When you adopt a plant-based diet that is lower in fat, your estrogen is likely to come down to a safe level, where cancer cells are less likely to grow.  Most people are not aware of it, but it’s vitally important for cancer prevention: when there is too much fat in your diet – whether from chicken, fish, burgers, or cooking oils – estrogen levels tend to rise.

There is also an important role for fiber in keeping hormones in check.  Fiber – the plant roughage in greens, fruits, whole grains, and beans – actually helps the body eliminate excess hormones, cutting cancer risk.  Here’s how.  Your liver filters your bloodstream.  As blood passes through the liver tissue, hormones are removed and sent through a small tube, called the bile duct, into the intestinal tract, where fiber attaches to them, carrying them away with the wastes.  Estrogen, testosterone, and even cholesterol take this same path out of the body – from the blood, through the liver, into the intestine, and out with the wastes.  If you have plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains (i.e., brown bread instead of white bread, and brown rice instead of white rice), you’ll have plenty of fiber to keep your intestinal tract healthy, to prevent constipation, and, perhaps most important of all, to keep this hormone-elimination system working properly.  But if your breakfast was bacon and eggs and your lunch was yogurt and chicken breast, you have had no fiber at all.  Animal products do not contain plant roughage.  Fiber is found only in plants.  If there is little fiber in your digestive tract, your waste hormones have nothing to attach to.  They end up passing into your bloodstream, circulating around and around, keeping your cancer risk higher than it should be.

 

Your liver is usually very efficient at taking excess estrogen from the blood, sending it down the bile duct and into the intestines, where fiber-rich foods carry it safely away.  But typical Western diets are high in fat and low in fiber, causing estrogens to rise too high, overloading this effective system and allowing the estrogens to be reabsorbed in your bloodstream.

 

The healthiest diets avoid animal products completely.  You’ve probably noticed more and more grocery store items labeled vegan – that is, pure vegetarian – as well as expanding vegetarian and vegan menu items in many popular restaurants.  Diets rich in vegetables and fruits are naturally low in fat and high in fiber, and keep estrogen levels in bounds.  These diets have an extra advantage.  They increase the number of special “carrier molecules” in the bloodstream that pick up and harness estrogen molecules until they are needed.  The result is fewer stray estrogens around to do mischief.

 

Fats in the diet begin affecting our hormones very early in life.  A look back at not-so-distant history reveals that, in the mid-1800s, most young girls around the world reached puberty at about seven-teen years of age, surprising as this may sound.  In rural China, where low-fat rice and vegetable dishes are staple foods, this is still true.  In America, on the other hand, girls are developing at age twelve of younger, and changing eating patterns are to blame.  Chicken, beef, and endless fast-food meals are commonly eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  High in fat and devoid of healthy fiber and nutrients, these meals are causing earlier puberty, and a host of other problems both physical and psychological.  Most worrisome, they boost a young woman’s lifetime exposure to estrogen, increasing her risk for developing breast cancer.

 

Excess fats in the diet are always troublesome, whether they come from plants or animals, and whether they are used in the kitchen or baked into store-bought items.  But animal fats are especially harmful.  Studies in the United States, France, Italy, and Sweden compared the diets of eleven hundred women without cancer and found that those with cancer had been eating much more fat, particularly animal fat.  Research conducted in Canada found that a high intake of animal fats double cancer risks.  Similarly, studies in Argentina an Italy showed that high intakes of animal fats triple the likelihood of developing cancer.  It seems that no matter what the genetic makeup, human bodies are hard pressed to withstand such a diet.  Other hormone-related cancers – those of the uterus, ovary, and prostate – are also more likely with diets that are high in fat, especially animal fat, because estrogen and other hormones drive these cancers in similar ways. 

 

Although men have a different balance of hormones – more testosterone and less estrogen – when it comes to diet, they benefit from exactly the same foods as women, making meal planning and eating out together that much easier and more enjoyable.  Just as for women, when men eat fatty foods, their hormone levels rise.  Male vegans, who eat no animal products, have plenty of hormones to meet their needs but manage to avoid the excesses.  They also have more of the carriers that can hold on to excess hormones and prevent them from doing damage.

 

When a child starts out on a bad diet, its effects may begin very early, perhaps even before birth.  One theory is that a boy’s hormonal balance may be set very early in his development, leading to early puberty and high levels of testosterone later in life.  Thus, if a boy’s mother had a high-fat diet during pregnancy, the stage may be set for prostate cancer when he reaches his senior years.  For now, this is simply a theory, and it certainly doesn’t mean his fate is sealed.  Most evidence suggests that the foods you choose even much later in life have a major effect on your cancer risk.

 

So far we have been looking at how foods can skew your natural hormonal balance.  This is of great concern when it comes to cancers of the breast, ovary, uterus, and prostate.  However, fatty foods also can increase colon cancer risk, albeit by a very different mechanism.  Here’s how it works.  To digest and absorb a load of fat, your liver makes extra bile and sends it into the intestinal tract, where bacteria turn into a cancer-promoting substance.  But what really matters is not the biological details. What counts is what’s on your plate.  And the bottom line is that fatty, low-fiber foods pose cancer risks.  Here are a few more findings you should know about.

 

Heterocyclic Amines

 

During the 1970s, Japanese  researchers found that the surfaces of broiled or barbecued meat and fish contained potent carcinogens.  These compounds, known as heterocyclic amines (HCAs), enter cells, where they damage DNA and start the cancer process.  They form during the cooking process from creatine, amino acids, and sugars in meats, and all it takes is the heat to turn them on.  Roasting, baking, and deep-fat frying all create the same hazardous results.  The higher the temperature and the longer the cooking process, the more these dangerous carcinogens form.  Even concentrated meat juices, as in beef extract or bouillon cubes, may also contain these potentially damaging substances.  Recent studies show that grilled chicken can be extraordinarily high in these carcinogens – fifteen times higher than roast beef or hamburger.

 

Some people seem to be particularly susceptible to these carcinogens because their bodies are slow to eliminate them.  This may contribute to colon or breast cancer “running in the family.”  There is also evidence that heterocyclic amines may pass through breast milk and be transferred through the placenta to a fetus.

 

Grilled Meats and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

 

When fat from meat, fish, or chicken falls on the flames of your barbecue, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are produced.  These carcinogens arise from the intense heat of a broiler or barbecue and are deposited n the surface of the meat, fish, or chicken.  In their chemical makeup, PAHs are related to the cancer-causing substances in tobacco smoke.  They can damage DNA and start the cancer process.

 

Cured and Smoked Meats

 

Nitrates, used in cured meats, form carcinogenic substances in our bodies.  Two American studies and one Swedish stud have linked use of bacon, sausage, smoked ham, and other cured and smoked meats with pancreatic cancer.  These compounds may help start other cancers, too.  Following consumer demand, nitrate levels are lower than they were twenty years ago, except in hot dogs, which still tend to have high levels.  Luckily, veggie wieners are nitrate-free.

 

Pesticides in Animal Fat

 

Another disadvantage of animal products is that pesticides accumulate in their fatty tissues.  While traces of these chemicals can be found on grains or other plants, when animals eat them, these traces build up in their bodies over the years.  And if you then eat these fatty tissues, pesticides remain in your body for a long time.

 

Plant foods are generally much lower in pesticides residues, compared to animal products, and organic produce is lowest of all.  The safest choice?  A variety of plant foods that are grown organically.

 

Hormones

 

We’ve described how animal fats can disrupt hormone balance.  However that’s only one of the ways by which our hormone levels can be adversely affected by meat consumption.  On North American farms, animals are given hormones to affect their growth: estrogens, testosterone, progesterone, Zeranol, and trenbalone acetate.  A combination of estrogen and progesterone known as Synovex-S is sometimes implanted in the ear of steers.  This is legal in the United States but not in Europe.  The resulting estrogen levels in meat products range up to twenty times the levels in products from untreated animals.

 

Iron: A Double-Edged Sword

 

Iron is an essential nutrient required for healthy blood cells.  But we need only a little in our diet because our bodies recycle it efficiently each time old cells break down.  Too much iron is not only unnecessary, it also encourages the formation of cancer-causing free radicals, raising cancer risk.  Studies at an American army hospital found that people with the highest serum ferritin level had a greater likelihood of developing the adenomas that precede colon cancer.

 

The iron in plants is in a form the body can easily regulate.  It is more absorbable when you need more, and easier to keep out when you already have plenty in your blood.  However, the iron in meat barges through your digestive tract wall and into your bloodstream whether you need it or not.  If you were eating meat because you thought it was a “good source of iron,” the fact is it may have given you way too much.

 

If you have any doubt, your doctor can tell with simple and inexpensive blood tests if you are meeting your iron requirements.

 

Red Meat, White Meat, and Even Eggs Are Trouble

 

When people try to improve their diets, their first step is often to reduce or eliminate red meat.  There is a reasonable choice, but it does not go far enough.  Though red meat and the fat it contains are heavily implicated in the development of cancer, animal products in general are hefty contributors.  Whether it came from a cow, pig, chicken, lamb, or fish, meat harbors many substances that may support the growth of cancer.  The Adventist Health Study showed that white meats add to cancer risk even when eaten only once a week.  According to the researchers, these findings “suggest the presence of factors in all meats that contribute to colon carcinogenesis.”  As we’ve seen, grilled chicken is even higher than beef in its concentration of carcinogenic HCAs.

 

 Like meat, eggs are high in fat and protein, but devoid of healthy complex carbohydrates and fiber.  Considering their similarities in nutritional content, it comes as little surprise that meat and eggs may have similar effects.  Evidence of this comes from the Adventist Health Study and from research done in Canada, Australia, Belgium, and Spain.  An Argentinean study found that people eating just one and a half eggs per week had more than four times the risk of colon cancer, compared to those who ate eggs less than once a month.  You may not be eating scrambled eggs for breakfast each morning, but look at the ingredient labels on the breads, frozen foods, and snacks you consume.  You may be eating more eggs each week than you ever imagined.  A simple switch to healthier, vegan brands of common foods will put you on the right track.  Eggs are the top contributor of cholesterol in our diets.  Although we generally associate cholesterol with heart disease, dietary cholesterol has possible links to ovarian, lung, pancreatic, and colon cancers as well.

 

How to Check Your Iron Level

 

Your doctor or clinic can run the following tests.  In some states, commercial laboratories will run these tests without a doctor’s request.  A physician should always interpret the results.

·        Serum ferritin

·        Serum iron

·        Total iron-binding capacity (TIBC)

 

For ferritin, normal values are 12 to 200 mcg/l.  Serum iron should be checked after an overnight fast.  The serum iron measurement is divided by the TIBC, and the result should be 16 to 50 percent for women and 16 to 62 percent for men.

 

Results above these norms indicate excess iron.  Results below these norms indicate too little iron.  If the result suggests iron deficiency, your doctor may request an additional test called a red cell protoporhyrin test for confirmation.  A result higher than 70 mcg/dl of red blood cells suggests insufficient iron.  To diagnose iron deficiency, at least two of these three values (serum ferritin, serum iron/TBC, or red cell protoporhyrin) should be abnormal.

 

 

Dairy – Far from Perfect

 

The milk jug has long worn a halo in the eyes of Americans.  However, in recent years the halo has become seriously tarnished.  Dairy products have significant disadvantages when it comes to cancer risk.

 

Milk, whether from humans, cows, or other animals, is designed to help a baby grow rapidly.  It contains hormones and nutrients that are tailor-made for the growth spurt between birth and weaning.  But several of these hormones and chemicals also can give a real push to cell division and fuel the growth of cancer cells.

 

Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) encourages growth of the cells of the body.  However, it also encourages cancel cells to grow and multiply.  There are about 30 micrograms of IGF-1 per liter of cow’s milk, depending on the stage of pregnancy of the dairy cow.  The more milk you drink, the more IGF-1 ends up in your bloodstream – a major disadvantage, since people with high levels of IGF-1 have considerably higher risks of breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers.

 

Exactly how milk  increases IGF-1 in the blood is not clear.  It may not be due to the IGF-1 in milk passing into your body.  It is more likely that milk’s load of protein and sugar cause your body to start making extra IGF-1 on its own.  Whatever the mechanism, milk drinkers do seem to end up with more IGF-1 coursing through  their veins, and this almost certainly puts them at higher cancer risk.

 

The Physicians Health Study in 2000 tracked 20,885 male doctors over 10 years, and it found that those who consumes 2 ½ servings of dairy products per day were 30 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer, compared with those using less than half a serving, and that includes both nonfat and full-fat dairy products.  Similarly, the 1999 Health Professionals Follow-up Study, including 50,000 men, found that hose who consumed the most dairy products had a 70 percent higher risk of prostate cancer.  IGF-1 may not be the only culprit.  Milk drinking causes several hormonal changes that would be expected to increase cancer risk, as we will see shortly.

 

Calcium, in excess, appears to increase the risk of some cancers, believe it or not.  Milk certainly has plenty of it – about 300 milligrams per cup.  Until recently, this was assumed to be an advantage.  New research, however, has changed our view of calcium.  First,  while some calcium is needed in the diet, large studies show that people with high calcium intakes do not seem to gain any benefit for their bones, compared to those with more moderate intakes.  In fact, in some large studies – notably the Nurses’ Health Study in 1997 at Harvard University – milk drinkers actually broke more bones than people who generally avoid dairy.

 

More worrisome are studies showing that high calcium diets are associated with higher prostate cancer risk.  At least sixteen research studies have shown exactly this link.  Researchers now believe that high calcium intake alters hormonal balance, making cancer more likely in the prostate and possibly in other organs.  Here’s the problem: When you take in a large amount of calcium – from dairy products or any other source – your body reacts to the flood of calcium by reducing its activation of vitamin D (which is normally used by the body to increase calcium absorption).  In other words, if you have plenty of calcium on board already, your body tries to avoid getting too much by reducing the amount of active vitamin D circulating in the blood.  The danger in this situation is that vitamin D is also essential for keeping the prostate gland healthy.  If there is less vitamin D in the blood, prostate cells have a tendency to become cancerous.

 

Ironically, milk is often supplemented with a form of vitamin D.  But this form is biologically inactive, and the high calcium content of milk tends to prevent its activation.  The moral of the story is this: To reduce the risk of prostate cancer, avoid dairy products.

 

Pesticides and industrial chemicals often dissolve in fat, and they can end up in mammary glands of cows and pass into your cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.  Heptachlor, for example, was an insecticide sprayed on corn crops used for animal feed until 1983, when it was discovered to be a carcinogen.  Not only did heptachlor end up in cow’s milk, but also mothers who drank it passed it along in their breast milk.

 

Certainly it is a good thing that some dangerous pesticides and herbicides have been banned or severely restricted.  Yet since heptachlor persists in soil, minuscule amounts of “unavoidable residues” are still permitted in milk, animal feed, and other agricultural products.

 

Estrogen, the female sex hormone, is also present in cow’s milk in minute amounts.  Part of the reason

is that dairy cows are repeatedly impregnated until their usefulness is over.  This is done because it stimulates mammary glands and supports maximum milk production.  Pregnant cows produce extra estrogen that ends up in their milk.  Excess estrogen is well known for making breast cancer cells multiply.  This is why physicians avoid prescribing estrogen supplements to cancer patients.  But don’t wait for cancer to begin to bring your estrogen level down to a safer level.

 

Fat is a big part of most dairy products, including cheese, ice cream, milk, butter, and yogurt.  About two-thirds of this fat is saturated fat, the kind that promotes heart disease.  Though there has been shift to lower-fat milks.  American intakes of fatty cheeses tripled between 1970 and 2000.  this fat adds to cancer risk.

 

As with other fatty foods, high-fat dairy products cause excess estrogen to be produced in a woman’s body.  As we’ve seen, high-fat diets have been linked to cancers of the breast, endometrium, prostate, lung, colon, and rectum.  One way that fat may do its dirty work is by encouraging the absorption of carcinogens.  For example, when carcinogens in cigarette smoke are absorbed through lung tissue, they travel along with fats in the blood to reach cells through-out the body.

 

A Little Douse Will Do You Harm

 

Though animal fats are a bigger problems than plant fats, substituting lots of vegetable oils isn’t the solution.  Polyunsaturated oils – corn, safflower, sunflower, and soybeans oils – can affect your hormone levels, just as animal fats can.  They also contain unstable molecules that react easily with free radicals.

 

When vegetable shortenings emerged as “healthy” alternatives to animal fats, many people switched from lard to shortening for making piecrusts and other baked goods.  Big debates took place about which was better (or worse) – the saturated fats and cholesterol of butter, or the hydrogenated fats of margarine.  Don’t debate about this any longer.  Get rid of both.  Cut way down on the fats in your diet, and build your menu from whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and bean dishes made without all those added fats.

 

          You’ll see how easy it is at the conclusion of this book.

 

Go Lean

         

One of the biggest problems with fatty foods, such as meat, dairy, and fried foods, is that they encourage weight gain.  In turn, extra weight increases cancer risk.  This is partly because fat tissue produces estrogens.  In addition, many carcinogens are stored in fat (both the fats we eat and the fat on our bodies).  These carcinogens come from air pollution, tobacco, smoke, other environmental contaminants, and foods.  Happily, the same plant-based diet that offers so many other protections also helps trim your waistline.

 

Alcohol: Fuel on the Fire

 

Red wine made headlines about its possible benefits in relation to heart disease.  Not to stop the party, but alcohol has no protective effect on cancer; in fact, the reverse is true.  Alcohol is a carcinogen and a cancer promoter.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the form of wine, beer, hard liquor, or a fuzzy drink.

 

Alcohol is of the greatest concern for breast cancer.  The Nurses’ Health Study showed that even one drink per day increases the risk of breast cancer.  Just why this is so is not entirely clear.  It does increase the amount of estrogen in the body, as has been shown in pre- and postmenopausal woman.  Alcohol also is able to affect the balance of insulin, estrogen, and IGF-1.  Use of alcohol encourages cells to multiply and can hasten the development and spread of existing cancer.

 

When it comes into contact with membranes lining the mouth and the esophagus, alcohol can ignite cancer here as well.  In the upper and lower digestive tracts, alcohol plays another roll a as a cancer promoter meaning that it encourages existing cancers to grow more rapidly.  It also may enable carcinogens to pass into the mucous cells that line the digestive tract walls.  The National Academy of Sciences, in its report on diet and health, does not recommend alcohol consumption.  One of the easiest ways to lower your risk of cancer is to avoid alcohol.

         

The foods and beverages in your everyday diet have far more impact than most people suspect.  Of course, cancer is not the result of eating one bad meal or a night of overindulgence.  Instead, it reflects a series of choices made over many years.  Luckily, we have many choices to tilt the scales in the right direction.