Breast cancer still holds many mysteries, say health professionals

WESTERN BUREAU:

Tennessee-based breast cancer specialist, Dr Sonya Reid, says diet and lifestyle choices play a key role in breast cancer care, albeit 90 per cent of breast cancer cases do not have a clear cause for their development.

Speaking during Tuesday night’s online breast cancer forum, which was hosted by the Sarah’s Children Foundation, Reid, a breast medical oncologist at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in the United States, said there is not enough data to conclusively say that diet plays a role in the development of breast cancer.

“Obesity is linked to higher incidents of certain types of breast cancer, so that is lifestyle and dietary influence. The big question is, ‘What do I do, going forward? Do I go green-juicing, do I cut out red meat?’ Those are some of the big questions we always get, and I think we do not have enough solid evidence to point us in a particular direction to say that this diet is better than that diet,” said Reid.

“When patients show up at my clinic, one of the first things they start doing is try to dial back, and they say, ‘What did I do wrong? It must have been the deodorant I was using, or it must have been that I started eating a lot of burgers recently’. What we know is that for 90 per cent of breast cancers, we do not know why you develop breast cancer,” stated Reid. “You have the genetic causes, the 10 per cent of persons that have the gene and for whom we can say it is because you have hereditary breast cancer, but for the majority of cases, we do not know why. We know there are things that increase risk, but we also know some patients can have the worst lifestyle and never get cancer.”

Reid’s position was shared by Dr Gregory Vidal, the director of clinical research at Tennesee’s West Cancer Centre and Research Institute, who told the forum that while he has had patients who abstain from all sugar in an attempt at cancer treatment, doing so starves both cancerous cells and healthy cells.

“We know sugar is important to every cell, and glucose is the energy support of every cell in your body. Does a high-sugar diet cause the same issue in terms of making your body unhealthy? Potentially, but we have not had any direct evidence that sugar intake causes cancer,” said Vidal.

“What we have seen is that cancer cells take up more sugar because they are growing at a faster rate, because that is what they use as energy, like every other cell in your body,” Vidal continued. “I have had patients who starved themselves of sugar to treat their cancer, but I am saying that you are also starving every other cell in your body, so everything should be done in moderation. Diet and exercise go together, and you have to prioritise getting activity in your life, not only for cardiovascular health, but for all health.”

Both doctors were addressing the forum as part of the annual observation of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is celebrated every October.

According to the National Health Fund, there were 7,500 new cancer cases recorded in Jamaica in 2022, with 1,327 of those cases being breast cancer. Additionally, the World Health Organization recorded 670,000 global deaths from breast cancer in 2022, with the disease being the most common cancer in women in 157 out of 185 countries that year.