Episode Overview

After a breast cancer diagnosis, many women are told that animal foods drive cancer and plant foods are protective. But where did that message come from, and what does the science actually say?

In episode 450 of Better Than Before Breast Cancer, Laura Lummer takes a deep, thoughtful look at one of the most emotionally charged nutrition debates after cancer. This episode explores how major nutrition studies like the Nurses’ Health Study and The China Study shaped public health messaging, why correlation was often mistaken for causation, and how selective emphasis influenced what we were told to eat.

Rather than telling you what diet to follow, this conversation focuses on how to interpret nutrition science with clarity, critical thinking, and bioindividual awareness. You will learn why population studies cannot determine individual needs, how cancer treatment changes the body’s metabolic and digestive landscape, and why listening to your labs, symptoms, and lived experience matters more than food rules.

This episode is part of the Nutrition After Breast Cancer Just the Facts series and is designed to help you feel calmer, more confident, and more grounded in your nutrition decisions without fear or extremes.

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Read the full transcript:

0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills and the insights and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

0:33
Hey there, friends, welcome to episode 450 of better than before breast cancer. This is episode number three in our series about nutrition, just the facts after breast cancer. So we've already talked about red meat consumption, we've talked about carbohydrates, we've talked a lot about how to understand what science is actually telling us, and hopefully that's starting to clear up some confusion about nutrition. For you, that's the whole objective from this entire series, is to understand some of the hot points, the hot topics in nutrition, and give you a little clarity around them. Because I believe when we have knowledge, when we have clarity, we feel empowered and going through breast cancer diagnosis and breast cancer treatment is absolutely at least the first time I did it, one of the most disempowering experiences I've ever had. Going through it the second time was more empowering, because I understood what choices I had, what resources were available to me, what the truth was and what my body actually needed, and how I could sort through everything, and I want that for you, too. So this week, the hot topic that we're going to be digging into is plant based eating versus animal based eating. I know that one of the most common messages women can hear after a diagnosis is that animal foods drive cancer, and plant foods are protective. And I know for me, when I received my stage four diagnosis, I was in a panic over food was the first place My mind went, and I thought, How do I know what to eat? Is anything that I'm eating driving this cancer? Honestly, I didn't eat for several days because of that fear. Then I and during that time, I was looking at all of the different approaches. I was looking at the Gerson method of juicing. I was looking at Chris Wark and his program of just all plant based. I was looking at Chris Carr and her vegan approach. And I wasn't really sure what direction to take. There was so much different messaging. And because of my background in nutrition, in exercise, there was just this niggling thing that just said, how could this work for everybody? Because if it worked for everybody, then it would be a cure, right? And we don't use that language. We don't see that everybody tries one thing and it cures them. We got to understand our body if we want to find what is going to really support us. So today we're going to talk about this, what plant based eating and animal based eating actually means, where this messaging came from, what the most cited studies really show and what they don't show, and how we can use nutrition science wisely in an empowering way, so that we don't just hand over our decision making, and we just don't ignore the signals that come from my own biology I love, and I'm sure if you've listened this podcast, you've heard me talk about radical remission, the book by Dr Kelly Turner and radical hope, her second book, and one of those healing factors that she speaks about in these books, is to trust your intuition. Your intuition is very, very powerful that we've moved so far away from being able to trust ourselves and being told that's not what the science says, But science, and this isn't to be conspiracy theorist. Lots of times, science tries to prove what it set out to prove, and we've got to be very diligent in how we look at and listen to and understand science. So we're taking the good and we're not taking opinions All right? So this episode isn't about choosing sides. It's about understanding how we're influenced, and learning how to think critically and compassionately about food after cancer and any other time. Right? It's not just those of us that have had a cancer diagnosis that need to understand this. So share the episode with someone else you think needs to make sense out of food so we can move away from so many food phobias. All right. So before we talk about the science, I want to clarify the definitions, because these terms are used very loosely. Plant based eating can mean many things. So for some people, it means vegan. So. Only plants, absolutely no animal products. For other people, it might mean vegetarian so they include eggs or cheese. For others, it may mean just eating a diet that emphasizes plants and still includes animal foods that they're plant forward nine to 12 servings of plant based foods with their meals. Animal based eating also exists on the spectrum, so it can range from heavily meat focus, like carnivore diets that have little or no plant intake, to paleo diets that are focused on protein intake, from animal sources to balanced diets that include animal proteins alongside of vegetables, fruits and fibers. So the fact is, most of us do not choose extremes. Most of us don't choose to eat all vegan, no animal products whatsoever, or all meat, no plant products whatsoever. But when we see all of the social media and the news and all these titles and all these highlights, sometimes we can feel confused like we're doing the wrong thing. Should I be doing more? Should I be extreme? Is this okay? So let's talk about this belief that we are told animal foods drive cancer. It didn't come out of thin air, and it's largely rooted in some observational nutrition research that has really shaped public health messaging for decades. Two of the most influential and frequently cited sources are the Nurses Health Study and the China study. So to understand why these studies carry so much weight, we need to understand what kind of science they actually are and what questions they were actually designed to answer. So the Nurses Health Study began in the 1970s and it followed 10s of 1000s of women for decades, and at that time that was really groundbreaking. It became this really highly influential study because it included a very large population. It followed these participants for a long time, and it focused on women, which most scientific studies focused on men. It tracked disease outcomes over time, and it collected repeated dietary data from these participants. So from a public health standpoint, it offered really valuable information about population trends. So researchers could ask questions like, do certain dietary patterns look like they're associated with higher or lower disease rates? Do lifestyle behaviors cluster together? Are there trends that are worth further investigation? And those are important questions, but there is an essential nuance here. The Nurses Health Study, like most large nutritional studies, is observational. So remember what that means? We've talked about it in the previous two episodes of this series. It means participants are not assigned a specific diet. Food intake is self reported. Researchers observe associations, not causes. Variables are not tightly controlled, and much of the data relies on food frequency questionnaires asking people to recall what they ate weeks, months or even years earlier. Now that alone, you can totally, I'm sure, relate to creates uncertainty. But there's an even bigger limitation in this type of study. These studies do not isolate food from the biological and lifestyle context in which it is eaten, and what that means is they do not account for chronic stress, sleep quality, trauma and other major life events, muscle mass, body composition, insulin sensitivity, metabolic health, digestive function, nutrient absorption, medication use, cancer treatments, and long term effects of those treatments. So when a study finds that higher red meat intake correlates with higher disease risk, we don't know whether that meat was processed or whole meat. We don't know if it was factory raised or grass fed and grass finished. We don't know what else it was eaten with. We don't know whether blood sugar was stable in these people, whether muscle mass was preserved, whether inflammation was present or digestion was compromised. We don't know whether their overall caloric intake was excessive if that person had a sedentary or active lifestyle. And those factors matter, especially after a cancer diagnosis, or when we're talking about cancer, but they are rarely captured with enough precision in this type of study to draw. Law, strong conclusions. So despite those limitations, findings from observational studies are translated into simple, repeatable messaging based on associations. Eat less meat, eat more plants, plant based diets reduce cancer risk. And it isn't that these messages are intended to be malicious or misleading. They're really shaped by public health goals, and public health guidance favors recommendations that are broad, that are simple and that are scalable, because we're dealing with public a huge population. So what public health guidance wants to offer is lowering risk at a population level. So eat more plants fits that kind of a model beautifully. But population guidance is not the same as personalized guidance, and that's why so many things you may have tried in your life. You hear about you try your like that I don't feel good. That doesn't work for me, that didn't accomplish my nutrition goal or my health goal. So what improves outcomes across millions of people does not automatically support an individual body recovering from cancer treatment or long term metabolic stress of any kind. So let's talk about the China study. The China Study is often cited as definitive proof that animal protein causes cancer, but the conclusions drawn from it go way beyond what the data from the China study can reliably support. So that study relied largely on ecological data, regional food availability, disease rates, across provinces, population level comparisons, right? So we're comparing at a population level, not an individual level. This type of research can generate hypothesis, definitely, ideas worth further exploration, but it cannot establish cause and effect, and there are actually two major scientific problems with the China Study correlations that were treated as causation in something called selective emphasis. So let's look at what that actually means, correlation treated as causation, one of the most frequently cited correlations in the China study involved animal protein intake and cancer rates, particularly liver cancer. So certain rural regions with lower animal food availability showed lower rates of some cancers, while regions with higher animal food availability showed higher rates. So this correlation was often presented as evidence that animal protein itself caused cancer, but what was not adequately accounted for is that regions with higher liver cancer rates also had significantly higher rates of chronic hepatitis B infection, greater exposure to aflatoxins from mold contaminated grains, different sanitation conditions, different overall caloric intake, different Life Expectancy patterns, and hepatitis B, infection alone is a huge dominant risk factor for liver cancer. So while animal protein intake and cancer rates did occur together in some regions, the data does not establish that animal protein was the causal factor the presence of multiple well established cancer drivers, makes it scientifically inappropriate to attribute causation to animal protein alone, and yet, that is how the findings were widely interpreted. That is a clear example of correlation being treated as causation. So let's look at some examples of selective emphasis. Selective emphasis doesn't mean that data was invented. It means that some findings were highlighted repeatedly, while others were either minimized or omitted entirely, and that helped shape a very specific narrative. So two well documented examples from the China study a selected emphasis were that the China Study emphasized correlations between higher animal food intake and increased heart disease risk. However, within the same data set, some regions with relatively higher animal food consumption had lower rates of cardiovascular disease than regions consuming predominantly plant based diets. Those contradictory regional findings received very little attention, while the correlation that aligned with the plant only narrative. Of was emphasized. So the selective framing gave the impression of this uniform relationship that the data did not consistently support. Another example, total protein and intake and health outcomes. So the China studies strongly emphasized correlations between higher total protein intake and negative health outcomes. Well, what received far less attention is that protein intake in many rural regions was extremely low. Low protein intake was associated with stunted growth, reduced muscle mass and higher mortality from non cancer causes, longevity patterns did not consistently favor lowest protein intake regions. These findings really complicated the claim that lower protein intake was inherently protective, but the narrative focused almost exclusively on protein as a risk factor, rather than examining the health costs of protein inadequacy. So none of this means plant foods are harmful, and it does not mean animal foods are automatically protective. What it means is that the conclusions presented in a China study were way stronger and more absolute than the data actually justified. So the study absolutely provided associations, but the interpretation turned those associations into universal rules that were woven into public health and general dietary recommendations, and that is important, especially well for everybody, but especially for those of us navigating recovery after cancer treatment, living through cancer treatment, and trying to optimize our metabolic wellness. So yes, these studies matter if we read them correctly, even though they're not worthless, they are incomplete. They tell us that highly processed diets are harmful. Whole Foods tend to correlate with better health outcomes. Fiber and micronutrients matter. Lifestyle behaviors cluster together. So what does that mean? If we tend to eat more unhealthy foods, maybe we have overall unhealthier lifestyle choices like smoking and large consumption of alcohol and no exercise. But what the studies don't tell us is that what you personally should eat after a cancer diagnosis, how much protein your body needs, whether animal food support you or harm your metabolism, how your digestion and absorption affects outcomes, how blood sugar, inflammation and muscle mass change this equation. This is where bio individuality matters. And the important thing to note is so many of us after breast cancer, after treatment, have different bodies. Our body is not the same physiologically as it was before treatment. So many, many women after a diagnosis of breast cancer, after treatment of breast cancer, living with breast cancer on different medications, we are navigating muscle loss, changes in insulin sensitivity, hormone shifts, altered digestion, ongoing inflammation, medication related, nutrient depletion, fatigue that limits appetite or our movement. So if we look only at food categories and we ignore these realities, we risk recommended diets that look protective on paper but really undermine your recovery in your life. So a high fiber diet might support one woman, while it might overwhelm another. I have seen women who come to me they've increased their fiber intake, and they deal with chronic constipation as a result of that, something else is missing in that picture. Reducing animal protein might improve certain lipid markers, certain parts of your cholesterol panel for one person, but they may contribute to muscle loss and fatigue in another. I can say with 100% confidence that every woman who has come to me and has been on a vegan, plant only diet, and we have done their labs, has shown signs of nutrient deficiencies. So plant heavy eating can stabilize blood sugar for some people, but it can destabilize it for others, large consumption of protein can stabilize blood sugar for some people and destabilize it for others, because these are just simple biological differences. So we want to apply critical thinking instead of food rules when it comes to do I eat only plants? Do I eat only. Animals. So instead of asking, Is this food good? Is that food bad? We need to ask ourselves better questions, how do you feel after eating something? What do your labs show over time? One lab in and of itself is not enough. It's a snapshot. It can give us some data to work with, but it's your trend over time that really shows the full picture. Is your energy stable? Why do we think that as we age, we're supposed to be tired? Why do we think it is normal to crash in the afternoon, to be bloated, to have gas, to have constipation? It's not normal. It's your body showing you something is off. So is your digestion calm? Are you maintaining muscle? Why do we shift from just assuming like after the age of 50? After the age of 60, we're supposed to be frail. No. Is your blood sugar regulated? Why do we assume as we get older, this just happens. Well, it happens because we change our lifestyle and our body changes. Are you recovering well from illnesses or injuries? Is your body healing well? So nutrition science gives us signals, but they're not commands or hopefully you don't take them as commands. Your body is what provides the context. So I don't want the takeaway from this to be you're misled because you didn't know any better. I don't want the takeaway to be like, Okay, well, nothing's safe to eat because all of the science is off. What am I supposed to do? No, we were influenced by certain science. Public health has been influenced by certain science that was simplified, that was repeated, that was taken out of context in many ways, but understanding how these messages formed, like what we talked about here, gives you permission, hopefully, to question things without rejecting the science, taking the good right, adapting what is said to what works for you, without feeling guilty or scared, and trusting the feedback that your body is giving you. So healing is not about dietary purity. It's about biological support. So if you are finding yourself now, or if you have ever found yourself dealing with a lot of confusion over, oh, my god, am I supposed to just be eating plant based all plants. Is it okay if I eat meat? Remember, science is a tool and your body is the application. Both are important. I love science. Both matter. Neither one should be ignored, but you are allowed to choose the approach that helps you feel stronger, helps you feel steadier and more at home in your body, even if it doesn't fit neatly into the most popular study headline, all right, my friends, I love to hear your questions about this information. I'd love to hear your thoughts come and join my free community living well after breast cancer. Let's talk about what you think of the podcast, or what questions you might have, or what successes you might have achieved and found by listening to science a little differently and listening to your body a little differently. All right, my friends, I'll talk to you again next week. Until then, be good to yourself.

23:17
You've put your courage to the test, laid all your doubts to rest. Your mind is clearer than before. Your heart is full and wanting more. Your Future's at the door.

23:35
Give it all you got no hesitating.

23:38
You've been waiting all your life. This is your

23:47
moment. This is your moment.