I have breast cancer - what could I eat?
 

I am newly diagnosed, not yet staged, and this could get bad. It is in lymph and I am expecting lots and lots of chemo.

I have low-carbed since 2003, and since this is an aggressive hormone-sensitive cancer I'm not sure the high amounts of dairy fats I've eaten over the years have done me much good. My own hormones are of course the biggest factor right now as I'm only 41.

I would like to continue low-carbing and would appreciate suggestions for what may or may not help. I believe I should avoid dairy and anything with phytoestrogens right now, such as soy, flax, etc. Honestly I'm not really sure what to eat anymore. Quick and easy are going to become very important very soon.

Thanks for any help.

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There is quite good evidence that improving your omega 3 status will help the chemo work better

I'd personally try for a slightly ketogenic diet if I had a cancer diagnosis. There is evidence it helps Prostate cancer and the chances are it would also help breast cancer patients.

Vitamin D Prevents Cancer: Is It True?

I don't know if I have much dietary wisdom that would benefit you. I just wanted to say that I'm extremely sorry to hear this bad news. My heart goes out to you.

I do think that logically it would be good to avoid the foods with phytoestrogens. I don't know how important eliminating dairy would be, but if you can get adequate nutrients without the dairy, then maybe it wouldn't hurt to eliminate it. I personally wonder how many hormones and such would even be left in something like cheese?

I suppose you can't go wrong eating broccoli and spinach. I believe both of those are supposed to help cancer, plus they are low carb and full of nutrients.

Anyway, good luck to you. Keep us posted on how you are doing.

i don't have any suggestions as i don't eat most of the foods that western civilized people eat, but i wanted you to know how sorry i am to hear this and hope that you make a full recovery.
((((((((((hugs))))))))))

I was hoping that Hutchinson would ring in on this. If I had cancer, I would make my diet as ketogenic as possible plus add healthy amounts of vitamin D3.

Stay away from soy and take lots of vitamin D3.

Will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Post often and remember you have friends here. Take care. Hugssss

Wishing the best for you! I agree with Hutch.

Thank you all for the suggestions and well wishes. Hutchinson I have started the 10000 Vit D today, but how much O3 should I take? I will need to ask my doctors about it when they determine treatment and make sure it won't interfere with anything. Zuleika, don't worry, soy is definitely out too! Maybe I could cook some of those veggies in advance so they are ready when I need to feed myself something. And I just can't stop asking, why?

I'm hoping that even if there are mets that my age and otherwise great health will help carry me through this and that I'll have some more good years left to enjoy this earth. It really puts some things in perspective.

Sending thoughts/prayers for recovery. ITMT- LC will certainly be a good course to take.

I'll keep you in my prayers hon.

Possibly also keeping your protein lower and fats higher, especially sat fat, more along the lines of Optimal diet (rather than PP). Was also reading some interesting stuff on Ray Peat about amino acids, especially avoiding high tryptophan intake. Meats that have lower tryptophan and higher glycine would be the tough stuff with lots of connective tissue that turn to jelly when you cook them a long time. Cheeks, shanks, shoulder roasts, feet and so on. I'd be doing that in your situation (I probably should anyway). Lots of pot roasts, which are very easy (the oven does all the work), they just take a little planning.

If you can afford it you might look into the Eades' Souv Vide appliance too.

Wyvern, I actually have been doing Optimal since about April, and in fact before that was keto for years and absolutely never eat crap. While I don't believe that LC causes cancer I am here to say that it sure as hell didn't cure it, so if those tumor cells need glucose they are finding it somewhere. Perhaps it slowed it though, who knows. Back to keto now but with somewhat different foods! I'm concerned about animal fats that may have hormones - dairy has them naturally, but there is so much garbage and extra hormones in our conventional food supply that I'm cutting back on red meat now too. So everyone please think about that if you are doing Dr K or any other heavy animal fat diet. We live in a shitty polluted world. This could kill me very young and I'm in otherwise great health, it's still unbelievable.

Anyway, I'll look up what Ray Peat says and see if I can find ideas that will work well with "cleaner" foods. Thank you.

Sure, our body can make lots of glucose out of protein if it wants.

My sympathies, Grimalkin! I wish you the best possible outcome.


How about spare ribs? Pastured pork is really tasty, by the way, and spare ribs are just about the cheapest cut you can get, so that offsets the added price of getting good meat. Pork shoulder is cheap too, of course.

I don't think you have anything to worry about dairy fats, but the dairy proteins and sugars might be a problem. Ghee is basically pure dairy fat and it might be all right if you don't react to dairy otherwise.

Lard is a great alternative, although you obviously should avoid the kind with preservatives and trans-fats. If you can't locate a farmer who sells pure lard, you can make it yourself by getting scraps of pork fat from the butcher and rendering them in a pot.

Coconut oil is another popular alternative to dairy fat. Many dishes that use heavy cream can be made with coconut milk, though you may need to adjust the spices - think Thai instead of French.

Some other things I have heard about cancer:

Broth is generally a good healing food. It's easily digestible and has a good balance of proteins and minerals.

Although not everyone agrees, some people think live fermented foods can help, especially with recovering from chemotherapy. Kombucha is the most recommended item, although I have to say that my body does not tolerate it.

Improving outcome of chemotherapy of metastatic breast cancer by docosahexaenoic acid: a phase II trialTo achieve a sufficient incorporation of DHA into tissue cell membrane phospholipids, an amount of 1.8 g/day of DHA..........DHA during chemotherapy was devoid of adverse side effects and can improve the outcome of chemotherapy when highly incorporated. DHA has a potential to specifically chemosensitise tumours.

This is pretty high in DHAEPA 425 - 600 mg DHA 740 - 850 mg 1 tsp twice daily would be fine.

Obviously you don't want to get into controversial situations with your health professionals but bear in mind this research (like the Vitamin D3 research I've been excited about recently, was only published last month. It sometimes takes many years before the latest research becomes common knowledge amongst health professionals. It may be worth downloading the paper and taking it with you so they can see where you are coming from.

I should also point out that omega 6 dsplaces omega 3 so if you take your omega 3 and then consume some industrial vegetable oils such as corn, soybean, safflower and sunflower oil, or anything that contains them. This includes most processed foods, especially mayonnaise, grocery store salad dressings, and fried foods, the omega 6 will be incorporated and not the omega 3. So you have to be strict about eliminating omega 6 if you want the omega 3 to be absorbed and moved into cell tissue.

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Here's something encouraging for you: That's because they've shown exactly how restricted calorie diets -- specifically in the form of restricted glucose -- help human cells live longer.

I'm sorry to hear this news.

I agree with the responses given here. Avoid estrogenic foods, stay in deep ketosis, increase fat, and reduce protein. A study came out this year which dispelled the soy/cancer relation. I haven't read the actual study but I would still avoid soy like the plague. Check every single label. Even salad dressing contains soy lecithin. Ideally, stick to whole foods which don't need labels: veggies, meat, and eggs.

You may have read about this study before. It's excellent. Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer?

Finally, look up Insulin Potentiation Therapy. Dr. Eades of Protein Power talks about it. It uses a fraction of the regular amount of chemotherapy after lowering blood glucose with insulin. This apparently weakens the cancer cells, requiring less chemo.

I hope you have a speedy recovery! :rheart:

BTW Nancy--excellent article! Thanks for posting it.

Hi Hutchinson,
Can you recommend a fish oil that doesn't contain soy? I'll need to avoid anything potentially estrogenic. The Vitamin D seems to be helping my mood so far at least (and hopefully more than that) as I wait to find out more. Thanks a lot and to everyone else who's offered suggestions.

Natural Factors, RxOmega-3 Factors, EPA 1500 mg/DHA 750 mg, Natural Orange Flavor, 8 fl oz As you only need one teaspoon of this it isn't quite as expensive as it looks.

Why "slightly" ketogenic?

hi, i found a link for you, i'm sorry your dealing with this. I am praying for you....

http://www.stanford.edu/group/ketodiet/mealplnr.xls




Gina.

hi, do you think other fish oils, like you buy at the store is toxic? full of mercury? thankyou.

No, don't worry about it. I don't think consumer labs has ever found mercury in any fish oil they've tested.

I am, by no means trying to answer for Ted, but as for me, I would keep my diet ketogenic because 1. It maintains cells, organs etc. 2. It increases the absobablity of vitamin D 3. It starves cancer cells. Ketones, in themselves are, in a sense, a natural medecine that the body makes.

I would also eat grassfed meats that have not been treated with antibiotics or any other meds.

I think ketogenic is a great idea. I was just wondering why he suggested she go "slightly" ketogenic.

Yes, I wondered that too. But, I also was thinking that he meant to go at least "slightly" ketogenic as a minnimum goal.

Grimalkin, I'm so sorry to hear of your bad news. It's very frightening. I know, because I've been there. :(

I am an 11 1/2-year survivor of the kind of cancer you have been diagnosed with. I had 5 tumors and all of the lymph nodes in my right axilla were involved, as well. I had heavy chemo for 4 months, but no radiation.

The doctor gave me something with the chemo to prevent nausea, because it would have been dangerous for me not to be able to keep down my anti-seizure meds. The worst problem I had was severe constipation, so I suggest you keep something on hand to use for that.

If you ever need someone to talk to, please feel free to get in touch with me, either by PM or in my journal. :bhug: :bhug:

I don't worry about mercury in fish oils either.
The one I recommended is particularly concentrated and because it's Pharmaceutical Grade it's molecularly distilled that can allow them to claim potential mercury/heavy metals contamination has been removed.

However, ensuring you have sufficient selenium sources in your diet/or supplements should more than counter the effects of mercury.

The Roles of Serum Selenium and Selenoproteins on Mercury Toxicity

and Selenium: Mercury's Magnet

The reason I am in favor of consuming sufficient complex carbohydrates to stay "slightly" ketogenic rather than deeply ketogenic is that I've been reading a lot about butyrate recently.

The best ways to increase butyrate production in the gut are to increase consumption of soluble fiber such as fructooligosaccharide (FOS) and increase intake of resistant starches, which are a component of most vegetables.

One good source of FOS is a banana and I wouldn't want the aim of staying totally in ketosis 24/7 to put anyone off eating a banana from time to time for it's possible butryrate production.

Sodium Butyrate Induces G2 Arrest in the Human Breast Cancer Cells MDA-MB-231 and Renders Them Competent for DNA replication

Don and I have had an exchange of words with the author of this report He very kindly sent me a copy of his paper so if anyone would like a look to see if am being fair to him, please PM me.

In situations where it is important the information gained from cutting edge research is acted upon in a sensible and reasonable manner to improve where possible the outcomes for cancer victims it is absolutely vital there is absolutely no unnecessary confusion.

This research was about glucose restriction. There are some people reading this particular forum who are extremely interested in the differences between the effects of glucose as opposed to the effects of ketones on cancer cell metabolism.
It may indeed be absolutely true that calorie restriction, whatever source that calorie came from, has exactly the same effect on lung cancer cell metabolism.
This researched measured the effects of glucose restriction.
that is why the paper was titled
Glucose restriction can extend normal cell life
but the media release states
Calorie Restriction: Scientists Take Important Step Toward 'Fountain of Youth'
maybe the author of the paper will come back with further comments.
Watch this space. But remember this research is about cellular metabolism and that is a very complicated area and I can quite see why the researchers wanted to simplify wording in the press release.

I'm so sorry to read this and I wish you all the health, wisdom, strength and endurance in the world.