sundries

[rm]

- The stress from having to redo my diet again has just hit me in a somewhat bad and jittery way. It's much easier to adhere to a food restriction that causes instant suffering than one that may prevent me from getting cancer in two or three decades. I'm not going to throw out everything of mine in the house that is soy-based, but after it's gone, none of it will be repurchased. I am wondering if I need to worry about things that may have soy contamination, or if little quantities don't matter. As you might guess, lots of my gluten-free foods contain soy. No more chicken nuggets or buffalo sauce! I haven't checked the pizzas yet. I do get to keep the croisants and the brownies.

- I really need to stop getting into fights with chicks in my neighborhood. On the other hand, they really need to stop throwing bagels at me.

- I just accidently whapped myself right between the eyes with the headphones at work and am hoping it didn't bruise.

It's been a hard morning, kids.

Comments

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Could you have a small amount of soy? Maybe once a week?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've heard things like "oh you can have it three times a week, max" but I feel like it's so pervasively in everything, I'll have it three times a week even if I'm trying not to. I think my soy treats will be saved for when I go for sushi, as there's no soy-free soy sauce (and I hate that Aminos thing).

[beemerbike.livejournal.com]

yum. I could drink Bragg's by the shot. And as far as exercise, you certainly get enough of that with the fencing. You should have spanked that woman with her own bagel. lol.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Actually they say that it should be major exercise at least three times a week. I only go to fencing twice and I don't dance every week. On the other hand, I do live in NYC and walk a lot.

[beemerbike.livejournal.com]

I think the walking is huge. That whole cancer thing scares me...and I dislike doctors with a passion. You should get a cheap pedometer to see how much walking you actually do. I think I read something like the average housewife walks 10k steps per day. I cannot imagine what someone in a large city does without a private vehicle.

I must of missed the entry about soy

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

and why you have to remove it from your diet? Would you mind giving me the condensed version or directing me to where I could read about soy and the connection to cancer?

Re: I must of missed the entry about soy

[rm.livejournal.com]

My mother's breast cancer is hormone positive. Soy has been shown in studies to have estrogenic effects on breast tissue. The way to reduce the risk of hormone positive breast cancers is to reduce hormone exposure -- which is why lots of exercise and the elimination of soy are recommended.

Re: I must of missed the entry about soy

[graene.livejournal.com]

FYI, tea tree oil has also been shown to have estrogenic effects (pre-puberty boys growing breasts), and that's becoming more popular in skin care products.

[zarq.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're already familiar with this site, but if you're not...

http://www.foodb.com/ The Food Allergies Database.

http://www.foodb.com/MultSearch2allsample.cfm (Search field)

You have to pay a nominal fee to be a member, but my understanding (from my mom,) is that they're quite good.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

Bagels?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Bagels!

This woman decided she was done with her fucking cream cheese bagel and tossed it over he shoulder and it hit me! So I called her a pig. Then there was a lot of finger point and head wagging outrage, but hi, she threw a fucking bagel at me.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

I love this city.

[rothko.livejournal.com]

do you really, truly have to avoid soy at all costs? sure, it's in lots of stuff, but i would think that just avoiding excess consumption (like drinking soy milk or eating lots of meat-free soy substitute stuff) would be reasonable.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My understanding of it is that I should eat anything that contains it as an ingredient more than 3 times a week total. And it's in everything, particularly gluten-free foods. So yeah, I can have sushi once in a while, but everything from canned tuna in water to gluten-free buffalo sauce has soy.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

My spidey senses say you are headed towards both a crockpot and your very own Mr. Bento.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Other people have already said the same thing, roughly, but I'm going to add to the chorus by asking whether you've spoken to an oncologist (your mother's or anyone else's) about this whole soy thing. If it weren't a problem for you to give it up I wouldn't think to question it, but given that you already have dietary restrictions that make this extremely awkward for you, it makes sense to be reasonably sure that there's a material benefit to doing it.

So I'm going to apologize now for going over information you undoubtedly already have, and plunge ahead and do it anyway.

Hormone-receptor-positive breast cancers are the norm in sporadic (that is to say, non-hereditary) cases, particularly those occurring post-menopause. So unless you've gone forward with genetic testing and now know otherwise, it isn't necessarily the case that your mother's tumor's hormone status says anything about your level of risk.

Yes, there's good reason to think that exposure to excessive hormone levels is associated with increased risk of hormone-receptor-positive tumors, but last I heard, it wasn't clear that soy created a significant additional level of risk (that is, one higher than you'd have from a lifetime of menstrual cycles, not interrupted routinely by pregnancy and lactation). It is notable that in Japan, breast cancer rates are much lower than in the U.S., and that's a population of women who're eating more soy than we are, not less.

And to top it all off? If you are concerned about excessive hormone exposure, and your doctors consider you to be at particular risk, the usual approach is to put you on an estrogen blocker. Because that, you know, actually blocks the effects of estrogen, making a big difference and not merely something vague at the margins. These things aren't fun, of course -- they cause a kind of chemical instant menopause, and I'm here to tell you that premature and abrupt menopause can be highly unpleasant. (So unpleasant, in fact, that I went on HRT and stayed there.) But in appropriate cases, where you don't want to be kidding around, it is my strong impression that they beat hell out of, "I don't know, maybe I'll stop eating soy."

None of which is to say that you're wrong to do it. You'll have done the research much more recently than I have, for one thing; for another, only you have standing to make this sort of choice. But if you're doing this because it seemed like something you could do, that you have control over, and without compulsively talking to doctors, and if it's freaking you out -- well, maybe you don't really need to do it at all.

[mysduende.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to post to you. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer end of '05 and spent the whole year dealing with it via chemo, etc. We never had breast cancer in our family - let alone any cancer - prior. My sister's cancer turned out to be estrogen related. Something I had suspected of her for quite a long time as she had very heavy periods while perimenopause. All her doctor ever prescribed was 'the pill' or 'the ring' to address this. My feeling was that this created more problems regarding her hormonal imbalance. Currently, she is taking a pill - something other than Tomoxifin (which has proven to had horrid side effects) to help control and block her estorgen-levels. Unfortunately, she has other side-effects with these drugs that cause unbelievable soreness of random areas of her body - the likes of which would make you think she has Lupus or Fibrilmalagia or the like. It's scary to think that these drugs that are supposed to be preventing cancer relapses are causing such pain in her body. She finds herself needing to take vicodin periodically to control the pain (but hates taking meds of any kind period.) Recently, she made a decision to go off this drug temporarily to see if the medication detoxes from her system and lessens the amount of pain.

At any rate, what I meant to say here is.. they are finding out that much of cancer in women is related to tooo much estrogen in the system - from external things in the environment ( plastics, etc.) and also estrogen is still produced in women past menopasuse by way of other parts of the body still creating the hormone. Essentially, excessive exposure to estrogen over our lifespan is the culprit. I'm not exactly certain of your mom's situation but it's probable that this is what happened. My sister has been talking to her friend recently who is into eating only whole, raw foods, and she told her about a new supplement called 'Brevail' that one can take to help naturally balance and control the estorgen in your system.

http://www.brevail.com/content/proactive-breast-health.html

Another thing that you can do, which I read about and also heard about on Oprah is applying natural progesterone cream. Applying a dime sized drop daily to your skin helps to balance out the hormones.

Anyway, thought this could be helpful to you in preventing the 'Big C' happening to you later on in life.

[mysduende.livejournal.com]

I just read some of the other posts here and the discussion about soy products. My sister went through that whole debate of should I or should I not do soy. The concensus was that if you are not experiencing cancer having a bit of soy is not harmful to you - all things in moderation. If you are experiencing cancer, you should avoid it.

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure exactly what the surgeon explained to your mother re: soy-based products, but my mother's surgeon told her to limit it to 3 servings per week and that I should do the same. So while I haven't cut it out of my diet completely, I do try to make sure I'm not going soy crazy. Just another excuse to not go vegetarian/vegan. ;)