Is Weight a Factor in Triple Negatives?

I was diagnosed with IDC in December, mastectomy in January. Two tumors (2.5cm & 2.7cm, 16/20 node involvement. Triple negative. I finished up my chemo in June (A/C+T), I will begin 6 weeks of radiation next week. I am currently in a study of Avastin and will have that every three weeks for the next eight months.

I have met several times with a nutritionist at Sloan Kettering who has me on a lowfat diet (20% of calories daily from fat-perferably non-animal fats) Being triple negative she gave me a statistic of a 42% reduction in recurrence for women who followed a lowfat lifestyle. I found the following two websites that talk about this study.

http://www.breastcancer.org/research_diet_052605.html
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/061218/18health.lowfatdiet.htm

While there are not concrete truths when it comes to cancer, a lowfat lifestyle is certainly healthy and why not follow it if there's a chance that it will help keep this beast at bay?

By the way, I am 5'6" and weighed 265 when I was diagnosed. When I initially saw the nurtritionist in Feb, I thought our eating habits were really good...we just ate too much of it. Once I went over information with her and began reading lables, I realized just how much hidden fat we were injesting. We love fruits and vegetables, so we added more to our daily meals and dropped our meat intake down to more reasonable portions. My husband and I are still eating well and staying full. To date, he has lost 32 pounds and I have lost 45 pounds. This was without "trying" to lose weight. We haven't focused on calories, just on keeping our daily fat intake between 25-31 grams of fat.

I know that we will eventually need to look at caloric intake if we want to continue to lose weight, but for the time being we are happy and very pleased to be feeling well without too much of a sacrifice.

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How dare he be that stupid and an MD on top of it. Glad i don't live in LA so I won't ever get him as a doc.

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Be afraid. After 8 months in the BC sisterhood and a previous 13 months with my sister's docs (she died from a brain tumor last September), I can tell you they are everywhere. After my sister's experience, I became less tolerant. I fired one surgeon and one onc as soon as I saw how arrogant they were and ended up with much better docs.

Back on topic, since high school I had struggled with anywhere from 10 to 30 extra pounds. After getting a desk job, quitting smoking, having a couple of babies, the pounds stuck on. Basically I wore Plus sizes for about 20 years. About 4 years ago I found an eating plan that worked for me and lost 34 pounds over about 2.5 years, then plateaued for a year.

After the BC diagnosis, I read about the WINS study and went on a quick low-fat diet until chemo started. I lost 12 pounds, then another 5 after one nasty bout with A/C, and another two when I tried low fat again before my appetite returned to normal.

Now I'm down to sizes 12-14, where I haven't been in nearly 30 years. I'm trying to get back to the low fat diet, but it's been a little hard with food finally tasting wonderful again.

One thing about us triple negs, we're an "All Other" group. They've identified some people who are ER+ and/or PR+ and/or Her2+, and some day they may find others who are X-factor+, and then those of us who are left over will be quadruple-negative. I think there's a lot of diversity in the All Other group.

On the gene-environment discussion, I was also a DES baby. My mother took DES during her pregnancy with me, because the doctor said it would prevent miscarriage since her bout with septicemia. Adolescent girls whose mothers took DES had a much higher incidence of vaginal cancer, and now as the first group passes into menopause, more of them are developing BC. I haven't read whether or not more of them are triple neg.

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The way I look at this is that there are three elements that make up the risk of cancer. 1) My genetic makeup ... which I have no control over. 2) The environment within which I live and breath and over which I have some control. 3) What I choose to do to or put in my body...what I eat and drink, how fit I am, etc. I'll do what I can to limit my chance of recurrence by eating a low-fat diet, exercising vigorously, limiting my alcohol intake and so on. The trick is to not become obsessed with that third element because it does seem a crap shoot as Brando and Pinehouse point out.

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I'm with Twink on this subject. My weight has been all over the place throughout my life. I'd been the healthiest and best shape for years when I discovered the lump 3 months after having a clean mammogram and sonogram (not sono, er, sorry, chemobrain), (really thought something was there, but docs insisted there was nothing). Imagine our surprise when 3 months later a l.7 mm lump popped out of nowhere.

Grade 3, Trip Neg, IDC, snl neg.

Indi

To Myrnainc,

It does seem like a depressing thought that "only the strong survive", but my reference is only towards the physical body. In a pure, objective, logical and concise explanation, only animals with the ability to conform and adapt will survive to a natural end. Humans have been the most adaptable of all living things thus far thanks in part to meds, new inventions, scientific discoveries, and basically an evolved brain.

The hope is that when there is a weakness in a person's DNA a new med or medical discovery will help aid the weakness and make it strong. It is already happening. Look at how chemo drugs have come about as well as the use of radiation on tumors.

It does seem disappointing that just eating right or exercising will not control whether one gets cancer or not, but I think the idea is that if you take care of your physical body, your quality of life will definitly be less compromised.

I, personally have gotten in accord with just living life well and really not worrying or wondering if today or tomorrow will be my last day. It may sound negative, but we all die whether from natural causes or cancer (which in some respect can be considered a natural cause on a cellular level). I love life, but if I have to die of cancer or something else...so be it. I have no control over such things.

I have been thin most of my life although I was 20 pounds over my usual weight the last few years.  What I found out is that tall people are more prone to cancer!  I am 6 feet tall and when I was diagnosed I was between 165-170 pounds.  I was a lazy vegetarian who ate fish.  Now I only eat organic, no meat or poultry still but I do allow myself fish and I am leaning towards a more vegan diet and I am now between 155-160 whic is ideal for me.  Although I am the only one with breast cancer in my family, my mother was prone to tumors (benign) and my grandmother died of colon cancer.  I would have to say it's in our DNA but that it can also be caused by so many other environmental factors.  I mean look at all of the crap in our food!  I was on birth control on and off for years, too.  Weight contributes to health problems but not necessarily cancer.