[.ca] The Breast Cancer Prevention Diet: The Powerful Foods, ... (ISBN 0316051098)

From Amazon.com:
Until recently, there was little women could do to prevent breast cancer. After years of research, nutrition is emerging as one of the most important weapons to fight this deadly disease. Now, in The Breast Cancer Prevention Diet: The Powerful Foods, Supplements and Drugs That Can Save Your Life, Dr. Bob Arnot, author of the bestselling Dr. Bob Arnot's Revolutionary Weight Control Program, provides a powerful, safe, easy-to-follow diet that can actually transform the structure of the breast and alter the flow of hormones that induce breast cancer. Arnot, NBC News chief medical correspondent, integrates and clearly explains the latest and most important breast cancer research from around the world. He gives 12 detailed steps to prevent breast cancer and provides specific cancer-prevention strategies for premenopausal and postmenopausal women, breast cancer survivors, and girls. Dr. Bob's sound advice will also provide many other benefits, from improving overall health to lowering the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. --Ellen Albertson

can women prevent cancer in their lifetime?:
october is breast cancer month in this country, we participate in walking marathons, fundraisers and remember those who have died and survived...this book allows women individually, to become proactive in lowering their risk factors, by suggesting lifestyle changes. Dr. Arnot makes crystal clear that changing one's diet is the main factor in lowering breast cancer risk. He emphasizes lowering meat, fat, sugar,and alcohol consumption...in fact alcohol should not be in any woman's diet. He discusses the links between chemical estrogen, high blood insulin levels and obesity as high risk factors. I am amazed about the different sources of chemical estrogens in our environment. His research chapters on vitamins, herbs, good and bad estrogen, is insightful. Chapters include foods which are breast "friendly". This helps the reader to become more informed of her choices....proactive?...or passive? This book helps the reader to participate in the fight against cancer from the "life style change" point of view.

Not till I find out more about Lillian Thompson!:
I was all set to get this book, really...Till it came to my attention that I alreasy HAVE a book that cites Lillian Thompson's research at The Univerity of Toronto with flax seeds on breast cancer in mice (or rats, whichever-- except that its NOT whichever, it's bloody mice! and they don't always get the same results in both!) and it says that she is going one step further and, in a pilot study, is giving flaxseeds to women recently diagnosed with the disease. Now there is a review right here written in December, 1998, about the hardcover edition of this book that says that Dr. Arnot failed to make clear that the results Lillian Thompson obtained were for mice. The book I bought was published in hardcover in 1998 and in paperback in 1999, and I just got it in 2000. So I though maybe since then Lillian Thompson had published something in which she had given flaxseeds to human subjects diagnosed with breast cancer. Since the government has granted free poblic access to Medline, I looked up her reasearh on it. She hasn't done recent research on any human subjects unless you count one experiment done a few years ago in which she gave various doses of of raw flaxseeds and processed (as in cooked: in bread and muffins) flaxseeds to healthy human subjects to see if what (no I don't know what--but it was what it was supposed to be) was excreted would be excreted in a dose dependant manner and if it would be affected by processing ( raw vs. processed): it was excreted in a dose dependant manner and this was regardless of whether the flaxseeds were raw or processed in muffins and bread. But on Medline I could find no experiments of hers on human subjects with breast cancer going back as far as 1993. It's not that her experiments on mice aren't encouraging , but one wonders what happened to the human subjects that were recently diagnosed with breast cancer who were going to get the flax seeds. It may not even be that she hasn't done that and published it too--it's just that as of now, if she has, I can't find it on Medline and I can find this other stuff of hers. I don't intend to stop using flaxseeds, but I'm also not getting this book yet. Also to be consdered, possibly, that I do not know about: another reveiewer said that some of the scientists whose work was cited in the book have disassociated themselves from it. One might want to know why. I do think that diet and some cancers are related and that it is worth one's while to find out what one can and try to reduce one's risk. However, I ,too, live on a budget, I have other needs too, and i'm not ready for this book yet.

Just a word to the naysayers...:
Though Arnot's book is simply (perhaps simplistically) written, it nevertheless points out exciting areas of research. Most of the dietary recommendations are just good sense for a generally healthy diet. As for supplementation with high doses of certain substances, one should of course study such things further before making radical changes. As a TV doctor, wouldn't you expect he'd write in a TV manner, ie. sensationalistically? I found the book useful as a source of ideas for further research, not a Bible. As for the vaunted American Council on Science and Health's critique, mentioned in the majority of negative reviews here: Take a look at their site, and you'll easily see that they're a bunch of apologists for the most conservative and capitalistic viewpoints possible, lackeys for the food and chemical industries. Check out their pieces on irradiation, why soda pop isn't a bad food, the bad rap that DDT got, etc ad nauseum. If that's the kind of people who you put your faith in, you have nothing to say to those who put their faith in a TV doctor. Think for yourself, read critically, maintain a healthy skepticism, and research thoroughly before making radical changes. But don't throw the baby with the bathwater. This book sheds light on some intriguing possibilities - use it as a starting point.

I have breast cancer:
I remember watching Dr. Bob on the Oprah show and I was hopeful because my diet and exercise routine (in addition to the suppliments I take) closely matched his anti-breast cancer book. I managed stress. I wasn't in a high-risk group. Well...I'm getting ready for my second round of chemotherapy. People PLEASE DON'T BE FOOLED. Anyone is at risk and there isn't much you can do to stop this horrible disease before it hits you.

Buy it:
This is a great book. I wish we would have had this information a long time ago and perhaps there wouldn't be so many women w/breast cancer. It's informative. You'll notice that he's not out endorsing his own line of food supplements. It really is an important book. I've read 12 books on breast cancer, I'd put this in the top 3 of the books to buy.