Connect
← Return to Supplements for bone health: What is safe?
Discussion
Supplements for bone health: What is safe?
Osteoporosis & Bone Health | Last Active: Mar 15 10:05am | Replies (90)Comment receiving replies
Perhaps someone can add information about the safety of using collagen if you have estrogen-positive breast cancer. There are a lot of recommendations to add collagen to our diets when we are trying to build bone health, and lord knows, I'd love to try it too. But I seem to recall attending an online presentation by a nutritionist who works with breast cancer patients and she cautioned those of us with breast cancer to be cautious about using collagen. It may fall into that unwelcome category of avoiding supplements that could encourage breast cancer growth even if it might also offer healthier goals, such as building bone.
She did not say definitively do not take collagen but she clearly was wary of it. Interestingly, though, she said there was some promising research in the use of creatine even if you had breast cancer.
I haven't pursued looking into this one yet, but thought maybe others have.
Replies to "Perhaps someone can add information about the safety of using collagen if you have estrogen-positive breast..."
@prarysky Another issue to be aware of with collagen is Dupuytren's disease. This disease involves an overproduction of type III collagen causing fibrous collagen cords in the palm of the hand and fingers which can lead to contraction of the fingers. As a musician suffering from this condition I am not ever going to consider collagen supplements for my osteoporosis.
Connect
@prarysky
This is what I see on line:
"So far, no studies have shown that taking collagen supplements raises your risk of breast cancer. Collagen from supplements is broken down during digestion, so it doesn’t act like the collagen that’s already in your breast tissue. Cancer research has found that collagen in the body plays a role in how cancer cells grow and spread to other organs. However, researchers haven’t studied how taking a collagen supplement might affect breast cancer. Until more research is done, we don’t know how collagen supplements might affect breast cancer."
Even in animal studies no studies have looked at collagen supplements and their relationship to breast cancers.
But...out of an abundance of caution some doctors do not recommend collagen supplements. A program like cronometer would help to monitor your diet to see if you are consuming enough nutrition to maintain collagen. Of course it cannot screen for age and other problems that would lower collagen production which the body does naturally.