Complexities of a cancer beating diet

Professor Richard Beliveau's book "Foods that fight cancer" arrived today. Shame I used eBay rather than Amazon to get it cheaper, waited 10 days instead of Amazon''s typical two or three days.

On initial inspection it seems too trivial for me......probably a quarter of the pages are full colour pictures, such as a lemon, an orange and a fish, typical Dorling Kindersley. The chapter on green tea suggests it is good for the soul! The back cover claims it is "the one book you shouldn't be without". Give me university papers any day!

I will read with interest, it gives the chemical formulae of many vegetable phytochemicals, and on inspection it matches other sensible research I have read from major universities. I looks in some detail at Eastern diets and their lower cancer rates which matches Jane Plant. Definitely not one for quackwatch so far! It also has recipes and says red wine has anti cancer properties which should make it popular!

But on reflection it is a popularist book as one would expect from Dorling Kindersley, it will not upset anyone in contrast to Jane Plant. I read newsgroup hatred of Jane's ideas yesterday. She says cut dairy, processed foods and alcohol. This book demands no sacrifices, recommends alcohol in moderation, makes no mention of dairy or IGF, and recommends chocolate. But I suspect it will be more use to many readers than Jane's more complex arguments.

I am sure a change to well balanced vegetable based diet cutting red and particularly burnt or processed meat will help. Smoking and alcohol are out for us. I said yesterday Jan could lose 15% lung capacity after radiotherapy, obviously if lungs have been damaged already by smoking that loss would be far more serious.

On alcohol, we have American research suggesting 2 units of alcohol a day increases risk of breast cancer by 32%, whereas our booklet from Europe's biggest cancer hospital, the Royal Marsden says up to 2 units is OK. So at a stroke they have given away the total benefit from a course of the dangerous drug Tamoxifen that Jan is starting, and which would cost the NHS £3000 over 5 years!

The complexities of a cancer beating diet strike us. A University professor from UCSF rates fibre as important, whereas a similarly qualified professor in the UK says cut dairy. But on more careful study one is pre and the other post menopausal. I believe the fibre is more important for pre-menopause, it shows the complexity of the issues.

Jane Plant looks at reduced cancer rates in China, and says more soy and cutting dairy are the cause, I look at Poland which has similarly lower cancer rates, have yet to do research, but have a hunch their dietary effect is from lightly cooked or raw cruciferous vegetables and exercise. The Polish gene pool is probably closer to ours in the UK, so I still favour my ideas!

I read conflicting results as to whether soy helps or hinders. Some suggest it could be that Chinese soy is different from the processed and potentially GM modified soy we eat. I believe it could depend upon cancer type because more scientific data shows that phytoestrogens enhance T47D cell cancer growth rates in post menopausal women by blocking the effects of Tamoxifen, yet reduce growth of MCF-7 cancer. All we know is Jan's cancer is ER+, and both MCF-7 and T47D are typical ER+ cancers. So we don't know whether the phytoestrogens Jan had been eating in red clover and has now stopped helped or hindered.

I read in March 2008 US research that cruciferous vegetables have more or less benefit dependent upon ones genetic makeup. Yet the UCSF professor and this new book rave about the benefits of cruciferous veggies such as cabbage.

Wow, one starts to see the oomplexity of these issues. A friend suggested yesterday I might like to take a trip to China to help run a 2 week course to help them learn English. Maybe I should go to see how easily the Chinese lifestyle cuts breast cancer without any need for understanding, one just lives in China!