Slash your cancer risk

Being obese brings life threatening consequences, one of which is cancer.  Obesity caused by poor lifestyle choices such as diet are the cause of one in eight hospital admissions for women over the age of 50 according to information from a new study.

According to researchers  from the University of Oxford found that hospital admissions for women over 50 are commonly caused by issues related to obesity or being overweight, and that these issues accounted for roughly 2 million days in hospital a year in the UK.

This information has come to light from research that was part of the Million Women Study - one of the biggest health research projects currently being carried out in the UK.  The researchers found the information by looking at the diseases in women with a high body mass index (BMI) of more than 25, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

However, although these diseases are common with women over the age of 50 with a high BMI, the study found that most of the issues were to do with cancer.  Weight is one of the big risk factors for breast cancer, BUT it is also one of the few that can actually be altered.

Lead author, Gillian Reeves explains:

"A lot of the work I do is related to cancer.  A lot of the risk factors for breast cancer, in particular, you can't change.  In some sense, it is quite nice to think this is a modifiable risk factor - there is a lot to be gained by not putting on excess weight."

The Million Women Study estimates that the annual bill to the taxpayer by overweight or obese women over 50 and their hospital visits is around 598 million Euros based on one NHS bed costing 299€ per day.

This study has been running since 1996 and looks at changes in health of the whole population over time, looking at about a quarter of all the women in the UK between the ages of 50 and 64 with a total of 1.3 million women participating in the study.

36% of the participants were overweight, and roughly 18% were obese bringing the total of women with weight issues to 54% of the participants - this is just a few percent lower than the official figure of women in England with weight issues - 58%.

The hospital admissions for overweight women in relation to the health problems they were suffering were as follows:

• Cataract surgery = 45,000 admissions
• Gallbladder disease = 35,000 admissions
• Breast Cancer = 34,307 admissions
• Heart Disease = 32,483 admissions

The study has determined that weight was a major factor in both minor and major ailments.  Women
with a BMI over 25 were at a bigger risk for diabetes (74% of admissions) and knee replacements (66% of admissions), and one in five heart attacks were due to weight issues.  The study found that the more weight a woman gained the more likely she was to spend time in hospital and it also found that women with a BMI of higher than 25 were LESS likely to smoke or drink with meant that their health issues were due only to being overweight rather than due to other unhealthy habits.


So, choosing a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet and regular exercise will mean that your risk of serious health problems including cancer, will be far less than if you don't.  So remember this the next time you reach for a chocolate biscuit with your mid-morning coffee.

A healthy lifestyle really is easy to achieve.  There is so much information at your fingertips that will help you to make healthy choices - your body will thank you for it and so will the medical community.  The truth is, as I said 2 weeks ago, even with everything we know nowadays about what constitutes a healthy diet and the need for regular exercise, and we are STILL getting fatter and sicker, but what it really comes down to is what YOU choose to do.

Social Nutrition:  You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Dairy products linked to a 50% higher risk of dying from breast cancer.

If my previous articles: FORKS OVER KNIVES and THE MILK DILEMA haven't managed to make you rethink your dairy produce intake then I hope this one will.

It is still illegal in the United States to claim that diet can cure cancer, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it can (The Gerson Miracle), or that diet can prevent serious illnesses and plays an important role in curing a disease once diagnosed.

Too many medical doctors do not consider the importance of diet and rely exclusively on modern medicine.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for the wonders of modern medicine, but I do believe that doctors need to understand how much better modern medicine would be if combined with a proper disease appropriate diet.

New data has shown that just ONE portion of full-fat dairy per day - be it ice cream or yogurt or cheese cold hinder the survival of women with breast cancer.  Scientists say that women suffering from breast cancer who eat one portion daily could be 50% more likely to die.

Scientists in the US suspect that the reason for this is because milk and other dairy foods contain the hormone estrogen, which is known to encourage tumor growth.

We already know that diet plays an important role in improving the chances of surviving cancer and also preventing its recurrence.  But this is the first study to show such a strong link between dairy products and breast cancer.

1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives and around 50.000 new cases are diagnosed every year.  Scientists from the Kaiser Permanente research center in California studied the medical records of 1,500 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1997 and 2000.  The women had all completed questionnaires on how often they consumed dairy products, what size the portions were, and what specifically they ate.  The most common products consumed were ice cream, yogurts, cheese, full-fat lattes and hot chocolate.

The scientists found that the women who ate just ONE portion of just ONE of these products a day, were 50% more likely to die from the illness within 12 years.  They also pointed out that most milk consumed in Britain and the US comes from pregnant cows and is therefore rich in estrogen, which, as I said before, is know to trigger tumor growth and there are particularly high levels in full-fat dairy foods.

In fact, they also found that women who ate ONE portion of full-fat dairy every day were 64% more likely to die from any cause - not just breast cancer.

Dr. Bette Caan, research leader on the study said:

"High-fat dairy is generally not recommended as part of a healthy diet.  Switching to low-fat dairy is an easy thing to modify."

Although, here I have to say; and why not just eliminate dairy all together?  It really is not an essential part of our diets.  All other mammals are perfectly capable of living healthy lives without it after weaning.

Many women who have just been diagnosed with breast cancer ask their doctor whether they should change their diet, but the general consensus within the medical community is that there is just too little research on the subject for them to give any specific advice.

Susan Kutner, chair at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Regional Breast Cancer Task Force, said:

"Women have been clamoring for this type of information.  They're asking us 'tell me what I should eat.'  With this information, we can be more specific about recommending low-fat dairy products."

Sally Greenbrook, Senior Policy Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said:

"This study specifically looks at women who have already been diagnosed with breast cancer and how low or high fat dairy products may affect them.  Any women who have had beast cancer and are concerned about their diet should discuss this with their doctors.

"For a number of health reasons it's advisable that all women should follow a healthy balanced diet.  It helps you to maintain a healthy weight which, together with good practices such as low alcohol intake and regular physical activity, can help to reduce your breast cancer risk and improve overall wellbeing.  There are many risk factors to breast cancer, not just diet."

Diet is so important and is given very little credit.  If you want to know more about fighting disease with diet then I can recommend FORKS OVER KNIVES, HUNGRY FOR CHANGE and THE GERSON MIRACLE.  These are all available in DVD and book form, whichever you prefer, but they are incredible documentaries that will, I hope, change your life and health for the better.

Remember, you have the power to change.


Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com