What foods are you eating to reduce recurrence?

Nine Twelve, cooking beans from scratch is very easy.

If you want to make curry/lentil soup at home, without the mix, get small, red lentils. They do not need to be pre-soaked and they cook in 20-30 minutes. Quarter an onion, chuck in a few cloves of garlic, the lentils, water, salt and curry to taste. Boil until done, then run a stick blender through it, or run it through a food processor. It freezes well too.

For actual beans that need soaking, put them in a large pot of water. Bring them to a boil. Turn off heat and let them sit for one hour. Drain, add fresh water, salt and a bay leaf and boil until they are tender. Depending on the kind of beans, this can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. Check them every so often.

I often soak and boil 2 pounds of chickpeas or beans on a Sunday, then freeze them in portion sizes. It makes it very fast to make a soup with beans. It is also cheaper than buying canned and they taste better.

Fourminor, On Jan 15 of this year, I went from peri to full-blown meno with symptoms as you describe - 3-4 severe hot flashes per hour and sleeping on bath towels to soak up the sweat. Well, I wasn't really sleeping...just laying in damp towels trying to sleep.

I was using cannabis oil and stopped it cold turkey - I shouldn't have done that. It sent me right in to meno. Exactly a month later I ended up in the ER for severe pain for another issue. When I got home, no more hot flashes and no more night sweats. It's eerie but I seem to have shocked my body in to and out of a severe menopause phase.

Knowing that magnesium seems to help hot flashes gives me something to try if those symptoms come back, but, does it cause diarrhea? About 3 mos after my Dx I got a chronic case of it - that was last August and it's still here. I think it's nerves as I'm an anxious person.

I would like to take magnesium but worry it will exacerbate my problem.

I just saw a naturopath for the first time last week and she put me on a number of supplements, but we never discussed magnesium. She knows about my GI issues though so perhaps that's why.

Thanks Lala1, I'll look out for it.

CuraMed - mfgr Terry Naturally (curcumin) quality grade of turmeric
BCM-95

Joint Inflammation: Curcumin

Estrogen Receptors: Curcumin (suppresses molecular signals)

Curcumin suppresses activity of at least 5 categories of molecular signals that promote inflammation and joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis, and are implicated in many cancers. See below.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/2012/8/safely-manage-joint-inflammation/page-01 - read the full article

lala1

article by Andrew Weil, M.D.

Turmeric vs. Curcumin

In addition to its use as a culinary spice, turmeric has been used traditionally in India as a disinfectant and treatment for laryngitis, bronchitis, and diabetes. Turmeric is derived from the rhizomes (underground stems) of the plant Curcuma longa, a member of the ginger family. It is responsible for the yellow color of Indian curry and American mustard. Curcumin, which has powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, is the most active constituent of turmeric.

Population studies have shown that elderly villagers in India appear to have the lowest rate of Alzheimer's disease in the world, and researchers have speculated that the anti-inflammatory effects of curcumin may be partly responsible. (Alzheimer's begins as an inflammatory process in the brain, and Indians eat turmeric with almost every meal). So far, however, I've seen no evidence of benefit from curcumin supplementation in Alzheimer's patients.

Other studies of turmeric and curcumin have shown the following benefits:

• 1. Turmeric extract worked as well as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug for treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee in a study published in the August 2009 issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.
• 2. Laboratory studies suggest that curcumin acts as a weak phytoestrogen and seems to have cancer protective effects.
• 3. Lab studies have also shown that curcumin induces programmed death of colon cancer cells, and clinical trials are investigating the use of curcumin in treatment of colon cancer.
• 4. Curcumin suppresses microinflammation in the GI tract associated with inflammatory bowel disease.

I frequently recommend turmeric supplements, and I believe whole turmeric is more effective than isolated curcumin for inflammatory disorders, including arthritis, tendonitis, and autoimmune conditions. Take 400 to 600 milligrams of turmeric extracts (available in tablets or capsules) three times per day or as directed on the product label. Look for products standardized for 95% curcuminoids. Neither curcumin nor turmeric taken orally is well absorbed unless taken with black pepper or piperine, a constituent of black pepper responsible for its pungency. When shopping for supplements, make sure that the one you choose contains black pepper extract or piperine. (If you're cooking with turmeric, be sure to add some black pepper to the food.). Be patient when taking turmeric supplements: the full benefits may not be apparent for eight weeks.

Don't use turmeric if you have gallstones or bile duct dysfunction. Pregnant women shouldn't use it without their doctors' approval. In rare cases, extended use can cause stomach upset or heartburn. (Note that piperine can slow the elimination of some prescription drugs including phenytoin [Dilantin], propranolol [Inderal], and theophylline. Some evidence also suggests that curcumin can interfere with a chemotherapy agent used to treat breast cancer, so if you're being treated for this disease, be sure to discuss the advisability of taking curcumin with your physician.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Tamoxifen isn't chemo?

I am taking tamoxifen and its referred as hormonal therapy

That's what I thought but I don't want to say something wrong and spread wrong info to anyone.

It all depends if the tumor is hormone-receptor-positive:

http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/hormonal/wha...

Some women elect not to do hormone therapy, either because of the side effects or for other personal reasons. But yes, I think it would be safe to say that most women with ER + and / or PR + tumors are prescribed hormonal therapy. Women with metastatic or Stage IV cancer also take hormonal therapy to help slow the growth of their cancer.

Oh okay, I gotcha. Yes, that makes sense.

Forgive me if you have already told me. It is hard to keep everyone straight sometimes.

Also, I did neoadjuvant hormonal therapy to try to shrink the tumor. It didn't shrink as much as it imploded, so my BS couldn't get clear margins during the lumpectomies. The pathology from my BMX showed my ki-67 score was 0.05% and shrunken nests of tumor cells were present, but showed that the AIs kicked its butt big time.

@JohnSmith, poster about benefits of olive oil--you may want to look into eating the leaves! LOL, this is about a supplement called Olive Leaf Extract. From

Life Extension Foundation:

"Oleuropein and olive leaf extracts have numerous other mechanisms of action against cancer:

• They help prevent inflammation, another major promoter of tumor growth.41
• In breast cancer cells specifically, oleuropein reduces malignant cells' ability to respond to estrogen, the female hormone that many breast cancer cells depend on for their survival.43
• Oleuropein inhibits the production of the "protein-melting" enzymes that cancer cells need in order to invade healthy tissues and metastasize to distant parts of the body.19

These mechanisms have now been shown in laboratory and animal studies to reduce the rates of occurrence, and subsequent development, of a broad variety of cancers, including those of the brain, head and neck, breast, liver, bladder, prostate, and skin, as well as leukemia.42,43,45-49

In one especially vivid study, mice with a high spontaneous cancer rate were orally supplemented with oleuropein.5 The tumors completely regressed and disappeared in 9 to 12 days.5 When the tumors were examined before they vanished, they were found to have a disordered, crumbly consistency, and no cancer cells remained alive within.5"

Lawn clippings, LOL! If you're ok with almond milk, this isn't horribly barf-inducing.

1 cup of blueberries

1 cup of ice

1 1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk

3 teaspoons of matcha

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

Cee67: try Magnesium taurate and malate. They are expensive but do not have laxative effects and they are better absorbed, so work better on PMS and muscle cramps, in smaller doses. The much cheaper Mg oxide, which is the one you usually find at the supermarket, has laxative properties: in fact, it is used by some people as a remedy against constipation!

Momine: have just finished 'White Pure Deadly' by John Yudkin, about sugar. His work has been rediscovered by Robert Lustig. See link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/die... From studies Prof Yudkin ran on human volunteers, it appeared that some people (about 1/3 of the population in the west) have a much lower tolerance to sucrose than others: for them, the stuff was best avoided altogether. I think this might be my case, as I find I suffer ill effects (fog brain, sugar crashes, cravings, weight gain etc.) very rapidly if I indulge ever so slightly: whenever I've moved to the UK (from mainland Europe) I have always put on weight in the first months (as much as 8 kilos, i.e. going from 56 to 64 kilos), as the diet is so different, much more grain based (bread, pies, pastries, biscuits etc.) I ate my first pizza (the supermarket variety, at around £1.50) ever at age 15, during a holiday here! After a couple of years, I also got cavities, and ended up losing 2 teeth, so am now back to my 'boring' diet of vegs, fish and meat: much cheaper than all these visits to the dentist!