Certain foods can accelerate breast cancer growth
Certain foods can accelerate breast cancer growth
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month is approaches, physicians continue to emphasize educating women about signs and symptoms of breast cancer, detection by self-breast examination and getting mammograms. These are all great measures of early detection.
Unfortunately, what we define as early detection is, in reality, a late detection. Breast cancer does not occur overnight. You may feel a lump that began many years ago. One or two cancer cells never hurt anyone, but by the time a tumor is picked up by a mammogram, it may have a billion cancer cells. From one cancer cell to billion cancer cells may take 25 days to 1,000 days or more.
Where you fall on that timescale may depend in part on what you eat. Breast cancer screening, by definition, does not prevent breast cancer.
About 1 in 8 U.S. women (12 percent) will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetime. Fortunately, the incidence rates have been declining since 2000 because of reduced use of hormone replacement therapy. About 42,260 women are expected to die from breast cancer in 2019. There are 3.1 million women with history of breast cancer. About 5 to 10 percent of these cases can be linked to genetic mutations, whereas 85 percent of cases occur in those who don't have a family history of breast cancer.
According to American Institute of Cancer Research, 38 percent of breast cancer cases in the United States are preventable through improved diet and physical activity patterns, and by avoiding obesity. Based on autopsy studies, as many as 39 percent of women in their 40s already have breast cancers that may be too small to be picked up by mammograms.
Diet could change the course of those mutated abnormal cells that potentially may turn into cancer. Diet can have as powerful of a potential at preventing diseases as
drugs have for treating them.
The American Institute of Cancer Research has a list of food that fight cancer: apples, blueberries, broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, carrots, cherries, cranberries, flaxseed, grapefruit, legumes (dry beans, peas and lentils), soy, squash, tea, walnuts, whole grains, berries, dark green leafy vegetables, garlic, tomatoes, grapes and grape juice.
