What's New in Breast Health
c. 2005 Susun S Weed
An update on what's been happening in
the past five years that's of interest
to women dancing with breast cancer. From
the articles I've saved (I read nearly
one hundred magazines a month, ranging
from scientific re-caps to the popular
and alternative presses): The trends,
first summarized, then itemized with references,
and -- here and there -- helpful hints
to help your health the Wise Woman Way.
Breast Health
Summary
Screening mammograms, especially for
women under 50, continue to draw heavy
criticism. Former head of mammography
services in the UK says: "To promote
mammography to women under the age of
50 is absolutely unethical." Screening
mammograms, along with the biopsies and
treatments they engender, may actually
be triggering aggressive breast cancers
in asymptomatic women, not "finding
it early," as we have been told.
Wise women say "no" to mammograms
and focus on breast health.
Life-style choices are more important
than ever in keeping breasts healthy.
Exercise plus a diet (not pills) rich
in antioxidants and low in refined carbohydrates,
continues to top the list. Mounting evidence
of the adverse effects of wearing bras,
not breast feeding, and being exposed
to light at night gives us new incentives
to increase our consumption of green tea,
iodine-rich kelp seaweeds, and the Wise
Woman's favorite: nourishing
herbal infusions.
New studies connect frequent antibiotic
use with a doubling of breast cancer risk,
but frequent use of aspirin with a lowering
of breast cancer risk. Researchers found
high concentrations of deodorant and cosmetic
preservatives in breast tumors, plus evidence
that deodorant use combined with underarm
shaving can increase the risk of breast
cancer. I believe that inflammation may,
like radiation, heat up dormant cancers
and get them going.
New ways of treating tumors and of testing
continue to appear, while the best of
the best of complementary medicine for
those dancing with cancer continues to
gather widespread praise.
Breast Health:
Story by Story
Screening Mammograms continue to draw
criticism, especially for women under
50. Despite plenty of evidence to the
contrary, public health policy makers
continue to insist that getting a mammogram
is the same as taking care of yourself,
and that exposing breast tissues to ionizing
radiation is cancer prevention. Worse
yet, evidence is mounting that routine
screening -- and subsequent biopsies and
treatments -- is turning non-aggressive
or "latent" cancers (especially
ductal carcinoma in situ) into aggressive,
life-threatening cancers.
If your doctor insists you have a mammogram,
remember: Radiation damage is cumulative.
The more mammograms you have, the more
likely you are to initiate cancer, just
as the more you're in the sun, the more
likely you are to get skin cancer. Even
if you've already had a mammogram, even
if you've had a biopsy, you can choose
to say "no" mammograms and care
for your breasts the Wise Woman Way.
"Mammography is especially likely
to miss the [aggressive] tumors that do
the most harm."
Of 429 breast cancer diagnosed over five
years in Puget Sound, 279 were picked
up by mammography, and most were in the
earliest stage. Of the 150 that were missed,
most were so fast growing that, although
they didn't exist at the time of one yearly
mammogram, had progressed to lymph-node-involvement
before the next yearly mammogram.
"The Picture Problem," Malcolm
Gladwell, The New Yorker, December 13,
2004.
"The risks associated with overdiagnosis
and overtreatment are significant enough
to make avoiding mammography a reasonable
choice for women without breast symptoms."
After screening mammography was begun
in Norway, breast cancer diagnosis increased
by 54%. In Sweden the increase was 45%.
There has been no corresponding long-term
reduction in the rate of women diagnosed.
"The significance of these findings
is this: Mammography causes many women
to be diagnosed and treated for a type
of breast cancer that would never produce
symptoms or become life threatening if
left undetected."
"Breast Screening Finds Many Cancers
That Would Never be Lethal." HealthFacts
from the Center for Medical Consumers,
April 2004.
"There are certain calcifications.
. . that are always benign. . . .[and
some that] are always associated with
cancer. But . . . the vast amount are
in the middle and making that differen-tiation.
. . is not clear cut."David Dershaw,
head of breast-imaging Memorial Sloan
Kettering.
Computer-aided mammograms may improve
the doctors' bottom line, but they do
nothing for women. A medical practice
that does 60,000 mammograms would generate
more than $650,000 in extra income by
adding computer-aided detection, but this
would cause "no discernible improvement
in accuracy nor improved outcomes for
the women screened."
"Computer-Aided Mammography No Improvement
Over Standard Mammography," Health
Facts from the Center for Medical Consumers,
March 2004. A review of a report in the
Journal of the National Cancer Institute,
Feb. 4, 2004.
"During screening, 5 to 10 percent
of mammograms show potential abnormalities,
requiring doctors to order additional
mammograms, ultrasound imaging, biopsies,
and other tests. However, about 97 percent
of women in their 40s and about 86 percent
of women age 50 and over who have a suspicious
initial mammogram turn out not to have
breast cancer."
A prestigious group that independently
evaluates the quality of evidence on medical-screening
topics (PDQ) says its most recent review
raises uncertainty about whether there's
a benefit to mammogram screening. The
PDQ report is at www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/pdq/screening/breast/healthprofessional
"Mammograms on Trial", Damaris
Christensen, Science News, April 27, 2002
Cornelia Baines, MD, with the Canadian
National Breast Screening Study, says
mammography screening does not reduce
the breast cancer death rates for women
in their 40s (Annals of Internal Medicine,
9/03/02).
She says: "Breast cancer mortality
rates show two peaks: one occurs three
years after diagnosis, the other at nine
years. . . . Increasingly, some researchers
speculate that something associated with
biopsy or surgery in some women stimulates
growth factors, which for women with micrometastases
ends up stimulating them and them they
die." And this was seen in women
of all ages, not just those in their 40s.
"Read This Before You Have a Mammogram,"
HealthFacts, October 2002
"To promote mammography to women
under the age of 50 is absolutely unethical."
Michael Baum, MD, emeritus professor
of surgery, believes that screening mammograms
increase breast cancer deaths. He supports
Judah Folkman's suggestion that we rename
in situ cancer as "latent cancer."
He warns: "If you identify these
latent cancers [with mammograms] and biopsy
them, you have traumatized the area. You
immediately trigger the natural healing
mechanisms . . . [which] involve angiogenesis.
. . . [A latent cancer] ceases to be latent.
A latent disease becomes an aggressive
disease." This is not limited to
breast cancer. "If you find a symptomless
renal tumor by chance and operate, in
no time the patient is riddled with metastasis."
(See report on green tea countering this,
below.)
"Surgeon Who Headed a U. K. Mammography
Program Becomes One of Its Strongest Critics,"
HealthFacts, October 2002.
Veronica James, a bio-physicist at the
Australian National University has found
a way to screen women for breast cancer
-- by looking at one pubic hair. A special
molecular structure is present in the
hair of those who have breast cancer,
and absent in those who don't have it.
"Good-bye to Mammograms," Discover,
June, 1999.
Dietary Links
& Lifestyle
Exercise lowers everyone's risk of breast
cancer, and even a little helps a lot.
In a recent study, ten hours of exercise
a week lowered the risk of breast cancer
by 37%. But walking for an hour and a
quarter a week -- that's just a bit more
than ten minutes a day -- lowered risk
by 30%.
"A Brisk Walk for Breasts,"
Nutrition Action Healthletter,
December 2003.
". . . inhibiting angiogenesis can
arrest the growth of advanced tumors,
even when they have become resistant to
all other available therapy."
Green tea not only helps prevent cancer
but actively repress it and stop its metastatic
spread. Anti-angiogenetic factors in green
tea, such as epigallocatechin-3-gallate
(EGCG) reduce new blood vessel growth
to tumors by up to 70% with as little
as 3 cups of green tea a day.
Nature, 398:381, 1999;
British Medical Journal, 318:1086, 1999;
Medical Tribune, 39, #9:13, 1998 and 40,
#9:2, 1999.
"According to the survey, Mexican
women with breast cancer self-reported
a significantly higher intake of total
calories, proteins, carbohydrates, sucrose
and fructose. . . . . The women with the
highest carbohydrate intake [57 percent
or more of calories] had more than twice
the risk of breast cancer than women with
the lowest carbohydrate intake. . . .
. But women who ate a great deal of insoluble
fiber, found in whole grains, fruits and
vegetables had less risk of developing
breast cancer."
"Carbohydrates and the Risk of Breast
Cancer Among Mexican Women." Cancer
Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention,
August 2004, vol. 13, pp 1283-1289.
Iodine protects breasts, according to
David Derry, MD. After reading a report
in a 1993 issue of Canadian Journal of
Surgery, he suggested to over 200 female
patients with cystic breasts that they
take extra iodine. Within two months to
two years, their cysts completely disappeared.
Instead of taking supplements, I keep
my breasts healthy by using lots of high-iodine
kelp (seaweed) in my diet. I cook beans
with kombu, add wakame to soups, and eat
Nereocystis fronds like potato chips.
Look for seaweed recipes in my book Healing
Wise.
"Iodine Combats Breast Cysts,"
Victoria Times Colonist,
Sept. 9, 1997
Find a history of bras and their influence
on breast disease via Dr.
Ralph Reed's research.
Some highlights from his collection of
scientific articles: In 2000, researchers
in Japan found that wearing a girdle and
a bra lowered melatonin levels by 60 percent.
(Melatonin plays an important part in
preventing breast cancer.) Also in 2000,
researchers looking at the connection
between hot breasts and breast cancer
found that wearing a bra causes localized
heating of breast tissues. In 1995, women
who stopped wearing bras reported their
fibrocystic breast disease and pain was
relieved or eliminated. In 1991 researchers
at Harvard noticed that women who did
not wear bras had a 60% lower rate of
breast cancer than women who wore them.
"Breast cancer risk was increased
40-60% among those who frequently did
not sleep during the period of the night
when melatonin levels are typically at
their highest: between 1:00 am and 2:00
am. This includes insomniacs as well as
night shift workers." There even
appeared to be an indication of increasing
risk for increasing amounts of ambient
light in the bedroom.
"Exposure to Light at Night Increases
the Risk of Breast Cancer," HealthFacts,
Nov, 2001, reporting on an October 2001
study published in the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute.
Valerie Beal of Oxford University led
a study that found a "4.3 percent
risk reduction across-the-board [for each
year of breastfeeding]." In fact,
Beal and her collaborators found that
"almost half the difference"
between the high breast cancer rates found
in industrialized nations and the low
rates found in developing nations was
due to breastfeeding differences.
We can support each other to breast feed,
and to do it longer. But it's hard to
breast feed more than three months if
that's all the paid leave you get from
your job (and it's thanks to Bill and
Hillary Clinton that Americans get even
that). And don't bother to try to change
policies at your workplace if you're just
one person; you won't find it easy.
Working together, where ever we need
to, we can challenge employers to come
up to the general world standard of support
nursing moms. In the USA, we can support
a bill brought by Representative Carolyn
Maloney (D-NY) that would mandate businesses
to give breastfeeding mothers longer maternity
leaves and routine breaks once she's back
at work so she can continue nursing her
baby.
Breastfeeding benefits the baby and society
as well as protecting mom's breasts from
cancer. Some researchers find that formula
feeding encourages both diabetes and obesity
later in life.
"News on Lower Breast Cancer Risks,"
Liz Galst, Ms. Magazine,
Spring 2003.
Emerging evidence suggests that even
moderate use of aspirin can reduce breast
cancer risk for post-menopausal women.
Those who took seven or more aspirin a
week were 28% less likely to develop breast
cancer than those who didn't. Once-a-week
users were 20% less likely to develop
breast cancer. Daily use of aspirin can
lead to life-threatening, invisible gastro-intestinal
bleeding, so it is risky to prescribe
it for yourself; please don't.
Treatment News
Complementary medicines for those dancing
with cancer and chemo/radiation/surgery
are becoming more popular, less threatening
to many oncologists. For safety sake,
when wise women ingest herbs, we avoid
pills and capsules, choosing instead nourishing
herbal infusions, tinctures, or vinegars.
A less invasive way to deal with many
breast tumors using hot radio waves may
be available soon, along with better tests
to pinpoint which women will benefit from
chemotherapy, and a better way to schedule
surgery. Thinking of taking tamoxifen
to prevent breast cancer? Think again.
The most successful remedies in Breast
Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman
Way are
* One dropperful of milk thistle seed
tincture taken within the hour before
chemotherapy.
* Application of Hypericum oil on skin
the hour before radiation treatments.
* Consumption of 4 quarts of red clover
infusion a week--before, during, and after
treatment.
* Combining surgery with energy healing
techniques such as prayer, visualization,
ritual, homeopathy, candle burning, affirmation,
distant Reiki.
Heat created by radio waves -- ultrasound-guided
RF ablation -- has been found to destroy
breast tumors safely and effectively.
Earlier studies found success in treating
large breast tumors; this study focused
on tumors 2 centimeters and under. Surgical
removal of the ablated tissues from twenty
women found active cancer cells in only
one of the margins.
"Radiofrequency (RF) ablation may
safely destroy small breast tumors,"
Cornell University Women's
Health Advisor, 2004. (see April, 2004
Radiology)
Ruth Helmann, an oncologist at the University
of Chicago Medical Center wants to stop
administering chemotherapy to "the
many patients who would do just as well
without it." She's found that ninety
percent of women whose tumors have few
blood vessels, but high amounts of two
cellular proteins, are alive fourteen
years after their mastectomy; while only
44 percent of those lacking the markers
survived. Those without the markers benefit
more from chemotherapy.
"Cutting Back on Chemotherapy,"
Josie Glausiusz, Discover,
April 2000
There is some evidence that removing
breast cancer masses at certain times
of the menstrual cycle can increase survival
rates. Of premenopausal women who had
surgery between days 0-2 or after day
12 of their cycle, 75% were alive ten
years later, while only 45% of those who
had surgery between days 3 and 12 reached
the ten year anniversary. This held true
irrespective of whether the cancers were
hormone positive or not.
"Timing Breast Cancer Surgery,"
HealthNews, January 2000,
reporting on a study in Cancer, November
15, 1999.
Women taking tamoxifen are more than
twice as likely to be diagnosed with endometrial/uterine
cancer and have nearly three times the
rates of blood clots in their lungs (embolisms).
In rats, long-term use has triggered liver
cancer.
"Tamoxifen as a Breast Cancer Preventive
-- Many Questions Remain," HealthFacts,
5/1998.
Ductal lavage, a new technique that "washes"
cells from the duct, was heralded as a
"noninvasive" test for very
early breast cancer, but has failed to
prove viable in clinical settings.
"Wishing for Change in 2005,"
Lauren John, Breast Cancer
Action News, Jan. 2005
"Epidemiologists and other scientists
increasingly believe many cases [of breast
cancer] are linked to environmental factors."
State of the Evidence, What is the Connection
Between the Environment and Breast Cancer
may be downloaded at www.bcaction.org/PDF/Stateof
Evidence.pdf or by calling (in the USA)
877-278-6722.
Related News
"The prospect that vitamin pills
may not only do no good but also kill
their consumers is a scary speculation,
given the vast quantities that are used
in certain communities."
"While diets rich in
antioxidant nutrients have consistently
shown tremendous protection against cancer
and heart disease, clinical trials utilizing
antioxidant vitamins and minerals have
produced inconsistent results." Lancet,
Oct. 2, 2004.
Researchers in Japan, after interviewing
more than one hundred men and women older
than 100, found that of four dietary preference
patterns -- for cereals, beverages, dairy
products, or vegetables -- "those
preferring dairy products had the highest
survival rate." Organic
Products Retailer, 2004
"A protein present in cow's milk,
as well as in human breast milk, stimulates
bone-forming cells in lab dishes and induces
bone growth when injected into mice."
The iron-binding protein, named lactoferrin,
found by Jillian Cornish at the University
of Auckland in New Zealand, is one of
a number of "unknown substances in
milk [which] appear to directly stimulate
the activity of osteoblasts, the cells
that form new bone." These substances
also protect bone cells from death and
inhibit the generation of osteoclasts,
cells that resorb bone. "We were
absolutely stunned. It's a very potent
molecule."
"Got Milk? Dairy protein provides
bone-forming boost," J
Travis, Science News, 6/5/2004.
A report in the International Journal
of Cancer identifies milk drinking as
an excellent way to halve your risk of
breast cancer. But don't let that stop
you from enjoying cheese and yogurt. They
count too! A cup of yogurt a day, plus
two cups of nourishing herbal infusion
can keep your bones strong for a long,
long time.
"Milk: It does your breasts good,"
Health, January/February
2002.
"More than just protecting bones,
vitamin D is proving to preserve muscle
strength and to give people some protection
against deadly diseases including multiple
sclerosis (MS), diabetes, and even cancer."
Many of the studies cited in this two-part
series supported a trend: that high levels
of vitamin D protect bone indirectly,
by improving muscle strength, as well
as directly. Women taking 800IU of vitamin
D daily during a three month trial were
half as likely to fall according to the
February 2003 Journal of Bone and Mineral
Research. Falls are a leading cause of
hip fracture.
Laboratory evidence points to a strong
role played by vitamin D in helping to
prevent breast, prostrate, and colon cancer,
too. Fifteen minutes of sunlight on bare
skin in the summer will harvest plenty
of vitamin D for then and for the winter
months, too. To reap the benefits of sunlight,
wise women limit their use of sunscreen.
"Vitamin Boost: New Vitamin D Benefits,"
Janet Raloff, Science News,
October 9, 2004.
A study published in the January 2, 2002
Journal of the American Medical Association
found that older women who consume high
levels of vitamin A from supplements,
or supplements and food combined, are
48 percent more likely to fracture a hip
than those who consumed less.
"Too Much Vitamin A Raises Hip-Fracture
Risk." HealthNews,
March 2002.
For lots of vitamins and minerals, protein
and plant hormones, nothing beats a glass
of nourishing herbal infusion, the WiseWoman
Way. I use one ounce, dry weight, of any
one herb -- nettle, oatstraw, red clover,
linden, chickweed, mullein, comfrey leaf
-- brewed for 4-8 hours in a quart of
boiling water. For further instructions,
visit my website or read any of my books.
"A British researcher studying breast
tumors found high concentrations of preservatives
used in underarm deodorants and other
cosmetics, and another study found evidence
that frequent underarm shaving together
with deodorant use could increase the
risk of breast cancer."
"Findings,"
Harper's, May 2004.
For permission to reprint
this article, contact us at: susunweed@herbshealing.com