With the intense focus on combating breast cancer, and with millions of pounds going into research, why do we have one of the worst survival rates in the western world?

One in 8 women develop breast cancer in the USA - one in 11 in the UK. Each year over 30,000 women in Britain are diagnosed as having the disease and over 15,000 die of it - that is 300 deaths a week and is still the leading cause of death for women between 35 and 54. Breast cancer is roughly six times more common in Britain and the US than in Japan. Interestingly however, when Japanese women move to the west their chance of developing breast cancer increases to similar levels - indicating that the impact of environmental and dietary factors are important to consider.

Additionally more young women are contracting the disease and the development of breast cancer can be especially rapid in young women. This is probably because their natural cell division rate is faster than that of older women.

Other factors include the fact that more women are choosing to have children later in life probably reducing the protective effect that progesterone offers during pregnancy. Younger women are smoking more, which has recently been linked to increased breast cancer risk, as has the increase in women who drink alcohol regularly. Additionally their diets are different to those of previous decades with fat and sugar levels rising dramatically. There is a 50% greater risk for women developing breast cancer if they took the pill before the age of 20.

Elevated oestrogen levels are linked to an increased risk of breast cancer and is relevant in 80% of breast cancers that are termed oestrogen receptor positive. It is believed that as oestrogen stimulates the growth and division of breast tissue cells - the greater the growth rate, the greater the risk of cancerous mutations. As it is also responsible for fat deposition in breasts it is also possible that this is a risk factor as fat oxidises easily contributing a source of free-radical activity - highly reactive chemicals that can damage cells.

Our exposure to oestrogens in the environment, called xeno-oestrogens, is thought to contribute significantly to the marked increase of breast cancer incidence. Apart from the pill and HRT, there are many other ways in which we are exposed. Even if we are not actually taking artificial hormones, they find their way into the water supply, as do hundreds oestrogen mimicking chemicals used in farming and industry. My local water board when questioned about this problem said that research was being conducted, but admitted that it was within "the limits of present day knowledge" - they simply don’t know what the long term implications are! Organochlorides, pesticides, petroleum products, plastics (especially soft plastics like food wrapping)... all have oestrogen mimicking qualities.

In addition to the problem of exposure, our diet in the west tends to be high in fat and low in fibre. These two factors reduce the ability to excrete circulating oestrogens. It has been shown that stool weight in women is inversely proportional to systemic oestrogen levels. Constipated women are more likely to have pre-cancerous cellular abnormalities in their breasts than non-constipated women. Vegetarian women, with a high fibre, low animal fat diet, have lower oestrogen levels and correspondingly lower incidence of breast cancer than meat eaters.

Dr John Lee has written extensively on the subject of oestrogen dominance. He points out that beyond the age of about 35 women start to have anovulatory cycles - this means that though they are menstruating regularly, they do not produced an egg at every cycle. The significance of this is that in these circumstances oestrogen is being produced, but no progesterone, further exacerbating exposure to oestrogens.

Another factor in the development of cancer is the effect of stress and many women develop breast cancer after a major even such as divorce or bereavement. It is well known that stress suppresses the immune system and uses up nutrients that may be of value in combating breast cancer

Obesity contributes to the problem. Oestrone and oestrodiol, both carcinogenic oestrogens, can be produced to excess by fat cells. To make matters worse, we store oestrogenic chemicals in our body fat - as do all animals. So by eating animal fats we increase our exposure even further. The perfect example is Lindane used extensively in farming, especially on sugar beet crops. It has been banned in most countries, and it is extraordinary, even scandalous, that the UK has not followed suit, despite evidence that it is concentrated in tissues of women with breast cancer in agricultural areas where it is used. Our main exposure is from drinking cows milk and eating butter - Lindane gets into the cow from grass that it eats, concentrates in the cow’s fat and then we drink it’s milk...

The liver is the organ responsible for converting the carcinogenic oestrogens, oestrodiol and oestrone, into the non-carcinogenic oestriol via a process called hydroxilation. It is probable that sub-optimal liver function, along with nutritional deficiencies, can result in an impaired ability to make that conversion - certainly the presence of breast cancer is negatively correlated with oestriol quotients. It is also important to look at thyroid function, as thyroxine reduces oestrogen by improving the liver’s ability to excrete it.

A number of foods, and herbs, are known to exhibit a mild oestrogenic effect and, as such, work in the same way as Tamoxifen (the anti-breast cancer drug) by blocking cell receptor sites whilst being only about 1000th of the potency of physiological oestrogens. The foods that are most rich in these phytoestrogens are fermented soya products such as tofu, tempeh and miso. Other soya products are also an important source such as soya milk and soya protein (though the effects of genetic engineering on soya products is unknown). The celery family, including fennel, rhubarb and aniseed, have good levels as do whole grains such as wheat, oats and rye, and ginseng is also potent. These oestrogen balancing foods, and soya in particular, also seem to have important uses for helping symptoms of the menopause, PMS, reducing the risk of heart disease and also improving the odds against osteoporosis.

I have put together a 12-step dietary programme which I cover in detail in my book The Breast Cancer Prevention and Recovery Diet. Cancer is not a simple disease, and there are many factors, as I have already mentioned, such as how many pregnancies you have had and how late you go through your menopause. Some factors you can change for the better, and I believe they can have a tremendous impact on your chances of developing the disease or recovering from it. The research is supporting this hypothesis. These are the rudiments of the 12-step programme:

1. 1. Eat five portions of fruit and vegetables daily, and seven to ten portions are even better. Eat them raw, cooked, juiced, as soups or salads – it doesn’t matter just eat them!
2. Eat three portions of oily fish weekly – salmon, sardines, makerel, tuna, herrings, anchovies, etc.
3. Eat a portion of pulses a day – this can include all the legume family: peas, beans, chick peas, lentils, etc. Add them to salads, eat them as a vegetable, include them in soups, sprout them, make dips from them or use them in ethnic cooking.
4. Use olive oil and flax oil – virgin olive oil is best for cooking, while cold-pressed flax oil is ideal for salads.
5. Eat a portion of soya five times a week – make it into smoothies, add to stir frys, mash into casseroles, marinate and toss in salads, make kebabs, snack on soya flakes (taste nutty), eat soya snack bars, add soya flakes to mueslies, or use soya beans in cooking.
6. Consume at least 25g of fibre daily. Eat fibre rich foods such as vegetables, pulses and other legumes, fruit, oats and wholegrains.
7. Ad 2 tbsp of linseeds to food daily. These can be added to breakfast cereals, baking, fruit salads, salads, rice dishes, etc.
8. Buy organic food and drinks.
9. Treat meat as a condiment, not as the main event. Go easy on the dairy.
10. Drink at least 1.5 litres of water daily.
11. Reduce intake of fats to less than 30% daily. If you eat 2000 calories in a day, this means eating 70g of fat or less.
12. Foods to avoid include, or cut back to a minimum, are alcohol, sugar, refined grains (white bread, white rice, etc), coffee, very strong tea. Also smoking and unnecessary drugs.

Don’t aim to do all this in one go, take time to make changes and they will stick. Don’t get fanatical, but do enjoy the process. Make sure you exercise – a walk, a swim, some yoga, something to get moving and stretching.

For more information see my book The Breast Cancer Prevention and Recovery Diet and click here for more information.

 

MY STORY

In 1975, at the age of 16, I landed a job at the Cancer Research Campaign. I was horrified to hear that 1 in 4 of the population developed cancer and that 1 in 5 died from ‘the big C’. It was the first time mortality had made a real impression on me!

When, as an slightly more wordly-wise 30 year old, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was saddened to learn that the rate had increased to 1 in 3.

During treatment (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) I was, variously, depressed, angry, scared and confused. However the starkness of these figures permeated my thinking. It was obvious to me that something had changed to create this situation - and yet when I asked the doctors if the huge stress in my life or my poor diet had anything to do with my becoming a ‘statistic’ I was not given any useful information. Logic told me that if human physiology had not changed, but our environment and diets had, then it was likely that the latter were largely responsible.

I began to clean up my diet, manage my stress levels by reorganising my life, and learn about the nutrients that could improve my health. The list of health issues that I sorted out along the way makes interesting reading for a hypochondriac: low thyroid function, blood sugar imbalance, yeast infections, PMS, low energy levels, and more! After dealing with the basics I also used natural progesterone for a couple of years to help balance out my obvious oestrogen dominance problems, stopping in my third month of pregnancy when my body was providing enough.

Now, 12 years post diagnosis, I am sure that my clients benefit from my personal experience - and my success in treating them is linked to the fact that I treat all their health concerns and not just the cancer patient that they present themselves as. With nutrient therapy, they are able to feel extremely well throughout their conventional treatment, marvelling that chemotherapy does not have the negative effects that both they and their doctors expect them to experience.

Many of my clients are young women in their early thirties, often with young families and scared of the consequences, or childless and terrified that their treatment will now ruin their chances of ever conceiving. I am here to tell them that by paying attention to their health and taking responsibility for their treatment by shopping around and making sure they get the best that is available (the NHS offers more options than people realise), that they can load the dice in their favour and hope to live a long and happy life.

In the year 2005, when my young son will be 10 years old, it is projected that 1 in 2 of the population could develop cancer. It is up to us as individuals to take all the protective measures we can. My son was born despite my being told that chemotherapy would reduce my chances of conceiving - proof positive for me that the powers of healing are wonderful if you really go for it!

© Suzannah Olivier 2000

For more information on my book The Breast Cancer Prevention and Recovery Diet and click here.