Stress plays a significant role in cancer, impacting key cancer pathways, inhibiting important health processes and promoting invasion and metastasis. We know that stress and cancer feed off each other in a most unhealthy way, but the experience of cancer is so inherently stressful it’s difficult to see how to separate the two.
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If you are diagnosed with hormone receptor positive breast cancer before menopause you will most likely be prescribed Tamoxifen, a selective oestrogen receptor modulator (SERM) that has been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence. The key benefit of this drug is that it protects hormone sensitive breast tissue and tumour cells from the effects of growth-promoting oestrogen – without completely suppressing oestrogen in the rest of the body. It’s a win-win!
There’s no doubt that Tamoxifen saves lives, but leaving oestrogen in circulation has been shown to increase the risk of other hormone-mediated cancers, and a proportion of women find that Tamoxifen adversely impacts their quality of life with increased pain, depression, headaches and mood changes – which can be severe. In my experience most women show tremendous courage in dealing with the balance of risks and benefits of breast cancer treatment and accept the downs with the ups. But in this case you don’t need to settle for the downside: nutritional therapy can help you mitigate the extra risk that Tamoxifen poses and minimise the mood and menopause effect that some women experience, without diminishing the benefits of the drug: a win-win-win!
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Triple negative breast cancer accounts for around 15% of breast cancers, and it is a more diagnosis common in younger women. This subtype of breast cancer tends to share similarities with BRCA-related disease, being more likely to be linked to faulty DNA repair and reprogrammed cellular metabolism. TNBC tumours don’t exhibit the over-expression of oestrogen and growth receptors found in other forms of breast cancer, and this lack of modifiable receptors tends to be seen as bad news. But all it really means is that we don’t currently have any specific adjuvant medical treatments, which makes it all the more important to look for other modifiable factors, such as diet and lifestyle.
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“If you can keep your immune system while all around are losing theirs…”
I hesitated before using, or rather abusing, this Rudyard Kipling quote because there’s nothing funny or flippant about the state we and our loved ones find ourselves in. Nevertheless, with no medical treatments available for coronavirus, maintaining a strong immune system is the name of the game. Cancer patients will be all too familiar with this dilemma and, in many ways, the advice for coronavirus builds on what you already know. Natural medicine, as far as we know, cannot stop you becoming infected, nor can it offer a cure, but research suggests you maybe able to reduce your chances of hospitalisation by improving your metabolic status. Continue reading
A post in The Guardian today includes the news that gut bacteria may influence bowel cancer risk. How confusing! For years we’ve been taught that cancer starts with genetic mutations. So how can bacteria be involved?
I have long dreamed of a day when the NHS recognises the vital role of nutrition, exercise and psychological support for cancer patients. In fact, I wrote a blog post about it more than five years ago. Trust me to miss it when the day finally dawned…
Our growing understanding of tumour metabolism provides new opportunities to conquer this dread disease. But it also brings a new threat: people are confused between what their tumour ‘eats’ and what their body needs to eat. Do you know the difference?
One of the nicest things that happened for me in 2018 was being featured in IHCAN Magazine, the official publication for complementary medicine practitioners. As it’s not available to the general public I’m re-blogging the article here so you can see what I’ve been up to, and maybe even learn a bit more about me…
On 13 October I will be joining Dr Etienne Callebout and Dr Marcus Stanton at the Cavendish Conference Centre for a day that will focus on breast cancer and immunity. I will be talking about personalised breast cancer protocols and the methods I use to help clients identify and manage personal risk factors in order to optimise health and happiness after diagnosis. The event is aimed at a professional audience and you can book your ticket at http://www.nouveauhealth.co.uk. Come and say hello!
I’ve been a busy girl this week so I didn’t catch up with BBC’s Doctor in the House until Friday evening. When I did I was surprised it hadn’t made major headline news. After all, whenever there’s a story about the dangers of supplements you’ll find it all over the front pages of the papers. What a surprise, then, that a story showing how magically effective supplements can be didn’t get the same treatment! What gives?
The Eatwell Guide is in the news yet again. Zoe Harcombe is doing a magnificent job of pointing out its many flaws, and I’m tempted to leave her to it. But I thought you might like to hear my views on it too. I’ll be brief! Continue reading
It’s three years this month since I wrote The Dissident Diet, based on my own experience of losing three stone, and a pilot study carried out with 16 people who needed to do the same. At the time it was ground-breaking, and more than a little brave, for a professional nutritionist to recommend a ketogenic diet when so many people in nutrition and medicine felt it was dangerous. Continue reading
As a nutritional therapist, I always find it hard to swallow when clients come back from the oncologist having been told that there’s no point changing their diet. Even if we accept that diet is not going to cure cancer, it can make you feel much better and be of great help in dealing with side effects. Continue reading
I wonder if you watched Panorama this week? It was a gently uplifting programme which explained some exciting new human cancer experiments which are yielding some impressive results. Continue reading
As I prepare for the first ‘Get Comfortable with Cancer’ workshop, I’m aware of a huge bubble of potential. The day already exists In my imagination and there’s a lot of work to do to translate that vision and excitement into the uplifting and inspiring day I want it to be. As well as making your more comfortable, I’d like to think that you will end the day with more confidence, and with more knowledge.
This is such a great explanation of such an exciting understanding of the way cancer works, and the potential for containing it by paying attention to our health, that I’m simply going to repost the link so you can read it in situ.
http://healthinsightuk.org/2015/01/21/cancer-and-genes-have-we-got-it-badly-wrong/
Complementary and ‘alternative’ therapies are often criticised for not being ‘evidence-based’, while a lot of evidence-based medicine is not as clearly proven as they would have you believe. Continue reading
In 1971, president Richard Nixon declared war on cancer when he signed the National Cancer Act. At the time the scientific community was confident that we were no more than a decade away from a cure; their confidence based on a new understanding of DNA and the observation that cancer tumour cells all seemed to contain significant DNA, or gene, mutations. Continue reading
“We now have good evidence… If you overfeed somebody with fat you don’t increase their cancer risk at all. If you overfeed them with carbohydrates then you dramatically increase their cancer risk. And protein is half way in between”
There’s a groundswell of opinion claiming benefits for metformin way beyond its accepted use for Type 2 Diabetes. All sorts of medical conditions appear to be benefiting from administration of this drug: obesity, PCOS, cancer, glycosylation, heart disease and even ageing. Continue reading