I hope some of you can help me with a subject that I am totally confused with!!
Having read a lot into this whole scarey business I am now at a loss to understand what I should and should not be eating. My bc was 100% hormone receptive. I know many ladies are avoiding dairy and red meats, I have also read that because of my hormone status I should avoid any products with soya too. I cannot take supplements to help with menopausal symptoms either due to my hormone status.
If any of you smart ladies out there have any thoughts and information on this I would love to hear from you.
xxx
I am also 100% hormone receptive but have had no advice on diet since results came back. Have found out for myself to avoid soya and I dont take anything for the menopausal symptons although GP said I could have an anti depressant if they got really bad but I don’t want to do that.
BCN wouldn’t comment on the dairy thing when I asked, she told me there was a book about it but said they dont recommend it cos of the benefits of dairy and osteoporosis so I haven’t cut it out at all. Never used to eat much red meat till I had chemo, now cant get enough of it which is hard cos I would prefer not to eat it really. The rules I tend to stick to are min 5 fruit and veg, low fat, fish or chicken [of the happy variety], alcohol on special occasions only and exercise. I try to live within these parameters but I refuse to be obsessive about it, life’s too short after all.
Dont know if this helps but I will bookmark the thread as I am interested in other peoples ideas as well.
Thanks AJ. It’s hard to know whether to bother with all this at all but I obviously want to give myself the best chances possible. Hopefully there will be lots of information from others too and we can all learn together!
x
I personally decided not to go over the top and read everything I could find on diet as there is really too much out there and nothing has been categorically proven as yet to make any significant difference.
When I first had BC in 1990 I got on with life and continued eating a healthy diet, drinking socially and doing lots of exercise. It recurred a year ago in the same breast and am now on Arimidex and am taking the same attitude except I am eating more calcium loaded foods as am 69. Also go to yoga classes and the gym 3 times a week.
You might find it useful to have a look at the BCC publication on ‘breast cancer and diet’ If you would like a copy it can found by following the link below:-
I asked the oncologist what i should and shouldn’t eat or drink and she said have a well balanced diet and i can have a glass or two of wine if i want.
I’ll go with her advice. I had some scarry stories before i asked her which left me in a state of panic, not knowing what to eat or drink or even do.
If in any doubt ask the speciallists, thats what their there for.
Hi Ladies
I can honestly say that my diet for the past 2-3 years has not been healthier. I used to eat rubbish, but then made an effort a few years ago to follow the GI regime.
I eat whole-grain, and avoid pre-processed food as much as possible.
However, 2 months ago I was diagosed with bc! How did that happen? I have never smoked, dont drink, and eat healthily, and do aerobics. I was 41.
However, as part of my healthier living regime, I drank bottle fizzy water. Now I will only drink water from a glass bottle - nothing from a plastic bottle.
I know the story was supposed to be hoax, but that is the only thing that I can see, and not risking it.
My bcn did say that plastic bottles contain hormones, and I know of another bcn who only drinks filtered water as regular tap water also contains hormones.
At the end of the day, I ate healthily, or so I thought… I still got cancer. So what do I eat now - Ive been eating what I fancy, and not out of plastic cartons or bottles.
That’s my effort because I just dont know what else to do, and no-one seems to have any catagorical answers!
For me, bc is not publised enough, and not enough effort and funding is going into prevention.
Would it not be useful that for everyone diagnosed, we completed some questionairre about diet that can be analysed??
I watched a programme about hormones in drinking water - Richard Hammond “should I be concerned about…” and he had water from all over the country tested and there was no hormones in it. I think this rumour was started because of the amount of women taking the pill and weeing hormones down the toilet and therefore into the water supply, but not at all sure if there is any foundation for it. I have read that oestregen levels are sky high in men and women now, but researchers cannot find a definative reason why. Also, I am not sure if the hormones start the cancer or if they just encourage it to grow once it has already been started by ???
Every bc is different, although they fall into certain categories and I think that is why they cannot determin a cause - lets face it, the amount it costs the NHS to treat it I am sure they are putting as much money into prevention as they can because the benefit to them of an inocculation would be worth billians.
I also ‘read somewhere’ that a person may have bc because of something they did or eat when they were a child - it is not just about what we have done over the last fiew years, but of course this is just speculation again.
If you look at the changes in our world over the last 50 years to try and fathom out why bc has increased so much you begin to realise it is a mine-field … colour tv, computors, polution, more petrol fumes, changes in diet and the way food is processed, mobile phones, wifi, air-conditioning, the contreceptive pill, HRT. other drugs used for other conditions, herbal remedies, and on and on and on, any or all of which may be causing the increase in incidents. Also if you go back more than about 50 years the stats are hard to compare because women tended to die from different things and may have got bc if they had survived longer.
So, basically I am not going to worry about it too much - I am going to eat more healthy because this has made me realise just how important my health is - but I am just going to follow the general guidelines rather than trying to stick to an anti-bc diet cos I don’t think it exists … yet.
Sorry for rambling, but I feel better now, it is very frushtrating when you want to do the best you can for yourself
Thanks for the ramble Firebird I have just learnt more reading this than from any of the pro’s i have asked. I racked my brain about what I might have done to bring this thing on but my consultant said the very first “wrong” message sent out by my brain that started the very first cell misfunction that has resulted in this was 8 or 9 years age and may have been stress related. The only problem with that is that 8 or 9 years ago I was very happy, very settled and very calm. 17 years ago i was stressed off the scale as my mum died and then a year later my marriage failed but I had come through this dark time and life was good so I really dont know. The only thing I have done is mess with my periods on a grand scale. Have probably had less than a dozen “natural” periods in my whole life and since going on depo injections 12 years ago haven’t had a hint of one at all. Stopped the depo last year when i was DX but still haven’t seen a drop so there we go. Dont know if they will come back or not, we shall see.
I have never heard of the water thing before but I would trust Richard Hammond to have researched it thoroughly as he seems the type to do a job properly if he’s going to do it at all, so thanks for the info. Still no more enlightened on where this came from but there we are, maybe one day we will find out [unless the powers that be already know but don’t want us to of course].
yep, the good ol’ conspiracy fear is quite natural - are they keeping it from us because they don’t want to start a panic, or worse, because it will mess with the economy (e.g. mobile phone masts)? But on the other hand… perhaps “they” don’t know… and we can have some comfort in knowing that “they” may be women and/or have mothers/daughters/sisters of their own and it is at that point that the conspiracy theory no longer holds water for me.
Perhaps it is a combination of things that sets this off. My mum had bc so I can think I inherited it, perhaps (but aparently, statistically it is still not likely), but my friend who had it 3 years ago is the first person in her family that she is aware of, ever, to have had any sort of cancer. She became convinced it was because she worked shifts (some research into high numbers of air hosteses with bc has raised this as a possiblity).
So, lets hope they find out eventually, but in the meantime we will get well !!
Hi Rarebird. I was dx 2 years ago, and started off with good intentions - lose weight, low fat ( my oncologist said that the only hard evidence on BC and diet was to try to eat low fat and get BMI down to 25). I’ve managed to lose the stone I put on on chemo but my BMI is still too high -30. I like butter and cheese too much!
One thing I try to do is eat lotsa fruit and veg. I read on the net about a study of women with BC done in California - those who ate 10 portions of fruit/veg a day had a lower risk of recurrence than the control group who didn’t. I drink lotsa Innocent smoothies, buy organic veg, try to have lotsa salad, and have just started to grow my own veg (all too small to eat as yet!)
I try to avoid soya, though there’s a lot of confusion out there about it. I don’t take the calcium tablets prescribed by the doc (cos I’m on Arimidex) as they have a soya base, but buy Osteocare from Boots instead. Oh and I try to only have organic milk and meat, partly cos of animal welfare, but also cos I’m suspicious of the hormones pumped into animals.
Having said all that, I don’t know if it all makes any difference. On nearly all risk factors for BC I was very low, but I got it anyway! I used to agonise about why I got it, but I’ve stopped doing that (mostly), as I’ll never know.
Having seen my breast consultant and onc over the last few days and totally quizzed them!! it seems that the advice being given is don’t cut out anything but have everything in moderation. Eat a healthy balanced diet. So after much thought I am going to do this.
I know that we should avoid soya so that is something that I will not be having.
Good luck with growing your own veg. I’m doing that too and have done for a while, it’s so much better and very tasty.
I am hormone + too and have been told to avoid anything contaiing soya or plant oestrogen, for obvious reasons. But apart from that my consultant said the same as Rarebird’s. Eat everything as you wold normally, don’t cut out dairy becasue you need this to prevent oesteoporosis and drink in moderation, which I do anyway. Unfortunately it means no supplements for menopausal symptoms, but that seems a small prize to pay.