I highly recommend my patients with a history of cancer to avoid dairy as much as they can, even to totally eliminate it from their diets if possible. Here's one reason:
A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute which followed 1,893 women over several years showed that breast cancer survivors who ate one or more servings of higher fat dairy per day (on average) had a 49% higher risk of dying from breast cancer than breast cancer survivors who ate little or no higher fat dairy. Those who ate higher fat dairy also had a 64% higher risk of dying from any causes within the study period.
Higher fat dairy was defined as whole milk, cream, butter, cheeses and ice cream.
The main hypothesis is that higher dairy fat might contain more estrogen-like hormones although the study does not directly prove this. As a side note, other studies have also shown that higher dairy fat intake is correlated to higher risk of other hormonally related cancers such as prostate cancer.
It seems that other fat sources, such as from nuts, chocolate, coconut and vegetable fat did not seem to have an effect on risks.
Chinese medicine practitioners routinely advise their cancer patients to avoid dairy as much as they can. What we have here is a modern day study that seems to support this more traditional advice from a Chinese medicine perspective.
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