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Professor Jane
Plant is the Chief Scientist of the British Geological Survey. She suffered
breast cancer and four subsequent recurrences, at which time her prognosis
was deemed ‘terminal’ and she was given only months to live. She tried
a number of various diets, including Gerson and the original Forbes Bristol
Cancer regimes; however her
cancer progressed, despite surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments.
Her husband is also an earth scientist, and both
of them have spent a considerable amount of time working in China and
Japan. They were both desperately engaged in trying to understand and
explain the factor(s) responsible for the significantly lower rates of
breast and prostate cancer among the Japanese and Chinese. The answer
appeared to be the almost total lack of dairy consumption in these countries.
Within days of eliminating dairy products her lump started to shrink.
After one week the lump started to itch, soften and reduce in size. Within
6 weeks, it was totally undetectable, even to her oncologist!
The thrust of Professor Plant’s arguments outlining
the potential links between dairy products and breast cancer are wide-ranging
and deserve serious consideration and further research. Some of the health
risks of consuming dairy products include: babies fed on cow’s milk are
at risk of developing iron deficiency; the link between insulin-dependent
diabetes and dairy products; that milk is one of the most common causes
of food allergies; that milk can harbour many pathogenic microorganisms
including Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (possibly associated with irritable
bowel syndrome); that milk often contains toxic and hormone-disrupting
chemicals, including antibiotics, growth promoters, most notably insulin-like
growth factors (IGFs), anti-parasitic drugs, environmental toxins such
as PCBs and dioxins. Research is cited demonstrating the relationship
between IGF-1 and breast cancer.
Despite some serious reservations about this book,
outlined below, I still feel on balance that Professor Plant’s major contributions
with this book are her recounting of her story, including the mistakes
she made, and the assembling of the scientific information about the potential
links between consumption of dairy products and breast cancer.
Professor Plant has obviously assimilated a great
deal of information about nutrition and personal practices, particularly
from the Macrobiotic school of thought and has developed a complete dietary
and lifestyle programme, about which she is not shy in sharing and advising
other people. One of the strong points about her book is that she has
been a sufferer and survived. Another major point she makes numerous times
in her book is that as a scientist, she is somehow a different sort of
person from most, in that she needs to understand and develop a rational
explanation and approach to explain developments in her life.
However, her propensity
to intellectualize and demand rational, concrete approaches to everything
has resulted in her being closed to and highly critical and dismissive
of approaches which are not presently understandable, including homeopathy,
kinesiology, allergy testing methods and alternative medicine in general.
She has also, in my opinion, attempted to cover too much territory for
her expertise (she has after all a Ph.D. in Geology, not in Nutrition
or Immunology). This has resulted in errors in terminology (misnaming
evening primrose oil as an omega-3 essential fatty acid1),
selective, simplistic or incorrect interpretations of published research
(justifying her assertion that vitamin supplements don’t work by the results
of the Finnish smokers beta-carotene lung cancer trials, which designs
have been demonstrated to be flawed2); unnecessarily
and incorrectly scaremongering about the potential dangers of aromatherapy
essential oils (d-limonene has actually been shown to have anti-tumour
properties3, and the other oils mentioned
– camphor, hyssop, sage, basil and tarragon – are all restricted for professional
use only4); and assertions that no one else
has ever brought together the evidence regarding environmental toxins
and breast cancer (how can she have missed the massive tomes by eminent
scientific giants such as Dr Samuel Epstein’s The Politics of Cancer Revisited.5
Her editors also have embarrassingly cited the sample references multiple
times in the reference sections, rather than referring to the same number
or using ibid, which has somewhat inflated these sections.
Dr
Plant’s supreme conviction that her way is the right way has probably
been a factor in saving her life, and undoubtedly makes her a sought-after
role model. Furthermore, much of what she says makes eminent common sense,
and I agree with most of her dietary advice – to avoid alcohol, red meat,
caffeine, chemicals, and to eat a wholefood diet with plenty of greens,
vegetables and fruits, drink filtered water and nutritious juices. Despite
her somewhat bossy, quirky and intolerant manner, I do feel that this
book is worth reading, particularly regarding the dairy connection to
breast cancer.
References
1.
Erasmus U. Fats that Heal Fats that Kill. Alive Books. 1986, 1993.
2. Terrass S. Beta Carotene and Smokers.
www.positivehealth.com (from Home page, select Books, then Items of
Interest, then Beta Carotene and Smokers.
3. Brudnak M. Cancer-preventing properties of essential oil monoterpenes
D-Limonene and perillyl alcohol. Positive Health 53: 23-25.
2000.
4. Tisserand R and Balacs T. Essential Oil Safety – A Guide for Health
Care Professionals. Churchill Livingstone. 1995.
5. Epstein S. The Politics of Cancer Revisited. East Ridge Press
NY. 1998.
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