Breast Cancer Awareness Month
A well-funded campaign for “breast cancer awareness” during the month of October each year preaches the importance of annual mammograms and early detection. The marketing that goes into this month is phenomenal! There is no one in the U.S. who doesn’t realize that pink is the color of breast cancer.
What you don’t see in that campaign is prevention.
Breast cancer doesn’t occur overnight, and by the time a doctor or a mammogram detects a tumor, it could have been growing for forty years, i.e., it is not early detection.
Mammograms can pick up existing breast cancer, but they do not prevent breast cancer.
In a study of autopsy results, it was found that nearly 40 percent of American women in their forties have breast cancers growing in their bodies that are too small to be detected by mammograms.
That’s why you can’t wait until you are diagnosed to start living a healthier lifestyle.
You need to start now.
IS IT GENETICS?
Just because a person has the gene for a disease does not mean that they are destined to get the cancer. One research group found that less than 3% of all breast cancer cases can be attributed to family history.
HOW IMPORTANT IS ESTROGEN?
Estrogen levels are a critical determinant of a woman’s breast cancer risk.
We now have enough information to show that a diet low in animal-based protein, low in fat and high in whole plant foods will reduce estrogen levels.
The idea that breast cancer is centered on estrogen exposure is profound because diet plays a major role in establishing that estrogen level. This suggests that the risk of breast cancer is preventable if we eat foods that will keep estrogen levels under control.
Most women are not aware of this evidence.
The earlier a girl has her first menstruation, the more years of menstrual periods and estrogen she will have in her lifetime. Menarche is triggered by the growth rate of the girl; the faster the growth, the earlier the age of onset.
The closer a population gets to consuming a low-fat, plant-based diet, the lower its risk of breast cancer.
OTHER RISK FACTORS FOR BREAST CANCER
ALCOHOL:
It’s worth noting that even one glass of wine per day increases the risk of breast cancer.
In 2013, scientists published a compilation of more than one hundred studies on breast cancer and light drinking (up to one alcoholic beverage a day). These scientists estimated that, every year around the world, nearly five thousand breast cancer deaths may be attributable to light drinking.
The carcinogen isn’t alcohol itself. The culprit is actually the toxic breakdown product of alcohol called acetaldehyde, which can form in your mouth almost immediately after you take a sip.
Experiments show that even holding a single teaspoon of hard liquor in your mouth for five seconds before spitting it out results in the production of potentially carcinogenic levels of acetaldehyde that lingers for more than ten minutes.
INFLAMMATION:
A sedentary lifestyle increases inflammation, whereas exercise decreases it.
A typical American diet is high in animal protein, which promotes chronic inflammation. In contrast, plant-based proteins are low in inflammatory stimulants and actively decrease chronic inflammation.
Reducing animal protein intake is known to reduce levels of a growth factor called IFG-1, which promotes chronic inflammation, and lower IGF-1 levels are linked to longer life span and reductions in the risk of cancer and diabetes.
Chronic emotional stress also causes chronic inflammation
MELATONIN:
Researchers have found that blind women may have just half the odds of breast cancer as sighted women which seems to be related to melatonin.
Besides helping to regulate your sleep, melatonin is thought to suppress cancer growth.
Women who interrupt their melatonin production by working night shifts appear to be at increased risk of breast cancer. Even living on a particularly brightly lit street may affect your risk. Therefore, it’s probably best to sleep without any lights on and with the blinds drawn or possibly a sleep mask.
In 2005, Japanese researchers reported an association between higher vegetable intake and higher melatonin levels in the urine. Meat consumption was the only food significantly associated with lower melatonin production.
FIBER:
Inadequate fiber consumption may also be a risk factor for breast cancer. Fiber’s benefits appeared even more pronounced for estrogen-receptor-negative breast tumors, which are harder to treat: Premenopausal women on a higher fiber diet had 85 percent lower odds of that type of breast cancer.
CHOLESTEROL:
Cancer appears to feed on cholesterol. Tumors may suck up so much cholesterol that cancer patients’ cholesterol levels tend to plummet as their cancer grows. This is not a good sign, as patient survival tends to be lowest when cholesterol uptake is highest.
The cancer is thought to be using the cholesterol to make estrogen or to shore up tumor membranes to help the cancer migrate and invade more tissue.
In the largest study to date on cholesterol and cancer – including a million participants – found a 17 percent increased risk in women who had total cholesterol levels over 240 compared with women whose cholesterol was under 160.
In rural China where there is very little breast cancer, the average level of blood cholesterol was only 127 mg/dL, which is almost 100 points less than the American average of 215 mg/dL.
With almost no exceptions, nutrients from plant-based foods were associated with decreasing levels of blood cholesterol.
WHAT ABOUT TAKING STATINS?
The first major study on the breast cancer risk of statin use for ten years or longer was published in 2013. It found that women who had been taking statins for a decade or more had twice the risk of both common types of infiltrating breast cancer: invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive lobular carcinoma.
These cholesterol drugs doubled the risk.
GET STARTED WITH PREVENTION
We now have enough information to show that a diet low in animal-based protein, low in fat and high in whole plant foods will reduce estrogen levels.
Instead of suggesting dietary change as a solution, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing and publicizing a drug, tamoxifen, that may or may not work and that almost certainly will have unintended side effects.
The AICR (American Institute for Cancer Research) is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on diet and cancer. Based on the best available research, it came up with recommendations for cancer prevention. “Diets that revolve around whole plant foods – vegetables, whole grains, fruits and beans – cut the risk of many cancers.”
Eating a plant-based diet along with walking every day can improve our cancer defenses within just two weeks.
ALREADY DIAGNOSED?
As with prostate cancer, it is likely that some aggressive breast cancers with high potential for spreading may require chemotherapy, surgery, and/or radiation whereas others may be safely treated with lifestyle medicine alone. Even when drugs and surgery are indicated, lifestyle medicine may reduce the likelihood of recurrence. For example, women who reduced their dietary fat intake to only 20 percent, decreased their risk of breast cancer recurring by 42 percent after five years when compared with a randomized comparison group who consumed 51 grams of fat per day.
After women have been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergo their cancer treatment, they don’t realize (or their doctors never told them) that a healthier lifestyle may improve their survival chances. For example, a study of nearly 1,500 women found that remarkably simple behavior changes – such as eating just five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day along with walking for thirty minutes six days a week – were associated with a significant survival advantage.
One group of offending chemicals, including dioxins and PCBs persist in the environment because they are not metabolized when consumed. Some of these chemicals are known to promote the growth of cancer cells, although humans may not be at significant risk unless one consumes excessive quantities of meat, milk and fish. Indeed, 90-95% of our exposure to these chemicals comes from consuming animal products – yet another reason why consuming animal-based foods can be risky.
In one study, 90 percent of the breast cancer patients (young, old, estrogen-receptor positive, and estrogen-receptor-negative) who ate the most soy (tofu, soy milk, soy sauce, edamame, tempeh) after diagnosis were still alive five years later, while half of those who ate little to no soy were dead.
A relatively high intake of soy, which, if consumed consistently during childhood, may cut the risk of breast cancer later in life by half. If women wait to consume soy primarily as an adult, their risk reduction may only be closer to 25 percent.
DON’T PUT IT OFF
You don’t want to be that person who thinks they are doing everything possible to prevent breast cancer by getting annual mammograms and then a tumor is found. Why not be the person who changes her diet and lifestyle so you never have to get that diagnosis?
SOURCES:
How Not to Die by Michael Greger, MD
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD
UnDo It! by Dean Ornish, MD
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©2021 Melinda Coker
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