Could milk be a cause of cancer? news.independent.co-news.independent.co-Open ↗
.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=510774 We all know that cancer
is linked with diet. Now a controversial theory singles out
dairy products as a possible trigger, writes Jane Feinmann
12 April 2004
Food was the last thing on Amanda Myer's mind when she
was first diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago,
at the age of 43. "I was already eating what I
considered to be a healthy, balanced diet and didn't
see any need to change it. I'd read somewhere that
kiwi fruit contained lots of antioxidants, so I'd have
one every day, and I think I started buying organic
milk. But that was as far as it went."
A year later, after the cancer had cleared and then
returned, it was a different story. "It was a question
of, ah, how am I going to get out of this scrape," she
recalls. "I was lucky to be receiving excellent
medical treatment, but I felt I needed something
extra, that this time I really had to find a way to
help myself."
Before she even underwent further hospital treatment,
she took her sister's advice and went on a residential
course at Bristol Cancer Help Centre (BCHC), the
holistic charity that has pioneered physical,
spiritual and emotional support for people with
cancer. Now recovered, she was told by her consultant
last month that she was his "fittest patient". And she
puts her health status down to the Centre's supportive
counselling, to learning relaxation and visualisation
techniques - and, above all, to finding out what to
eat and what not to eat to stop her cancer recurring.
From its beginnings, BCHC has been associated with the
provision of nutritional advice - in the early years,
promoting the faddish Bristol Diet, involving much
juicing and regular coffee enemas. More recently,
however, it has brought together the growing mass of
evidence showing, for instance, the link between diet,
obesity and cancer. Now, however, it is edging towards
controversy again by taking on one of the most
contentious issues in nutrition today.
Last month, the centre invited the eminent scientist
Professor Jane Plant MBE, bestselling author of Your
Life in Your Hands - Understanding, Preventing and
Overcoming Breast Cancer (Virgin Books), to address an
audience of scientists, doctors and policy-makers at a
keynote lecture on diet and cancer. The specific aim
of the event was to spark a debate over whether dairy
food should carry a health warning in relation to
specific cancers.
Professor Plant's war against dairy and non-organic
food started 10 years ago, after her breast cancer had
recurred four times in the space of a few years. The
presence of a huge tumour in the side of her neck, and
a prognosis of less than three months, inevitably
focused her mind. She spent an evening brainstorming
with her husband, also a scientist, who had recently
returned from working in China, over the possible
reason why one in 10 women get breast cancer in the UK
compared to one in 10,000 in China.
"Something rather special happened," she recalls.
"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'." Recalling the
slang name for breast cancer in China - "Rich women's
disease", because "they're people who eat Hong Kong
food, things like ice cream and cheese", provided
further confirmation - as did her further foray into
the science behind the epidemiology.
Hormones and chemicals in cow's milk, designed to
provoke the rapid early growth of infant cattle, she
discovered, include insulin growth factor IGF-1, which
causes cells to divide and reproduce - exactly the
mechanism that occurs when tumours develop. There were
small but significant studies proving the role of IGF-
1 in the development of cancer - for instance, showing
that pre-menopausal women with high levels of IGF-1
have a higher than average risk of breast cancer, as
do dairy-eating vegetarians.
By then, however, Plant was already convinced. Having
thrown everything dairy into the rubbish bin that
evening, she found that the lump started to reduce in
size within days and disappeared within weeks. Her
experience in personally advising scores of other
women, and thousands of others who have read her book
and e-mailed her "to thank me for saving their lives"
has convinced her of a "clear link between breast
cancer and dairy produce".
Her new book, Understanding, Preventing and Overcoming
Prostate Cancer, published next month by Virgin Books,
will recommend the same diet of non-dairy, exclusively
organic produce (to avoid toxic pesticides and
pollutants) for sufferers from this increasingly
common tumour, which, like breast cancer, is hormone-
related, and which, incidentally, is almost non-
existent in rural China. If her previous book is
anything to go by, it is set to have a major impact on
public confidence in mainstream dietary advice.
For the problem is that the dairy danger is viewed as
extremist and unproven by most oncology specialists.
The dearth of good clinical trials to support what is,
they say, so far only a theory, means that doctors
rarely if ever raise the question of nutrition with
cancer patients - and skate around the issues if
they're asked.
For Dr Clare Shaw, consultant dietician at the Royal
Marsden Hospital, the main priority for cancer
patients undergoing treatment is the need to maintain
adequate nutritional intake during gruelling radio-
and chemotherapy. "Once that's over, people do have an
opportunity to consider lifestyle changes that might
help them to avoid a recurrence of cancer. But the
issue for clinicians is that there's no evidence that
avoiding dairy produce will bring any benefits. And
research that can be generally applied will be
difficult to carry out - because a diet involving no
dairy and organic vegetables is more likely to attract
a self-selected group of people who are middle class
and middle-aged."
That may be true - but a way forward must be found,
says BCHC. Of the 11,000 people who contact its
helpline every year, over half want information on
nutrition. "So often following a diagnosis of cancer,
people want to find an accessible form of self-help
with which they can get started immediately," says the
director of therapy, Helen Cooke. "We know that 40 per
cent of cancers are caused by poor diet, and it seems
highly likely that recurrences of existing cancers
will also be affected by diet. People are fed up with
being told to eat Mars Bars and extra ice-cream to
keep up their weight. They want to find out what is
truly nutritious."
BCHC is demanding that the Government backs
independent research to identify the role of nutrition
in preventing cancer recurrence, and that good quality
information is available to everyone following a
diagnosis. It's a move backed by leading oncologist,
Professor Karol Sikora, World Health Organisation
adviser on cancer. "Increasingly, people with cancer
want to know what they can do for themselves, and they
should be given all the support and information they
need. If for no other reason, the psychological
benefits are proven and I have no doubt that people
who feel in control have a better chance of survival."
Bristol nutritionists do advise cutting back on dairy
foods in favour of soya, with less meat and more
grains and fruit and vegetables. But they don't go all
the way with Jane Plant's "slightly extreme" dietary
guidelines. "Our view is that people should try to add
nutritious food to what they are already eating rather
than focusing on giving things up. It's about adding
more fruit and vegetables to what you normally eat
rather than feeling guilty about enjoying coffee and
croissants," says Cooke.
The approach has worked for Amanda Myer who now avoids
dairy food, but not fanatically. "If I'm eating out
and there's cheese in a dish, I'll eat it quite
happily," she says. "I can't imagine that small
quantities can have any adverse effect, and anyway, I
want to avoid anything that makes life more difficult.
I'll even buy non-organic food if there's no
alternative. But I shudder to think of the quantity of
pesticides that I must have consumed with all the non-
organic red wine that I used to drink. I still enjoy
wine, but now it's all organic," she says.
--
M.
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Bright's world-view is free of supernatural and mystical
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