DIM for 70 year old
Hello I am caring for my mother and I was wondering if DIM is safe for a 70 year old. I know DIM is usually used to lower bad estrogen but since she is post menopausal, is it safe?
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I know that you haven’t had a response to your other thread on DIM and I’m afraid my response may not be helpful but here goes. DIM is an alternative treatment, generally not used or recommended by oncologists. That being said, your mothers oncologist should be consulted about anything she changes/adds to her current treatment. Her oncologist may not know a lot about it either, it’s outside the realm of conventional medicine, but may be able to determine if it can cause any negative effects in her particular situation.
BCO leans heavily toward conventional treatment although we do have a section for alternative treatments . That section is not very active but if you search, you may be able to find older posts regarding DIM. Take care
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thank you for the reply! I will definitely take a look. But in your experience, is it common to see those in that age group here use DIM?
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It is very uncommon to see anyone on this site, of any age, using DIM. Again, although we have a forum for alternative treatments, the main focus of this site as well as most members is on conventional treatment*. If you use the search function, you’ll see that prior to the two threads you started, the last mention of DIM was 2 1/2 years ago.
* This statement appears at the top of the alternative threads and may help you understand why there is minimal traffic on the alternative threads: “Breastcancer.org does NOT recommend or endorse alternative medicine.”0 -
Thanks for letting me know. I'm still getting use to navigating this site. I saw a post regarding DIM here and assumed it was something that was talked among this site. I will continue diving into the threads here. thanks again.
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DIM is currently being studied at the cellular and lab animal stage. While it looks promising the estrogen changes it causes are complicated and researchers have not yet figured out its mechanisms of action. Before it can be recommended for human treatment clinical trials in people will have to be done. If all of this works out DIM might become a treatment for the future. Because its effectiveness, correct dosage and adverse effects are not known it falls into the realm of alternative medicine. Some naturopaths (who are not MDs) may prescribe it. As exbrnxgrl said, check with your mother's oncologist.
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Dim is in fact a very promising compound. A 2019 paper in Science identified its main target, which is inhibiting a ubiquitin ligase that degrades the PTEN tumor suppressor. PTEN is a very common tumor suppressor in breast cancer and is often lost or downregulated in MBC. It acts to inhibit the PI3KCA pathway, so when PTEN activity is low, PI3KCA signaling is high. So in principle, DIM would be a supplement that could help keep PI3KCA activity suppressed. PI3KCA is one of the more common ways that MBC escapes from endocrine therapy. So again, DIM could be useful to keep PI3KCA signaling at bay, and stay for longer on endocrine therapy. That said, its a smelly broccoli extract, so people don't usually keep taking it for a long time! Thanks for reminding me, I need to get back taking it…
Here is the link (sorry links don't work on this "so-called-upgraded" site, but just paste it into your browser):
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aau0159
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Trying to make the link live. It’s been hit or miss for me when trying to post live links on this “new” and not improved site 🤷🏻♀️.
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aau0159
Still not working…
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Yeah, in my comment it is a live link, which becomes a dud link when posted- it works if you paste in the browser, not sure what the site is doing
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Here is another analysis of high Tumor Mutation Burden, it can go up in people treated for a long time on CDK4,6i and is associated with resistance but also with improved possible response to immunotherapy
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That is exactly what I experienced when I tried to make it live 🤷🏻♀️. Bottom line? DIM shows some promise but the evidence of its efficacy is not there yet.
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Can you please lead me to the alternative section you mentioned? And a support group for alternative methods to help prevent breast cancer recurrence if there is one? My heart is not doing well on Ais. I had to stop and have an appt with my cardiologist. Thank you.
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I found tnis interesting link on DIM: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5059820/
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pinkrules ,
Here is a link to the alternative treatment threads:
These threads are not very active and to be honest, bco is not the best place to explore alternative treatment as the thread has a disclaimer noting that bco does not recommend alternative medicine. I am not aware of any other support groups as I am only on conventional treatments but if you do a Google search you will probably find something. Take care
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Thank you, exbrnxgrl. I'm sure for liability reasons the disclaimer has to be put in there. Even some oncologists won't approve of alternative treatments for fear of being sued.
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