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.

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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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