Conclusion on diet

Most serious breast cancer authorities reckon diet and exercise play a major role in long term survival. Having studied many specialist diets and authorities we believe that probably at least half the world's vegetables and fruits have some cancer inhibiting effect. Maybe not surprising as we believe in a creator God who made vegetables for all in the world to eat in their season, so we need a broad range.

Jan has not gone overboard, but we have probably doubled our food bill as we eat more fruit smoothies, fresh vegetables and berries. Probably the major change over any other "5 a day" recommendation is that we see no major health benefits claimed by potatoes, french fries, iceberg lettuce or baked beans. But tinned tomatoes certanly offer benefits!

Interesting as I read most Americans mainly eat french fries, lettuce and tinned tomatoes, so they miss many cancer preventing benefits of veg. such as cabbage.

The helpful diets we have looked all come from universities:

• University of California San Francisco diet sheet - its hard to read but gives full details of how each food affects cancer.
  
• The Plant Program, by Professor Jane Plant of London University. We have not gone dairy free, but probably halved our dairy intake.
• Professor Richard Beliveau's advice, again Professor of cancer research University of Quebec at Montreal. Or by podcast here.
  
• Professor Bharat Aggarwal's ideas on curcumin / tumeric spice as used in Indian curry.
  

Oasis of Hope hospital in Mexico shares these views on the importance of diet. We dismissed our own UK authority The Royal Marsden Hospital's diet advice, as they reckon 2 units of any alcohol per day is OK, contrary to all other serious researchers who claim all alcohol exacerbates cancer with the exception of red wine.

To put this diet in perspective, it need not be onerous. Oily fish and curries are recommended, with almost any vegetables (particularly cruciferous), garlic, olive oil, brown rice, and fruits. Red wine and dark chocolate also feature, followed by green tea. In fact many of our meals have been more tasty than before Jan's cancer.

More strange diets that we considered but did not fully follow include:

• Gerson diet - dangerous coffee enemas, though the caffeine can certainly cut cancer, and the Oasis of Hope hospital used to house the Gerson clinic, and reported great results.
• Budwig diet - flaxseed - well known benefits, but too way out for Jan.
• A carrot juice diet, about 12 carrots a day recommended by a fellow sufferer - carrots are good, but that many?
• A red grape diet - again red grapes are wonderful, but ONLY grapes?

It is interesting that we found our help came from universities, they still have the helpful attitude of sharing knowledge that is so easily stopped by profit motives of big pharma. University professors gave some authority, rather than newsgroups and fora of fellow sufferers.