.However I just discovered that the same is true for Jewish women, mentioned here and in various other places. That's me. Hmm, I don't recall any of my Jewish friends mentioning they have this problem, although I know that my mother did.
If someone were to write a fibroid book for Jewish women, I wonder what it would be called. Would have to have some Yiddish in there, just can think of anything!
This does present an interesting thing to think about -- I have been blaming my fibroids on myself, for poor eating, lack of exercise, too much work, not dealing with my issues, etc. But maybe it's not my fault at all, maybe it's just my genes. An interesting different way of looking at it....
Also it reminds me of a conversation with an African American friend of mine recently, I was telling him aobut my fibroid shrinking journey (he's a very close friend!) and he was telling me about two of his immediate family members who also struggled with fibroids. Then I mentioned to him the statistic that African American women are three times more likely than Caucasian women to have fibroids. Earlier in the conversation I had mentioned that holistic healers believe that fibroids are the result of unprocessed emotional "stuff" and he referenced that saying "Well, if we are talking about "stuff" then African American women certainly have a lot of it to deal with, handed down to them -- slavery, discrimination, etc, that's a lot of stuff." A very thought-provoking comment.
If you take that line of thinking to Jewish women, although it's very different "stuff" I think that Jewish women could be said to have their own variety of "stuff." If we're looking at history, of course there's the Holocaust and centuries of persecution. "Jewish guilt" is famous and some of my Jewish girlfriends and I have talked about our penchant to be worrywarts which we think is partially inherited. This is all speculative of course but interesting to think about...
11 comments:
So glad to find your blog. I am in a huge struggle with my fibroids. They are affecting every area of my life. So much so that at 44, I am considering some sort of surgical procedure, so I can have some sort of life.
As for your post, I found the "stuff" issue interesting. I certainly have "stuff," being Latin American. We are no different from African Americans when it comes to "stuff."
I'll be reading more of your entries, to see how your experience helps me.
Thanks!
Hi Fibroid shrinker,
Your blog is a dream come true! A question for you, what's wrong with soy?
Do you have an entry about that? I've been eating a lot of soy, since I gave up flesh.
Thanks,
Lorena
Hello Lorena,
Thanks so much for your comments and glad that you are finding my blog to be helpful.
About soy, I will write an entry soon (have been meaning to) but basic idea is to only eat whole soy foods and preferably fermented ones (like miso, natto, and tempeh) and then only sparingly. And avoid highly processed ones like soy milk, textured soy protein, etc. And avoid the GMO soy.
I overate chocolate over the Christmas season. That brought on brutal growth of my fibroids. I was severely bloated, had pregnancy symptoms, and horrible heartburn.
Then in February I went on a vegetarian, wheat-free diet. During that time I ate a lot of soy, in every form.
I just had my period, and the blood loss was considerably lower. The period also had fewer and smaller clots. So, I am improving in spite of all the soy!
I mostly use tofu and yogurt, and a little milk, mostly in cooking and baking.
I am not convinced that soy isn't good for me. That's why I was shocked to read that you don't recommend it! But maybe I am using the acceptable forms of it.
Or maybe it is that we all react differently to it. My blood type is A. D'adamo the "Eat Right for Your Type" guy say that soy is good for type A's.
Ah, Eat Right For Your Type is one of the things I am planning to write about, my acupunturist recommended I do it. I think it's an excellent idea. I'm an AB so soy is supposed to be good for me too. I do think there is something to the fact that different people react differently.
There is a huge amount of controversy about soy and that extends to some people saying that we with fibroids should have lots of it, and others saying we should avoid it. I'm planning to write a detailed post on this -- but I have to finish my taxes first! :)
How could you be more likely to have fibroids if you are jewish?ridiculous!! judaism is a religion not an ethnicity!!
Yes it might sound strange to talk about a religion as an ethnicity but there is an explanation. The vast majority of Jews are ethnically what is called Sephardic or Ashekenazic. The Sephardic Jews are the descendents of the Jews who lived in Spain before they were expelled in 1492. The Ashekenazic Jews are the ones who originally lived in Eastern Europe. Although I have not been able to find the cite, I believe that this reference to Jewish genetic tendency to fibroids likely refers to Ashekenazic Jews, who make up most of the Jews in the U.S. and other western countries.
Persecuted for many centuries, the Jews kept to themselves and married only among themselves. So with very little fresh blood coming in, this religious group became an ethnic group too, that has a distinctive genetic makeup. Ashekenazic Jews have been shown to have genetic susceptibility to various diseases, such as breast cancer, colon cancer, and Cystic Fibrosis --- so why not fibroids too?
The story of the Jews over the centuries in the diaspora (scattered throughout the world outside of Israel) is a fascinating one, if you are curious you might want to pick up a book on the history of the Jews.
What are you trying to prove exactly?
you just acknowledged that jews are not an ethnic group as you said there were several peoples/ethnies within the jewish religion (as there are in other religions by the way...).
Also if some ashkenazes have blond hair and blue eyes and jewish people have different looks it's because they have been mixed throughout history with non hebrew people. Sorry but most of the western world jews don't look nothing like ancient hebrews.
Any way my point was that I find it kind of silly to state that "jewish" women are more likely to have fibroids as little researches have been done about fibroids..like what causes it in the first place...
So much nonsense is written about fibroids (the consumption of soy for ex) it becomes annoying for women, who suffer from fibroids and are trying to make researches for themselves, to read such misleading things..
I don't know when you started to have fibroids but 43 is a normal age to have fibroids. Being jewish has nothing to do with it..A lot of women of your age has fibroids no matter their origins or ethnicity... on the other end I am 27 and have had fibroids for a few years now...So maybe for me there is a genetic factor..
until we know more about this condition, we should be more careful about the information we spread.
Anyway good luck to you. I just cannot believe that so many women are suffering from fibroids and hardly anybody in the medical world seems interested to make REAL researches about it...
I am not trying to "prove" anything, just explain my understanding. It was not my idea to use the label Jewish to describe a specific genetic population, but rather I was just reporting the information I discovered (and linked to in my original post). If you look on the web, there are many pages citing this statistic of Jewish women's susceptibility to fibroids. It's not something I made up, evidently there was a study showing it. I have tried to locate the original study to link to, but all the candidates were from academic journals that you have to pay to get the article text. Since this statistic concerning Jewish womens' susceptibility to fibroids above the general population is widely cited by reliable sources I felt comfortable in repeating it. Just try a Google search on "jewish women fibroids more" to find a bunch of pages citing this statistic.
Yes you are correct that the Ashkenazic Jewish population is not necessarily a "pure" one. Indeed there are many Ashkenazic Jews with blonde or red hair -- I remember hearing recently that such traits were introduced due to rape of Jewish women by marauding soldiers who often traversed the Eastern European lands where the Ashekenazic Jews lived, during the various periods of war and instability there. (As you suggest, originally the Jews were all Mediterranean in origin and appearance -- and some still are, such as myself I am always mistaken for someone Italian, Greek, or Spanish, and when I was in Turkey people spoke to me in Turkish.) Also in recent years the high rate of intermarriage means that there are now many people following the Jewish religion who have different ethnic backgrounds altogether, and Jews who have more varied genetic heritages than their ancestors did.
However, there is still enough genetic consistency among Ashekenazic women as a group that doctors feel comfortable labeling them as an ethnic group. Here is one example, a brochure from the M.D. Andersen Cancer Center specifically for "Jewish" women. http://www.mdanderson.org/pdf/guide_for_jewish_women.pdf
I agree with you it is frustrating the lack of good research on fibroids. For each of us, who knows why we have our fibroids -- was it diet? lack of exercise? toxin exposure? hormones out of whack? genetic predisposition? repressed emotions? chi out of balance? or all of the above? Without more data indeed its hard to know -- and hard to know what to do.
In writing this blog, my mission is to report any information that looks like it might be helpful to those of us struggling with this. I do not make anything up, I just report what I discover either on the web or from talking with my caregivers or from my own experience. I hope it's helpful and if you do not find it helpful I hope you can find other information more helpful to you.
I am also glad to have found your blog. I was diagnosed with fibroids over 18 months ago. I never knew I had them until I went to my GYN. It had been 4 years since I saw him so there was no way of knowing how fast they may have grown.
I can think of the "stuff" issues that I had within those 4 years that could have brought them on. Work was overwhelming stressful and I was always bitter. I kept all this anger bottled up inside. Then this caused stress in my relationship.
I wish I would have found this blog sooner. I am trying the Apple Cider and the molasses right now.
I look forward to catching up on fibroid shrinking adventure.
Thanks so much MuffinGal, and good luck with your fibroid-shrinking!
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