott - a non-starter really as things stand, unless the media got behind the campaign.
Genesis Diet? Basically, I agree about the fish sourced oils - that’s DHA and Omega -3 I get DHA and vitamin D in combination by taking a little cod liver oil every day. I get omega-3 from crushed flaxseeds and from walnuts and sesame seeds.
The dietary problem of cancer promotion and proliferation after initiation lies in the fact that animal proteins add and drive our own production of growth factors. Also animal proteins and animal sources of calcium disrupt vitamin D metabolism and stop the body’s acces to its active form which fights cancer. Hence, I’ve excluded animal protein from my diet - that is: no fish, no meat, no dairy produce. The second problem is cholesterol. All meat contains some. All animal fats are a source, so no ghee despite its absence of whey proteins.
This is based on the longterm research which was summarised in T. Colin Campbell’s book “The China Study” (2006). According to the findings he reviews, all additional fats (such as vegetable oils and spreads) increase risk. So I stick to my body getting its fats from nuts and seeds and vegetables - avocado is famously a fat fruit but even spinach contains some!
I think that Suzannah Olivier’s book is a really good reference for a lot of nutritional info and some good descriptions of cancer-fighting superfoods but for the reasons I explained above, I don’t go along with dairy or other animal product consumption. I’m not sure if she still does. In fact, I don’t go along with Jane Plant’s advice that once you’re 6 months out of treatment and you are remission, it’s time to get yourself some lamb cutlets either or to use beer as a sleeping draught. I find Jane Plant’s book a very dense read and it’s only her last edition (out August 2007) which is properly indexed. Before that it was impossible to dip in and find anything out. If you’re interested in the science behind the food and lifestyle factors and the research sources,or just want to look something up it may be worth buying.
It’s interesting to note that low-fat vegan diets are recommended to delay the onset of ageing in general and degenerative diseases in particular and are widely recognised by the medical community in USA.
Here’s my history, Norma. 11 years ago I had a mastectomy - I don’t know the hormone or HER-2 status of the tumour but do know it was stage III and had spread to a number of lymph nodes - 6 removed: 3 affected. I had 5 years of tamoxifen. Side effects: weight gain (around 15kg) and depression - needed anti-depressants finally for 3 years which I stopped a month before my last tamoxifen and haven’t needed since. I followed the Bristol Programme loosely and cut out all animal fats - ate low fat live yogurts, drank skimmed milk, ate white meat from (mostly) organic chicken and turkey and plenty of oily fish. Drank red wine. Felt very unprotected and sensed something was going on in the cancer department - hence following a restricted diet and taking supplements continued. 16 months after stopping tamoxifen had a recurrence on the chest wall and more lymph nodes. Biopsy showed skin, muscle, nerve and lymphatic tissues affected. Stage III/3 with further 6 nodes affected. My surgeon kindly didn’t do total axillary clearance as he knew I would be getting RT and chemo. My oncologist said that though he couldn’t find it he was convinced I had netastatic disease so hit me as hard as he could with a sandwich of FEC/RT/FEC over a period of 7 months from the date of surgery. During this treatment I followed the Bristol Programme strictly with all the supplements and vegetarian diet and cut out all alcohol and coffee. Made a good recovery except have had to carefully control lymphoedema in my right arm, (physio and support sleeve) struck by chemobrain I had to give up my career as a consultant on international project and took time out to stare into space - not my choice. I’ve composted all my heavy intellectual work - could no longer make sense of what I’d written myself, let alone anyone else! I took up Tai-Chi. 3 years on I adapted to my intellectual capacity and planned a new business. Meanwhile I take Arimidex - though ER receptor negativeand HER-2 negative my cancer was very slightly positive for progesterone receptors. A year later, 3 days after going into debt to finance the said business, I had the first hints of diagnosis of mets last July 4th (2006). A friend lent me “Your Life in Your Hands” by Jane Plant. I found it made sense and adopted the Plant Programme. Over a period of months I was able to get into stress-reduction meditation techniques (mindfulness meditation - useful book: “Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat Zinn) I lost the weight I had gained on Tamoxifen using the Plant Programme and have never felt hungry. The mets took 7 months to locate. Meanwhile I was in excellent shape - loads of new energy, no more aches and pains, (I’d had lots of joint pain even before Arimidex which made my joints hurt in new places), sleeping well and new mental energy. So I had a tumour in my left hip - iliac crest at imminent risk of fracture, another in lower dorsal vertebra and 2 in lymph nodes of the para-hilar region behind the fork of the bronchi in the chest. These were all treated with RT over a period of 21/2 months. That left me with anaemia, fatigue, which was relieved by the anaemia treatment and a very low white blood cell count. The tendeny for lyphedema has increased and I wear the support sleeve every day and sometimes at night too but am not troubled by it. My doctors tell me I am living with active metastatic cancer and as my blood count is too low for any further treatment, not to be in a hurry for scans and tests as I may not be able to take more treatment for a while… unless I get symptoms of pain or an events such as a fracture. I expect to get routine blood tests this month. Just 6 weeks ago I realised about the low-fat element of the diet also applying to vegetable fats. I have cut this down to max. a teaspoonful of olive oil a day in addition to the seeds, nuts, avocado and occassional hummous or tahini. I have lost another pound or two. On days when I’m not working in the forest or gardens, (my new business is very active!) I have also started exercising more - walking as well as the swimming I’d been doing and also using an exercise bike. Hoping that stronger fitter muscles will support my bones well. That’s me and my treatment and its outcome up to date. I do get nagging pains in my right hip occassionally and also in the top of my left thigh bone. They pass and are probably due to over-exertion but could be something more sinister or just the effects of the Femara I have been taking now for over 2 months and maybe discontinued if my tumour markers have continued to rise. Time will tell. Both my oncologist and the radiotherapist are favourably impressed with my quality of life and had expected me to experience symptoms of pain over a year ago as the mets progressed. As an abject coward in the face of pain, I’m happy to say it hasn’t caught up with me yet.
So I’m not just a casual observer with some crazy idea that diets can help. I’ve done my homework. I follow dietary and lifestyle advice and it’s working for me i.e. I feel well - better than I have for many years. I cannot say that Femara is working for me yet - except perhaps to give me some pain in my hips and thighs, but I hope it is doing a better job than arimidex did. If the mets progress I hope that the onc. can find some more treatment for me though chemo is not indicated and bisphosphonates are problematic with the dental weakness I seem to have from the RT. Fortunately, Kelly I’m not the paranoid type otherwise I might have been a bit upset when the onc. told me he cannot advocate further treatment. Incurable is one thing - I accepted that. Untreatable is tougher though pain management would be offered. So I am doing what I can and being so well feel a bit of a fraud and only wish I were!
Wishing you well too,
Jenny
Gosh Jenny i wish i was as understanding of all of these things as you are, i find it difficult to take in all the information/facts there are and get very confused by them all.
I also found your post very interesting as my aunt was dx with bone mets 2yrs ago…15yrs after original dx, she has just had her treatment changed as the previous bone stregthener and hormone tablets we’re not helping in stopping her mets spreading further in her bones.
I’m going to try and talk to her about some of the things you have mentioned you follow in your diet to see if it will help her.
Take care
karen x
Hi Girls,
I was born and brought up in Bristol where many years ago a special cancer unit was set up even visited by Prince Charles. One of the main things used here was organic food and diet. However, it has not stopped two very slim girls who worked at the centre getting cancer.
I think weight is always a health factor, I know as I have suffered since early 20s with what was diagnosed as a sticky thyroid and my weight yo yoed on it’s own. I was eventually at 45 put on Thyroxin.
I still got breast cancer and believe after also reading many books that we all have cancer cells in us but different things in our make up trigger it off, although it does seem a common factor to many cancers does seem to be stress. Most people I have spoken to have been diagnosed after bullying in the workplace, severe financial problems, Bad accidents, unexpected deaths. If you had a combination of these things including weight, poor diet etc you can see how the poor human body could not cope.
Anyway just to throw another spanner in the works there is an article in a national paper today that is suggesting that breast cancer is carried by mice - so mice lovers beware.
I think this debate will go on for ever.
Love Treakle xx
Hi Jenny
Wow have you been through the mill girl. Am going to print off your mails as I can’t take it all in (bit early in the morning).
I did latch on to the walking in the gardens and forests, sounds wonderful therapy to me. Is your business in that field?.
Norma x