Since 2011 I converted inadvertently into a person who saw the immediate correlations food and diseases have since they’re intricately intertwined. Since I’ve have colluded with myself to try to live long enough to become a centenarian I knew I’ve the odds against myself since still few people become centenarians. In order to increase my chances I’d to change my food habits because it is my belief that the majority of diseases and irregularities that may impose themselves onto our bodies is caused by food. Eating food that disturbs the many balances our bodies hinge on and cause havoc that we don’t feel or see (like increased blood sugar levels, many ill-balanced balances like omega 3 vs omega 6 oils, salt vs potassium and other balances that are on a daily basis many times disturbed create over a number of years (equated often to a gluttonous period) wreckage to the auto immune system of the human body.
I transitioned to a diet called paleo and I feel ensconced in my position although I do compromise when eating out. But usually I”ll allow myself one red day per week if necessary. Paleo has little to do with eating lots of meat, to my perspective it denounces grains (abnormal blood surges that disrupt hormones that control other processes such as bone building, immune function, cell renewal and cholesterol control) and dairy products (one issue is the milk sugar lactose is an antigen undermining our bodies in many subtle ways just as the proteins in milk casein and lactalbumin that are allergens), sugar and salt. On the other hand I don’t regard oils and fats as malignant (for example olive oil and coconut oil are great products), I try to eat my daily fruits (or drink via a selfmade smoothy) and I eat lots and lots of vegetables. Before I digress, since I want this post to be about me questioning female breast cancer I’d better stop explaining paleo which is probably comparable with religion, you believe in it or not, people cannot be really motivated when others speak about their happy way of life.
Among some food books I read was Deadly Harvest by Geoff Bond and he raises questions about breast cancer and sees food correlations.
But firstly a thought that many people who got cancer ask themselves. “If I got cancer doing what I was doing before, what should I do differently now?” Bond answers: “We would all agree that it would be best if people lived their lives so that their defenses against cancer are invasion-proof. If cancer has taken hold, it is even more important to repair the defenses and keep them that way. There are three main weaknesses that can arise with the immune system. Two of them, depressed immune system and overloaded immune system are particularly responsible for allowing cancers to flourish. The way we live often depresses and overloads our immune systems. By correcting these departures from the Savanna model (the main principle of the Paleo diet), we will give ourselves the best chance to avoid cancer and to recover from it.
Breast cancer
Everything said about cancer in general applies to breast cancer in particular. Nevertheless, there are some special considerations. “We are what we eat” might be a cliché, but it is prticularly apt for women’s breasts. A woman who eats a lot of saturated fats and trans-fatty acids (hydrogenated fats) has more of those bad fats stored in her breasts. Such women are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Those who have good levels of the omega-3 oils, whether fish oils or alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), have a lower risk.
Breast cancers mostly develop from milk-producing cells in the breasts that are stimulated to divide by estrogen. This stimulation occurs through a molecule on their surface called an “estrogen receptor.” The purpose is to multiply milk cells every month in preparation for a possible pregnancy. However, the more estrogen receptors there are, the more likely something will go wrong in a cell and it will mu;tiply out of control. What agent might do this? A major one is the powerful hormone insuline. Abnormally high insulin levels increase the number of estrogen in the breasts by a factor of 12. With 12 times as many chances that one of the milk-producing cells will become cancerous. This is another way in which the high-glycemic Western diet particularly encourages breast cancer.
A second factor is the lifetime exposure of a woman’s breasts to estrogen. Today, girls are arriving at puberty much earlier than nature intended. Their breasts are exposed to estrogen for a longer period, so they are more likely to develop breast cancer later in life. A girl who starts menstruating at age 10 has three times the risk of breast cancer compared to starting at 15. On the other hand, menopause around 50 is quite normal. Nevertheless, the same mechanism is at work: menopause at 55 doubles the risk of cancer compared to menopause at 45 and triples it compared to menopause at 35.
Why is it that girls’ periods start earlier these days? Obesity, a high-fat diet, a high-glycemic diet, and a diet rich in dairy and soy products are all factors driving their bodies in this unhealthy direction. Soy products can also promote breast cancer directly.
In another twist, women who have children, and who breastfeed all have a reduced risk of breast cancer. There are many complex hormonal operations that science has yet to unravel and understand, but it all comes back to estrogen, progesterone, and other sex hormones. In our ancestral past women were breastfeeding almost continuously for some 30 years while they were fertile. We might suppose that the body depends on this format to function properly. It is tough to emulate this pattern in today’s world. Nevertheless, it is one more strong argument for breastfeeding and doing it for as long as possible.
Finally, breast cancer is practically unknown outside the West. You don’t even have to clamber over the Himalayas or the Andes to find peoples who live free of breast cancer. Take a comfortable plane to Tokyo, Singapore or Hong Kong and you will immediately be among peoples who live longer than Westerners do and whose women do not suffer from breast cancer. Their secret? Traditionally, they have very low-fat, low-glycemic diets. That might not last for much longer: the Japanese diet is becoming Westernized and the rates of breast cancer are rising.
Let me amalgamate some talking points:
- In 1954, Japanese women had a very low incidence of breast cancer -just 4 per 10,000 – compared to 18.5 deaths in the U.S.
- isoflavonoids are chemicals in plants that can affect the same tissues as human estrogen, but can produce very different effects. They are found in some plants such as soy. These phytoestrogens are not always such a good sthing, for they are implicated in lung and breast cancer. However, in a high-fiber diet, these phytoestrogens are safely ushered out of the body
- summary of diseases linked to dairy consumption: hardening of the arteries (arterioscerosis), allergies, osteoporosis and hip fracture, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, abnormally high insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia), Crohn’s disease, autism, premenstrual tension, Parkinson’s disease
- for a number of obvious reasons women are sold soy as a remedy for female conditions such as hot flashes and pms. It is even sold as having anti-cancer properties when in fact it increases the risk of uterine cancer and breast cancer (soy gives you allergies: over 16 allergenes have been identified of which three are considered to be “severe”
- sunlight as human food >the modern denial of sunlight (sunburn induced skin cancer have caused a hysterical overreaction) has led to a surge of diseases that are connected to sunlight deficiency, including cancers, rickets, and depression. Cancer researcher E.M. John found that cancers are more prevalent in the northern cities of the U.S. than in the southern rural states. In particular, the risk of breast cancer is increased by three times
- the root cause of cancer is not, then, the various provocative factors (tobacco, radiation, pesticides, etc.), but rather a failure of the immune system. It is this lowering of the defenses that allows cancer to flourish and take hold. When that happens, conventional medicine takes over. In spite of the hundreds of billions of dollars thrown into the “war on cancer” since the 1970s, progress has been slow. The chief tools are stil the same: cut it out, poison it with chemotherapy, or nuke it with radiation. There is more foucus on detecting cancers early, so that these techniques have a better chance of winning out. Unfortunately, the outlook is often grim for cancers that have spread to other areas of the body (metastasized). In the U.S., by the time they are discovered, 72% of lung cancers, 57% of colorectal cancers, and 34% of breast cancers have metastasized.
I’m blogging this post not to point fingers because frankly, I’m not the kind of person who stops thinking. When I read the book the information comes across very logical since I cannot shoot any holes in the rhetoric (for now). Meanwhile I stick with the thesis as just written and i invite anyone to comment. The rope between the camp that believes in no correlation to food and the camp that does believe in it isn’t taut, I just want to learn from people who also can build a thesis that holds ground.
Initializing batsignal for coming blog posts 