Eating lots of carbs may raise the risk of breast cancer, study finds

[tamarian]

NATION: Eating lots of carbs may raise the risk of breast cancer, study finds

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer

High-carb diets may increase more than just waistlines. New research suggests they might raise the risk of breast cancer.

Women in Mexico who ate a lot of carbohydrates were more than twice as likely to get breast cancer than those who ate less starch and sugar, scientists found.

The study is hardly the last word on the subject, but it is one of the few to examine how the popular but controversial low-carb diet craze might affect the odds of getting cancer, as opposed to its effects on cholesterol and heart disease.

The new findings also don't mean that it is safe or healthful to eat lots of meat, cheese or fats, as many people who go on low-carb diets do, experts say.

"There are many concerns with eating diets high in animal fat," said Dr. Walter Willett, chief of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If people do want to cut back on carbohydrates, it's really important to do it in a way that emphasizes healthy fats, like salads with salad dressings."

Willett worked on the study with doctors at Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ministry of Health of Mexico, and the American Institute for Cancer Research. Results were published Friday in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Fats, fiber and specific foods have long been studied for their effects on various types of cancer, but few firm links have emerged. Being overweight is known to raise risk, but the new study took that into account and still found greater risk from high carbohydrate consumption.

Scientists think carbs may increase cancer risk by rapidly raising sugar in the blood, which prompts a surge of insulin to be secreted. This causes cells to divide and leads to higher levels of estrogen in the blood, both of which can encourage cancer.

A study earlier this year suggested that high-carb diets modestly raised the risk of colon cancer. Little research has been done on their effect on breast cancer, and results have been mixed. One study last year found greater risk among young women who ate a lot of sweets, especially sodas and desserts.

For this study, researchers enrolled 475 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer and a comparison group of 1,391 healthy women in Mexico City who were matched for age, weight, childbirth trends and other factors that affect the odds of getting the disease.

Women filled out a lengthy food questionnaire developed by Willett and widely used in nutrition studies, and were divided into four categories based on how much of their total calories came from carbohydrates.

Those in the top category -- who got 62 percent or more of their calories from carbs -- were 2.22 times more likely to have breast cancer than those in the lowest category, whose carb intake was 52 percent or less of their diet.

"The findings do raise concern about the possible adverse effects of eating lots of carbohydrates," especially for people who have diabetes, insulin resistance or are overweight, Willett said.

"It adds to the information that diet's important" with respect to cancer risk, said John Milner, the National Cancer Institute's chief of nutrition.

How applicable the results are to American women is debatable. Carbohydrates make up half of the typical American diet -- less than what most of the women in this study consumed.

"The main carbohydrates these women ate were corn-derived, including tortillas, and soft drinks and bread," said Dr. Eduardo Lazcano-Ponce, one of the Mexican physicians who did the study.

Corn isn't fortified with folate and other nutrients as are many grains, cereals and other sources of carbohydrates eaten in the United States, and those nutrients might help prevent cancer, noted Sandra Schlicker, executive director of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition.

Breast cancer rates in the United States are among the highest in the world. Nearly 132 cases are diagnosed for every 100,000 women. In Mexico, incidence is rising and is currently estimated at 38 cases per 100,000 women. But Willett cautioned that those rates are not adjusted for age differences and that the U.S. population is considerably older than Mexico's and therefore more at risk of cancer.

In the study, women who ate a lot of insoluble fiber -- found in whole grains, fruits and vegetables -- had somewhat less risk of breast cancer. Fiber can modulate the absorption of carbohydrates.

"It leads me to believe that healthier carb sources, or at least diets containing fiber, would be less strongly associated with breast cancer," said Marji McCullough, a senior epidemiologist and nutrition expert at the American Cancer Society.

Experts say more research is needed through a study that, instead of relying on women's memories about what they ate, asks them to keep food diaries and then follows them for years afterward to see which ones develop cancer.

Finding dietary links to breast cancer is important because diet is one of the few risk factors a woman can easily modify.

"This study alone isn't enough for people to make changes in their diet, but it's a cautionary sign," Willett said.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that carbohydrates constitute 45 percent to 65 percent of calories, and that no more than 20 percent should come from added sugars, said Schlicker, who served on the panel that drafted the advice. New dietary guidelines are due to be released next year.

http://www.timesanddemocrat.com/articles/2004/08/05/pm/pm3.txt

[dannysk]

In the study, women who ate a lot of insoluble fiber -- found in whole grains, fruits and vegetables -- had somewhat less risk of breast cancer. Fiber can modulate the absorption of carbohydrates."

Women who ate a lot of fiber ate fewer "net carbs". As long as science won't make the distinction they are going to wind up with skewed results.

danny

[Nancy LC]

Well, this is good news! I wonder how many of our ills will eventually be found to be linked to our high carb lives?

[toofattoo]

Yeh, I'd like to know that too. Peg

[tofi]

And just to add another "At LAST" someone is getting it.

[Turtle2003]

Corn isn't fortified with folate and other nutrients as are many grains, cereals and other sources of carbohydrates eaten in the United States, and those nutrients might help prevent cancer, noted Sandra Schlicker, executive director of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition.

I particularly loved this little comment from one of the 'experts' who recommends we eat huge amounts of carbs. What she is really saying is that the Mexicans don't fortify the carbage they eat with folate and other vitamins like we do, so our carbage is OK to eat. Well, honey, I got news for you. It's still carbage.

I think we will be seeing more and more studies like this. The blinders are off for many scientists, especially those who have not already bet their prestige on the low fat nonsense. And it is now 'safe' for them to publish their results. A few years ago we would never have seen a study like this.

[RoseTattoo]

I think it's necessary to be skeptical about preliminary studies like this one. The sample was relatively small, and much more damning, the study was based on self-reporting of food intake, a notoriously untrustworthy method. So I think a lot of caution is warranted in drawing conclusions.

BUT--as I understand it, there IS a modest association between breast cancer and folate deficiency. This link has been documented on the basis of several studies, and over time. So why isn't this a plausible explanation of the Mexican findings? On the basis of the food journals, we can see that the Mexican women ate most of their carbs in the form of folate-deficient foods. They apparently also ate these folate-deficient carbs as a far greater proportion of their diet than American women tend to do--and many of Americans' carbs ARE supplemented with folate. The variable, therefore, doesn't seem to be carb intake--it's the intake of folate-deficient carbs.

It's not good science to suggest that ALL carbs are therefore implicated as being associated with breast cancer. What this study showed in a very preliminary way is that SOME carbs--specifically, corn products which lack folate--are associated with a higher risk of breast cancer when eaten as a fairly high proportion of the diet.

Science can't work by drawing generalizations until all variables have been considered. I agree that it's good that carb intake is finally being examined. But we've got to be careful about conclusions we draw.

[Wickedways]

Just caught this on Canoe today...

very interesting!

[Demi]

Interestingly, have just come across the same story at cancerfacts.com:

http://www.cancerfacts.com/Home_News.asp?NewsId=1710&CB=14&CancerTypeId=4

[cartmanis]

Just Saw this one this morning,

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000409EC-D358-1113-B94183414B7F4945

Carbohydrates have been taking a beating for their putative effect on the waistline in recent years. Now they're coming under fire for potentially putting women at an increased risk of breast cancer.
A study of 1,866 Mexican women has found that those who obtained more than 62 percent of their calories from carbs were more than twice as likely to develop breast cancer compared to women whose carb intake accounted for 52 percent or less of their diet. (The investigators accounted for body mass index and other potentially confounding factors.) "Scientists have long suspected that diet was among the factors contributing to breast cancer," says study co-author Walter Willet of Harvard University. "Now, with studies like ours, we are beginning gradually to understand what elements of diet specifically are associated with the disease, and to grasp the chemical and biological processes that contribute to it at the cellular level."

The new work found a particularly strong link between consumption of sweets and elevated breast cancer risk, whereas ingestion of insoluble fiber was associated with lower risk. In explanation, the researchers note that eating carbs triggers a cascade of events leading to increased secretion of insulin and another protein that can boost cell proliferation and thus lead to cancer. Fiber, on the other hand, may mitigate the effects of carbs by interfering with their absorption.
"This study raises important questions about high carbohydrate diets, particularly among populations or individuals prone to insulin resistance," Willet remarks. "However, one study is not enough to make major changes in diet, and more work on this topic is urgently needed." A report detailing the findings appears in the current issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. --Kate Wong

[doreen T]

Breast, ovarian and prostate cancer are closely linked to sugar intake and insulin levels. A Canadian study from 2002, Fasting Insulin and Outcome in Early-Stage Breast Cancer: Results of a Prospective Cohort Study (http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Breast-Cancer-Insulin-Goodwin.htm), showed that women with breast cancer who had higher fasting insulin levels had poorer outcomes and lowered survival than those with lower insulin levels. This included increased likelihood of the cancer re-occuring. That's because insulin exerts some growth hormone-like effects and can stimulate proliferation of hormone-sensitive cancer cells.


Some other articles of interest about low-carb, high-fat diet and breast cancer: previous lowcarber forum discussion (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?threadid=50624) about breast cancer and lowcarb

The Skinny on Fats & Breast Cancer (http://www.powerhealth.net/articles5.htm) by Stephen Byrnes, PhD, N.D.

Three Case Histories (http://www.westonaprice.org/women/three_cases.html) from Weston A. Price foundation, where the women improved their cancer survival odds and over-all health by eating a natural diet with plenty of animal fats.



hth,

Doreen

[Gloria27]

I agree with Rose Tatoo... I'm a carb lover and I'm a Mexican woman and the food I miss the most while on an LC diet is tortillas. I applaud the study and hope it helps some or all of these women with cancer, but most of our delicious meals just don't taste the same without a corn tortilla right off the stove. When I reach my goal, tacos de deshebrada will be my first treat!

[catfishghj]

If folate and other nutrients as are many grains, cereals and other sources of carbohydrates eaten in the United States helps prevent cancer, then why are 132 cases diagnosed for every 100,000 women in the US but only 38 cases per 100,000 women in Mexico. Speculation about other nutrients like that is pretty worthless. The study compaired women who had the same source of carbs, just one group ate more than the other. It is a pretty good case of a dose responce relationship.

[ElisaB]

A High-Carbohydrate Diet With Added Sugars Doubles Your Risk of Breast Cancer, Says New Research

A new study carried out by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health reveals a strong correlation between the consumption of refined carbohydrates -- especially refined white sugar -- and increased risk of breast cancer. This is apparently a major "eureka" for these scientists, who are just now beginning to suspect that there are in fact links between diet and cancer.

Of course, this is old news to nutritionists and naturopathic physicians, who have long been urging patients to avoid the consumption of refined carbohydrates and especially refined white sugar. Not only is white sugar known to cause nutritional deficiencies and suppress immune system and brain function, it also promotes both diabetes and obesity. Now we can officially add cancer to that list, thanks to this research.

The fact is, refined white sugar is one of the most unhealthy food ingredients you can put into your body. It causes the depletion of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function properly, and it causes radical swings in blood sugar that affect insulin resistance as well as mood and brain function. It has even been linked to violent behavior and various behavioral disorders, especially in young males. The consumption of sugar is also strongly linked to attention deficit hyperactive disorder, or ADHD.

Of course, Americans love to eat sugar. You can find it in ice cream, cookies, cakes, pancakes, and even things you wouldn't expect to have sugar, such as pasta sauce and pizza sauce. But sugar, it turns out, is one of those ingredients we should all be avoiding if we are to achieve optimum health. I gave up sugar years ago when I kicked the soft drink habit. Since then, I have avoided all refined sugars, and to this day I eat absolutely no refined sugars whatsoever, not even as ingredients in foods. In doing so, I was able to greatly improve my overall health and ultimately lose 50 pounds of excess body fat.

When you consume sugar, you harm your body. You're actually doing your entire system a great disservice. You're impairing the function of your body, your internal organs such as your pancreas, and especially your brain. Sugar simply doesn't belong in the American diet, and if we were to get rid of sugar altogether, or teach people to avoid it, we would all be far healthier, and our national health care costs would plummet.

Of course, Big Sugar and the sugar industry would argue against all of this. They're a lot like the tobacco industry, and they even argue that sugar isn't bad for you and it doesn't cause obesity. In fact, they want to keep exporting sugar to the entire world, so that the rest of the world can share in the high incidence of obesity and chronic disease now experienced in America. It's true -- America is the most obese and chronically diseased country in the world, and we don't seem to be happy until our homegrown businesses are free to export that disease to every other country around the world. That's called "free trade."

Amazingly, we even subsidize sugar in this country in order to make it cheaper. That's an economic incentive that encourages people to buy and eat more sugar (or products made with sugar). It's a great political scandal, of course, that comes down to nothing more than corporate welfare. The sugar industry in the United States is closely allied with the Bush administration to the point where it even helps influence the United States policies on global health and nutrition.

For example, just look into the latest round of dialogue at the World Health Organization, where the United States was firmly against advice offered by the WHO that would have recommended people reduce their consumption of added sugars in order to fight obesity and diabetes around the world. The sugar industry in the United States strongly fought against the passage of those recommendations, arguing that sugar was perfectly good for your health and there was absolutely no evidence linking it to disease.

That's a ridiculous position of course -- there's a tremendous amount of evidence linking disease to sugar, but trying to convince sugar industry executives of that fact is sort of like trying to tell cigarette company CEOs that nicotine is addictive.

If you're going to take sugar out of your diet, I strongly advise that you do it slowly, and you should replace sugar with stevia, a natural sweetener made from the sweetleaf herb that has virtually no calories and won't alter your blood sugar in the same way that sugar does. In fact, stevia is an extremely healthy alternative to sugar that should, in my opinion, be legalized by the FDA and allowed into the food supply. After all, it is safely used around the world (and has been for thousands of years) with no reports of toxicity or negative side effects whatsoever.

Unfortunately, stevia is not yet approved for use in the U.S. food supply, primarily because the FDA is working to once again protect the profits of private industry by making sure that aspartame has a strong market. As a result, many people will switch from sugar to aspartame, and instead of being obese and diabetic they will suffer from the dangerous health side effects related to aspartame such as blindness, migraine headaches and nervous system disorders.

So, I certainly don't recommend consuming aspartame instead of sugar. Go for stevia instead. And once again, transition slowly. If you've been consuming a diet very high in sugar, as most Americans have, you won't have any success at all if you try to quit sugar cold turkey. You have to slowly transition off of sugar, week by week, month by month, until you are completely rid of it. In fact, a one-year plan for getting off of sugar is quite reasonable.

If you currently drink soft drinks, it is imperative that you give up soft drinks first, because this is one of the worst sources of added sugars in the American diet. To do this, check out my book called "The Five Soft Drink Monsters," available free of charge at the Consumer Wellness Research Center.

After you have eliminated soft drinks from your diet, you can tackle other areas of added sugars in your diet. These include candy bars, granola bars, energy bars, and various drinks. Of course, they also include desserts, muffins, cakes, cookies, and other pastries. You actually have to look for sugar in the ingredients labels of popular foods, otherwise you won't even realize they're in there. You'll find sugar in pancake mixes, for example, which is why I think most pancakes are just cake for breakfast. Also you need to realize that you can't just look for the word "sugar" on the ingredient labels on foods. You must also look for terms like sucrose and maltodextrin.

Another form of sugar is fructose, which is frequently found in soy protein supplements and body building supplements. Fructose is somewhat better for you than sucrose, but fructose is still a refined sugar, and should be avoided by people seeking optimum health. Again, it all comes back to the right choice for sweeteners, and that choice is stevia.

The bottom line is that the research is now showing sugar to be correlated with breast cancer. This is certainly no surprise to holistic nutritionists and those who have followed wellness and health for some time. It may be news to researchers and physicians, but that's only because they tend to remain ignorant about the nutritional relationships between foods and health.


http://www.newstarget.com/001673.html

[fatburner]

A High-Carbohydrate Diet With Added Sugars Doubles Your Risk of Breast Cancer, Says New Research

Again, it all comes back to the right choice for sweeteners, and that choice is stevia.

The bottom line is that the research is now showing sugar to be correlated with breast cancer. This is certainly no surprise to holistic nutritionists and those who have followed wellness and health for some time. It may be news to researchers and physicians, but that's only because they tend to remain ignorant about the nutritional relationships between foods and health.


http://www.newstarget.com/001673.html
This is a bit off the carbs/breast cancer topic. Sorry, I thought it deserved a comment. For the record I'm in the 'carbs are implicated in all cancers, not just of the breast' camp.

Anyway, I'm still not convinced that stevia is as safe as sucralose. Sure it's natural, but so is aflatoxin. Comfrey is a perfect example of a natural supplement that has been used traditionally for probably as long as stevia and it is only recently that it has been recognized as a potent carcinogen. And stevia's insulin spiking effect gives me the willies. I have read a lot of anecdotal stuff about mood side effects from sucralose, so maybe some people are sensitive to it. I've eaten it liberally for over two years and I think if I was any healthier or happier I'd be dangerous. But who knows, maybe that's just down to ditching the carbs :p . Of course even Stevia is streets ahead of any carbohydrate containing sweetener, so I'd be the first to keep things in perspective. But I can't stand even the taste of stevia, wether or not it is safe. And I did try to get to like it! I was saved when I learnt of it's insulin dark side ;)

[ItsTheWooo]

I agree with Rose Tatoo... I'm a carb lover and I'm a Mexican woman and the food I miss the most while on an LC diet is tortillas. I applaud the study and hope it helps some or all of these women with cancer, but most of our delicious meals just don't taste the same without a corn tortilla right off the stove. When I reach my goal, tacos de deshebrada will be my first treat!

Just so you know, rewarding weight loss with the same food that made you fat is probably not the best idea :)

On the other hand, have you tried the mission low carb wheat tortillas? They taste exactly like tortillas, except only 4 carbs and 80 cals per. I also have low carb taco shells, which are excellent (6 carbs and 40 cals each, made of real corn).

[adkpam]

One thing I've noticed from reading labels and watching carbs...even the "enriched" carbs are so devoid of nutrients it's just not funny! My husband was looking at the package of crackers that came with my soup in the restaurant last night (of course we weren't going to eat it) and he was amazed that the two little saltines had as much carbs as the salad I was planning to have to follow...and how little food value it contained.

Of course, we're talking about refined white flour and water with a little salt...but isn't most of our breads, buns, pasta and cereal the same way?

All attempts to find the ONE nutrient we are lacking are doomed to failure when so many people's diets are deficient in so many areas.

[Nancy LC]

Unfortunately, stevia is not yet approved for use in the U.S. food supply, primarily because the FDA is working to once again protect the profits of private industry by making sure that aspartame has a strong market.


This sort of makes it sounds like Stevia is sold by non-proft companies. :lol:

[HamHox]

Well, this would be an extremely high amount of carbs... Just like the "studies" that say Low Carb causes heart attacks, this study probably skews the findings. I think that carbs can be unhealthy if consumed at a ridiculous rate (which unfortunately many people do) but so can anything...

[Duparc]

What a contradictory article with contributions from a bunch of institutionalised theoreticians. I hesitate in dissecting this article in its entirety and will try to keep it concise by quoting a couple of faux pas.

Sandra Schlicker says that corn etc in the US is fortified which may help to prevent cancer yet in the same breath she goes on to say that in the US breast cancer cases are the highest in the world! Surely the implication is that we should give a very wide-berth indeed to US fortified corn.

The article continues in its self-defeating manner by saying that those who ate insoluable fibre found in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, had somewhat less risk. Somewhat? Really?

Finally, experts apparently say that more research is needed. Who indeed are the experts? The theoreticians, or the practitioners like those on carb-free diets?

The old adage applies here which says; 'Some people must think I am a mushroom. They keep me in the dark and feed me with bull'!

[jem2]

the whole folate-grain issue is ridiculous. if an item has to be fortified to make it 'healthy', is that any different than any other processed food that may not really be edible at all unless processed in some manner. it only makes sense to eat things that have vitamins/minerals naturally occuring. anyway, if folate is truly the answer to the breast ca issue then why is it epidemic in this country. there are practitioners who have been saying for years that ca loves glucose. it seems to be true!

[ceberezin]

The new work found a particularly strong link between consumption of sweets and elevated breast cancer risk, whereas ingestion of insoluble fiber was associated with lower risk.

This statement is typical of the scientific method used by nutritionists. Ingestion of soluble fiber is associated with lower risk. The truth is that the higher the insoluble fiber, the lower the net carbs. So the real association with lower risk is fewer net carbs. This is lost on nutritionists who will undoubtedly tell us that eating fiber lowers breast cancer risk. I expect to see bran muffins being touted as a cure for breast cancer.

[gingerspic]

I have a lot of cancer in my family. I have lost my mom, two sisters, two aunts and a grandmother to this gastily disease. Since learning about a LC lifestyle I have also studied a great deal about Yeast imbalances. I found disturbing similarites in the way Candidia prevails in the intestine and the way Cancer takes over its victims. :idea: I am not telling my sad story for pity really I am unsure I can be objective anyone have any thoughts on this theroy? ginger

[CLASYS]

the study was based on self-reporting of food intake, a notoriously untrustworthy method. So I think a lot of caution is warranted in drawing conclusions.

But wasn't the recent report claiming that 2 [female] or 3 [male] ounces twice a week of red meat was "too much" and led to colon cancer, etc., based on entirely the same methodology [people guessing what they eat and filling in a questionaire, etc.]?

Gee, we shouldn't jump to conclusions; we just let the LC-bashers do that!

cjl (Are you now, or have you ever eaten a carbohydrate you didn't like?)

[Duparc]

Regarding BC. My late wife passed away 6 years ago with this complaint and a year ago I lost a 45 year old daughter to the same complaint.

My wife ate what she thought was a healthy diet as it was known then. It included unsaturated fats and especially vegetable oils and of course grains and fibers of all kinds. She also had a penchant for soft drinks; had she been drinking alcohol she would have been an alcoholic. She believed that those drinks were healthy. Unknown to us at the time she was probably prediabetic. Whenever her liver was tested it was found to be fatty and the physicians suspected that she was a closeted alcoholic but that was not so. There is little doubt that her diet, which included vasts amounts of processed foods, was the main culprit in bringing about her early demise.

The situation was almost identical with my daughter who as single woman was size 24 and 5' 6" tall. She ate anything and everything from the supermarket that could easily be cooked in the microwave.

Common features of both instances was that they elevated the medical profession to the level of the divine and took their word as gospel, yet, in each case they were initially misdiagnosed! The medics hastened their demise. I tried to advise them but regretfully they would not take heed; to them I was just the 'carpenter's son'!

My other two daughters are running scared believing that BC runs in the family; it doesn't, but I can't convince them.

I suspect that LC diets, especially those that avoid processed foods, are probably the best for our health, and personal experience and current research findings are lending support to this belief. I hope that this anecdotal experience will be of benefit to some of you.

[TBoneMitch]

Thanks a lot DuParc,

your posts are always thoughtful, and also good to read.

Keep em coming!

[Duparc]

Hi Ginger, have you considered trying virgin oregano oil to rid candida? It sure is worthy of trying. Other supporting substances are coconut products and olive leaf extract each which is synergistic to the others. Do, firstly, read the side-effects of olive leaf extract which might be disconcerting. The three together make a potent antibiotic.

TBM , thanks for the compliment. There is a nice reassuring feeling in being appreciated.

[gingerspic]

Hmmm interesting this combination is actually a natural antibiotic. I am using Threelac now, but I am begining to believe I was mistaken to use this product. Your potion may come in handy next time I get a sinus infection too?
What do you think am I pushing my luck? ginger :q: :idea:

[garhi]

I am using Threelac now, but I am begining to believe I was mistaken to use this product.
ginger :q: :idea:

It's been awhile since the last post, but I thought I'd ask anyway...why did you say you believe it's a mistake to use 3-lac? I'm wondering cos I'm using this right now, have been for about a week now, I am trying it due to my (self) diagnosis of possible candida problems myself (symptoms: low body temperature, itchy eyes, itchy anus). Since I've been using this product I've noticed a remarkable decrease in above symptoms, and my body temperature is already up .5 degree in mid-day. I believe I've found the smoking gun, this problem (candida) seems to be a real "hidden killer", and it's incredibly hard not to 'feed' it, even eating low-carb.... ie it's damn hard to live on only meat and vegetables, and even meat can be food for this condition.

any other people have anything to say about this??

[CLASYS]

A lot of subtle info comes from this thread, lots of issues need to rise to the surface:

1) USA has the worst BC rate. Studies have indicted everything from various forms of carbs implying various contrived "good" and "bad" versions, eating fat, etc. "Studies" use dubious methods to achieve likely pre-conceived results by conveniently ignoring variables they don't want any attention paid to.

2) No one mentions the influence of drugs like Premarin and Prempro that have "conveniently" reappeared on the market with low-dose variations and warnings that they are NOT meant to be long-term HRT. Anyone want to venture a guess on a few points:

a) How much of the USA-based problem is actually directly traceable to HRT?

b) How much of a) is in turn worsened by the likes of too many carbs or too much fat or worse too much of both?

I think we can draw a few real conclusions:

A) Studies are funded by companies seeking ball-park results--Their ballparks. Been there too many times on things like the Cyclamates scare that first brought notariety to Dr. Atkins and made him the target of Big Sugar, and this was several years before the Diet Revolution books.

B) It's likely that anything that villifies Fats, especially saturated fats, totally ignores carbs which invariably are unhealthily high in these studies, assuming we can trust the reporting of people likely to be telling anecdotal "fairy tales" because they think they are pleasing the testers, etc. and telling them what they believe is wanting to be heard, etc. I am certain that too much saturated fats in the presence of too many carbs clearly makes BC far worse than if the diet consists of lots of fats and strictly controlled carbs, and the former is what the so-called "tests" actually used because they ASSUMED that it didn't matter.

C) It's likely that all forms of tumors already established do "better" [meaning at killing the patient!] by "feeding" the tumors carbs. The likely best treatment for existing cancers of this category is to go on the Stillman diet, i.e., protein fasts kill cancer.

D) Has ANYONE ever done any study to see whether or not the effects of chemotherapy are enhanced/weakened by diet, meaning low-carb or high-carb? It would seem that combining C) above and chemotherapy should do the best job.


On another, unrelated note: I just noticed perhaps a "final insult" to the craze of the low-carb, meaning the commercialization of fraudulent low-carb claims that are totally off of an Atkins regimen. A local supermarket is selling cheesecake branded as being claimed as the house brand of a well-known local restaurant in Brooklyn, NY called "Junior's". Long well known as a traditional delicatessen-style restaurant in New York, they have followed in the footsteps of other similar area food outfits such as Ratner's and now sell the cheesecake in semi-upscale supermarkets. Here's the nutritional info from the label of Junior's Low-Carb Cheesecake:

Serving size: 85 grams
Servings per package: 8 [It's not a big cake]
Carbohydrates per serving: 58 grams

That's OVER 2/3 carbs!

cjl (Gee, if that's the low-carb version, what would the REGULAR version be?)

ps: Now I'm confused: Isn't cheesecake made from cheese? [Cream cheese.] which is mostly fat?

[ceberezin]

It just kills me that they finally discover a causal relation between carbs and cancer and end up recommending that people eat lots of fiber because fiber moderates the action of carbohydrates or that bread in the US is okay because it's enriched with folates. It's the same thing as telling people that to avoid lung cancer they should smoke filtered cigarettes.

[BKM]

Breast cancer rates in the United States are among the highest in the world. Nearly 132 cases are diagnosed for every 100,000 women.
My gyn just "bullied" me into having my yearly mammogram done --with the statistic that "1 out every 7 women develop breast cancer". Numbers don't add up with above statistic -- 1 out of 7 means 14/100, or 14,000/100,000. If I adjust the 14,000/100,000 by 20 (assuming that they are meaning 132 new cases per year), then I have 700/100,000... or 1/142

So what am I doing wrong? Seems like the incidence is much lower than 1/7?????

[Nancy LC]

I think 1 of 7 is over the course of a lifetime, not every year.

[doreen T]

I think 1 of 7 is over the course of a lifetime, not every year.
Yes, this is my understanding also ....


Doreen

[LC FP]

I believe the lifetime risk for breast cancer is 12%, and the risk of death from breast cancer is 4%, for women.

[bsheets]

I have a lot of cancer in my family. I have lost my mom, two sisters, two aunts and a grandmother to this gastily disease. Since learning about a LC lifestyle I have also studied a great deal about Yeast imbalances. I found disturbing similarites in the way Candidia prevails in the intestine and the way Cancer takes over its victims. :idea: I am not telling my sad story for pity really I am unsure I can be objective anyone have any thoughts on this theroy? ginger
Not to sound insensitive, but what about the males in your family? How are they?
It's great you're doing something for your own health and doing your own research. :D

e

[CLASYS]

My understanding that for men, the figures are much higher, i.e., much rarer but if diagnosed correctly, likely more fatal.

From my recent experience talking to medical oncologists, it would appear that female breast cancer is actually two different diseases. The differentiating point is estrogen-receptive or not.

Estrogen-receptive apparently is about 80% of reported cases, and is more likely in post-menopausal women. This suggests the possible link to HRT drugs.

The non-receptive apparently tends to occur more in younger women, and is not associated with estrogen either natural or hrt. It is usually worse, but perhaps this is only because of the more difficult diagnosis, and since it strikes mostly younger women, moreso needs real chemotherapy and perhaps radiation; clearly a more serious disease. More likely than not, this is also related to the rare male BC; clearly estrogen isn't a factor for men.

Receptive diagnosis has a possible chance of more early detection, the earlier the better in both types, but more likely to actually occur in receptive.

Self-examination and even professional examination may not be enough. Mammograms may not be enough; sometimes the ONLY way the tumor is even noticed is through ultrasound unless/until it is more advanced. Surgical cases have occurred where only the ultrasound later confirmed with biopsy procedures show the presence of the disease at a relatively early stage; all of the other methods are so flawed that a surgeon was shocked to not be able to palpate to locate a tumor clearly visible on ultrasound simultaneously!

All of this suggests that the medical system sucks, as comes no surprise to most of us.

All I can suggest vehemently is to all women:

Avoid excess carbs like the plague, regardless of age. Triplely so if diagnosed with BC.

Get mammograms and sonograms every six months. This limits the worst-case scenario to likely stage 1 BC or less and maximizes successful treatment options should it occur.

Family history may play a smaller role than conveniently offered up. HRT beyond birth control probably plays a larger role. Estrogen usage has been around too long so all studies are possibly flawed in this regard.

It is reported that estrogen and smoking doesn't mix well; maybe estrogen and carbs also are a deadly combination. All three sounds like a good way to get BC similar to the three-pack-a-day smoker wondering why they get lung-cancer after 30 years.

Michael Landon (Little House on the Prarie, and before that Bonanza] and my mother both died of pancreatic cancer and were of vaguely similar family background [East-European Jewish families]. Although younger, Landon lasted several decades by being on what could be described as an industrial-strength version of the Atkins diet, vigorous exercise, some alternative medicine, and high-dosage chemotherapy, experimental at the time but clearly the precursor of what is used routinely today, likely in lower dosages. Age is definitely a factor working against the young in most cancers, yet Landon beat the odds for the most part; most people are dead within 90 days after diagnosis.

My mother also lasted modestly longer, 14 months, due to an unusual aspect of her case that led to a quicker-than-usual diagnosis indirectly causing a blood workup anomaly that triggered the extra tests and eventualy a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. Without the anomaly, the usual course would have been expected. However, in her case, the tumor blocked the bile duct causing symptoms suggesting gall-bladder disease which was tested for, but instead led to the correct diagnosis of infant-stage pancreatic cancer. At her age, 77, this was actually operable but is the infamous Whipple procedure which has very bad long-term prognosis unrelated to the cancer. She died 14 months later primarily due to liver problems induced by the surgery, not the cancer. The cancer itself was detected so early that her pancreatic function was maintained even after the minimal surgery component regarding the pancreas itself. The main problem was the internal "rerouting" of the rest of her digestive system demanded by anything that causes this problem, which is often unrelated to cancer at all, etc.

So, even in my mother's case, the early detection was the factor that gave her some additionaly quality of life, if only somewhat so. Her age also helped to set the stage for all that happened. Michael Landon managed to survive far longer from a potentially poorer starting point being a relatively young man when he was diagnosed with the typical end-stage PC. But making it his life goal to survive which meant lifestyle changes that represent a greatly enlarged superset of what we must do merely to control our weight was what made the difference. Let him be an inspiration to all of us to get past all of our ills and likely controllable health problems, etc.

cjl

[Azlocarb]

I'm not sure if it has been brought up but I have read that some if not all cancers like getting there energy from glucose. There are some who think that by eating low carb you may be starving the cancer which allows the body more time to fight and defeat the bad cells.

[Nancy LC]

I saw an episode on "Mystery Diagnosis" where this guy was getting insanely low blood sugar. He's measure out at something like 35. Turns out, he had a tumour that was kicking out some sort of hormone (a growth factor) that was making him over produce insulin like hormone. What was so bizarre is he developed a totally different looking face, big enormous wrinkles, looked like one of those funny chineese dogs with the wrinkly faces. Anyway, its not a normal tumour thing, but a low carb diet might have killed this guy.

[Zuleikaa]

I would advise anyone who has any cancer or a family history of cancer to get their vitamin D levels checked and to check them periodically.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to 28 types of cancers. High vitamin D levels are cancer preventive. Vitamin D and vitamin D analogs have been used in the treatment of cancer alone and in conjunction with conventional therapy with excellent results.

As the Vitamin D Council says, "It's not yet 100% proven that vitamin D will prevent or cure cancer but why should you suffer from vitamin D deficiency at the same time you have cancer."

Or something to that effect.

Vitamin D tells cells when to die and cancer is unregulated cell growth.

Vitamin D deficiency is also linked to diabetes and insullin resistance and most cancers feed on sugar.

[Nancy LC]

Are there any online sources for getting vitamin levels checked, like healthcheckusa.com is for thyroid?

[Zuleikaa]

25-hydroxy-vitamin D

www.lab-safe.com $148

www.directlabs.com $118

http://www.lef.org/newshop/cgi-shop/showCategory.cgi?catid=23000&page=7 $62.67

http://www.preventivelabs.com $129

[theladyboo]

From the article "So, I certainly don't recommend consuming aspartame instead of sugar. Go for stevia instead. And once again, transition slowly. If you've been consuming a diet very high in sugar, as most Americans have, you won't have any success at all if you try to quit sugar cold turkey. You have to slowly transition off of sugar, week by week, month by month, until you are completely rid of it. In fact, a one-year plan for getting off of sugar is quite reasonable."

Snicker. I found that rather amusing. So, are we on the quick year plan with induction?

[Dodger]

From the article "So, I certainly don't recommend consuming aspartame instead of sugar. Go for stevia instead. And once again, transition slowly. If you've been consuming a diet very high in sugar, as most Americans have, you won't have any success at all if you try to quit sugar cold turkey. You have to slowly transition off of sugar, week by week, month by month, until you are completely rid of it. In fact, a one-year plan for getting off of sugar is quite reasonable."

Snicker. I found that rather amusing. So, are we on the quick year plan with induction?Dr. Lutz in "Life Without Bread" does recommend that people with known health problems transition slower to low carbs. He is talking about a couple of weeks though, not a year.

Taking a year would be like quitting smoking by cutting out one cigarette a day per week. Slow torture.

[Lessara]

This is such a duh!!
Isn't it common knowledge that
Cancer loves sugar?
I know, being diabetic, that I have more chance
of getting cancer due to high blood sugar.

[Dodger]

I'm not sure that cutting back on carbs would necessarily result in a cancer getting less glucose. I assume the cancer would be getting supplied with glucose from the blood. As it removed the sugar from the blood, the liver would supply more to keep the blood sugar from dropping too low. As it seems that the liver can produce up to 200 grams of glucose a day, the cancer could get what it needs from that.

[Nancy LC]

I saw a guy who had a tumour that just drained his blood of glucose. His blood sugar was getting dangerously low, like 35!

[TBoneMitch]

Dodger,

if the liver can only produce 200g of carbs a day, that is still well under what the average american eats...

So theoritically, a keto diet would reduce glucose availability to tumours.

That idea has been explored in a few clinical trials, with some encouraging success:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2736199&dopt=Citation

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/1/42

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1276814

[Dodger]

Tbone,

Yep,

It would limit the amount available, but not cut off the glucose. Of course any help in limiting the cancer is beneficial.

[ThomasCGT]

Of course they forgot to telll the ladies that 54% of those with breast cancer got it from the mammograms. They got 20 rads of radiation if they had followed the guidelines, (compared to 30 rads measured in survivors of the insane American nuking of Hiroshima civilians). And, what about all the other causes of cancer, bet they werent even considered. Heavy metals from deodarants, amalgams, food; parasites; tight bras restricting circulation etc. See The Cure For Cancer. Hulda Clark PhD. ND
Live long and prosper... Spock.

[Nancy LC]

This sounds supiciously like someone trying to sell a book.

The radiation you get from a mammogram is .7 msv, which is equal to 3 months of background radiation from just living on Earth.

[LC FP]

It would limit the amount available, but not cut off the glucose.

Mike, I read somewhere (but it's not in the Seyfried article -- T-bone's #3, where I thought it was) that ketone bodies inhibit glycolytic enzymes.

Normal cells generate ATP by both glycolysis (in the cell cytoplasm) and respiration (in mitochondria).

Tumor cells, according to these articles, have dysfunctional mitochondria and they generate most of their ATP from glycolysis. Even if glucose levels are adequate to provide energy for tumor cells due to liver gluconeogenesis, the presence of ketone bodies, (if they inhibit glycolytic enzymes), would diminish the tumor cells ability to produce ATP that way.

So tumor cells would be screwed by a ketogeniic diet. Their mitochondria don't work, and their glycolysis enzymes are inhibited by the ketone bodies. They can't generate enough ATP to maintain their cell membrane integrity, so they swell up and die.

At least that's the theory. I've had some people tell me this is too simplistic, and probably it is. But I'd like to see a head-to-head study of cancer patients treated with usual therapy vs usual therapy plus a ketogenic diet.

I wonder if Atkins foundation would fund one. I'm sure the concept would scare the hell out of the regular funding agencies and of course the drug industry. Especially if they had to stop the study early due to the marked superiority of the KD!!

[ceberezin]

Thanks, LC FP, your post clears up a question I've had about whether tumor cells could get sufficient glucose from gluconeogenesis. I'd love to see the study you suggest. Perhaps KD should be combined with intravenous vitamin C therapy, about which I've also read promising reports, as a way of treating cancer.

One more question . . . As per Michael Eades, even under strict ketogenic conditions, ketone bodies only replace about half the glucose requirements for those cells that require glucose but can also use ketone bodies, leaving about 70-80 grams of glucose/day supplied by gluconeogenesis. If ketone bodies ingbit glycolitic enzymes, do they prevent the glycolysis in normal cells that use glucose even under ketogenic conditions?

[LC FP]

ce

I wish I were an expert in this field, it's very interesting to me --especially the cancer implications. But this is how I think the process works in LCers like us:

If you inhibit glycolytic enzymes I doubt that means you stop them completely, probably just slow them down a little. But tumor cells only get a net of 2 ATPs per molecule of glucose from glycolysis so they're cycling those enzymes as fast as possible, and generating a ton of pyruvate (which is immediately transformed into lactic acid which diffuses out of the cell and becomes glucose again in the liver). So slowing the enzymes down even a little could have a big effect on total ATP generation per minute in the tumor cell.

A normal cell with slow glycolysis enzymes would still produce a lot of pyruvate which would enter normal mitochondria and be transformed into 36 more ATPs per glucose, so they'd still get the full energy complement from the available glucose.

Maybe we could run this past Dr. E...

[O Hydrate]

:help:
OKAY! I would like everyone on this site to look up, RIGHT NOW, a few facts about diabetes. The most important being that THERE ARE SEVERAL TYPES. If I see ".....which leads to diabetes" one more time, I will look into my options for a lawsuit. I feel that realistically I suffer considerable emotional damage when people mistakenly lump diabetes, and diabetes, all into the type two group. There is also type 1, people! It's chronic, unlike gestational, which for that reason I will not bring up futher. I'm not getting cured, in other words. And it wasn't caused by eating unhealthy foods. Or being grossly obese. Or smiting the devil. Or anything that may have caused type 2. So don't just say diabetes and diabetics WHEN YOU ARE REFERING SOLEY TO TYPE TWO, because it hurts and undermines the rest of us. Please. Have pity on the poor misunderstood masses, here, and add in those two words "type two." And spread the word. The discrimination and misinterpretation needs to stop. We Type One diabetics are people, too.
:help:

[shelleyros]

Has anyone ever looked into the effect that hormonal birth control has on insulin levels? I read once that during pregnancy we become more insulin resistant in order to ensure that blood sugar circulates longer so the baby can get to it. Perhaps hormonal birth control does the same thing. Permanent drug induced insulin resistance at a non-pathogenic level.....just enough to make us plump and bathe our breast cells in sugar and insulin.....

[WesleyT]

Thanks, LC FP, your post clears up a question I've had about whether tumor cells could get sufficient glucose from gluconeogenesis. I'd love to see the study you suggest. Perhaps KD should be combined with intravenous vitamin C therapy, about which I've also read promising reports, as a way of treating cancer.

One more question . . . As per Michael Eades, even under strict ketogenic conditions, ketone bodies only replace about half the glucose requirements for those cells that require glucose but can also use ketone bodies, leaving about 70-80 grams of glucose/day supplied by gluconeogenesis. If ketone bodies ingbit glycolitic enzymes, do they prevent the glycolysis in normal cells that use glucose even under ketogenic conditions?
why is that?
i beleive every cell thats able to use ketones, will use ketones

besides, remeber TheBear got cancer, he did eat a zero carb diet

[missymagoo]

i am glad to be back to low carbing again. after reading this article. i just had a annual mammagram yesterday and everything right now is good. low caribng is the answer for me. sue

[PG Girl]

This is the first time I've visited this forum and I'm new to the low carb regims........and loving it so far but it's only been 2 weeks.

About the study I noted that what some of the participants ate who had a higher rate of breast cancer were soft drinks and bread! I think soft drinks should be banned - ever looked at the ingredients. I remember a dietician once saying that if you couldn't pronounce an ingredient, you shouldn't be ingesting it! Makes sense to me! As for bread, well, we know it's the sugar and the refined flour that's the killer

But what do I know? My mother is 92 next month and her basic diet is Viva Puff cookies, white bread, and tea......her health is EXCELLENT!

[Dodger]

But what do I know? My mother is 92 next month and her basic diet is Viva Puff cookies, white bread, and tea......her health is EXCELLENT!Having good genes can overcome a lot of bad living habits.

[CLASYS]

Anecdotal remarks about dieticians may be cute, but many of us have disdain for professional dieticians, who, by and large are totally ignorant of anything remotely "dietary" except for the mantra just about all of us here are fighting against, due to widespread useful dietary information ignorance in that camp.

There is a somewhat flakey approach to life certain individuals take misunderstanding REAL nutrition, or science in general for that matter.

Did any dietician, or anyone claiming to be one, ever utter words to the effect "that stuff is filled with CHEMICALS!" ?

I hate to break it to them, but EVERYTHING, including our entire bodies, and the Earth, and the entire universe for that matter, is made of chemicals!

It's just another aspect of the manipulation to put a spin on what you want to bad-mouth. And it goes with its twin "Natural" in terms of misleadings, etc.

Much Rat Poison is natural. There are places where the radioactivity level is so high NATURALLY you shouldn't stay there for any length of time [unless you want to mine Uranium, which is in the form of a CHEMICAL and is indeed NATURAL].

Dieticians are likely one of the leading causes of obesity today. People place false hope in their recommendations all the time, and worse, get steered away from the WOE most of us here practice obtaining REAL results, not adherance to artificial and flawed recommendations from agencies sometimes disseminating information out of some combination of ignorance and hidden agendas, etc.

There are far worse things to drink than "soda" especially if it is of the type lacking sugar. But many dieticians want you to avoid "soda" as if all are 100% "evil" and instead have "healthy" stuff like unspecified "fruit juice" or even [gasp!] regular Snapple.

Yes, let's increase your "health" by switching from carbonated no-carb water to fructose-loaded liquids sometimes fortified with caffeine [which does real "wonderful" things to my insulin-resistance!]

Someone once said [Shakespeare I think] shoot the lawyers. If we were to make our own list, how far down would "shoot the dieticians" be on that list?

cjl (with reference to a study confirming the Atkins regimen actually working: "That violates the laws of Thermodynamics!" is the response, quoted in the media, by, I believe, a "dietician".)