"Leila" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Please skip this if you're sick of the cancer topic. But some of you
> might care to know.
>
> I looked up a couple of reputable books on breast cancer after my
> diagnosis, one written by a top doctor at UCLA, one more "popular" and
> written by a survivor.
>
> On the topic of what to eat, they generally said eat a wide variety of
> foods. But both of them made statements that went approximately like
> this "since eating large amounts of animal fats may increase your risk
> for cancer, you should eat a low fat diet and avoid red meat." I find
> this a large jump in logic. Why can't you eat red meat in small
> quantities? And olive oil is good for breast cancer.
>
> On the topic of wine, a similar statement was made "Since drinking 6-9
> glasses of wine per week is a risk factor for breast cancer, you should
> only drink a glass of wine at Thanksgiving or New Year's holidays."
>
> the wine - If 6-9 glasses a week is risky, where is the data that
> two glasses a year is the only safe choice?
>
> I asked my surgeon, the head of the breast center at UC San Francisco,
> one of the top centers in the country. She said that 3 to 5 glasses of
> wine a week would put me below the area of risk. She also said that you
> eat what's good for you, lots of vegetables and fruit, a wide variety
> of foods, and enjoy your life.
>
> Since I don't normally drink 5 glasses of wine average per month, I am
> going to continue as I was pre-cancer. No wine when I've been using
> pain or anti-nausea meds (or when I'm nauseated, duh). Have a glass or
> two with a meal when the mood strikes, which is usually less than once
> a week, sometimes more like once a month. And as the surgeon said, if I
> drink three glasses during the course of a long and delicious meal, I
> know to lay off for the rest of the week.
>
> Moderation in all things. I like this surgeon. (She dresses great, too,
> and sings Puccini to her patients while the anesthesiologist puts us
> under)
>
> Leila

I've been looking in my computer for a file I saved about a year or so ago
and I certainly wish I could find it, but I can't. Perhaps someone else
might recognize what I am speaking of and post the url.
It is a list of countries along with columns for women, men,
wine/beer/alcohol and each country's medical recommendation in ounces and
drinks per day/week for a healthful amount of like-beverage. From that
large list, there was some variation in recommended drinks per week/per day,
but not a lot. From that composite I was able to make a decision for
myself, not based upon what one doctor in my country would recommend, even
though he/she may be repeating the U.S. guidelines.
If one has a lot of wine glasses of varying size, one of the things I did
for a number of months was to measure in ounces the wine that I was
drinking, thus training my eye to recognize, if I decided to have another
glass of wine, just how much I was drinking. Some wine glass sizes are
deceiving; we should all know that from ordering wine by the glass in
restaurants.

Another thing one can do regarding deciding what to eat is to take a good
look at the breast cancer rates in other countries and see what they are
eating. Just in the news today is olive oil included in the Mediterranean
diet, and as I understand it, tofu is not a bad thing to include in some way
in your diet - but I would not force myself to eat it if I had an aversion
to it.

Cancer is such a scarey thing and when we get it, we wonder if perhaps we
have been eating unwisely and try to change our habits. It is one thing we
can try to change for ourselves that we know about. Luckily, the subject of
food is an interesting one.

Dee