Reduce risk of breast cancer....by eating less red meat (!)

(Bob M) #1

Oh my…(this is “lifestyle adjustment” to reduce the risk of breast cancer):

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Eating red meat is MORE cancerous than tobacco use?

My rating for these: highest – by far, as in 1000 times higher than anything else – stop tobacco use; then manage your blood sugar; reduce or eliminate alcohol. I wouldn’t put “red” meat on there at all. (And I say “red” meat because the definition of this can change depending on study.) Not sure where body weight or exercise factor in, because these tend to be involved in the “healthy user” effect – people who are lighter weight or exercise can be/are healthier and skew the data.

But I cannot see that red meat would be the very first item to adjust to reduce risk of breast cancer.

(Edith) #2

“The most effective lifestyle adjustment is to limit consumption of red meat, followed by quitting tobacco use, managing your blood sugar, maintaining a healthy weight, curtailing alcohol use and staying physically active.”

This is just paying the usual lip service, because the next sentence negates it.

However, “lifestyle changes can’t fully eliminate the risk of breast cancer,” Menghrajani said. Force added that the majority of breast cancer causes are not attributable to lifestyle at all.

(Bob M) #3

Good point.

Here’s a worse version:

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This one is worse because they don’t put lifestyle changes into context.

(Edith) #4

“In 2023, 28% of the global breast cancer burden (6.8m years of healthy life lost to disability, illness and early death) was linked to six potentially modifiable risk factors. High red meat consumption had the biggest impact (linked to nearly 11% of all healthy life lost), followed by tobacco use including secondhand smoke (8%), high blood sugar (6%), high body mass index (4%), high alcohol use and low physical activity (both 2%).”

I really have a hard time believing that red meat consumption had the biggest impact on the development of breast cancer, more so than tobacco use, diabetes, obesity, and alcohol use. I haven’t read the study, yet; but I did find it and linked it below. It will be interesting read.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01635-6/fulltext

(Edith) #5

Interestingly, the paper isn’t really about cancer and its risk factors, it’s about the global burden of cancer. Risk factors are a very small part and you have to look at one of the appendices to see graphs of the risk factors.

For cancer deaths (for women) in general, dietary causes are third, below tobacco use (#1) and unsafe sex (#2). Dietary risks are attributed to colon and rectal cancer to a much larger percentage than breast cancer. Admittedly, dietary risk was number 2 for cancer deaths for both sexes combined.

As I continued to scroll through the appendix, there is a chart of cancer risk-outcome pairs and the risk factors are broken down into categories: environmental, behavioural, metabolic. Dietary risks fall under the behaviour category and include: diet high in processed meat, diet high in red meat, diet high in sodium, diet low in calcium, diet low in fiber, diet low in fruits, diet low in milk, diet low in vegetables, diet low in whole grains. I find it interesting that diet high in sugar and diet high in processed foods is not included in the list. Breast cancer only popped up in the pairings for diet high in red meat, not in processed meat. All the rest of the dietary pairings pertained to cancers of the digestive tract. Why wasn’t risk of colon cancer mentioned in the article?

I have a friend who had breast cancer and it runs in her family. She was told her cancer was estrogen dominant and now she takes medication and eats in a way to keep her estrogen levels as low as possible. That includes eating very little red meat. According to some searching around online, US beef, in particular, is higher in estrogen than say Japanese beef, so… it’s possible that eating red meat does cause an increased chance of getting breast cancer, maybe not in everyone, but those are are already genetically susceptible?

While this could be another plug for eating grass fed beef, according to the AI Overview, there are other foods that contain significantly more estrogen than even conventionally raised beef including soy, peas, and even broccoli.

After reading through all this, it just shows that the article pulled information out of the research paper to create a more sensational headline that had nothing to do with what the paper was really about. They probably figured their readers don’t really care about the GLOBAL burden, particularly in lower income, underdeveloped countries, so let’s make the headline more applicable to our readers.

(Bob M) #6

Nice analysis.

How did you get the article? It’s behind a paywall, and I couldn’t access it through Sci-Hub.

As for the estrogen in beef being a cause, here’s an article where soy flour and tofu are at the top:

Beef is tiny compared to those. According to the article, women produce 513,000 ng/day on average, while there are 1.2 ng in 3 ounces of beef. Even if a woman was carnivore and ate nothing but beef, the amount she naturally produces is vastly more than she can eat with beef.

Unfortunately, WHO has designated “red” meat as a carcinogen.

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat/

Oddly, there, red meat isn’t considered to be associated with breast cancer:

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This article discusses what I’d consider way more important for breast cancer than meat (even “processed” meat):

(Edith) #7

I looked up the primary author, Kayleigh Bhangdia, in Google Scholar, and I was able to access the article from there.

(Harriet) #8

The single biggest risk indicator for breast cancer is carrying either (or both) of the breast cancer genes.

#9

Any research about cancer that doesn’t consider the role of insulin growth factor (IGF) and cholesterol is incomplete IMO

(Sarah Hung) #10

The biggest lifestyle change for reducing breast cancer is breastfeeding. They mention so many lifestyle changes but not this one.
If you breastfeed your chance of breast cancer reduces and if you were breastfed your chance of breadt cancer is reduced.
What about the double effect of not being breastfed and not breastfeeding (the majority of the Western world now)?

(Denise) #11

Just among most of the people I grew up around, Red Meat really isn’t popular. I just don’t know anyone that eats a lot of red meat except friends that do Keto? I’ve never had the BC, and I guess I am somewhat of a Conspiracy Theorist. I feel in the US at least, this is yet another effort to get people to eat more of the mass Grocery aisle foods (processed, quick foods, bread, pasta) their BIG bucks may be dwindling. The cost of red meats is so high as well, because something is out of wack with our “cost of living” vs “income”.

I’d like to hear from women, even Ketogenic Women that eat a lot of red meat?? I don’t eat as much, never have, we had Chuck Roast as the only kind I remember, and I saw the other day that Pork is considered red meat too. We did eat pork chops, when I was growing up and beyond.

(Denise) #12

I’ve never had children, but I do tend to agree with you @Sarah. Seems they want to do away with all of the “natural order” of things, how our bodies were built to function :roll_eyes: If that’s true, the “whys” of it are what I don’t understand.

(Sarah Hung) #13

There are various ways breastfeeding helps:

Before pregnancy, breast cells are somewhat immature (they only full mature during pregnancy and lactation). During pregnancy and lactation, these cells undergo a process called differentiation to become fully functional, milk-producing units. Fully differentiated cells are more stable and less prone to the genetic mutations that lead to cancer. Also when breastfeeding ends, the breast undergoes involution, where the body triggers massive cell death to remove the milk-producing tissue. This process helps the body “flush out” cells that may have sustained DNA damage during the reproductive cycle.

Breastfeeding naturally alters your hormonal landscape, specifically concerning estrogen, which can act as “fuel” for certain types of breast cancer. Breastfeeding often delays the return of the menstrual cycle (amenorrhea). Fewer menstrual cycles mean the breast tissue is exposed to less cumulative estrogen over a lifetime, reducing the window of time that hormones can stimulate potentially cancerous growth.

Also there is HAMLET (Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made LEthal to Tumor cells) in breast milk. I am unsure how this helps but it may be that it kills off precancerous cells in the breast (and also in the baby).

The protective effect of breastfeeding is dose-dependent, meaning the longer the total duration of breastfeeding over a lifetime, the lower the risk. Often quoted research estimates a reduced risk of 4.3% for every year of breastfeeding. Also each full-term pregnancy is associated with approximately a 7% to 10% reduction in the long-term risk of developing breast cancer. But these detail are complex and age dependent.

(Tracie Angel) #14

I saw people who eat red meat regularly have CVD issues but not cancer, may be the cooking style impacts i guess. Eating once in a week by changing the cooking style like gravy or curry instead of grill could make a change i guess… this is pure speculation and my honest opinion.

(Brian) #15

The phrase that comes to mind; “Don’t blame the butter for what the bread did.”

Red meat has a context. Eating little other than red meat is a dramatically different context than eating red meat with pretty much everything else (carbs & sugars, fruit & veg, typical SAD, “moderation in everything”).

It is rather commonplace for most research to just point the blame at red meat and just assume that the plant based carbs and sugars are totally healthy and there couldn’t be anything wrong with those. :confused:

(Central Florida Bob ) #16

I realize this can’t be viewed as anything but an observation, but my wife had breast cancer diagnosed in early '97 and had a lump removed 3 or 4 years before that. She went through a hell year with a double mastectomy, a month long stay near a cancer center 120 miles away for an autologous (her own) stem cell transplant and six weeks of radiation. She’s the only survivor from a group of 12 she was in by '98.

The relationship here is that for those years, and I’ll swag 20+ years before, that she was a “no red meat” follower and had been full vegetarian for some of those years. A strong memory from that time was when she said she was quitting that and going back to eating meat.

Kind of the opposite of the study. I wish they’d filter out that kind of garbage conclusion as @Bellyman talks about, but they’re everywhere.

(Edith) #17

I remember learning about this years ago when I was pregnant with child #1. Just like you mentioned, the breast doesn’t become fully mature until it lactates. Interestingly, female rabbits, if they don’t have young at least once, pretty much always develop uterine cancer.

(Tracie Angel) #18

I agree with you, anything moderate works fine but too much is not really good!!

(Brian) #19

That’s not actually the message I was trying to give. “Everything in moderation” is a phrase that gets thrown around to justify bad eating habits. Eating arsenic is never a good thing no matter how much “moderation” you apply. There are things that are just not fit to eat but habit or tradition sees people eating those things anyway.