How to stop recurrence?
How to stop recurrence? Hi
I was just wondering if anyone Her-2 +++ has been given any advice to minimise recurrence. I read in a magazine that a low fat diet can help.
What does everyone else think?
Mandyxx
Mandy stick to whatever diet you feel best on- fresh food with plenty of fruit and veg plus oily fish. Take a fish oil supplement and have plenty of rest.
The world is full of do this do that solutions - all contradictory. So find out what suits you and in all probability that’s the right lifestyle for you. Best wishes, dilly
Mandy - I agree with Dilly. You can drive yourself demented with worry about what your’re eating/ not eating.If we could control our BC by diet-then there wouldnt be much of it around. Onc told me if he had £1 for everytime he had to say -avoid food fads and just eat a balanced diet with lots of fruit and veg -he would be very rich. Enjoy your food!
Cherryx
Hi I have just been diagnosed with breast cancer and have invested in books that help reverse and prevent cancers all of these are available at a reasonable price they are very helpful as they tell you things to avoid cooking in and foods to avoid eating and what is good to eat
good luck
lucy
Watch the content of some of the books. I was given one by a relative after I had my lymph nodes out. She is a hypochodriac who is into all sorts of alternative therapies (too many, if one doesn’t work she is straight onto the next!). The book she gave me was by an Australian woman who had an abdominal cancer and it was about giving up chemo and all the other treatments and treating the cancer with diet and supplements plus alternative therapies only. The lady who wrote the book claims to have given up chemo after only 2 cycles and claims to have cured herself.
I ended up having a row down the phone with this relative as she had told one of her “therapists” about me - he said my breasts were full of aluminium and if she took me to him he would rebalance everything and get rid of the cancer for £200, what a charlatan! I ended up having a row with her on the phone and telling her I didn’t want to end up like Caron Keating. Needless to say that was 3 months ago and this “oh so concerned” relative hasn’t been in contact since, she hasn’t even bothered to ask other family members if I’m OK!
I agree with cherub Beware the multitudes of charlatans advocating crazy diets. Beware anyone who claims that any diet can stop a recurrence of cancer…it can’t.
As others have said, a healthy diet is good for anyone…plenty of fruit and veg, maybe organic produce if you can afford it. There’s an influential camp (led by Jant Plant) which claims that cutting out dairy helps breast cancer, but I think the evidence for that is dodgy.
There is some sound scientific evidence (though more is needed) that a low fat diet may reduce the rate of recurrence for er- and pr- cancers, but makes no difference in er+ and pr+ ones. Again, trying to keep to a relatively low fat diet is good for general health, avoiding heart disease etc.
I try to eat healthily and love good food of all kinds which yes includes indulgences. Ours is a diet obsessed society with masses of guilt inducing rubbish out there. Ignore it, eat and enjoy!
best wishes
Jane
I agree with you Jane - just keep to a healthy diet with plenty of fruit and veg (we grow ours and OH is out in the garden getting things ready for planting again), also a little of what you fancy. I’ve found since I started treatment that I’ve had cravings for things I would not normally eat - recently it has been bananas, cherry tomatoes (and I loathe raw tomatoes with a vengeance), on Friday we went to lunch after my rads simulation and I had just had to have tomato ketchup, something else I never touch! Red meat too - gave up on it back in the 80s when they said it was bad for cholesterol, now I have to have it once a week. All very strange, I can only assume my body is a bit deficient in the nutrients we get from those foods at the moment. Next week it will be something else I’m sure.
Hello fellow Her2+++er Is that a word?
There was a study that showed that low-fat diets work for er-,pr-, but it should be kept in mind that the level of fat in that diet was so low that it can possibly only be achieved with the help of a professional dietician. All of the women were node negative.
One thing that might be helpful for her2+++ is to stick with olive oil, rapeseed oil and flaxseed oil and avoid other types of oil, especially sunflower oil. For her2+++ cancer, there is some evidence that different types of fats affect the cancer. In the laboratory, the main fat of olive oil (oleic acid) makes this type of cancer more chemo sensitive, more herceptin-sensitive and generally more likely to die off. While there isn’t any clinical evidence of this yet, it has been shown that Italian her2+++ women who received an anthracycline and a taxane actually do much better than Italian her2- women and I don’t know of any other place where it is true (and that study was on women who would not have had herceptin even). It is also believed that omega-3, alphalinolenic, is good, although not quite as good as omega-9. There was a small Canadian trial where the women who ate a flaxseed muffin daily had the level of her2 in their cancer decline. Flaxseed may not be a good idea for women who have ER+ cancer, though, since it has phytooestrogens. On the other hand, omega six (sunflower oil, corn oil) seems to worsen the her2+++ problem in the laboratory.
Personally, I stick with olive oil for most things, but use rapeseed oil when olive oil isn’t appropriate. It isn’t a very hard thing to do.
Christine I read recently that brown flaxseed contains phyto oestrogens but golden flaxseed does not. The PO is in the brown skin of the seed.
Rapeseed or grapeseed? The latter should be better. Best wishes, dilly
I agree - eat a good balanced diet, reduce on red meats and dairy, increase on veggies, fruits and pulses, take a good all round supplement, and ignore all those weird and wonderful fad diets or treatments. Relax, enjoy yourself as much as you can, take proper exercise. In fact, be sensible!
Diet Hi Phoebe
Just thought I would say I agree with Phoebe, who by the way I think always gives such good advice!!! So thank you.
Love Lesley x