well this insulting - BC a "fat" cancer?

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  • iodine
    iodine Member Posts: 4,289
    edited February 2011

    After the "nurses' study" claimed that french fries caused bc, I quit reading those latest, greatest CAUSES articles.  If someone actually finds the root cause, AND the cure, I'll just gloss over them because by the next news cycle they will find the study was wrong and it's something else.

  • ktym
    ktym Member Posts: 2,637
    edited February 2011

    I'm holding out for the study that says gin and tonic is a good cure

  • 1Athena1
    1Athena1 Member Posts: 6,696
    edited February 2011

    Exactly - people are constantly confusing association with cause. 

    Another pre-dx slim person here - who only gained weight because of treatment and is now in the process of taking back off. 

  • Gitane
    Gitane Member Posts: 1,885
    edited February 2011

    IMO what is sad about this type of medical popular press is that it tends, in some cases, to imply that patients are responsible for their own illnesses or that they have the power to cure themselves (when this is clearly not the case).  This oversimplification and misinformation hurts everybody.

  • Shrek4
    Shrek4 Member Posts: 1,822
    edited February 2011

    Same here, I was slim before dx and put on over 40 lbs with the treatment. One can't have Graves disease, be hyperthyroid and be fat!!! At one point when my thyroid was really acting up I was weighing 100 lbs!

    Believe me, it is real hard  to get rid of it. I'm 5'4", used to weigh 120-130 (depending if winter or summer, I was slimmer in summer) on a very small frame (very small boned) with a waist of 25". Now I feel like a whale, I weigh 170-175 lbs and my waist is 38"!!!

    "Fat" cancer my behind (yes, the big one that I have now)!

    The only thing related to the "fat" is the fact that once in menopause, when the ovaries do not produce estrogen, and the adrenal gland starts producing it, it's stored in the body fat. So the more body fat, the higher the risk for the ones who had ER/PR+ BC - or, for the ones who never had it, to have an ER/PR + BC.

  • SuebeeBC
    SuebeeBC Member Posts: 1,256
    edited February 2011

    This is where I like facebook.....I'd love to be able to "Like" your comments or click some kind of button of agreement.  All great points!!!

  • Fearless_One
    Fearless_One Member Posts: 3,300
    edited February 2011

    Minxie, total BS, I agree.   My first onc I met with told me this and I dropped her.  I thought she was a quack.  Obviously, many thin women who eat right get BC.   I was very thin at my diagnosis.

  • lassie11
    lassie11 Member Posts: 1,500
    edited February 2011

    So glad to read this thread! I am overweight and have been for many years (I eat when I am tired, didn't realize that, and was tired for many years with three children, a busy full time job, an extra degree in the works and a husband who bailed on us). That article disturbed me for making my BC (twice) my fault. Yes I weigh too much, but other than a bit of cancer, I am quite healthy. It is annoying how often new medical professionals want me to have a test for diabetes - no I don't have that either. I eat healthy food,  keep active and darn well know that I should weigh less. Thanks for reminding me not to even read such articles.

  • LtotheK
    LtotheK Member Posts: 2,095
    edited February 2011

    I just haven't witnessed this being a fat disease at all. Every patient I know is slim!

  • Veryhopeful
    Veryhopeful Member Posts: 35
    edited February 2011

    I'm 5'3" and have never ever weighed more than 116 lbs. (except during pregnancy) and I got BC. 

  • hdangelbaby
    hdangelbaby Member Posts: 731
    edited February 2011

    hello! i am 29, 5'6" and 135lbs, and I too, got bc, it is outrageous that it is being looked at as a "fat cancer", i have family history, but i tested negative with the BRCA test. my honest to goodness gut feeling is being on birth control (namely yasmin) for so long accelerated estrogen receptors, but hey, no doctor wants to admit that, they all say "nay". no way that could happen. It's GOTTA be my occasional drinks, my once in a while fast food habit, stress, ANYTHING but birth control pills, ha! whatever....

  • hymil
    hymil Member Posts: 826
    edited February 2011
  • hymil
    hymil Member Posts: 826
    edited February 2011

    Tried posting this last night but lost it. I saw a story about Catherine Booth who together with her husband William started the Salvation Army. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at 59 and died - was promoted to glory - within three years. She had eight children, starting when she was 26, and from the pictures i have seen, she doesn't seem to have been particulary overweight for a woman her age, generation and parity; and she was strongly against alcohol from an early age, probably due to the ambivalent influence of her father. I actually noticed her because i saw two separate pictures where she is shown with one glove (right hand in both cases) and i couldn't think but that maybe she was dealing with lymphoedema - these were posed, as were all photos from that era, not snapshots.

    Pics are here http://www.salvos.com/about.htm  and here http://www.heilsarmee.de/nhq/public/index.php?id=359

    Maybe we should start a Heroines' gallery along with TV's movie!

  • deborye
    deborye Member Posts: 7,002
    edited February 2011

    Who ever said that has their head:

  • hymil
    hymil Member Posts: 826
    edited February 2011

    Thank you Debo, sadly i'm not that flexible anymore.

  • marie5890
    marie5890 Member Posts: 3,594
    edited February 2011

    I think to call BC a "fat cancer" is missing the issue. It not.

    Some breast cancers are fed by estrogen. Fat cells do store up estrogen. So in some breast cancers, being overweight does add something to the equation of the total picture, but it certainly is not the full picture.

    It's just one of many risk factors to be considered is all. 

  • CrazyKitties
    CrazyKitties Member Posts: 180
    edited February 2011

    I am skinny, premenopausal, got BC. There are many very overweight people, like my mother and my aunt, who are in their 70's, no BC. There is no rhyme or reason!!!

  • slinky
    slinky Member Posts: 397
    edited February 2011

    I am a whole 110 lbs., although I made myself gain 5 lbs before my surgery - which I already lost.  I have been consistently 110-115 lbs., so I am not sure how I got the "fat" BC?  I don't eat rich, fattening foods and I workout regularly.  I know alot of overweight women who never get BC.  So much for this theory!

     I also agree with Hdangelbaby about the Yaz birth control pills.  I have been on them for approximately 2 years and I was told my cancer took about 2 to 5 years to grow. 

  • Rennasus
    Rennasus Member Posts: 1,267
    edited February 2011

    I personally have often wondered about the connection between breast cancer and birth control pills! (I was on them a long time because I never had kids.)

    But like others above have said, there is no rhyme nor reason to who gets BC & who doesn't ... if it were that clear-cut, this mystery would be solved by now! ;-)

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