How women pursue and achieve breast cancer with their diets without knowing it
The title of this article is provocative on purpose…it should catch your attention and you should wonder if this is true. In fact, it is true, but most women do not understand that with each bite of inflammatory food that is eaten, they step closer and closer to expressing breast cancer and the misery associated with this disease.
Most any woman with concerns about breast cancer has heard of the BReast CAncer gene, refered to as BRCA. Important to know is that only about 5% of all breast cancers is thought to be caused by a BRCA gene mutation. What about the other 95%?
BRCA is a breast cancer suppressor protein, so you should understand that the gene mutation is one that is associated with less BRCA activity. It turns out that the average American diet functions to inhibit the BRCA gene from working properly, which means that many women have what could be called a functional BRCA mutation.
A key substance that inhibits BRCA is called prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), which comes from a dietary omega-6 fatty acid called arachidonic acid. We get arachidonic acid directly in grain-fed animals, which includes, meat, chicken, and fish. The human body also makes arachidonic acid from linoleic acid, which is another dietary omega-6 fatty acid. Linoleic acid is found in the many omega-6 oils, including those from corn, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, peanuts, and soybeans. Approximately 20% of the average American diet come from omega-6 oil calories, such as deep fried foods and packaged foods. Another source are nuts that are roasted in these oils.
Our bodies convert the linoleic acid we eat into arachidonic acid, which then gets converted into prostaglandin E2. You should know that PGE2 has many functions, and without PGE2 we could not live. The problem is when we make too much PGE2, which is the case for the average American. We eat too much arachidonic acid in grain-fed meat, chicken, and fish, and we eat too much of the omega-6 oils, which leads to too much PGE2 in the body.
PGE2 has many pro-inflammatory functions, one of which is the inhibition of BRCA. PGE2 is also a key chemical in pain production; the more PGE2 we produced, the more likely we are to have pain. Consider how many people you know who regularly take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen. One of the key actions of NSAIDs is to inhibit the enzyme that converts dietary arachidonic acid into PGE2. Millions of women during their menstruation years regularly take NSAIDs to deal with the pain. Millions of men and women also take NSAIDs throughout much of their adult lives for achy and painful joints. This means we have far too much arachidonic acid in our bodies.
Check out my recent video to learn more about arachidonic acid and the other promoters of breast cancer.