 Why I believe
that giving up milk is the key to beating breast cancer...
-
- Professor Jane Plant is a wife, a mother, and widely respected
scientist, who was made a CBE for her work in geochemistry. When she was struck
by breast cancer in 1987 at the age of 42, her happy and productive existence
seemed destined to fall apart. But despite the disease recurring a further four
times, Jane refused to give in. As she describes in an inspiring new book, [Your
Life In Your Hands] serialised by the Mail this week, she devised a
revolutionary diet and lifestyle programme that she believes saved her life and
can cut the chances of other women falling prey to the disease.
-
- Her theory remains a controversial one - but every woman
should read it and make up her own mind. Today, she explains her personal
breakthrough...
-
- I had no alternative but to die or to try to find a cure for
myself. I am a scientist - surely there was a rational explanation for this
cruel illness that affects one in 12 women in the UK?
-
- I had suffered the loss of one breast, and undergone
radiotherapy. I was now receiving painful chemotherapy, and had been seen by
some of the country's most eminent specialists. But, deep down, I felt certain I
was facing death.
-
 I had a loving
husband, a beautiful home and two young children to care for. I desperately
wanted to live. Fortunately, this desire drove me to unearth the facts, some of
which were known only to a handful of scientists at the time.
-
- Anyone who has come into contact with breast cancer will know
that certain risk factors - such as increasing age, early onset of womanhood,
late onset of menopause and a family history of breast cancer - are completely
out of our control. But there are many risk factors, which we can control
easily. These 'controllable' risk factors readily translate into simple changes
that we can all make in our day-to-day lives to help prevent or treat breast
cancer. My message is that even advanced breast cancer can be overcome because I
have done it.
-
- The first clue to understanding what was promoting my breast
cancer came when my husband Peter, who was also a scientist, arrived back from
working in China while I was being plugged in for a chemotherapy session.
-
- He had brought with him cards and letters, as well as some
amazing herbal suppositories, sent by my friends and science colleagues in
China.
-
- The suppositories were sent to me as a cure for breast cancer.
Despite the awfulness of the situation, we both had a good belly laugh, and I
remember saying that this was the treatment for breast cancer in China, then it
was little wonder that Chinese women avoided getting the disease. Those words
echoed in my mind. Why didn't Chinese women get breast cancer? I had
collaborated once with Chinese colleagues on a study of links between soil
chemistry and disease, and I remembered some of the statistics.
-
- The disease was virtually non-existent throughout the whole
country. Only one in 10,000 women in China will die from it, compared to that
terrible figure of one in 12 in Britain and the even grimmer average of one in
10 across most Western countries.
-
- It is not just a matter of China being a more rural country,
with less urban pollution. In highly urbanised Hong Kong, the rate rises to 34
women in every 10,000 but still puts the West to shame.
-
- The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have similar
rates. And remember, both cities were attacked with nuclear weapons, so in
addition to the usual pollution-related cancers, one would also expect to find
some radiation-related cases, too. The conclusion we can draw from these
statistics strikes you with some force. If a Western woman were to move to
industrialized, irradiated Hiroshima, she would stash her risk of contracting
breast cancer by half.
-
- Obviously this is absurd. It seemed obvious to me that some
lifestyle factor not related to pollution, urbanization or the environment is
seriously increasing the Western woman's chance of contracting breast
cancer.
-
- I then discovered that whatever causes the huge differences in
breast cancer rates between oriental and Western countries, it isn't genetic.
Scientific research showed that when Chinese or Japanese people move to the
West, within one or two generations their rates of breast cancer approach those
of their host community.
-
- The same thing happens when oriental people adopt a completely
Western lifestyle in Hong Kong. In fact, the slang name for breast cancer in
China translates as 'Rich Woman's Disease'. This is because, in China, only the
better off can afford to eat what is
- termed 'Hong Kong food'.
-
- The Chinese describe all Western food, including everything
from ice cream and chocolate bars to spaghetti and feta cheese, as 'Hong Kong
food', because of its availability in the former British colony and its
scarcity, in the past, in mainland China.
-
- So it made perfect sense to me that whatever was causing my
breast cancer and the shockingly high incidence in this country generally, it
was almost certainly something to do with our better-off, middle-class, Western
lifestyle.
-
- There is an important point for men here, too. I have observed
in my research that much of the the data about prostate cancer leads to similar
conclusions.
-
- According to figures from the World Health Organization, the
number of men contracting prostate cancer in rural China is negligible, only 0.5
men in every 100,000. In England, Scotland and Wales, however, this figure is 70
times higher.
-
- Like breast cancer, it is a middle-class disease that
primarily attacks the wealthier and higher socio-economic groups - those that
can afford to eat rich foods.
-
- I remember saying to my husband-- 'Come on Peter, you have
just come back from China. What is it about the Chinese way of life that is so
different. Why don't they get breast cancer?'
-
- We decided to utilize our joint scientific backgrounds and
approach it logically. We examined scientific data that pointed us in the
general direction of fats in diets.
-
- Researchers had discovered in the 1980s that only l4 % of
calories in the average Chinese diet were from fat, compared to almost 36% in
the West. But the diet I had been living on for years before I contracted breast
cancer was very low in fat and high in fibre.
-
- Besides, I knew as a scientist that fat intake in adults has
not been shown to increase risk for breast cancer in most investigations that
have followed large groups of women for up to a dozen years.
-
- Then one day something rather special happened. Peter and I
have worked together so closely over the years that I am not sure which one of
us first said: 'The Chinese don't eat dairy produce!'
-
- It is hard to explain to a non-scientist the sudden mental and
emotional 'buzz' you get when you know you have had an important insight.
-
- It's as if you have had a lot of pieces of a jigsaw in your
mind, and suddenly, in a few seconds, they all fall into place and the whole
picture is clear.
-
- Suddenly I recalled how many Chinese people were physically
unable to tolerate milk, how the Chinese people I had worked with had always
said that milk was only for babies, and how one of my close friends, who is of
Chinese origin, always politely turned down the cheese course at dinner
parties.
-
- I knew of no Chinese people who lived a traditional Chinese
life who ever used cow or other dairy food to feed their babies. The tradition
was to use a wet nurse but never, ever, dairy products.
-
- Culturally, the Chinese find our Western preoccupation with
milk and milk products very strange. I remember entertaining a large delegation
of Chinese scientists shortly after the ending of the Cultural Revolution in the
1980s.
-
- On advice from the Foreign Office, we had asked the caterer to
provide a pudding that contained a lot of ice cream. After inquiring what the
pudding consisted of, all of the Chinese, including their interpreter, politely
but firmly refused to eat it, and they could not be persuaded to change their
minds. At the time we were all delighted and ate extra portions!
-
- Milk, I discovered, is one of the most common causes of food
allergies.
-
- Over 70% of the world's population are unable to digest the
milk sugar, lactose, which has led nutritionists to believe that this is the
normal condition for adults, not some sort of deficiency. Perhaps nature is
trying to tell us that we are eating the wrong food.
-
- Before I had breast cancer for the first time, I had eaten a
lot of dairy produce, such as skimmed milk, low-fat cheese and yoghurt. I had
used it as my main source of protein. I also ate cheap but lean minced beef,
which I now realized was probably often ground-up dairy cow.
-
- In order to cope with the chemotherapy I received for my fifth
case of cancer, I had been eating organic yoghurts as a way of helping my
digestive tract to recover and repopulate my gut with 'good' bacteria.
-
- Recently, I discovered that way back in 1989 yoghurt had been
implicated in ovarian cancer. Dr Daniel Cramer of Harvard University studied
hundreds of women with ovarian cancer, and had them record in detail what they
normally ate. I wish I'd been made aware of his findings when he had first
discovered them.
-
- Following Peter's and my insight into the Chinese diet, I
decided to give up not just yoghurt but all dairy produce immediately. Cheese,
butter, milk and yoghurt and anything else that contained dairy produce - it
went down the sink or in the rubbish.
-
- It is surprising how many products, including commercial
soups, biscuits and cakes, contain some form of dairy produce. Even many
proprietary brands of margarine marketed as soya, sunflower or olive oil spreads
can contain dairy produce. I therefore became an avid reader of the small print
on food labels.
-
- Up to this point, I had been steadfastly measuring the
progress of my fifth cancerous lump with callipers and plotting the results.
Despite all the encouraging comments and positive feedback from my doctors and
nurses, my own precise observations told me the bitter truth.
-
- My first chemotherapy sessions had produced no effect - the
lump was still the same size.
-
- Then I eliminated dairy products. Within days, the lump
started to shrink. About two weeks after my second chemotherapy session and one
week after giving up dairy produce, the lump in my neck started to itch. Then it
began to soften and to reduce in size. The line on the graph, which had shown no
change, was now pointing downwards as the tumour got smaller and smaller.
-
- And, very significantly, I noted that instead of declining
exponentially (a graceful curve) as cancer is meant to do, the tumour's decrease
in size was plotted on a straight line heading off the bottom of the graph,
indicating a cure, not suppression (or remission) of the tumour.
-
- One Saturday afternoon after about six weeks of excluding all
dairy produce from my diet, I practised an hour of meditation then felt for what
was left of the lump. I couldn't find it.
-
- Yet I was very experienced at detecting cancerous lumps - I
had discovered all five cancers on my own. I went downstairs and asked my
husband to feel my neck. He could not find any trace of the lump either.
-
- On the following Thursday I was due to be seen by my cancer
specialist at Charing Cross Hospital in London.
-
- He examined me thoroughly, especially my neck where the tumour
had been. He was initially bemused and then delighted as he said, "I cannot find
it.' None of my doctors, it appeared, had expected someone with my type and
stage of cancer (which had clearly spread to the lymph system) to survive, let
alone be so hale and hearty.
-
- My specialist was as overjoyed as I was. When I first
discussed my ideas with him he was understandably skeptical. But I understand
that he now uses maps showing cancer mortality in China in his lectures, and
recommends a non-dairy diet to his cancer patients.
-
- I now believe that the link between dairy produce and breast
cancer is similar to the link between smoking and lung cancer. I believe that
identifying the link between breast cancer and dairy produce, and then
developing a diet specifically targeted at maintaining the health of my breast
and hormone system, cured me.
-
- It was difficult for me, as it may be for you, to accept that
a substance as 'natural' as milk might have such ominous health implications.
But I am a living proof that it works and, starting from tomorrow, I shall
reveal the secrets of my revolutionary action plan.
-
- Extracted from Your Life in Your Hands, by Professor Jane
Plant, to be published by Virgin on June 8 at £16.99. © Professor Jane Plant,
2000.
-
- _____
-
- Jane Plant's conviction that dairy products can cause cancer
arises from the complex chemical makeup of milk. All mature breast milk, from
humans or other mammals, is a medium for transporting hundreds of chemical
components.
-
- It is a powerful biochemical solution, designed specifically
to provide for the individual needs of young mammals of the same species. Jane
says: "It is not that cow's milk isn't a good food. It is a great food- for baby
cows. It is not intended by nature for consumption by any species other than
baby cows. It is nutritionally different from human breast milk, containing
three times as much protein and far more calcium.'
-
- Breast milk, like cow's milk, contains chemicals designed to
play an important rote in the development of young cattle. One of these, insulin
growth factor IGF-1,causes cells to divide and reproduce.
-
- IGF-1 is biologically active in humans, especially during
puberty, when growth is rapid. In young girls it stimulates breast tissue to
grow and, while its levels are high during pregnancy, the hormones prolactin and
oestrogen are also active, enlarging breast tissue and increasing the production
of milk ducts in preparation for breast-feeding.
-
- Though the concentration and secretions of these hormones in
the blood are small, they exert a powerful effect on the body. All these
hormones are present in cow's milk. IGF-1 is identical in make-up, whether in
human or cow's milk, but its levels are naturally higher in cow's milk. It is
also found in the meat of cows.
-
- High levels of IGF-1 in humans are thought to be a risk factor
for breast and prostate cancer. A 1998 study of pre-menopausal women revealed
that those with the highest levels of IGF-1 in their bloodstream ran almost
three times the risk of developing breast cancer compared with women who had low
levels. Among women younger than 50, the risk was increased seven times.
-
- Other studies have shown that high circulating levels of IGF-1
In men are a strong indicator of prostate cancer. Interestingly, recent measures
to improve milk yields have boosted IGF-1 levels in cows. Could IGF-1 from milk
and the meat of dairy animals cause a build-up in humans, especially over a
lifetime, leading to inappropriate cell division? Though we produce our own
IGF-1, could it be that the extra amounts we ingest from dairy produce actually
cause cancer?
-
- Jane Plant already knew that one way the high-profile drug
tamoxifen, used in the treatment of breast cancer, is thought to work by
lowering circulating levels of IGF-1.
-
- IGF-1 is not destroyed by pasteurization, but critics argue
that it is destroyed by digestion
- and rendered harmless. Jane believes the main milk protein,
casein, prevents this from happening and that homogenization, which prevents
milk from separating into milk and cream, could further increase the risk of
cancer-promoting hormones and other chemicals reaching the bloodstream.
-
- She also believes there are other chemicals in cow's milk that
may be responsible for
- sending muddied signals to adult tissue. Could prolactin,
released to stimulate milk production in cows, have a similar effect on human
breast tissue, effectively triggering the same response and causing cells to
become confused, stressed and start making mistakes in replicating their own
DNA? Studies have confirmed that prolactin promotes the growth of prostate
cancer cells in culture.
-
- Another hormone, oestrogen, considered one of the main risk
factors for breast cancer, is present in milk in minute quantities. But even low
levels of hormones are known to cause severe biological damage. Microscopic
quantities of oestrogen in our rivers are powerful enough to cause the
feminisation of many male species of fish. While oestrogen in milk may not pose
a direct threat to tissues, it may stimulate the expression of IGF-1, resulting
in long-term tumour growth.
-
- Jane, who has found growing support for her theories from
cancer specialists, stresses
- that she is not setting out to attack more orthodox
approaches. She intends her dietary programme to complement the best therapies
available from conventional medicine, not to replace them.
-
- _____
-
- Pure But Deadly - Is Milk Potentially Fatal?
-
- http://www.ostomyinternational.org/June2000/1124.html
- Dairy-free diet and breast/colon cancer
-
- IOA Archived Discussion Forum May 2000
- Posted By Leslie Dungan on June 19, 2000 at 17:40:01:
- The following review appeared last week in the Irish
Times.
-
- Has anyone out there opinions or experiences relevant to Prof
Plant's approach? British scientist Jane Plant, who believes a dairy-free diet
helped her recover from breast cancer, talks to Katie Donovan
-
- Tempted by a cream bun, you talk yourself out of it with
thoughts of all that unhealthy fat clogging up your arteries. You opt for a
low-fat yoghurt instead, with skimmed milk in your tea, congratulating yourself
on your sensible self-control. Think again. According to a ground-breaking new
book about breast cancer (which kills over 600 women in Ireland annually), dairy
products, whether low-fat or full cream, should be off everyone's menu
overnight. (They are also culpable with regard to prostate cancer, so that
really means everyone).
-
- Prof Jane Plant CBE, author of Your Life in Your Hands, was
diagnosed with breast cancer 13 years ago. She was 42, a successful geochemist
(she is now chief scientist of the British Geological Survey), and led, she
thought, a healthy life. There was no history of breast cancer in her family.
She discovered that "only five to 10 per cent of breast cancers are the result
of inherited genes, and the disease may not always develop, even in those
carrying the mutated gene." Bamboozled by jargon and frozen with panic, she fell
back on her scientific training to try and figure out how she had developed the
disease, and how best to cure herself.
-
- She went on the Bristol diet, she had a mastectomy, she had
radiotherapy, she had her ovaries irradiated (to induce menopause and eliminate
oestrogen), she asked questions and did lots of research. To no avail.
-
- By the time of the cancer's fifth recurrence (it spread into
the lymph), she was given a course of chemotherapy and three months to live. She
had an egg-sized tumour on the side of her neck.
-
- Brainstorming one night with her fellow scientist husband
about why, in the West, one in 10 women get breast cancer (one in 14 in
Ireland), while in China it's only one woman in 10,000, the pair came up with
the simple answer: Chinese people don't eat dairy products.
-
- Plant eliminated all dairy products (including goat and sheep)
from her diet. Six weeks later, the tumour had disappeared.
-
- When I meet her she is a youthful-looking woman in her
mid-fifties, quaffing mint tea and eating a tuna sandwich (no butter or
mayonnaise). She has stayed on her dairy-free diet and has remained clear of
cancer.
-
- Giving up dairy products was only part of a healthy regimen
she had been following throughout her cancer, including taking folic acid and
zinc supplements, drinking filtered water and never consuming anything that had
been packaged in plastic (phthalates, harmful carcinogenic chemicals, leak from
soft plastic into food).
-
- In spite of her best efforts it was only after she gave up all
dairy products that the cancer disappeared. Sixty-three other women who had
breast cancer and who came to her for advice, also recovered after giving up
dairy products.
-
- So how, I ask, can dairy products-- beloved of both the Irish
and British alike, not to mention the Americans whose diet is 40 per cent
dairy-- have such a lethal effect? "Milk is designed as the perfect food for
newborn animals. They can't eat ordinary food, they are dependent on milk to
keep development and cell differentiation going. But milk contains a chemical--
insulin-like growth factor, or IGF-1 -- which girls have naturally as
teenagers
- to help their breasts develop. This chemical-- which is
designed to stimulate cell growth-- can send the wrong signal to adult breast
tissue."
-
- She quotes studies in the US and Canada in 1998 which found
that pre-menopausal women with the highest IGF-1 concentration in their blood
had a far higher risk of developing breast cancer (similar studies have found a
link between IGF-1 and prostate cancer). The drug Tamoxifen, prescribed for
women with breast cancer, is thought to work by reducing circulating IGF-1
levels.
-
- "Over 70 per cent of the world's population are unable to
digest the milk sugar, lactose," she observes. "Lactose intolerance may be
nature's early warning system: perhaps nature is trying to tell us that we're
eating the wrong food." Homogenization apparently only enables cancer-producing
chemicals to reach the bloodstream quicker.
-
- Plant has done her homework: "Epidemiological studies have
indicated a positive correlation between dairy product consumption and breast
cancer risk going back two decades. Studies have found an increase in breast
cancer risk among women who consumed milk (especially whole milk) and/or
cheese."
-
- In 1977 scientists examining the incidence of breast cancer in
Japan found "a significant increase in both the consumption of dairy products
and the occurrence of breast cancer in urban areas".
-
- She quotes more research to suggest that "free oestrogens"--
found in commercial pasteurized whole cow's milk and in skimmed milk-- may
stimulate expression of IGF-1 resulting in "indirect long-term tumour
growth".
-
- She lists dioxins and other damaging environmental chemicals,
some of them carcinogenic, which are often fat soluble and end up "particularly
concentrated" in milk.
-
- As for the argument that we need dairy products because they
contain calcium, Plant quotes the World Health Organization's finding that
countries which have low intakes of calcium do not have an increased incidence
of osteoporosis: "Scientific studies into calcium absorption have shown that
only 18 to 36 per cent of the calcium in milk is taken up by the body."
-
- Now that we're convinced, what should we be eating instead?
Plant recommends soya milk, herbal tea, humous, tofu, nuts and seeds, non-farmed
fish, organic eggs and lean meat (not minced beef, which tends to be dairy cow)
and plenty of fresh organic fruit and vegetables (in salads, juiced, or lightly
steamed).
-
- But how can the average woman afford the time and energy it
takes to source and prepare such food? "Your priority should be good food, not
glop," she stresses. "Put organic food first. Your health is more important than
a new car. Anyway, I don't find it too costly-- after all, I don't buy any
processed food, which is very expensive."
-
- Her husband and two children have no problem following her
diet. And although she travels a lot for her job, she finds that she is able to
manage-- she includes many tips in her book about what to bring with you on a
trip (dried soya milk, herbal tea bags, kelp tablets for iodine, etc).
-
- She is about to start writing a new book, a guide for busy
women who want to stay healthy.
-
- She advocates thorough and frequent self-examination of your
breasts, and, if you do develop breast cancer, self-empowerment by working with
your doctor "as a partner,
- not as a victim".
-
- She is not a fan of the Louise Hay You Can Heal Your Life
philosophy: "I do believe in positive thinking, but I'm also a scientist and I
wanted a rational explanation. I have friends with diseases like MS who have
read Hay's books and feel guilty because they can't adapt their mental attitude;
or, if they have adapted, and the disease doesn't go away, they become
distressed."
-
- Plant, who is an advocate of acupuncture, has varying opinions
of alternative therapies. She is suspicious of aromatherapy, found visualization
didn't work, but took much comfort from cognitive therapy and hypnotherapy (both
of which helped her to reduce the stress and anxiety caused by having
cancer).
-
- Overall, however, it was her professional research as a
geochemist into the links between disease and trace elements (such as selenium)
in the environment in China and Korea that led to her insight about the role of
dairy produce in her cancer. She finds the medical profession particularly
shortsighted about the influence of environmental factors-- such as pollution
and industrialization-- on disease: "I think public health has done a lot for
the elimination of infectious diseases, but looking at the environment and
nutrition could do the same for a lot of degenerative diseases."
-
- Plant started writing Your Life in Your Hands for her daughter
Emma (now 25). Emma's teen years were dominated by the fear that her mother was
going to die: "The book's original title was What I Want My Daughter to Know,"
recalls Plant. "The 63 women with breast cancer who followed my diet and
survived their cancer encouraged me to publish the book. I was reluctant at
first-- I knew I'd get flak for it, because science is an
- adversarial process.
-
- But morally, I felt if I had done the research and I had the
information, I should share it with others. Men and women have the right to know
what I know, and to draw their own
- conclusions."
-
- Your Life in Your Hands by Jane Plant is published by Virgin
at £16.99 in UK
-
- Leslie Dungan,
- Dublin
-
- http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Lnotmilk6.htm
-
- http://members.tripod.co.uk/AllThingsChildren/MilkCancer.htm
|
Dear Readers,
