Certain foods can accelerate breast cancer growth

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 14:09:10 GMT

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.

Doctors: Lifestyle factors are linked to Alzheimer’s

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 13:38:08 GMT

Doctors: Lifestyle factors are linked to Alzheimer’s

Every 66 seconds, someone in the Unites States develops Alzheimer’s disease, a type of dementia that is irreversible. The progressive brain disease affects an estimated 5.4 million Americans; by 2030 that number could rise to as high as 14 million.

The causes of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are not completely understood, but researchers believe they include a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. In more than 90 percent of people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms do not appear until after age 60. The incidence of the disease increases with age and doubles every five years beyond age 65. Experts now believe the amyloid plaques and the tangles that are hallmark of this disease start occurring in people’s brains 10 to 15 years before any symptoms, such as memory loss , begin to show.

About two-thirds of people with Alzheimer’s are women. One in 6 women will develop Alzheimer’s after 65, while for men, the chances are only 1 in 11. Women in their 60s are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as they are to develop breast cancer.

The total payments for health care, long-term and hospice care for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias are estimated to be $290 billion a year. Medicare pays almost half of these costs. The economic impact of the disease would be $1.1 trillion a year by 2030.

The World health Organization estimated in 2015 that the total number of people with Alzheimer’s worldwide will rise to 135.5 million by 2050. By then, global costs will hit $20 trillion.

Despite the billions of dollars spent on research, there is still no cure. Our current therapeutic approach is to slow down the progression of the disease. Unfortunately, many drug trials have failed to show improvement in the last few years and that forces us to think differently and focus on prevention. Until new drugs are developed that could intervene before irreversible brain damage is done, is there anything we can do to prevent this deadly disease?

The answer is yes, according to Drs. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, who will be speaking at the Food is Medicine seminar on Saturday at the Wagner Noel. They claim that 90 percent of Alzheimer’s cases are preventable through lifestyle factors. Through rigorous clinical studies and research helping thousands of patients, the Sherzais, who are neurologists, researchers and co-directors of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center, have uncovered the key lifestyle components contributing to this worldwide epidemic. They’ve also developed a solution: The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program, which could help people avoid developing this terrible disease and even reverse cognitive decline. The human brain is a living universe that responds to what you feed it, how you treat it, when you challenge it and the ways in which you allow it to rest.

--Drs. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, authors of “The Alzheimer’s Solution.” They will present compelling data that proves that Alzheimer’s is deeply influenced by lifestyle factors such as diet, how often we exercise and the quality of our sleep. They explain in their book, that while it may be easier to blame our genes for this devastating disease, this false belief is killing millions. The truth is much harder to accept: We bring Alzheimer’s disease into our households through the choices we make every day.

--Dr. James Loomis will be addressing plant-based nutrition for optimal performance and optimal health. He is featured in “The Game Changers,” a movie coming out this summer, and was the former team internist for the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Cardinals.

--Dr. Scott Stoll will discuss the seven pillars of plant-based nutrition and dispel common food myths. He is the author of “Alive!” and co-founder of the Plantrician Project and the International Plant-based Nutrition Healthcare Conference.

--Dr. Michael Greger will discuss the role of diet in preventing, arresting and reversing top 15 causes of death in America. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller “How Not to Die” and founder of nutritionfacts.org .

By Dr. Padmaja Patel is a board member of Healthy City medical director of the Lifestyle Medicine Center.

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Certain foods can accelerate breast cancer growth