Are YOU what you eat (and drink)?

[AlaskaAngel]

Last night on the TV news the connection between diet and cancer was raised again. I looked on the news forum on this website and found this about it:

http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30899

That link takes you to:

http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/news-193057-66.html

(I post both in case one link happens to disappear or change, for those who might be reading this post later on, and to show appreciation for Joe's efforts in providing the news links.)

Also, as noted at the end of the healthcentral link,

"<O:p</O:pThe WCRF report can be found at: <A href="http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/" target=_blank>http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/<O:p</O:p (http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/)" (http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/)

By extension, in considering the questions about diet (and excess weight in particular) that are emphasized in the report on the news last night, I wonder whether more serious consideration by our medical providers should be focused on the question I raised earlier in regard to medications used in support of treatment with chemotherapy:

http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30746 (http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30746)


Again -- although the comments of others with bc who went through treatment and either reduced or avoided the use of these medications altogether while doing chemo are anecdotal only, considering the complexity of the issues involved with weight gain, these anecdotes do offer the possibility for better treatment in the future. If further study is done to find out whether these medications are actually very necessary for different types of chemo regimens, and whether or not at least the dose could be lessened, it might save a lot of money used for the drugs in the first place, the anguish of dealing with excess weight gain, and the risk for further cancer.

Would any of those who are attending SABCS consider raising this question there?

[Hopeful]

AA,

Thanks for the link. I heard this reported on all the major networks last night. It will take me a little bit to work through the 500 pages of the report, and I will reserve further comment until then. My gut reaction (no pun intended) is to approach it with a healthy skepticism, the same as I do all other pronouncements from on high. It is important to distinguish between an association and a cause and effect relationship.

For example, there is at least one study showning an inverse relationship between body mass index and Her2+ bc, which has been posted here. It would thus appear that one could dutifully follow the advice to be as lean as possible, and still acquire Her2+ bc.

Just MHO.

Hopeful

[AlaskaAngel]

Hi Hopeful,

If there is an increased risk, it wouldn't be only diet/weight gain because after all, the lifetime incidence is only 1 in 7 or 8 for getting bc and we all know that the other 6 or 7 out there are not really much skinnier than we are. So I suppose the risk is first based on genetics and then on added risk with excessive weight gain.

But I still question the issue of alcohol per se, for example, being an added risk factor because I think if it does increase the risk, it might do so just for those people who don't maintain a normal BMI. In other words, is alcohol really the risk factor, or is the added caloric/carbs from alcohol actually the problem and no different than calories or carbs from other food sources as long as a person either exercises more so as to limit excess weight gain? It IS harder to limit the total calories/carbs and still get in the necessary nutrients if one adds a fairly non-nutritional source of energy. If a woman consumes 2-3 times the "allowable" amount, she may just need to make sure she exercises off those extra calories rather than reducing one of the more essential foods with essential nutrients. So maybe alcohol contributes in that sense -- but otherwise, alcohol in itself might not be any more risky for cancer than any other food.

I do think that the routine use/dose of steroids in support of treatment needs to be examined much more closely for justification in light of the conclusions reached in the report, though, because weight gain as a common result with treatment is clearly recognized as being a significant problem.

A.A.

[Hopeful]

A.A.,

I am not addressing the routine use/dose of steriods for chemo issue in relation to this report. Whether or not the resultant amount of weight gained as a result of these meds reaches a level deemed to be unhealthy, the gain itself is a huge QOL issue and deserves closer scrutiny on that basis alone. If this report can have the beneficial effect of causing doctors to scrutinize that practice, it will have served a useful purpose.

In much of what I have read so far, I am not comfortable with the way in which the information has been processed to arrive at conclusions that appear to me to frequently be hypothesis generating rather than a basis for a particular action. I still harken back to the article on epidemiology I posted in the articles forum last month http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30085&referrerid=1173 as a cautionary note on how to interpret associations without clear cut cause and effect relationships. For anyone who downloads the report, the description of how the authors defined causality is found on page 82 of the pdf file which is technically page 57 of the report.

Still wading through too much info for more specific comment/criticism.

Hopeful