Breast Cancer Care

Most of the research done on phyto-oestrogens is done on individual extracts and often on laboratory mice. It is extremely difficult to study human diet unless you lock the humans in and give them a restricted diet and measure inputs and outputs, which is why the results are conflicting. Also, there's no great industry behind fruit and veg. but there are major vested interests trying to discredit complementary medecine.

As there are phyto-oestrogens in many, many vegetables and some fruits and we know the benefits to our health of eating a wide range of these, I urge you not to throw out the baby with the bath water and dispense withe the protective benefits of foods of plant origin. If you are concerned about concentrated source but can benefit from the anti-hot flush effect of flaxseeds, ditch the oil which is an extract and stick to the whole golden flax seeds - ground up, and take around a desertspoonful a day divided across your main meals, such as with cereals, sprinkled on salads, etc. I don't think concentrated or extracted ANYTHING is a good idea - take what nature provides in the form it provides it - seed, leaves, etc. grind and juice these to get the most out of the goodness these contain. Only where cancer or its treatment provokes or results from a deficiency, such as in selenium if you come from a selenium-poor soil area, (these days virtually all supermarket fruits and veggies are short on selenium), or B12 if you are vegan, does it make sense to supplement, but not continuously. I get vitamin D in its natural form in cod liver oil, which I have included in my diet reluctantly (no I wouldn't eat cod's liver even if it were available! I treat the oil as a necessary but natural evil) but which gives me the essential fatty acids too, and from sunshine. It is easy to overdose on vitamin D - this actually weakens the bones, so beware of "a little is good so more must be better". Get advice before supplementing anything and follow the dosage instructions. For cod liver oil, it is 2 teaspoonfuls a day for a person of 60-70kgs. It's a fine line. Double this would be MUCH too much for bone health.
Remember that to get as much oestrogen from plant sources as you do from animal sources, milk or beef, for instance, you would have to eat 500 times as much! So no to supplements and extracts and concentrates and yes to a wide range of fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts and no heavy reliance on just one type, These are the guidelines I follow in a nutshell.

I have heard from 2 women who had horrendous hot flushes that the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital had been a great help - one woman went from 180 a day down to 10 in the first few days of treatment. Unfortunately there's no one remedy - needs to prescribed on an individual basis, so maybe homeopathy holds the key for you?

Hope this helps.

Wishing you well,

Jenny.

jennyw is absolutely right of course - it is extremely difficult to research the effect of diet on health or disease. However, bear in mind that potential drugs are always tested in vitro first, for effectiveness against cancer cells, and this is how GLA was found to be effective against HER2 positive cancer cell lines. The author of that piece of research, Dr Menedez, is reputed to have said that it is not too difficult to ingest enough to create effective levels in the bloodstream.

As for the idea that we should get all our nutrients from natural sources, that is a great ambition, but if cancer is the result of a deranged metabolism, which some doctors think it is, then the aim is to correct that by taking large amounts of one substance or another in order to encourage correct metabolism and tip it into the right direction.
Certain nutrients have definite anti-cancer properties. For example, beta-carotene is the pre-cursor of vitamin A, apples contain "Triterpenoids which isolated from Apple Peels Have Potent Antiproliferative Activity May be Partially Responsible for Apple's Anticancer Activity" as Cornell University published in May this year. These beneficial chemicals are in the skins,and some apples have more of these chemicals than others. The idea of drinking large quantitities of organic apple and carrot juice seems almost reasonable now,.doesn't it. And in yesterday's Guardian, wasn't an article published about the anti-cancer properties of red and purple foods such as grapes and blueberries? This was in vitro research using extracts of the phytochemicals and cancer cells by Ohio State University. Then there are Salvestrols, discovered by Prof. Potter and found to have significant anti-cancer benefits, with research being undertaken in the UK. These are exciting times for nutritionists, so why are not people with cancer being urged by their doctors to eat these foods in quantity?

I think it is perfectly reasonable to eat large quantities of such foods for these benficial anti-cancer properties, and not to worry about the amount. As for vitamin D3 - RDA is 200 iu a day but research suggests that we need much more than this, and recent research suggests that 200 iu has no effect on bone at all. Some doctors believe that the,majority of people in Northern climates are deficient in vitamin D. A good sunbathing session for half an hour (without getting burned) will get you more than 20,000 iu if young, (So do we poison oursleves during the summer?) 10,000 if old. So read up on your research, check out canceractive.co.uk and if you find the research plausible, increase your intake.. Once healthy again, and that can take a year or two, then that is the time to eat normal amounts from natural sources to keep the beast away.

Ground flax seed vs Flax seed oil

You may be interested in this link - from a well qualified US dietician and nutritionist with research refs. to back it up - suggests that flax seed oil can promote cancer and that ground flax seeds suppress hormone driven cancers.

Check it out... http://www.anhs.org/Articles/flax_article.htm

If you are looking for a source of Omega 3 then flax seed oil contains 52%. It does not contain any phyto-oestrogens as they are in the lignan fibre of the seed. But there is evidence that shows that this oil without the other ingredients of the seed can be harmful.

Wishing you well,

Jenny