Learn how changes to your everyday diet and lifestyle can help fight breast cancer.

Breast cancer is one of the most feared diseases in the world. But did you know that only 5 to 10 percent of all breast cancer comes from an inherited gene mutation? That’s right: Up to 90 percent of cancer results from the dietary and lifestyle choices we make every single day—not genetics. Kristi Funk, MD, noted breast cancer surgeon and women’s health warrior at pinklotus.com, dispels common misconceptions about breast cancer and presents evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle secrets to living your healthiest life. Come listen as complex concepts get distilled into simple, actionable, take-it-home-and-start-right-now power!

In this webinar, Dr. Funk discusses:

• The four boulders on the scales of health that tip you toward breast cancer or away from it.
• How every time you lift a fork to your mouth, you either fight or fuel breast cancer.
• The top 12 foods that breast cancer hates more than kids hate cabbage.

WATCH THE REPLAY

Originally aired October 12, 2021

The post Webinar Replay: Breast Cancer–Kicking Strategies with Dr. Kristi Funk appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Shocking News

By 2015, I was around 200 pounds (which, at 5 feet 6 inches, classified me as obese). I suffered from acid reflux. I snored heavily and had asthma and back pain so bad that walking at even a small incline was almost impossible. I could never wear the gorgeous summer dresses that I longed to wear because my legs chafed. 

That August, I decided to see my general practitioner. After some tests, I found out that I had sky-high cholesterol; prediabetes; and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD). I was also diagnosed with breast cancer. What an awful shock at just 49 years old!

Changing My Diet and My Life Virtually Overnight

I underwent extensive surgery and some chemotherapy for breast cancer. After that, I knew I absolutely had to get my body as healthy as possible. A friend suggested I watch Forks Over Knives, and I heard Ruth Heidrich’s story. I read work from John McDougall, MD, and Caldwell Esselstyn, MD. I was so inspired that I became 100-percent plant-based overnight! 

Over the next 18 months, I dropped 42 pounds. My cholesterol fell to within the healthy range. My symptoms of GORD and acid reflux disappeared. I stopped snoring. My skin gained a nice, healthy glow, whereas it previously looked sallow. I found myself able to walk up stairs with ease, no back pain. I started walking 30 minutes each day. 

A Spring in My Step

The cancer has been in remission for over four years. I feel amazing. I remain 100 percent plant-based, with zero oil or highly processed foods. 

I bought an air fryer and love to spice potatoes and air-fry them to make oil-free French fries. I serve them with a nice tomato-based sauce I found in Forks Over Knives: The Cookbook. I eat very simply: For breakfast I often have oats, blueberries, and cinnamon, with a tablespoon of flaxseed. For lunch and dinner I like to have a homemade veggie burger patty or beans, brown rice, and baked carrots. I also enjoy hummus and avocado with a nice green salad. I no longer have a sweet tooth like I used to, but when I do crave something sweet, I have a piece of fruit. 

I still walk 30 minutes every day. I do yoga every morning at home. I also started swimming a bit, to mix things up. I feel energetic and light. I used to feel sluggish, like I was dragging my body around, but now my body carries me with ease, like there’s a spring in my step! It’s a brilliant feeling.

I changed jobs and stress less, and although cancer is always in the background, my whole focus is to be as healthy and as strong as I can be, so if it does reappear, I know that my immune system is at its best. 

My life now is so different now compared with five years ago. With God’s grace and plants, I look forward to being a grandmother one day. It feels so good to feel so strong and healthy!

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post After a Cancer Diagnosis, I Went Plant-Based and Transformed My Health appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

World-renowned breast cancer surgeon Kristi Funk, MD, has worked with celebrity clients and shared her expertise on shows such as Good Morning America and The Dr. Oz Show, and authored the 2018 book Breasts: The Owner’s Manual. For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Funk has joined forces with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to launch the Let’s Beat Breast Cancer campaign. We spoke with Funk about the role diet plays in breast cancer, and the four-pronged approach she recommends for radically reducing one’s risk of developing the disease.

How did you come to advocate a plant-based diet for patients?

“I had been your fairly typical physician, in that I never got one second of any nutrition education throughout all of medical school, or during my surgery residency, fellowship, and 20-year-long practice. I definitely was a health-conscious woman, just by my own nature, and I knew some tidbits, so I would throw out some nutritional pearls of wisdom here and there. But when I wrote my book, Breasts: The Owner’s Manual, I wanted to be 100 percent evidence-based in every fact that I mentioned. So when it came to the chapters of the book on what to eat and what not to eat, I truly dove into nutritional science for the first time in my life, really reading studies and understanding. 

“I’d started out researching to prove the way that I had always recommended was correct, which was largely the Mediterranean diet style: lean meat—chicken, turkey, and fish—with lots of fruits and vegetables. I went into the science and was so utterly blown away. … The cellular response to basically all animal protein and all animal fat is nothing but detrimental to your health.” 

Who is at risk for breast cancer and what are the risk factors?

“One in eight women will get a breast cancer diagnosis in her lifetime. Women who are getting older will be at higher risk. The median age for breast cancer in America is 62. So the [peak period] for getting cancer is going to be 52 to 72.

“There’s a whole host of different genetic mutations that elevate cancer risk well beyond the one-in-eight population risk. However, one little-known fact, even among some physicians, is that only 5 to 10 percent of all breast cancer on the planet can be attributed to these genetic mutations. … Eighty-seven percent of all women diagnosed with breast cancer don’t have a single first-degree relative with breast cancer.

“And it is very true that a family history will potentially significantly elevate your risk … but diet and lifestyle choices are probably intimately associated with family. So even amongst those [who get breast cancer and have] relatives with breast cancer, perhaps it’s the modeling of dietary and lifestyle habits within that family structure that elevated the cancer in that family line.” 

How do animal products increase breast cancer risk?

“When you eat animal products, estrogen levels skyrocket, and growth factors go through the roof. In particular, the big-daddy bad actor of them all is IGF-1: insulin-like growth factor. 

“IGF-1 screams at all the cells to grow, which is extremely useful, as we all turn over 50 billion cells a day. … But when you have an excess of IGF-1, your cell turnover is done for the day, but it’s still telling cells to grow: to grow atherosclerosis plaque in your arteries; to grow cells that are going to become one to two to four to eight, forming a tumor; and then to grow and metastasize into the liver, into the lungs, into the bones. 

“An excess of IGF-1 only exists as a response to consuming animal protein and animal fat. Otherwise, your brain is super smart. It knows the amount required to tell your liver what to do and doesn’t need any extra spurts from the animal protein.”

Does eating soy put someone at higher risk for breast cancer?

“This is another area where I dove into the science while writing my book. … I’d been planning to tell people to avoid soy. It turns out that soy is absolutely anti-estrogenic and anti-carcinogenic. 

“I go over the studies briefly in the book, but basically, since 2009, every single study in humans as it pertains to soy shows a dramatic reduction in breast cancer occurrence, breast cancer recurrence, and death. Consuming soy leads to around a 60 percent reduction in getting breast cancer and, for estrogen-driven breast cancer patients, a 60 percent reduction in recurrence risk and 29 percent reduction in mortality. And these are huge studies following thousands of women for years. The largest study to date followed women of different ethnicities for an average of 9.4 years and they found a dramatic decrease from just a half a serving of soy a week. 

“So I encourage women to consume soy, and it doesn’t even have to be that much. I advocate for two to three servings daily in all women and especially in breast cancer patients.” 

Are there other particular fruits or vegetables that are especially good for lowering breast cancer risk?

“Far and away, No. 1 is cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens.  Cruciferous vegetables are really highly effective in killing breast cancer. 

“Dietary fiber is important, because fiber will bind excess estrogen in your GI tract and make you poop it out. And fiber also improves insulin sensitivity, which ultimately decreases inflammation and boosts your immune system function. It also releases a litany of antioxidant vitamins and anticancer compounds. So, you want to strive to get 30 grams of fiber a day, and studies show a 50 percent drop in breast cancer for those who consume 30 grams of fiber a day. Which, by the way, is only 3 percent of all Americans. 

“Berries not only are a good fiber source but they also have free-radical scavenging power that interferes with cancer cell signaling. … It actually encourages cancer cells to commit suicide, which we’ve got a fancier term for in medicine, called apoptosis. And it inhibits angiogenesis, which is the creation of blood vessel conduits [that allows cancer cells to grow]. So, with a cup of berries, you’re thwarting the biggest things cancer cells need to thrive.”

What are you hoping to achieve with your Let’s Beat Breast Cancer campaign?

“Our goal is to educate physicians and consumers alike about the very practical and actionable steps they can take to dramatically reduce their breast cancer odds. We came up with a four-pronged approach: eat a whole food, plant-based diet; exercise regularly; maintain a [healthy] body weight; and to limit alcohol consumption. By pursuing those four dietary and lifestyle habits, you will absolutely reduce your breast cancer risk by a solid 50 percent, if not more.  

“I think it’s extremely exciting and empowering that diet and lifestyle choices [are so important].  … And it’s never too late to make healthy dietary and lifestyle changes. Even if you can’t be 100 percent committed to say, vegan eating and losing weight and avoiding alcohol, just doing things in part is still a step toward health and away from cancer and illness. And it’s a step we can all take.”

The post ‘It’s Empowering’: Surgeon Kristi Funk on Diet and Reducing Breast Cancer Risk appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Although most women in the low-fat diet group did not meet their goal of getting just 20 percent of their daily calories from fat, nearly all managed 25 percent, compared with the control group’s more typical American diet of 32 percent and up. The findings so far, two decades after the trial began: Women in the low-fat diet group had a 21 percent lower risk of dying from breast cancer than those in the control group. What’s more, women in the low-fat diet group had a 15 percent lower risk of dying from any cause after a breast cancer diagnosis. (There was also an average 3 percent weight loss for women in the low-fat diet group.)

“Ours is the first randomized, controlled trial to prove that a healthy diet can reduce the risk of death from breast cancer,” says lead study author Rowan Chlebowski, MD, PhD, FASCO, from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. “The balanced diet we designed is one of moderation, and after nearly 20 years of follow-up, the health benefits are still accruing.”

“I have worked nearly three decades on this issue. It is satisfying to know that a dietary moderation approach, easily achievable by many—over 19,000 postmenopausal women were in the intervention group—can result in a statistically significant reduction in deaths from breast cancer, a major concern of postmenopausal women,” Chlebowski says.

While it’s impossible to say which variable—lower intake of fat, higher intake of fiber and nutrients from plant foods, or a combination of both—should take credit for the outcome, the results support prior research and a 2018 report from the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, which recommends eating less red and processed meat and more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes to protect against cancer.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

The post New Study: Low-Fat Diet May Reduce Risk of Dying from Breast Cancer appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

I used to be an emotional binge eater. I would starve my body while working a 12-hour day then go home and eat and eat—usually fast food and lots of ice cream. I was packing on the weight and oblivious to the impact on my health. My life changed when, after a routine mammogram, my doctor called me into the office to tell me what nobody ever wants to hear: “You have cancer.”

Surviving But Suffering
My breast cancer was aggressive, and so was the treatment. By the time treatment was finished eight months down the road, I was sicker, broken, and armed with a buffet of pills. And although I thought the one silver lining of my illness would be weight loss, I’d actually gained weight, due to the steroids and becoming sedentary.

My health continued to decline over the next three years. The aromatase inhibitors, which I’d been prescribed to reduce estrogen, had horrible side effects: joint pain, muscle pain, and mood swings. I began suffering from chronic fatigue and was often bedridden for 22 hours of the day. The bone pain was relentless. I was on heavy doses of opioids. It was insane, and I felt like my life was out of control. It got so bad that I didn’t want to go on living. It was August, and I felt I wasn’t going to make it to Christmas.

Turn of Fate
It was during this time that I was lying in bed with my laptop and an ad for Forks Over Knives came up. I went to Netflix and typed in the title, three words that would change my life in a much better way than those three words I heard from my doctor three years prior. I watched the documentary—twice. I was transfixed. I didn’t know what the heck “those” vegan people ate. I didn’t know how I was going to stand up long enough to cook a meal. I just knew I had to try this.

I began simply, with quick salads. I could only stand for a couple minutes at a time, so I’d sit and peel and chop. As the days went by, I had a little more energy. On the good days, I would make extra so that I had healthy meals ready. After only three weeks, I found myself awake for up to eight hours. I expanded my cooking skills. I would spend four hours daily slicing and dicing while watching YouTube recipe videos. I was loving it.

I decided I wanted to eliminate some of my medications, starting with the aromatase inhibitors; I’d tried three different ones, but each seemed worse than the last. I called my oncologist. We discussed a plan, and I began phasing them out. Pretty soon after, I felt better than I had in a long long while. My mind was clearer, my bone pain was diminishing, and for the first time I felt like I was finally in control over my body. Next to go were the opioids. I slowly decreased the dosage over the course of a month. It wasn’t fun or easy, but I was a woman on a mission!

After a month on my new whole-food, plant-based diet, I was able to drive to a doctor’s appointment for the first time in a while. (My appointments had been via phone when I was too ill to leave the house.) My doctor noticed my weight and blood pressure were both coming down, slowly but consistently. Three months later, after a second set of tests, he asked me what I was doing, thinking I must have started taking some new medication. I told him about Forks Over Knives and my new diet. He couldn’t believe that was all I’d changed.

He had me come in every two weeks after that. To my surprise, he informed me he watched the documentary. I became his poster child for eating healthy, getting healthy against all odds. Eventually, he told me it was safe for me to stop taking my blood pressure pills—the only medication I was still on at that point. After four years, I was finally medication-free.

Excited for Life
Today I no longer need my scooter or wheelchair. I can walk short distances without my cane. I swim daily and do water aerobics three times a week; resistance exercises five times a week; and moderate weight training three times a week, to help build my upper strength. I had to learn how to walk again and am still working on my balance, but I am getting to know my new body, its limitations and its abilities. I have lost 51 pounds since last September, but the weight loss was just a bonus. Just to be able to get out of the house is an incredible experience. And I’m finally healthy enough to get breast reconstruction surgery!

I will forever be grateful for Fork Over Knives. It gave me a second chance at life, a chance to live with purpose and meaning and fun. I love the recipes, blog posts, and all the support. It seems more and more people are eating this way, and that makes me so happy, because I know so many lives are being saved.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

The post After Breast Cancer, a Plant-Based Diet Gave Me a New Lease on Life appeared first on Forks Over Knives.