Breast Cancer Diet.

You’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer, a potentially fatal disease. That's daunting enough. But now you also have to consider all of your treatment options for removing the tumor and preventing a recurrence: mastectomy, lumpectomy, and axillary node dissection; radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy.

Along with these choices, however, there is one that can keep you alive longer than the average person diagnosed with breast cancer.

Red marks from tight bras.

 "A change in lifestyle is the only factor that has been scientifically proven to extend the average life span of women with breast cancer," says Charles Simone, M.D., director of the Simone Protective Cancer Center in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.Why is lifestyle so important? "A change in lifestyle stops 'feeding' the tumor and boosts the immune system so that it can more effectively fight cancer," Dr. Simone says. The most important change, he says, is eliminating the foods that he believes contribute to 40 to 60 percent of all breast cancer.

FOOD: Stop Eating Red Meat and Dairy Products
According to Dr. Simone, more than 100 scientific studies show that saturated fat-the kind in red meat and dairy products-can increase the risk of cancer. "The saturated fat found in red meat and dairy products feeds a tumor," he believes. "If you remove that fat from the diet-and you will remove most of it by cutting out beef, pork, lamb, veal, and dairy products-you will slow the rate at which a tumor grows and perhaps even stop its growth."

All dairy products, even those such as fat-free milk, contain potential tumor-promoting growth hormones that are fed to cows to improve their milk production, believes Elizabeth Ann Lowenthal, D.O., an osteopathic physician and cancer specialist in Alabaster, Alabama. "The dairy industry uses many such hormones that promote the growth of breast cancer cells in a laboratory setting," she says.
Additionally, it is at least theoretically possible that bovine papilloma virus shed from udders of milk cows could have a tumor-promoting effect in human breast tissue. This virus is widespread in cows and is closely related to the human papilloma virus that is linked to cervical cancer in humans.

In fact, Dr. Lowenthal theorizes that the cause of the rapidly rising rate of breast cancer in Western countries may be the increasing consumption of dairy products. For this reason, she advises all of her breast cancer patients to eliminate dairy products from their diets and to take a daily 1,500-milligram calcium supplement that contains vitaminD.

FOOD: Don't Peed Your Tumor's Sweet Tooth
Whether the sugar you eat is sucrose (refined white sugar) or fructose, maltose, or dextrose (natural sugars that are also used as commercial sweeteners), it all turns into blood sugar, or glucose. Some alternative practitioners believe that cancer cells rely on a metabolic process that is driven by glucose, Dr. Lowenthal says. "One of the first things I ask my patients with breast cancer to do
is to get off sugar," she says. You can do that by staying away from sugary desserts, not adding sugar to any food, eating a limited amount of fruit, and drinking fruit juice only once or twice a week.

WATER: Make Yours Distilled
Dr. Simone urges his patients to purchase a home water distiller, which costs about $200. He contends that the distillation process removes all possible carcinogens from your drinking water-a must for anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer, he says.

ALCOHOL: A Must to Avoid
Alcohol is a carcinogen. Having two or three drinks a week
(a drink is one shot of distilled spirits, 4 ounces of wine, or 12 ounces of beer) increases your risk of developing breast cancer, Dr. Simone says. The same amount of alcohol can double a tumor's growth rate, he says. So, if you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, don't drink.

TOBACCO: Avoid Smoke-Yours and Others'
Approximately 30 percent of all cancers are caused by inhaling to
bacco smoke, which is loaded with carcinogens, Dr. Simone says. It creates free radicals, unstable molecules that can damage DNA and trigger cancer. It burns up antioxidant vitamins such as vitamin C, which are cancer protective. And it erodes your immune system, your main defense against cancer.

If you're a smoker, and you've been diagnosed with breast cancer, quit. If you smoke, your cancer is more likely to spread. Avoid secondhand smoke as well.

EXERCISE: Walk Four Times a Week
Cancer thrives in an oxygen-poor environment. Mild aerobic exercise fights cancer by stimulating the immune system and oxygenating the body, Dr. Simone says. Walking is the most inexpensive and convenient form of aerobic exercise, he says. If his breast cancer patients are over 40 or don't exercise regularly, he has them checked for cardiovascular risk factors. If their circulatory systems are normal, he has them start a walking program, gradually increasing the pace and distance until they're walking briskly for 2 miles four times a week.

STRESS REDUCTION: Calm Your Mind
Mental stress (a worried, overloaded mind) weakens the immune system. Mental ease (a calm, quiet mind) strengthens it-and a stronger immune system means more resistance to cancer. Dr. Simone suggests four easy ways for his patients with breast cancer to reduce mental stress.

. Take a hot shower.
. Listen to calming music.
. Pray or meditate, repeating a single thought or process (like watching your breath) over and over.

. Be sexually intimate, either by having intercourse or just hugging and cuddling.

Beating Cancer with Nutritional Supplements
"There are specific nutrients that have a demonstrated ability to help slow the progression of breast cancer," says Patrick Quillin, RD., Ph.D., director of nutrition for Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here are his recommendations for breast cancer patients. He emphasizes that you should use these supplements only with the approval and supervision of your doctor.

CLA: Help for Your Immune System
Conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, is a component of fat that is found abundantly in animals such as "free-range" cattle, sheep, pigs, or chickens that are allowed to wander and feed freely. Scientists theorize that CLA is part of a receptor on the surface of cells that tells the immune system if the cell is a normal cell or a cancer cell. If that receptor lacks CLA and doesn't function properly, the cancer cell isn't recognized-and isn't killed.
Dr. Quillin recommends that breast cancer patients take 3,000 milligrams a day of a CLA supplement.

GENISTEIN: Putting Soy_ Anti-Cancer Power to Work
Studies show that eating more soy products such as tofu (soybean curd) may lower your risk of cancer. And the most powerful anti-cancer substance in soy products may be the food chemical genistein, Dr. Quillin says.
Research shows that genistein can help kill cancer cells, stop a tumor's spread through the body, and keep a tumor from growing blood vessels. Some doctors have told women with breast cancer not to eat moresoy or take soy supplements like genistein because soy contains phytoestrogens, natural estrogens with about half the strength of the hormone manufactured by the body. But study after study shows that phytoestrogens don't increase the risk of breast cancer or accelerate the disease. In fact, genistein does just the opposite by slowing cancer growth, says Dr. Quillin. He recommends that women with breast cancer either take a genistein supplement of 6 milligrams daily or eat more soy.

COENZVME QlO: To Help Stop Tumor Growth
This supplement helps generate the cellular energy that makes your body work. When you are young and healthy, your body usually manufactures the coenzyme QlO (COQlO) that it needs. But aging or illness can cause a shortage of COQlO that can result in a cellular environment that's favorable to tumor growth, Dr. Quillin says.

In a study of COQlO'S cancer-fighting power, scientists gave 90 milligrams a day of the supplement to 32 high-risk patients with breast cancer. Six patients-almost 20 percent of those taking the supplement-experienced partial regressions of their tumors. When the researchers increased the dose to 390 milligrams for one of these six women, she experienced a complete remission.
"If those results were from taking a drug, there would be dancing in the streets, and the stock of the drug company would shoot up," Dr. Quillin says. "Because this was a study of a nutrient, however, there was very little attention paid to the results."
Dr. Quillin recommends that women with breast cancer take 100 milligrams of COQI0 daily. It's safe to take this supplement for extended periods.

Is There A Link Between Bras and Breast Cancer ( red marks from tight bras ).
A study has revealed a causative factor for breast cancer that can increase your risk of getting the disease by 100 times: Wearing a bra for more than 12 hours a day.
That's the remarkable finding of Sydney Ross Singer, an applied medical anthropologist who, with his scientific assistant (his wife, Soma Grismaijer), wrote Dressed to Kill: The Link between Breast Cancer and Bras. Singer and Grismaijer interviewed more than 2,000 women with breast cancer and another 2,000 women without breast cancer, asking them a series of questions about their use of bras. Here's what they found.
. A woman who wears a bra 24 hours a day is 113 times more likely to get breast cancer than a woman who wears a bra less than 12 hours a day.

(That statistical link is stronger than the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, Singer says.)
. A woman who never wears a bra is 21 times less likely to get breast cancer than a woman in the general population.
Singer hypothesizes that the straps, side panels, underwires, and other structures of the garment cut off drainage from the lymphatic system, which helps remove toxins and waste products from the cells. The longer you wear a bra, the more hours those toxins are trapped in your breasts. The end result, after many years of bra use, can be a breast tumor, Singer says. Needless to say, the medical establishment hasn't embraced this theory. "The current medical model for the cause of breast cancer is bio chemical and genetic, ignoring the simple mechanical fact of what clothing constriction can do to the body:' Singer says.

There are some alternative physicians, however, who think Singer's theory might be true. "Bras and other tight clothing can impede the flow of the lymph fluid out of the breast," says Michael Schachter, M.D., director of the Schachter Center for Complementary Medicine in Suffern, New York. "Thus, wearing a bra might contribute to the development of breast cancer as a result of cutting off lymphatic drainage so that toxic chemicals are trapped in the breast. The take-home message to women from Singer's research is: Wear bras as little as possible."
Singer advises women to try his "risk-free, cost-free lifestyle experiment" for preventing the disease by either going bra-free or wearing a bra less than 12 hours a day (which definitely means not wearing it to bed). He also says to avoid bras with under wires and other stiff, breast shaping components, as well as push-up bras. When selecting a bra, be sure it's the right size. One tip from Singer and Grismaijer on selecting a bra that's not too tight: When you try it on, slide two fingers under the shoulder straps and the side panels. If the bra fits properly, your fingers should slide easily. The bra also should not leave marks or dents on your skin. If it does, it's too tight. "Women need to realize that wearing bras is a cultural phenomenon, not a natural one," says Singer.