were you vegan/vegetarian/organic before you diagnosis?

I became an ovo-lacto vegetarian (i eat some dairy)  15 years ago in 1994.  I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, after i had already been a vegetarian for 10 years.  I had quite a few risk factors: strong family history of bc, previous HRT use for 9 years, no pregnancies, overweight.

Do you live in Washington state?  That is the state with the highest incidence of breast cancer.  I had moved to Washington state from California 8 years ago, so I guess that could possibly be considered a risk factor for me too.

Throughout my 20's, I was probably 90% vegetarian. Unforunately, the 10% that I ate meat or dairy, it was NOT organic... hello, bovine growth hormone and other nastiness. Also, I would often eat my vegetarian dinner as a Lean Cuisine (chemical preservatives + plastic leeching into the food + microwave altering the food rendering it worthless at best = major carcinogen).

From July 2008 until a few months ago, I ate horribly (a ton of fast food, processed snacks, Coke Zero, alcohol, etc.). I was also extremely depressed and under a huge amount of stress. This is the time period when my tumor emerged. 

I do have a friend who has been a raw vegan for 6 years, but she still developed cancer. She now believes it's because diet is only one small piece of anti-cancer lifestyle. She, too, has lived under enormous stress and was not taking the time to exercise, get good sleep every night, and get some sunshine. (Also, you can be a raw vegan and load up on nut-heavy treats and not get enough of the leafy greens and other cancer-fighting produce!)

Sadly, environmental factors are a big part as you mentioned... could be something as simple as a chemical that's leeched into the tap water or, yep, nuclear radiation. BUT, I firmly believe that you can make yourself a lot more resilient to even those factors beyond your control, if you're vigilant about not just diet but exercise, sleep, stress, and other factors.

Not organic but a vegetarian.  I became a vegetarian when i was 21 and was diagnosed with bc when i was 42.  I was also a runner my entire adult life.  No family history.

 Honestly, i think they don't know. being female is a risk factor.

I was vegetarian for 9 years before being dx'd with BC 5 months ago.  I ate a lot of organic, local produce.

Interesting thread. There seems be no simple cause and effect relationship between food and cancer. I ate a pretty good diet, not strictly veg, but better than most I'd say. I worked out, too, and didn't have any risk factors that they talk about. I did find that my D levels were low. I read somewhere (I think in Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Brightsided) that the main risk factors for bc are being female and living in a wealthy country.

My own guess is that one gets cancer from an interplay of not enough exercise and sunlight, pollution from diet and our environment, and hormonal imbalance related to weight and medications like birth control pills.

Raili....That is really strange about the part of the state you grew up in being a high rate. Makes you wonder what is going on there? If you don't mind me asking, where is it at?

My onc has never said anything about my Vit D levels. Does that show up in the bloodwork or is it a seperate test?

Thanks Nan! I did read on these boards a while back about Vit D3 being important and started taking it a couple of months ago. When I see my onc in June, I will ask him about it.

I was a lazy vegetarian/pescatarian.  I ate organic at home but wasn't as vigilent outside the home.  Like Miss Bliss I too had an injury to my breast 3 1/2 years prior to diagnosis.  My breast was injured an a pretty bad car accident where my car was totalled.  But, I had an incredible amount of multiple stresses in my life, worked long days and longer weeks, never slept, and prior to diagnosis was sure that I was having a nervous breakdown.  Slightly low levels of Vit D.  I now eat huge amounts of organic greens and vegetables and whole grains, no caffeine, no sugar, occasionally fish and occasionally organic red wine.  My dignosis before BC was adrenal exhaustion.  I quit the stressful job and I have just had a mastectomy on the left side, no radiation and Alloderm 2-Step reconstruction on the left breast.  My dr says it's environmental, I think it's a combination of stress, lack of sleep, lack of excercise, and the injury to my breast.  I had 2 cysts plus 2 tumors and more micro tumors forming.  It was impossible for my lymph nodes to do their job.

Raili- I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue(borderline) and extrogen toxicity the summer before my bc diagnosis.  I'm pretty sure those 2 combined made my lump 'appear'.  We had been very stressed for several years (many different things) before bc.  I had been addressing the adrenal and hormone issues and just starting to feel more myself when my damn lump appeared.

k

Interesting thread.  I find myself in the combination of factors, or perfect storm, theory.

I am one of those with an extremely good diet--at home we are almost 100% organic and that includes the things like meat, eggs and dairy.  Also we are mostly local eaters and we don't eat things out of season unless its something I froze in season.  We never eat any processed foods and my poor suffering kids don't really know squat about fast food because they've never really been.  While we do eat meat, we don't have it at every meal and even when we do, you are talking 1 pound of goat stew meat for 2 meals for 5 people or similiar small amounts.  I cooked a skirt steak the other night and we had 6 people eatting off barely over a pound of meat.

I am also a woman who has never been pregnant or nursed a baby but then there is no history of cancer that I am aware of in my family.

At the time of diagnois, I was extremely low in Vit D.

I have come to think that stress plays a bigger role in cancer development than we can know. I had lots of stress in my life before we moved here ---a heavy work load and unsupportive boss culminating in an 18 month work matter that had me not eatting and not sleeping and never relaxing.  I also think that environmental factors are significant---we were living in LA at the time of the stress so I was being exposed to lots of polutants and the like and I don't think that was good for me. 

Plus as we think of the bad things happening in our lives and think of them as stressful we need to remember that good things are stressful too---just plain change is stressful, at least according to risk factors for heart attacks and the like.  So if I list the other stressors in my life in the last ten years: 1] got married; 2] adopted child; 3] bought new car [large purchases are on the heart attack list]; 4] moved to new place; 5] stepdaughter came to live with us; 6] adopted 2d child; 7] agreed to change jobs [good thing, better boss]; 8] moved three states; 9] started new job with new people, etc.

Some days, when I look at my life, I'm almost surprised that this didn't happen sooner.

Eight years ago I lost 130 lbs and became a vegan...eat mostly organic, essentially all whole foods, etc.  I also breast fed both my kids for an extended period of time, and in fact was nursing my 2yo son when I found the lumps.

My doctor says I'm an anomaly.

My mom was diagnosed two years ago, but she was on HRT for 15 years -- even her doctors weren't surprised she got breast cancer.  But beyond that there has been no obvious family history on either side and I know my genealogy going very far back.  I am also BRCA neg as is my mother. 

However, that doesn't mean there wasn't a hereditary link.  For instance, my maternal grandmother died in her late 70's - not bad for someone born in 1895.  She was also a Christian Scientist, not the kind to be getting any kind of med exams.  But if she were like my mother and a lump was palpable in her early 70's then she could have lived many years without treating it...she could have died from breast cancer and yet lived a long life. 

Beyond the BRCA 1&2 genes there could be dozens of other ones that increase risk to varying degrees.  Add to that the markedly higher levels of environmental toxins and hormones, elevated obesity rates, etc and that would easily explain a rise in breast cancer rates. 

It's possible my family tree was riddled with breast cancer but I wouldn't know it because my foremothers got to live out natural life spans.  But now due to my former obesity, smoking and the poisoned environment, a vegan-organic-breastfeeding-crunchy-granola-mom like me got breast cancer at 45.

Forget the "cure" - we need to find the causes and prevent this in the first place.

Vegetarian all my life.

 -Ren

Hi!

I have taught aerobics for 20 years and always been lean.

I have always done my best to eat organics with special priority for meats, chicken and all dairy.

Even my hair color and skin products were organic.

And I taught yoga.

Was diagnosed at 39.

Geez

Vegan/organic, barely any meat before BC. Was always a little under normal weight but not by much. Lived in SE Europe until 10 years ago, produce I was eating there had absolutely no chemicals, same for milk and diary and eggs and meat (everything farm grown, organic, chicken free range) - in the last 10 years before I left Romania it was stuff my parents were growing at their summer country-side house...

Still got BC. Dr. says it probably started over 20 years ago and just stayed as DCIS until last year when it started "moving". Agree with me thatI wouldn't have been in any risk group. Except that I was outside when the Chernobyl cloud passed over Romania - I was 24, and out in the woods with my first husband, picking mushrooms.Soo... yeah.

Jackie, I wonder about soy, too.  My tumor was strongly ER+, and I heard somewhere that too much soy during puberty could be one of the many factors that causes breast cancer... and as it turns out, I was unable to eat solid food for 18 months when I was 12-13 years old (long story) and soy milk was a staple in my diet during that time because my parents were so desparate to get protein into me.  When my family went on a 10-day vacation, my dad literally brought an entire suitcase of soy milk for me.  I drank so many of those soy milks, in the little boxes with the straws, that I was even able to distinguish which "batches" at which time of the year tasted the best (or so I thought).  Oh, I think back on all of that now and cringe.  (Even though I know there's really no way to tell what, exactly, caused my or anyone's cancer.)