Soy Consumption Large Amounts before BC Diagnosis

Denise-G -

SO sorry to hear about your diagnosis, but like all of us - we wonder "what caused it?" and there is usually no one answer.

I drank massive amounts of soy milk in the years before my diagnosis (Costco-sized cases) because I was lactose intolerant. I also drank soy protein shakes.

When I got my dx in September of 2011, I learned I was ER/PR+. When I met with the MO, my first question was "Do I have to give up soy??

She told me she'd rather have me drink LactAid than soy milk, but other than that if "soy" appeared way down on the list of ingredients I shouldn't worry.

I just started the Optifast program at Kaiser. Each nutritional bar has 7 grams of soy protein isolate. The MO said not to worry about it at all, that this was really a tiny amount, considering, and that my time on it would be limited (16 weeks).

In fact, she was THRILLED I was going on this program. She said that the best thing I could do for my overall health - including my ER+ breast cancer - would be to drop this excess weight (and body fat) now.

Personally, I think my cancer came from carrying my heavy purse on my left shoulder. Oh, wait, my mom had breast cancer. And - now that I think about it - I took birth control pills for 30 years!!!! And when I hit menopause, I took hormone replacement therapy for TEN years!!!

Or maybe it was just a crapshoot. They say one in 8 women will be diagnosed at some point in their lives. Many of them lived exemplary, completely healthy, known-risk-free lives before they were diagnosed. Sadly, cancer seems to be an equal-opportunity disease.

So be good to your sweet self, and focus what you are going to do today instead of beating yourself up about what you may have done in the past.....

Wishing you the best!

My tumor was 9 x 6 cm - I wasn't injesting soy, consciously anyways.  I agree with the crapshoot theory.  Leave the regrets behind you as you have enough to deal with.

I did consume more than average Soy right before diagnosis. I had a breast exam in 11/2007 and by 4/08 I had a huge lump.  I had ordered soy milk shakes and drank 2 daily doubled up the dose, I was also consuming Soy cereral daily, spray butter which is soy. I believe it was a combination of peri menapause.

Kodapants

I'm with etherize, I rarely ate or drank soy (mostly scratch cooking, too, so not a lot of hidden soy, either)



I have to say, through, that on a board like this almost everyone has cancer so anything you ask about is going to look more suspicious, kwim? Like if you ask if we watched a lot of TV before BC-well, sure, many people do and here we are with BC, but many people without BC do too, but they aren't here to say so--doesn't really say much about TV causing BC but it's going to end up looking that way anyhow!