Tofu, fruits, and other plant foods

HopeHeal

Hi, I am newly diagnosed. There seems to be conflicting information on soy. Older studies indicate it can feed estrogen receptor cancer but newer studies say tofu as a food may prevent cancer. I've also heard high glycemic fruits such as bananas and sweet apples contain sugars that may encourage cancer growth. I am already limited in diet due to food intolerances and not sure if I should limit these too. I have some sitting in my refrigerator and I'm starving; now nervous about eating anything. I consume nuts as a regular part of my diet due to the intolerances & I hope those are o.k. too. Has anyone altered their diet and are avoiding any of these or other foods as protocol?

edj3

This the best resource and I scoured it thoroughly when I was dx'd b/c I had all the same questions:

https://amp.foodforbreastcancer.com/

What I especially love is that this is all based on peer reviewed research so not someone's opinion. I hope it helps you as much as it did me.

moth

I'm vegan and do not avoid soy. I do tend to stay away from soy protein isolate (my protein shake is pea protein instead).

I ditto the link above. Good resource.

Also, maintaining normal bmi and exercise are probably more effective things to focus on than individual ingredients.

edj3

Also vegan and also don't avoid soy. And *also* use pea protein. Moth!

ThreeTree

I second what edj3 said above. Check out the site - it is a gold mine if you are really focused on food and diet. I refer to it regularly.

HopeHeal

This is an amazing list, thank you. They are very honest. I am mostly vegan and have consuming some of the non-recommended foods that have been said to stimulate estrogen. My pathology then, may turn out to be HER.

Beesie

Hopeheal, while eating the right things and avoiding certain foods certainly can't hurt, from your last comment it sounds as though you are still looking for the cause of your cancer and trying to lay blame on something you did or where you live or something else.

Here's the thing. If your cancer is ER positive (I assume you mean that versus being HER2+, which is something different), it is a million times more likely (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration) that the cause was the estrogen that's been circulating in your body from the time of puberty (birth, actually) rather than a little bit of estrogen that was in foods that you consumed.

Back to the point I made in your other thread... the #1 risk factor for breast cancer is being a woman. Diet can affect risk, either increasing or decreasing risk, but it is an indirect low risk factor. By "indirect", I mean that in most cases, the food consumed might lead to a biological reaction which in turn might lead to... etc.. In other words, it's not that eating food X causes breast cancer, but these types of indirect risks (or benefits) require a lot of other factors (mostly biological but also environmental and lifestyle) to come to fruition. By "low risk", I mean that in most cases, dietary items are classified as increasing or decreasing risk by small amounts, maybe 10% or 20%. This compares to biological factors, such as having dense breasts or high natural estrogen levels, which increase risk by 250% or even as much as 500%. It's also important to note that the studies on diet are often conflicting - for example, while it's commonly accepted that alcohol consumption increases breast cancer risk, there have been studies that have shown that alcohol consumption has no impact on mortality or may in some instances even decrease the risk of mortality (Alcohol Use and Breast Cancer Survival among Participants in the Women's Health Initiative).

If you will feel more in control by changing your diet, that's great; a healthy diet and lifestyle is important for your overall health and well-being. And that's the important thing to remember. Right now breast cancer is front and center. But as humans and as women, we face many other health risks. More women die of heart disease than of breast cancer. So do what you can to be healthy, but consider your overall health, not just breast cancer. And understand that nothing you did on it's own caused your diagnosis - the primary driving factor was your personal biology, which in turn might have been affected by dozens of different environmental and lifestyle factors from the time you were born. And understand too that nothing you do will make you immune from a recurrence or a new breast cancer diagnosis, although of course it's great if you can reduce this risk. But while we may have some ideas as to what reduces risk for the population as a whole, no one knows what will reduce risk for each of us individually because here again, our biology factors in.

What is within our control and what has been shown as being the most effective way to reduce risk is exercise.

HopeHeal

Exercise, that's the one thing I haven't been doing. You're right, cancer is a perfect storm of factors but if one factor were removed it could be a game changer. Judging from my appearance I would say I am probably estrogenic but if would have exercised or done some other things the cancer tendency may not have expressed. I was up half the night stressing about it, the lack of sleep of which was probably not very healing.. At this time, however, I am afraid to start exercising because I don't want my blood circulating the cancer cells around at warp speed.

moth

oh but actually you do want blood circulating fast and hard because if they are out, they're already out and cancer cells get killed in the rapids of fast high pressure blood flow!

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep39975

Australia was the first country to recommend exercise as part of cancer treatment. There was a good tv special they put out when it was announced. I'll see if I can find it later. We talked about it here a fair bit in 2018. But here is a news story and the recommendations are embedded https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-07/cancer-pati...

edj3

Echoing Moth (again!), yes you want to exercise. Staying at a healthy weight and working out reduce your risk of recurrence (sorry, I don't have the cite handy but if you poke around on this site, not the forums but the actual articles, you can find it). If I recall correctly, diet and exercise reduce those chances by I want to say 30%?

All of that is not to say it wouldn't happen anyway. Lots of us here, me included, did all the so-called right things, had no family history, didn't do anything that would increase our risks (except as Beesie pointed out, we're women) and yet here we are.

And if I end up with a recurrence, that too will be not a matter of fault but that stupid random number generator. It happens.

ThreeTree

Ditto what those above have said. I don't have studies to cite, but my general recollection and understanding from what I have researched is that you do want circulating blood. All the good things in the drugs and the food also circulate and kill cancer cells while and because you exercise. Exercise also lowers estrogen levels. It doesn't mean the cancer won't get worse or come back, but it lowers the risk of that happening as much as or more than anything else. You need to go at those cancer cells from all sides; including exercising. My understanding too, is that cancer cells do better in a stagnant and less/non oxygenated environment, so again, getting your blood moving and various things circulating can only help!

I'm no gym rat by any means, but I do make sure I get that 30-40 min walk in every day, and I do try to get up more and move around my apartment more; walk to the store rather than drive, park farther away from where I need to, etc. It all adds up.

So sorry that you are having to deal with and think about all of this - it really is hard!

moth

here's the Australian doc on the topic of exercise during cancer treatment. No guarantees - i tried to outrun and zumba my way away from it and I got mets anyway but I have no regrets. And I'm back to daily 2x30 min walks & zumba m/w/f plus adding stretch and tone

HopeHeal

Thank you Moth & the others, game changer info! So the cancer cells like peace & quiet, not rush hour; I never knew.

HopeHeal

Moth your mets might have been worse had you not exercised, I am sure it helped. Nothing goes unnoticed.

MountainMia

The others have all said this already, but it really comes down to random shitty luck. You could line me up with 100 women who are my size, weight, basic fitness, with all of us having lived similar lives for stress, eating, where we lived, etc. And still about 12 of us will experience breast cancer at some point in our lives. Yes, that might be fractionally more or less than another group of 100 women, etc., but in general that will hold.

NO MATTER WHAT, there is no benefit in plowing through things you did in the past or that happened to you in the past looking for some reason. First, you probably won't find one, so it's wasted emotional and intellectual energy. And second, it's done. You have a cancer diagnosis. Now deal with today and tomorrow, not yesterday.

Your job now is to work with your health care team to create and follow a treatment plan, which should include a health diet and plenty of exercise, and mental health care, too, if that's appropriate. And figure this: the healthy diet and exercise, regardless of any other benefit, will help you to be as healthy and strong as you can be, for this cancer and treatment, for any possible recurrence, and to manage other health issues as they might arise through your life.