Diet taboos for breast cancer patients

Health products/foods that clearly add exogenous estrogen, excessive alcohol, long-term intake of high-fat and high-sugar deeply processed foods, and other widely circulated "food taboos" and "soy products cannot be eaten" need to be flexibly adjusted based on individual treatment stages, body tolerance, and recommendations from different medical systems. There is no one-size-fits-all standard.

In the past few years when I have been doing nutritional follow-up at the Breast Center, I have encountered too many patients who have fallen into trouble due to random dietary restrictions. Last month, I met an Aunt Zhang who was half a year after surgery. She heard from a fellow patient in the ward that chicken was treated with hormones and that chicken should not be eaten. Soy products contain estrogen and can induce relapse. For half a year, she only dared to eat vegetables and porridge. During the review, her albumin was only 32g/L, which was worse than the index during the chemotherapy period. She couldn't take two steps without gasping for breath, which gave an opportunity for relapse. Many people's taboo is simply to cut their feet to fit their shoes. Originally, they need to supplement nutrition to repair their bodies after surgery, but they don't dare to eat or touch that, but the more they nourish, the weaker they become.

Let’s first talk about the kind of food that is not controversial and has a high probability of being criticized. Royal jelly, snow clams, purple river cartons, some breast enhancement products with unknown ingredients, and so-called "ovary maintenance" health products sold in beauty salons all clearly contain large amounts of animal-derived estrogen. Whether it is evidence-based medicine from Western medicine or traditional Chinese medicine, they are clearly not recommended for breast cancer patients. There was a family member of a patient who was worried that his mother was weak after surgery. They spent a lot of money to buy snow clam ointment from Northeast China and stewed a bowl of it every day to replenish her. After taking it for less than two months, the recheck showed that the estrogen level had soared by twice as much, and the tumor markers also showed abnormal fluctuations. It took three months to stop and then slowly came back down. It was really a waste of money to find fault.

As for alcohol, this is a carcinogen clearly listed by the WHO, and it is clearly related to the incidence and recurrence risk of breast cancer. Even the so-called "a small amount of red wine softens blood vessels" is not true for breast cancer patients. Try not to touch it if you can. However, there is no need to overdo it and not dare to eat the braised pork ribs with a spoonful of cooking wine. As long as the stewing time is long enough, the alcohol has basically evaporated, and the remaining amount can be ignored. There is no need to cook it separately for the whole family.

High-fat and high-sugar highly processed foods are also within the scope of clear restrictions, such as French fries, cream cakes, and processed meat products. Eating large amounts for a long time will increase body fat percentage, and adipose tissue will secrete a small amount of estrogen, which will indeed indirectly increase the risk of recurrence. However, this does not mean that you cannot touch one bite. I met a little girl who was undergoing chemotherapy a while ago. She vomited for four days and couldn't eat anything. She just wanted to eat cheesecake from the convenience store downstairs. Her family was afraid that it was unhealthy and refused to give it to her. Later, she asked us and we said that it was okay to eat a small one. She actually drank less than half a bowl of millet porridge that day. Compared with the sugar and fat, being able to eat and ensuring nutrition is the first priority. As long as you don't eat it every day, it's totally fine to satisfy your cravings occasionally.

As for the most widely circulated taboos on "fat food", such as beef and mutton, seafood, chicken, and soy products, the controversy has always been huge. There is currently no evidence-based evidence from Western medicine to prove that these foods will increase the risk of breast cancer recurrence and metastasis. On the contrary, the soy isoflavones in soy products are phytoestrogens, and their binding ability with human estrogen receptors is only one thousandth of human estrogen. On the contrary, it can play a two-way regulatory role. Drinking a cup of soy milk and eating a piece of tofu every day has a protective effect on the breast. This has been confirmed by many large-scale clinical studies. However, some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe that foods such as beef, mutton and seafood tend to be warm and dry. During radiotherapy and chemotherapy, if you have oral ulcers, radiation dermatitis, constipation and irritation, eating them may aggravate the discomfort. If you really feel uncomfortable after eating, stop for a while. If there is no reaction after eating, just eat normally. There is no need to avoid high-quality protein for the sake of unwarranted "fat" claims, which will drag down the body.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the dietary taboos for breast cancer patients are never a cold list. Your own physical feelings are more reliable than any rumors. When you are really unsure, asking your attending doctor or a doctor in the clinical nutrition department during the review is more effective than searching for ten so-called "authoritative taboos" on the Internet. After all, only the doctor who follows up on your condition every day knows best about your physical condition, right?