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