Jane's Story

Jane wrote this before the latest recurrence of her cancer. It is with great sadness that we report that Jane Plant died on 4th March 2016. After 30 years and the disease recurring 8 times, she always stuck with her diet and was actually clear of cancer when she passed away from a blood clot - an possibly an unforeseen side-effect of the medication.

In 1993 despite several operations, 35 radiotherapy treatments, irradiation to induce the menopause and chemotherapy treatments. I was told I had only months to live after my breast cancer returned for the 5th time. At this point I had a large solid lump the size of half a small boiled egg sticking out of my neck just above my collar bone. I felt awful and looked very pale, thin and ill. Despite the awfulness of my situation, my scientific knowledge and experience clicked in to save my life.

My husband Peter (who is a Professor of Geology) and I had both worked in China on environmental problems in the past. I suddenly remembered that a wonderful epidemiological atlas presented to me by my Chinese colleagues showed a background rate of breast cancer of 1 in 100,000 women., compared to a rate of one in ten in much of the West. I had checked that the information was correct with senior academics that I knew well in China and also with some Chinese doctors who told me that they had hardly seen a case of breast cancer in their careers.

This was surprising because I knew that Chinese women living on western diets for example in Singapore or in Chinatown in Britain did have breast cancer. I asked Peter the question that I believe saved my life. "why don't Chinese women in China get breast cancer?" We brainstormed the subject for just a few minutes and quickly decided that it must be diet related. We then remembered two incidents. Peter remembered when his Chinese colleagues had produced powdered cows milk on a field expedition for him because they did not drink it themselves, in fact at that time in the early 80's they did not even have a dairy industry. I remembered when we had had Chinese visitors in London and offered them dairy even ice cream their reaction to it was the way I would react if I had been offered a bowl of cockroaches to eat.

I decided I had nothing to lose by giving up the two low fat yoghurts I was eating a day each day. To my and everyone else's amazement the cancer disappeared in six weeks. The rest of my diet at the time was vegan and I still maintain a mainly vegan diet to this day.

Of course overcoming my cancer was not as simple as just giving up dairy. In fact there are 10 dietary factors and 10 lifestyle factors that are important in preventing and treating cancer. This applies not only to Breast and Prostate cancer but all cancers. All of these dietary and lifestyle factors will be on this site and will be kept regularly updated.

At the time all this happened I was the Chief Geochemist of the British Geological Survey where I worked throughout my illness. As my scientific colleagues witnessed what many described as a remarkable recovery, they began to ask for help with people with breast cancer in their own lives. I went on to help more than 60 other women. to overcome their disease, many the wives, mothers and friends of my colleagues At the same time as a scientist I wanted to know why giving up dairy and being on a vegan diet had overcome my cancer, so I spend lots of my spare time researching the scientific literature.

As you can imagine I was trying to carry on a highly demanding job whilst doing all this until one day I complained about feeling under pressure and my daughter Emma said "Mum, why don't you just write it all down, and hand it out, then it won't take up your time". I thought this was a good idea and wrote out what I thought was some very basic information, Emma persuaded me to show it to one of our near neighbours and close friends who was a senior executive in publishing. He thought that it should be published and the book "Your Life in Your Hands" is now an international bestseller; it is now in its third edition and as been translated into several languages including Arabic. The book is increasingly recommended by health professionals and has contributed to my being made a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

13 years on I still work with cancer patients helping them to put their cancer into remission and keep it there based on the ten food factors and ten lifestyle factors of the Plant Programme which we keep constantly updated and shall make available to our members through this website. Some of the many successful case histories are in the latest edition of Your Life in Your Hands published in June this year.

Almost as soon as it was published readers of Your Life in Your Hands asked me for help and on how to follow the sort of diet I advocated. To that end I teamed up with my friend and fellow scientist Gill Tidey, an absolutely brilliant cook, to produce The Plant Programme cook book.

The next question that came up more and more was if I give up dairy won't I get osteoporosis and where will I get my calcium from? I researched the scientific literature on this subject and found that dairy especially cheese actually appeared to be bone damaging, moreover once again women in China had incredibly low rates of this condition compared to western women who had lots of dairy in their diet. In fact, the highest dairy consuming countries also have the highest levels of osteoporosis (see Food Factor 1). I went on to write a book about this and also a book to help men deal with prostate cancer as there are many common factors between breast cancer and prostate cancer. The latest book Eating for Better Health followed. This is designed to help people suffering from other conditions ranging from heart disease to depression using diet. You will find details of all these book in the publications section of this website.

Although many people read these book and correspond with me I still felt the need to do more. My friend Paul Mills persuaded me that the answer had to be a website available to people worldwide that would provide quick and easy access to reliable science based information in readable English. Not the sort of information put out by many vested interest groups which often seems deliberately designed to mislead and confuse people. To that end I joined forces with my friend and colleague Laura Jones to develop and launch SuPPort to provide the means of doing all the things described on our home page.

I hope you will find our website of great benefit and that this will increase more and more as it develops.

If you wish to find out more about me and my academic qualifications and experience go to

Click here for my full curriculum vitae in Adobe Acrobat PDF format

New Evidence of the Value of the Plant Programme in Treating Cancer

Or visit my personal website www.janeplant.com

If you would like to arrange a personal consultation with me to find out more about how to follow the dietary and lifestyle factors in detail please contact me on