Making changes to lifestyle

lali

I have given up sugar, cafeine after the dx.

Questions for this group.

1) I heard sugar feeds cancer - so I don't add it to beverages and sometimes do cheat with a small piece of brownie etc. Have you all given up sugar completely?

2) What about caffeine?

3) What is the verdict on hair color?

4) I am completely bought into the low fat diet and eating veges so that is no problem. I hear folks who were very vigilant about diet also get bc - so don't understand this one either.

5) Any other changes that should be made to diet and lifestlye besides getting exercise in?

leaf

I'm sure I will get a lot of argument about this stance, but I don't think they have found that any specific food causes breast cancer, when consumed in normal amounts. Caffeine may make you have more lumpy breasts which may make it harder to detect cancer.
But I don't know that it causes cancer in normally consumed amounts.

They do know it is good to keep your weight at a healthy level.
This study was for BRCA women http://www.hopkinsbreastcenter.org/artemis/200510/21.html
and this in general http://www.hopkinsbreastcenter.org/artemis/200205/feature18.html

Most women who get breast cancer end up dying from some other disease. It has been shown that exercise and a healthy diet help prevent deaths from other causes, such as cardiovascular causes or diabetes. The jury may still be out about breast cancer.

As far as hair dye goes, well, maybe it depends. There are and have been many kinds of hair dyes. Sometimes the effect of carcinogens does not show up for decades. Some hair dyes that were used in the 1970s were banned, according to this abstract. "Today, there seems to be no relevant bladder cancer risk from the use of oxidative hair dyes." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez..._RVAbstractPlus

"An open question is whether current occupational exposure to modern hair dyes is still related to some excess bladder cancer risk <snip>These findings, therefore, require further research, particularly since they may be influenced by selective publication of positive findings (publication bias). None of the other neoplasms extensively studied, including breast, skin and lung was related to hair dye use." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez..._RVAbstractPlus

Personally, I don't consume caffeine, but I didn't before my diagnosis. I'm sure I eat more sugar than I should, and I'm not at my ideal weight. I'm probably 15 pounds over my ideal weight.

So eat healthy and exercise. If it isn't good for breast cancer, it will probably help prevent other diseases.

mccarroll

I think cancer is a crap shoot. Everyone has cancer genes, some turn on and some don't. The food of every cell, cancerous or not, is sugar. Carbohydrates, our bodies fuels, achieve this by ... you guessed it, turning into sugar for the cells to eat. So when they are saying cancer feeds on sugar, they have neglected to state that so does every other cell in your body. You don't remove sugar just by eliminating one source of it (ie white refined sugar, or sugar in soft drinks). One the other hand, by getting rid of refined sugar, you will be eating healthier, take pounds off, etc so it never hurts to go that route. I just wouldn't depend on my diet to control my cancer. Sorry, I really wish the answer was that simple (I say this as I drink my second cup of coffee ... oh, you have to go without chocolate also to get rid of caffiene and that's just not going to happen).

They had better not take my hair dye away too. It's bad enough to be "cancer lady" and then have to have short, GRAY hair too!!! They grasp at any straw, remember the "link" to underarm deoderant? If that one were true, why don't more men get bc as we all have lymph nodes, breast tissue and we all use deoderant?

Good luck on you journey thru this. Wish we could give you a definite answer to keep the beast away. It's just not there yet! Karen

wallycat

I have to agree about the crap-shoot theory because we simply do not know yet what is/are the turn-on mechanisms that allow some women/men to develop BC (or any cancer) and others not.

I was an extremely healthy eater, exercised like a fiend, was at perfect BMI and got it. My fraternal twin eats so much red meat, junk food, moderate to no exercise and she is cancer free.
I second guess the wine I drink or the birth control pills I took....but who knows. As someone else pointed out, how many alcoholics there are and not all of them get BC or any cancer....
I am a healthy eater from decades of doing it so doubt I will change much of my pattern, but now if I crave a steak, I have it. If I want dessert, I have it.
Someone else here posted that we are all going to die from something and though I am all for doing everything we can, I have learned the hard way that still isn't a guarantee of a good outcome.