Cure Breast Cancer By Avoiding All Milk Products

This is a long article but is really worth the read.


The Daily Mail - UK (5-27-00) 2-26-03

Why I believe that giving up milk is the key to beating
breast cancer... Professor Jane Plant is a wife, a mother,
and widely respected scientist, who was made a CBE for
her work in geochemistry. When she was struck by breast
cancer in 1987 at the age of 42, her happy and productive
existence seemed destined to fall apart. But despite the
disease recurring a further four times, Jane refused to
give in. As she describes in an inspiring new book,
[Your Life In Your Hands] serialised by the Mail this week,
she devised a revolutionary diet and lifestyle programme
that she believes saved her life and can cut the chances
of other women falling prey to the disease.

Her theory remains a controversial one - but every woman
should read it and make up her own mind. Today, she
explains her personal breakthrough...

I had no alternative but to die or to try to find a cure
for myself. I am a scientist - surely there was a rational
explanation for this cruel illness that affects one in
12 women in the UK?

I had suffered the loss of one breast, and undergone
radiotherapy. I was now receiving painful chemotherapy,
and had been seen by some of the country's most eminent
specialists. But, deep down, I felt certain I was
facing death.

I had a loving husband, a beautiful home and two young
children to care for. I desperately wanted to live.
Fortunately, this desire drove me to unearth the facts,
some of which were known only to a handful of scientists
at the time. Anyone who has come into contact with breast
cancer will know that certain risk factors - such as
increasing age, early onset of womanhood, late onset of
menopause and a family history of breast cancer - are
completely out of our control. But there are many risk
factors, which we can control easily. These 'controllable'
risk factors readily translate into simple changes that
we can all make in our day-to-day lives to help prevent or
treat breast cancer. My message is that even advanced
breast cancer can be overcome because I have done it.

The first clue to understanding what was promoting my breast
cancer came when my husband Peter, who was also a scientist,
arrived back from working in China while I was being plugged
in for a chemotherapy session.

He had brought with him cards and letters, as well as some
amazing herbal suppositories, sent by my friends and science
colleagues in China.

The suppositories were sent to me as a cure for breast cancer.
Despite the awfulness of the situation, we both had a good
belly laugh, and I remember saying that this was the treatment
for breast cancer in China, then it was little wonder that
Chinese women avoided getting the disease. Those words
echoed in my mind. Why didn't Chinese women get breast cancer?
I had collaborated once with Chinese colleagues on a study of
links between soil chemistry and disease, and I remembered
some of the statistics.

The disease was virtually non-existent throughout the whole
country. Only one in 10,000 women in China will die from it,
compared to that terrible figure of one in 12 in Britain and
the even grimmer average of one in 10 across most Western
countries.

It is not just a matter of China being a more rural country,
with less urban pollution. In highly urbanised Hong Kong,
the rate rises to 34 women in every 10,000 but still puts
the West to shame.

The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have similar
rates. And remember, both cities were attacked with nuclear
weapons, so in addition to the usual pollution-related cancers,
one would also expect to find some radiation-related cases, too.
The conclusion we can draw from these statistics strikes you
with some force. If a Western woman were to move to
industrialized, irradiated Hiroshima, she would stash her risk
of contracting breast cancer by half.

Obviously this is absurd. It seemed obvious to me that some
lifestyle factor not related to pollution, urbanization or
the environment is seriously increasing the Western woman's
chance of contracting breast cancer.

I then discovered that whatever causes the huge differences
in breast cancer rates between oriental and Western countries,
it isn't genetic. Scientific research showed that when
Chinese or Japanese people move to the West, within one or
two generations their rates of breast cancer approach those
of their host community.

The same thing happens when oriental people adopt a completely
Western lifestyle in Hong Kong. In fact, the slang name for
breast cancer in China translates as 'Rich Woman's Disease'.
This is because, in China, only the better-off can afford to
eat what is termed 'Hong Kong food'.

The Chinese describe all Western food, including everything
from ice cream and chocolate bars to spaghetti and feta
cheese, as 'Hong Kong food', because of its availability
in the former British colony and its scarcity, in the past,
in mainland China.

So it made perfect sense to me that whatever was causing my
breast cancer and the shockingly high incidence in this
country generally, it was almost certainly something to do
with our better-off, middle-class, Western lifestyle.

There is an important point for men here, too. I have
observed in my research that much of the data about prostate
cancer leads to similar conclusions.

According to figures from the World Health Organization,
the number of men contracting prostate cancer in rural China
is negligible, only 0.5 men in every 100,000. In England,
Scotland and Wales, however, this figure is 70 times higher.

Like breast cancer, it is a middle-class disease that
primarily attacks the wealthier and higher socio-economic
groups - those that can afford to eat rich foods.

I remember saying to my husband-- 'Come on Peter, you have
just come back from China. What is it about the Chinese
way of life that is so different. Why don't they get
breast cancer?'

We decided to utilize our joint-scientific backgrounds and
approach it logically. We examined scientific data that
pointed us in the general direction of fats in diets.

Researchers had discovered in the 1980s that only l4% of
calories in the average Chinese diet were from fat, compared
to almost 36% in the West. But the diet I had been living
on for years before I contracted breast cancer was very low
in fat and high in fibre. Besides, I knew as a scientist
that fat intake in adults has not been shown to increase
risk for breast cancer in most investigations that have
followed large groups of women for up to a dozen years.

Then one day something rather special happened. Peter and
I have worked together so closely over the years that I am
not sure which one of us first said: 'The Chinese don't eat
dairy produce!'

It is hard to explain to a non-scientist the sudden mental
and emotional 'buzz' you get when you know you have had an
important insight.

It's as if you have had a lot of pieces of a jigsaw in your
mind, and suddenly, in a few seconds, they all fall into
place and the whole picture is clear.

Suddenly I recalled how many Chinese people were physically
unable to tolerate milk, how the Chinese people I had worked
with had always said that milk was only for babies, and how
one of my close friends, who is of Chinese origin, always
politely turned down the cheese course at dinner parties.
I knew of no Chinese people who lived a traditional Chinese
life who ever used cow or other dairy food to feed their
babies. The tradition was to use a wet nurse but never,
ever, dairy products.

Culturally, the Chinese find our Western preoccupation with
milk and milk products very strange. I remember entertaining
a large delegation of Chinese scientists shortly after the
ending of the Cultural Revolution in the 1980s.

On advice from the Foreign Office, we had asked the caterer
to provide a pudding that contained a lot of ice cream.
After inquiring what the pudding consisted of, all of the
Chinese, including their interpreter, politely but firmly
refused to eat it, and they could not be persuaded to change
their minds. At the time we were all delighted and ate
extra portions!

Milk, I discovered, is one of the most common causes of food
allergies.

Over 70% of the world's population are unable to digest the
milk sugar, lactose, which has led nutritionists to believe
that this is the normal condition for adults, not some sort
of deficiency. Perhaps nature is trying to tell us that we
are eating the wrong food.

Before I had breast cancer for the first time, I had eaten
a lot of dairy produce, such as skimmed milk, low-fat cheese
and yoghurt. I had used it as my main source of protein.
I also ate cheap but lean minced beef, which I now realized
was probably often ground-up dairy cow.

In order to cope with the chemotherapy I received for my
fifth case of cancer, I had been eating organic yoghurts
as a way of helping my digestive tract to recover and
repopulate my gut with 'good' bacteria.

Recently, I discovered that way back in 1989 yoghurt had
been implicated in ovarian cancer. Dr Daniel Cramer of
Harvard University studied hundreds of women with ovarian
cancer, and had them record in detail what they normally ate.
I wish I'd been made aware of his findings when he had
first discovered them.

Following Peter's and my insight into the Chinese diet,
I decided to give up not just yoghurt but all dairy produce
immediately. Cheese, butter, milk and yoghurt and anything
else that contained dairy produce - it went down the sink
or in the rubbish.

It is surprising how many products, including commercial
soups, biscuits and cakes, contain some form of dairy
produce. Even many proprietary brands of margarine
marketed as soya, sunflower or olive oil spreads can
contain dairy produce. I therefore became an avid
reader of the small print on food labels.

Up to this point, I had been steadfastly measuring the
progress of my fifth cancerous lump with callipers and
plotting the results. Despite all the encouraging
comments and positive feedback from my doctors and
nurses, my own precise observations told me the bitter
truth.

My first chemotherapy sessions had produced no effect
- the lump was still the same size. Then I eliminated
dairy products. Within days, the lump started to shrink.

About two weeks after my second chemotherapy session and
one week after giving up dairy produce, the lump in my
neck started to itch. Then it began to soften and to
reduce in size. The line on the graph, which had shown
no change, was now pointing downwards as the tumour got
smaller and smaller.

And, very significantly, I noted that instead of declining
exponentially (a graceful curve) as cancer is meant to do,
the tumour's decrease in size was plotted on a straight
line heading off the bottom of the graph, indicating a
cure, not suppression (or remission) of the tumour.

One Saturday afternoon after about six weeks of excluding
all dairy produce from my diet, I practised an hour of
meditation then felt for what was left of the lump.
I couldn't find it.

Yet I was very experienced at detecting cancerous lumps -
I had discovered all five cancers on my own. I went
downstairs and asked my husband to feel my neck.
He could not find any trace of the lump either.

On the following Thursday I was due to be seen by my
cancer specialist at Charing Cross Hospital in London.

He examined me thoroughly, especially my neck where the
tumour had been. He was initially bemused and then
delighted as he said, "I cannot find it." None of my
doctors, it appeared, had expected someone with my type
and stage of cancer (which had clearly spread to the
lymph system) to survive, let alone be so hale and hearty.

My specialist was as overjoyed as I was. When I first
discussed my ideas with him he was understandably
skeptical. But I understand that he now uses maps showing
cancer mortality in China in his lectures, and recommends
a non-dairy diet to his cancer patients.

I now believe that the link between dairy produce and
breast cancer is similar to the link between smoking and
lung cancer. I believe that identifying the link between
breast cancer and dairy produce, and then developing a
diet specifically targeted at maintaining the health of
my breast and hormone system, cured me.

It was difficult for me, as it may be for you, to accept
that a substance as 'natural' as milk might have such
ominous health implications. But I am a living proof
that it works and, starting from tomorrow, I shall reveal
the secrets of my revolutionary action plan.

Extracted from "Your Life in Your Hands", by Professor
Jane Plant, to be published by Virgin on June 8 at #16.99.)
Professor Jane Plant, 2000.
_____
Jane Plant's conviction that dairy products can cause
cancer arises from the complex chemical makeup of milk.
All mature breast milk, from humans or other mammals,
is a medium for transporting hundreds of chemical components.

It is a powerful biochemical solution, designed specifically
to provide for the individual needs of young mammals of the
same species. Jane says: "It is not that cow's milk isn't
a good food. It is a great food - for baby cows. It is not
intended by nature for consumption by any species other than
baby cows. It is nutritionally different from human breast
milk, containing three times as much protein and far more
calcium.'

Breast milk, like cow's milk, contains chemicals designed
to play an important rote in the development of young
cattle. One of these, insulin growth factor IGF-1,
causes cells to divide and reproduce.

IGF-1 is biologically active in humans, especially during
puberty, when growth is rapid. In young girls, it
stimulates breast tissue to grow and, while its levels are
high during pregnancy, the hormones prolactin and oestrogen
are also active, enlarging breast tissue and increasing the
production of milk ducts in preparation for breast-feeding.

Though the concentration and secretions of these hormones
in the blood are small, they exert a powerful effect on
the body. All these hormones are present in cow's milk.
IGF-1 is identical in make-up, whether in human or cow's
milk, but its levels are naturally higher in cow's milk.
It is also found in the meat of cows.

High levels of IGF-1 in humans are thought to be a risk
factor for breast and prostate cancer. A 1998 study of
pre-menopausal women revealed that those with the highest
levels of IGF-1 in their bloodstream ran almost three
times the risk of developing breast cancer compared with
women who had low levels. Among women younger than 50,
the risk was increased seven times.

Other studies have shown that high circulating levels
of IGF-1 in men are a strong indicator of prostate cancer.
Interestingly, recent measures to improve milk yields
have boosted IGF-1 levels in cows. Could IGF-1 from milk
and the meat of dairy animals cause a build-up in humans,
especially over a lifetime, leading to inappropriate cell
division? Though we produce our own IGF-1, could it be
that the extra amounts we ingest from dairy produce
actually cause cancer?

Jane Plant already knew that one way the high-profile
drug, tamoxifen, used in the treatment of breast cancer,
is thought to work by lowering circulating levels of IGF-1.

IGF-1 is not destroyed by pasteurization, but critics
argue that it is destroyed by digestion and rendered
harmless. Jane believes the main milk protein, casein,
prevents this from happening and that homogenization,
which prevents milk from separating into milk and cream,
could further increase the risk of cancer-promoting
hormones and other chemicals reaching the bloodstream.

She also believes there are other chemicals in cow's
milk that may be responsible for sending muddied signals
to adult tissue. Could prolactin, released to stimulate
milk production in cows, have a similar effect on human
breast tissue, effectively triggering the same response
and causing cells to become confused, stressed and start
making mistakes in replicating their own DNA? Studies
have confirmed that prolactin promotes the growth of
prostate cancer cells in culture.

Another hormone, oestrogen, considered one of the main
risk factors for breast cancer, is present in milk in
minute quantities. But even low levels of hormones are
known to cause severe biological damage. Microscopic
quantities of oestrogen in our rivers are powerful
enough to cause the feminisation of many male species
of fish. While oestrogen in milk may not pose a direct
threat to tissues, it may stimulate the expression of
IGF-1, resulting in long-term tumour growth.

Jane, who has found growing support for her theories
from cancer specialists, stresses that she is not
setting out to attack more orthodox approaches. She
intends her dietary programme to complement the best
therapies available from conventional medicine, not
to replace them.
_____
Pure But Deadly - Is Milk Potentially Fatal?

http://www.ostomyinternational.org/June2000/1124.html
Dairy-free diet and breast/colon cancer
IOA Archived Discussion Forum May 2000
Posted By Leslie Dungan on June 19, 2000 at 17:40:01:
The following review appeared last week in the Irish Times.

Has anyone out there has opinions or experiences relevant
to Prof Plant's approach? British scientist Jane Plant,
who believes a dairy-free diet helped her recover from
breast cancer, talks to Katie Donovan Tempted by a cream
bun, you talk yourself out of it with thoughts of all that
unhealthy fat clogging up your arteries. You opt for a
low-fat yoghurt instead, with skimmed milk in your tea,
congratulating yourself on your sensible self-control.
Think again. According to a ground-breaking new book
about breast cancer (which kills over 600 women in Ireland
annually), dairy products, whether low-fat or full cream,
should be off everyone's menu overnight. (They are also
culpable with regard to prostate cancer, so that really
means everyone).

Prof Jane Plant CBE, author of Your Life in Your Hands,
was diagnosed with breast cancer 13 years ago. She was
42, a successful geochemist (she's now chief scientist
of the British Geological Survey), and led, she thought,
a healthy life. There was no history of breast cancer
in her family. She discovered that "only five to 10 per
cent of breast cancers are the result of inherited genes,
and the disease may not always develop, even in those
carrying the mutated gene."

Bamboozled by jargon and frozen with panic, she fell back
on her scientific training to try and figure out how she
had developed the disease, and how best to cure herself.

She went on the Bristol diet, she had a mastectomy, she
had radiotherapy, she had her ovaries irradiated (to
induce menopause and eliminate oestrogen), she asked
questions and did lots of research. To no avail.
By the time of the cancer's fifth recurrence (it spread
into the lymph), she was given a course of chemotherapy
and three months to live. She had an egg-sized tumour
on the side of her neck.

Brainstorming one night with her fellow scientist
husband about why, in the West, one in 10 women get
breast cancer (one in 14 in Ireland), while in China
it's only one woman in 10,000, the pair came up with
the simple answer: Chinese people don't eat dairy
products. Plant eliminated all dairy products
(including goat and sheep) from her diet. Six weeks
later, the tumour had disappeared.

When I meet her she is a youthful-looking woman in her
mid-fifties, quaffing mint tea and eating a tuna sandwich
(no butter or mayonnaise). She has stayed on her dairy-
free diet and has remained clear of cancer.

Giving up dairy products was only part of a healthy
regimen she had been following throughout her cancer,
including taking folic acid and zinc supplements,
drinking filtered water and never consuming anything
that had been packaged in plastic (phthalates, harmful
carcinogenic chemicals, leak from soft plastic into food).

In spite of her best efforts it was only after she gave
up all dairy products that the cancer disappeared.
Sixty-three other women who had breast cancer and who
came to her for advice, also recovered after giving up
dairy products.

So how, I ask, can dairy products-- beloved of both the
Irish and British alike, not to mention the Americans
whose diet is 40 per cent dairy-- have such a lethal
effect?

"Milk is designed as the perfect food for newborn animals.
They can't eat ordinary food, they are dependent on milk
to keep development and cell differentiation going. But
milk contains a chemical--insulin-like growth factor, or
IGF-1 -- which girls have naturally as teenagers to help
their breasts develop. This chemical-- which is designed
to stimulate cell growth-- can send the wrong signal to
adult breast tissue.

She quotes studies in the US and Canada in 1998 which
found that pre-menopausal women with the highest IGF-1
concentration in their blood had a far higher risk of
developing breast cancer (similar studies have found
a link between IGF-1 and prostate cancer). The drug,
Tamoxifen, prescribed for women with breast cancer,
is thought to work by reducing circulating IGF-1 levels.

"Over 70 per cent of the world's population are unable
to digest the milk sugar, lactose," she observes.
"Lactose intolerance may be nature's early warning
system: perhaps nature is trying to tell us that we're
eating the wrong food." Homogenization apparently only
enables cancer-producing chemicals to reach the bloodstream
quicker.

Plant has done her homework: "Epidemiological studies
have indicated a positive correlation between dairy
product consumption and breast cancer risk going back
two decades. Studies have found an increase in breast
cancer risk among women who consumed milk (especially
whole milk) and/or cheese."

In 1977 scientists examining the incidence of breast
cancer in Japan found "a significant increase in both
the consumption of dairy products and the occurrence
of breast cancer in urban areas".

She quotes more research to suggest that "free oestrogens"--
found in commercial pasteurized whole cow's milk and in
skimmed milk-- may stimulate expression of IGF-1 resulting
in "indirect long-term tumour growth".

She lists dioxins and other damaging environmental
chemicals, some of them carcinogenic, which are often
fat soluble and end up "particularly concentrated" in milk.

As for the argument that we need dairy products because
they contain calcium, Plant quotes the World Health
Organization's finding that countries which have low
intakes of calcium do not have an increased incidence
of osteoporosis: "Scientific studies into calcium
absorption have shown that only 18 to 36 per cent of
the calcium in milk is taken up by the body."

Now that we're convinced, what should we be eating
instead? Plant recommends soya milk, herbal tea, humous,
tofu, nuts and seeds, non-farmed fish, organic eggs and
lean meat (not minced beef, which tends to be dairy cow)
and plenty of fresh organic fruit and vegetables (in
salads, juiced, or lightly steamed). But how can the
average woman afford the time and energy it takes to
source and prepare such food?

"Your priority should be good food, not glop," she
stresses. "Put organic food first. Your health is more
important than a new car. Anyway, I don't find it too
costly-- after all, I don't buy any processed food,
which is very expensive."

Her husband and two children have no problem following
her diet. And although she travels a lot for her job,
she finds that she is able to get-- she includes many
tips in her book about what to bring with you on a trip
(dried soya milk, herbal tea bags, kelp tablets for
iodine, etc).

She is about to start writing a new book, a guide for
busy women who want to stay healthy.

She advocates thorough and frequent self-examination of
your breasts, and, if you do develop breast cancer,
self-empowerment by working with your doctor
"as a partner, not as a victim".

She is not a fan of the Louise Hay 'You Can Heal Your Life'
philosophy: I do believe in positive thinking, but I'm
also a scientist and I wanted a rational explanation.
I have friends with diseases like MS who have read Hay's
books and feel guilty because they can't adapt their mental
attitude; or, if they have adapted, and the disease doesn't
go away, they become distressed. Plant, who is an advocate
of acupuncture, has varying opinions of alternative
therapies. She is suspicious of aromatherapy, found
visualization didn't work, but took much comfort from
cognitive therapy and hypnotherapy (both of which helped
her to reduce the stress and anxiety caused by having
cancer).

Overall, however, it was her professional research as a
geochemist into the links between disease and trace
elements (such as selenium) in the environment in China
and Korea that led to her insight about the role of dairy
produce in her cancer. She finds the medical profession
particularly
shortsighted about the influence of environmental factors--
such as pollution and industrialization-- on disease:
"I think public health has done a lot for the elimination
of infectious diseases, but looking at the environment and
nutrition could do the same for a lot of degenerative
diseases."

Plant started writing "Your Life in Your Hands" for her
daughter, Emma (now 25). Emma's teen years were dominated
by the fear that her mother was going to die:

"The book's original title was "What I Want My Daughter
to Know," recalls Plant. "The 63 women with breast cancer
who followed my diet and survived their cancer encouraged
me to publish the book. I was reluctant at first-- I knew
I'd get flak for it, because science is an adversarial
process.

But morally, I felt if I had done the research and I had
the information, I should share it with others. Men and
women have the right to know what I know, and to draw
their own conclusions."

"Your Life in Your Hands" by Jane Plant is published by
Virgin at #16.99 in UK Leslie Dungan, Dublin
http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Lnotmilk6.htm
http://members.tripod.co.uk/AllThingsChildren/MilkCancer.htm
___________________________________________