“The Organic Plant Diet Is Cancer Preventive”

Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, vegetables and legumes (if possible organic); Staying physically active and minimizing the presence of environmental toxins, present in food or in some plastics at home and opting for cosmetics, soaps and natural clothes could reduce the incidence of breast cancer, according to Marieta Fernández, professor at the University of Granada and researcher of the CIBER network of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP) and of the Institute of Biosanitary Research of Granada.

“Diet is a key aspect of cancer prevention”

-It is said that breast cancer is multifactorial, but to what extent is diet a key aspect?
-Diet is a key aspect in terms of body mass index. Women with an inadequate body mass index are at higher risk for the disease, especially post-menopausal breast cancer. About pre-menopausal we have less information because until relatively recently breast cancer was mainly diagnosed after the age of 50; that is, most cancers were diagnosed in women who no longer had their periods. But that is changing. One of the things that we are seeing in recent years is that more and more cases are being diagnosed in younger women.

-Do you know why?
-The main known risk factors for breast cancer are reproductive risk factors, that is, those that are related to the estrogens produced by the ovaries. The more estrogens, and the more ovulatory cycles the woman has, the greater the risk. Society has changed and women have changed physiologically with her, and the factors that previously protected us, such as having a late period, early children and having several children or give them natural breastfeeding, in general, now they do not do it as much because women increasingly have children later on by prioritizing their training and professional life, and have fewer children. On the other hand, we are seeing that girls have their period more and more soon.

-And what is this related to?
-There are studies that indicate that diet could be related to the advancement of menarche, but there is still not enough research to be able to affirm it in a conclusive way. It is known, however, that with an inadequate body mass index there is a greater chance of having your period earlier. In addition, diet is the main vehicle for ingesting substances that we have produced artificially and that after putting them in the environment we have learned that some of them have the ability to behave like endogenous hormones. These synthetic substances are known as xenoestrogens, and they act as endocrine disruptors, mimicking or blocking endogenous hormones, which is a way to add more hormonal levels to the body, in addition to those we already produce naturally. Obesity is not only related to breast cancer. Obesity, after smoking, is one of the main risk factors for many tumor sites. People think it is only an aesthetic problem, but it is a bigger problem. In addition, the greater the fat, the greater the production of hormones through the transformation of androgens into estrogens. Because fat tissue is fundamentally hormonal tissue.

-But what is the most pernicious influence on this type of cancer?
-When the experts review the available scientific evidence they highlight obesity, but obesity as the conjunction of lack of physical exercise and not following a proper diet.

-What other things can be done to reduce the incidence of breast cancer? At the level of cosmetics, clothing … because we are surrounded by dangerous particles …
-We must try to reduce exposure to environmental pollutants, especially those that behave like estrogenic hormones. In fact 4 out of 10 breast cancers are related to endogenous estrogens. But we should also take into account the exogenous estrogens that come from food, from cosmetics: gels, deodorants, creams, perfumes … made with xenoestrogenic synthetic chemical compounds. It would be advisable to use natural soaps and cosmetics, and with the same clothes, the more natural the fabrics, the better: cotton, wool … avoiding polyesters, which are plastics. At home, everything that has plastic should be reduced to a minimum. We have done a very interesting intervention study where we have seen that women with breast cancer who have improved their diet, have followed a pattern of physical exercise and reduced these pollutants have also increased their quality of life.

-Is an organic vegan diet vital to avoid cancer?
-The choice of the diet pattern is something personal, but what you do have to do is maintain a diet where vegetables, vegetables and fruit are the protagonists. At least half of what we eat a day has to be legumes, fruits and vegetables. If you want to go on a vegan diet, perfect. There are not many scientific studies that have investigated the health effect of maintaining vegan diets over time, but there is a French vegetarian cohort, the NutriNet-Santé study, which is offering very interesting results. In the NutriNet-Santé study that has followed a population of 69,000 adult individuals, it has been seen that those who most frequently consumed organic foods in their vegan diet have much lower incidence of cancer and, among them, breast cancer. No more studies of this type are done because you need a population that consumes this diet regularly and continuously for a long time.

“Ideally, the administrations favor a healthy society in which people eat well, informing and educating and putting affordable prices on what is really healthy.”

-As a researcher, what would you ask the administration to favor effective preventive policies?
-Ideally, the administrations favor a healthy society in which people eat well, informing and educating and putting affordable prices on what is really healthy. Not to lower the price to the producers, but to the intermediaries and not to allow junk food to be sold at ridiculous prices. The consumption of organic vegetables and fruits in schools should be encouraged. When I go to Denmark, Germany and Sweden, I see fruit available to people in laboratories and schools and I would love for it to happen here as well.

– Could breast cancer be eradicated with good prevention?
– I unfortunately believe that eradicate no. Cancer is a disease that is very important today, due to the number of people affected, but it has existed since the world became a world. What happens is that before the life expectancy was much shorter. Fundamentally it is a problem of age, the older the more likely things will not work and that is why we see more. What is not normal is to have cancer at 25. I mean non-hereditary cancer. Hereditary cancers do not exceed 10%, what happens is that they are very mediatic. But 90% of breast cancers are not hereditary, they are environmental and therefore a priori preventable. It is about avoiding as much as possible the risk factors that we know. It is necessary to try that the girls are not chubby during the childhood, that they eat well, that they exercise from small, that they do not smoke in the adolescence …