Diet taboos for teratoma

There is no one-size-fits-all absolute dietary taboo for teratoma. The statement "no soy products and no honey" uploaded on the Internet is not completely accurate. The specific foods that need to be avoided should be judged based on the pathological type of your teratoma (benign mature/malignant immature) and the current treatment stage (observation and follow-up period/pre-operative/post-operative/radiotherapy and chemotherapy period). There is no unified taboo list that applies to all patients.

I have been in the gynecology clinic for almost ten years, and what I have seen most is that patients who have just been diagnosed with teratoma will search "what not to eat" on their mobile phones for a long time, and then make a long list and post it on the refrigerator. They don't even dare to touch milk tea or fried chicken. In fact, it is really unnecessary. After all, 95% of teratomas are benign mature teratomas, which are formed by the abnormal proliferation of germ cells remaining during embryonic development. In essence, they have no direct causal relationship with what you eat daily. Dietary adjustments are at best to avoid adding extra burden to the body. It is impossible to make tumors disappear by relying on taboos.

As for the question that everyone is most concerned about, "Can we eat foods containing estrogen?", currently, Chinese and Western medicine do have different suggestions, and there is no unified standard answer: Western medicine generally believes that soy isoflavones are bidirectionally regulated phytoestrogens. As long as your pathology report does not indicate a positive estrogen receptor, it is perfectly fine to eat a cup of soy milk and some tofu every day. A 22-year-old patient with benign teratoma who I cared for loved to drink freshly ground soy milk every day, and the tumor did not show any significant growth after two years of follow-up.； However, many Chinese medicine practitioners recommend that patients with tumors over 4cm who have not yet undergone surgery should not only control their excessive intake of soy products, but also avoid high-estrogen foods of animal origin such as snow clams and royal jelly to avoid stimulating abnormal growth of tumors. Both theories have their own clinical basis. You can refer to it based on your own situation, and there is no need to argue about right or wrong.

In addition to estrogen-related controversies, dietary precautions at different stages are actually quite different. If you are still in the follow-up period and the tumor has grown to more than 5cm, the doctor has reminded you to avoid strenuous exercise to prevent rotation. Then drink less carbonated drinks that make your stomach bloated when you drink them, and don't eat three or four pieces of roasted sweet potatoes and half a corn in one meal. When I was working the night shift, I met a girl. After get off work, she drank two large glasses of ice sparkling water and ate some roasted corn. Her stomach hurt in the middle of the night due to bloating. She thought it was a tumor that had reversed, so she was taken to the emergency room for a color ultrasound. But it was a false alarm. It was the bloating that pressed against the tumor, causing referred pain.

Patients who have just undergone teratoma removal surgery should not make up for it. Many family members think that after surgery, they need to make up for it, so they stew old hen soup and hoof soup without skimming off the oil on top. As a result, the patient drinks it as soon as he has gas, and has diarrhea for several days, but the wound recovery is slow. In the first few days after surgery, it is enough to eat light porridge, noodles, boiled vegetables, and a small amount of lean meat and eggs to supplement protein. There is no need to take those fancy cordyceps and ginseng supplements, which will easily burden the metabolism.

If you are a patient with malignant teratoma who is undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy, don't be greedy for the hot pot belly or ice cream that is so cold that your teeth will sour. I just met a little girl last week. She secretly went out to eat skewers during the chemotherapy period. She came back with oral ulcers and diarrhea. It took four or five days to eat normally, which actually delayed the progress of the treatment. The mucous membrane of the digestive tract is already fragile at this stage. Try to eat soft, easy-to-digest foods and avoid irritating foods. You don’t need to drink plain porridge all the time. It’s okay to eat some steamed pumpkin or boiled lean minced meat. Only by keeping up with nutrition can you withstand the reaction of chemotherapy.

By the way, there is another minefield with a high risk of being tripped up. I would like to remind everyone: Don’t buy the popular loose knot tea or Xiaoliu pills. There are also people who drink panax notoginseng powder and deer fetus ointment every day in an attempt to get rid of the tumor. I previously treated a 30-year-old patient who was diagnosed with a 2cm benign teratoma. He didn’t want to have surgery, so I bought more than 3,000 yuan of loose knot tea and drank it for three months. On review, the tumor was not smaller, but his liver function transaminase was three times higher. The gain was not worth the loss. Teratomas often contain mature tissues such as hair, teeth, and grease. It is impossible to "dissolve" them by eating anything. When surgery is needed, do surgery. Don't use your own body to try folk remedies.

In fact, to put it bluntly, there are really not as many dietary taboos for teratomas as everyone thinks. Many people are so nervous after being diagnosed that they dare not even eat eggs or milk, which is completely causing trouble for themselves. If you are really not sure whether you can eat something, just ask your attending doctor casually during your next follow-up visit. He knows your specific situation better than all the popular science on the Internet, right?