With summer not too far away, you may think your vitamin D will soon be back to optimal levels.
But if that’s what you think, you can think again.
Functional medicine guru Dr. Mark Hyman says, “Unless you live 20 minutes south of Atlanta, and you are outside totally naked for 15 minutes a day in the sun, you need vitamin D.”
African Americans and other dark-skinned people, along with those living in northern latitudes, make significantly less vitamin D than other groups. The darker your skin is, the less likely it is you will produce adequate vitamin D levels from sun exposure alone.
That being said, it is important to get vitamin D3 through diet, sunlight, or supplements every day.
This is because when vitamin D is sent directly to the body’s tissues it is only active for 24 hours. So, to boost our immune system and ward off cancer we need new input every day.
Vitamin D impacts our bones, regulates calcium and strengthens our immune system. What’s more, researchers have found that vitamin D directly affects the cells in the breast.
Vitamin D influences virtually every cell in your body and is one of nature’s most potent cancer fighters.
Inside almost every cell in the body is a vitamin D receptor (VDR). A VDR is a protein that controls the expression of genes. The vitamin D in our blood enters breast cells, binds to the VDRs, and triggers positive change. Vitamin D is also able to enter cancer cells and trigger natural cell death, preventing, slowing, or even stopping cancer growth.
There have been many studies on vitamin D and breast cancer that demonstrate a 50-80% lower risk of breast cancer diagnosis for women with serum levels of >40 ng/ml versus levels of 25 ng/ml or lower.
According to Dr. Cedric F. Garland, a professor of family and preventive medicine, “As long as vitamin D receptors are present, tumor growth is prevented and kept from expanding its blood supply. Vitamin D receptors are not lost until a tumor is very advanced. This is the reason for better survival in patients whose vitamin D blood levels are high.”
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington D.C. discovered a connection between high vitamin D intake and a reduced risk of breast cancer.
These findings, which were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research, revealed that increased dosage of the sunshine vitamin was linked to a 75% reduction in overall cancer growth and a 50% reduction in tumor cases among those already having the disease.
Vitamin D supplementation helped control the development and growth of breast cancer, especially with estrogen-sensitive breast cancer.
Rochester Medical Center examined vitamin D levels in 155 breast cancer patients in the months before and after surgery. They found suboptimal levels to be highly predictive of the biological markers associated with more aggressive tumors.
The average level in patients with breast cancer in the United States is 17 ng/ml.
At any rate, having an optimal vitamin D serum level helps to prevent a wide variety of diseases and other health issues. Vitamin D levels need to be between 50 and 70 ng/ml year round. According to recent findings from the D*action study, adults need about 8,000 IUs of D3 per day to get serum levels above 40 ng/ml.
If you take high doses of oral vitamin D3 supplements, you may also need to increase your vitamin K2 intake, as vitamin D increases the need for K2 so your body can absorb calcium.
There is new evidence that vitamin K2 directs the calcium to your skeleton, while preventing it from being deposited where you don’t want it.
The tricky thing about vitamin D deficiency is that there aren’t any symptoms until you are really depleted. Only a blood test can check vitamin D levels.
Insurance pays for D testing. But if you’re without insurance, there are independent labs online that will do the test.
Conventional health experts tell us that a level of 20 ng/ml to 50 ng/ml is considered adequate for healthy people and anything below 12 ng/ml is a deficiency.
But the truth is those are reckless, risky numbers. Optimal ranges are 50-70 ng/ml. Again, it is best to monitor your Vitamin D levels through a blood test.
When in doubt, always choose optimal over normal or adequate.
In any case, whenever you can, try to get out and enjoy the sun, and if you use sunscreen, make sure it’s natural.
You should also make a point of doing regular breast cancer screening via thermography and/or ultrasound and don’t forget to take your vitamin D!
Offering Breast, Upper Body and Full Body Exams
Contact me to book your thermography appointment today.
It seems as though fashion designers forgot to think of practicality or function when designing women’s clothing.
With annoyingly small pants pockets that can’t fit more than a key or a lipstick tube, with some “pockets” that are sewed shut or simply try to give off the appearance of a pocket, women have had to improvise on their own.
Hence, the phone-in-the-bra phenomenon.
Bras were not designed to hold phones and cash, yet females are stashing their accessories in this make-shift pocket for lack of a better option. Whether it’s at the gym, getting drinks downtown, or running errands, this desperate act has become a commonplace trend.
Now, designers—who are finally thinking of female clothing practicality—have even put pockets on bras and sports bras!
However, as much as we understand the necessity of it, holding a cell phone in your bra can be compromising your health.
Cell phones may seem harmless, yet recent research shows there may be a link between non-ionizing cell phone radiation and tumor growth in the breast. This connection has prompted a proliferation in research on cell phone radiation and the discovery of non-intuitive correlations between cell phones and breast cancer.
How Cell Phone Radiation Affects Breasts
In a 2013 University of California study, four women between the ages of 21-39 were found to have multi-focal invasive breast cancer or breast cancer that arose from more than one location on the breast tissue.
These women had no family history of breast cancer and tested negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2 and other known genetic breast cancer risks.
However, these women all regularly carried their smartphones directly against their breasts in their brassieres for up to 10 hours a day for several years. Each developed tumors in the areas of their breasts, immediately underlying their phone placement.
Mammograms show clustered calcification (in white) corresponding to multiple sites of disease for case patient 1. Source: PubMed
Case 1 involved a 21-year-old female, who experienced spontaneous bloody nipple discharge. She kept her cell phone tucked in her bra on the left side for several hours each day.
Case 2 involved another 21-year-old female who discovered a hard mass in the area where her cellular phone was kept in direct contact with her left breast. She had placed her cellular device in her bra for 8+ hours a day for the course of 6 years. Later studies showed that her cancer had spread to the bone.
Case 3 involved a 33-year-old female who discovered two masses in the upper outer quadrant of her right breast, directly underneath where her cellular phone was placed against her bra. She had placed her cell phone in her bra intermittently for 8 years. Routinely, she would place her cell phone in her bra and use the GPS application to determine her location while jogging. Cancer had spread to her lymph node.
Case 4 involved a 39-year-old female with three distinct masses in the area of cellular phone contact with her right breast. She had placed her cell phone in her bra while commuting to work and used Bluetooth to talk for hours each day for the past 10 years. Multiple lymph nodes tested positive for spread of the disease.
In the study, all four cases showed striking similarity. All tumors were hormone-positive, low-intermediate grade, and possessed nearly identical morphology. Lesions were found in the breast tissue. MRI scans lit up and showed dense masses.
Due to the similarity of the disease and cases, the authors strongly emphasize the need for more safety data on the effects of prolonged direct contact with cell phones. They point out that breast cancer is typically uncommon for women in their 20s and 30s, as less than 5% of women in this age range typically get the disease.
Usually, when one has this disease, it is associated with a genetic predisposition, of which, none of these women had. The researchers concluded that there is probable evidence that the non-ionizing cell phone radiation causes breast cancer.
In another meta-analysis conducted in 2014, 16 research reports of case-control studies published between 2000 and 2007 were analyzed to look for the relationship between exposure to cell phone radiation and breast cancer. The researchers found that low-level radiation may increase the risk of breast cancer in women with the relative risk being 1.10 overall, and 1.25 in the non-menopausal group. The relative risk in the menopausal group was not significant (1.04).
As is necessary to prove any theory, a relationship would need to be confirmed on a much larger scale with more test subjects. Because there is little laboratory or clinical evidence in existence to-date, these studies were only able to show suggestive evidence and are not considered conclusive.
Unfortunately, researchers know very little about cancer to-date and only a small amount of work has thus far been done in this particular area. Scientists are still working on understanding the disease of cancer itself and have only recently elucidated its mechanism of action. Interestingly, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has only classified Radio Frequency (RF) waves of the electromagnetic spectrum, the form that cellular devices emit, as a possible human carcinogen.
Limited Attention to the Issue
Unfortunately, not many people seem to be aware of the health risks of cell phones, and a woman with a cell phone sticking out of her bra or bra strap is a normal—and frequent—occurence.
Efforts, though, have been made to inform the public of the correlation between breast cancer and cell phone contact. Popular television personalities, including medical doctor, Dr. Oz, have even gone so far as to devote entire segments to this issue. Dr. Oz released a segment entitled, “Why You Should Keep Your Cell Phone Out of Your Bra.” Local news segments also aired when the research first came out.
Nonetheless, the general public seems to be largely ignorant of the potential danger or have forgotten the research results, if they were ever informed. A Google search on the keyword “breast cancer and cell phones” yields very few results, most outdated by a year.
Surprisingly, even on the Susan G. Komen website, cell phones are listed as one of the factors that do not increase the risk of breast cancer. Perhaps this is because there has been limited study and experts provide confusing information.
On the American Cancer Society website, they acknowledge that there may be a link of women developing cancer from cell phones placed in their bras, but also that it may all be a coincidence. We just don’t know because there has been such limited study. Yet, the amount of information presented on another page of the American Cancer Society website is so overwhelming, it is hard to decipher the final conclusion on what types of cancers may or may not be caused by cell phones, how many, and what type of studies were done where.
What Women Can Do
Until more data becomes available on cell phone radiation, it is generally recommended by experts to avoid any kind of skin contact with cell phones.
In the fine print, many cell phone manufacturers have actually even placed a warning in their manuals, stating that direct contact with skin should be avoided. For instance: the iPhone user manual advises that the phone be kept 6 inches or 15 cm (5/8 inch) or more away from your body.
More research is clearly needed on cell phone radiation, in order for any kind of regulation to make its way through and be noticed by the public. While consumers are waiting for science and laws to catch up, it is important to do what you can to be safe.
Avoid unnecessary exposure to cell phone radiation. Tell your friends and loved ones about this, too. The risk of breast cancer from cell phone radiation is not worth the convenience of storing your cell phone in your bra.
Tips on Working with Your Doctor for Total Breast Health Care
Patients are always asking me if their doctor will understand their thermography report.
There’s a large spectrum of responses I’ve heard from my patients’ doctors.
Some doctors support thermography so much so, they highly suggest all their patients to have an annual full-body scan. The full-body scan will assess an individual’s current health status by listing any abnormal hot or cold spots throughout the entire body.
Medical thermography is infrared imaging. Ideally, you would use thermography for cancer prevention, but it can also be early cancer detection which could save your life (70% of those who have diagnosed cancers from anatomical testing, could have been found up to 10 years earlier on a thermography scan).
Other doctors have never heard of thermography. Most are somewhere in between.
Here are some tips on working with your doctor:
Let them know we are not looking to replace the traditional tests, only add to them.
Email your report to them and ask for a consult appointment to review your results. A thermologist will compose your thermography report much like how a radiologist will write a report on an X-ray or ultrasound.These reports are meant for your primary care physician to offer you further recommendations based on your results if any are needed.
If you’d like a sample report to review with a Breast Thermography International (BTI), I am happy to discuss it with you or your doctor. Contact me to set up a review.
There is a wide range of suggestions your doctor could give you to improve your next thermography report.
Here are some examples they may recommend:
Change parts of your diet or balance your hormones.
Relieve muscle and joint tension with yoga or other forms of exercise.
Have a chiropractic adjustment.
Meditate with calming music or breath practices, since most diseases can be caused by stress.
Sometimes, although we try our best to live a healthy life, we still may need to reduce toxins with a detox program.
Also your doctor may want to order diagnostics testing from the findings in your report.
These are just some of the many recommendations you and your physician can discuss to work toward a healthier life.
And go ahead and share your thermography report with your family and friends. This might encourage them to include thermography into their own annual health regimen.
Remember, early detection saves lives and prevention is ideal.
This August I was invited to be invited on Mo Akins’ podcast, Health Your Own Way.
Mo and and I had a lovely chat, covering breast cancer symptoms to watch out for, breast cancer prevention, the importance of the immune system, and everything in between. Watch it now!
Spring is the time when the Earth gives us cleansing herbs and bitter greens to help detox and clear the stagnant energy of winter.
It is during this time of the year we begin foraging for our favorite edible spring greens like dandelion, nettle, watercress, lamb’s quarters, violet, chickweed, chicory, amaranth, red mustard, and arugula.
Spring is also a natural time to clear away toxins so the body can reboot after a long winter.
Mark Hyman MD, author of the Blood Sugar Solution 10- Day Detox Diet recommends eliminating sugars, processed foods, grains, dairy, and caffeine that are difficult to digest for 10 days. His diet is just one option of many out there if you are looking for an alternative to a traditional juice fast.
Cleansing is a tune up for the body.
Just as filters in your car clog up with carbon waste so do the filters your body like the liver, kidneys, and colon fill with metabolic waste
Organic produce is imperative while doing a cleanse. Buying organic produce can be pricey but in the long run it’s your health.
The Environmental Working Group has tirelessly been providing yearly updates to the most toxic produce as they call The Dirty Dozen, and the least toxic, The Clean 15.
I have been referring to them since my children were small and strawberries, peaches and bell peppers have never left the top of the dirty dozen list!
The Dirty Dozen List:
Prioritize buying these organic if and when you can.
Strawberries
Spinach
Kale, collard, and mustard greens
Nectarines
Apples
Grapes
Cherries
Peaches
Pears
Bell and hot peppers
Tomatoes
Celery
EWG’s Clean Fifteen for 2021 List:
These choices have the least amount of pesticide and buying organic is less important.
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapple
Onions
Papaya
Sweet peas (frozen)
Eggplant
Asparagus
Broccoli
Cabbage
Kiwi
Cauliflower
Mushrooms
Honeydew melon
Cantaloupes
8 out of 10 cancers now are from toxins and cancer is expected to increase 30% by 2030.
We just have to be smart about what we put in our body, on our skin and in our thought-forms.
Please share this article with your friends, especially women with children.
Honor the spiritual dimensions of the plant kingdom for the Life Force that they provide us.
Eat green, green everything. Your plate should be a green as the fluorescent green of the spring landscape. Remember your breasts love all things green!
As the holiday season approaches, a gathering would not be complete without a cheese board. Until I started researching the genetically engineered growth hormone called rBGH, I was a hard core grazer at those cheese boards. Not anymore.
This is not new news, but like news, it is released and falls by the way side. It is urgent that women in particular know the dangers that genetically engineered cheese poses to their breast health.
Please seek out organic milk and cheese at your local farmers market and health food stores. For those wanting to avoid cheese altogether, several vegan cheeses have come on the market. There are options.
Thank you Dr. Mercola for permission to share this message.
By Dr. Mercola
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. If you’re a woman, your chance of getting breast cancer in your lifetime is about one in eight.
Researchers at a breast cancer conference stated that up to one-third of breast cancers could be avoided by making different lifestyle choices, such as the foods you choose to eat.
There is one food you may be surprised to learn, that is directly linked to breast cancer—and that is pasteurized dairy in the form of milk or milk products.
The risk lies in consuming milk from cows treated with a synthetic, genetically engineered growth hormone called rBGH. Unfortunately, this applies to about one third of the dairy cows in America.
When you consume dairy products from these cows, every product made from their milk is contaminated with this dangerous hormone—be it cheese, ice cream, yogurt, butter—or just plain milk.
Cows are injected with rBGH to boost their milk production.
But science has proven this practice, although profitable to the industry, comes at a high price to you, as well as to dairy cows. RBGH, or recombinant bovine growth hormone, is a synthetic version of natural bovine somatotropin (BST), a hormone produced in cows’ pituitary glands.
Monsanto developed the recombinant version from genetically engineered E. coli bacteria and markets it under the brand name “Posilac.”
RBGH is the largest selling dairy animal drug in America.
But it is banned in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and in the 27 countries of the European Union because of its dangers to human health. Many have tried to inform the public of the risks of using this hormone in dairy cows, but their attempts have been met with overwhelming opposition by the powerful dairy and pharmaceutical industries, and their government liaisons.
Monsanto Lawyers Threaten “Dire Consequences” for Whistleblowers
In 1997, two Fox-affiliate investigative journalists, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, attempted to air a program exposing the truth about the dangers of rBGH. Lawyers for Monsanto, a major advertiser with the Florida network, sent letters promising “dire consequences” if the story aired.
After attempts by Fox to bribe the reporters to keep quiet failed, the station agreed to air a revised version of the report. An unheard of 83 edits later, the report was shelved and the courts took over. Although a lower court ruled in favor of the reporters for some $425,000, a Florida appeals court denied them whistleblower protection, claiming Fox (and the media in general) have no obligation to tell the truth and have the freedom to report, essentially, fact OR fiction as real news.
They tell their story in an article at PR Watch. (It was taken down)
It is stories like this that reignite my determination to bring you factual information about these important issues regarding your health.
Despite decades of evidence about the dangers of rBGH, the FDA still maintains it’s safe for human consumption and ignores scientific evidence to the contrary. According to Dr. Samuel Epstein, a well-respected professional in cancer prevention and toxicology and chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, the FDA has responded to evidence that rBGH is unsafe with a wide range of “tenuous and inconsistent claims” based on “highly speculative and misleading calculations…based on a wide range of assumptions,” often citing flawed scientific studies that simply are not meaningful.
In 1999, the United Nations Safety Agency ruled unanimously not to endorse or set safety standards for rBGH milk, which has effectively resulted in an international ban on U.S. milk. The Cancer Prevention Coalition, trying for years to get the use of rBGH by the dairy industry banned, resubmitted a petition to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, MD, in January 2010.
They are still waiting for a response. Although the FDA stubbornly sticks to its position that milk from rBGH-treated cows is no different than milk from untreated cows, this is just plain false and is not supported by science.
Differences Between rBGH-Treated and Untreated Milk
According to Dr. Epstein, rBGH milk differs from natural milk nutritionally, pharmacologically, immunologically, and hormonally, and he cites the following differences. RBGH milk contains:
Increased levels of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1)
Contamination with illegal antibiotics and drugs used to treat mastitis and other rBGH-induced diseases, as well as pus from increased rates of mastitis among the cows injected with rBGH
Increased levels of the thyroid hormone enzyme thyroxin-5′-monodeiodinase
Reduced casein content (a milk protein)
Increased concentration of long-chain fatty acids and decreased concentration of short-chain fatty acids
ALL of the factors above can cause or contribute to health problems for people. But people aren’t the only ones suffering—as it turns out, the cows getting injected with these hormones are suffering as well.
RBGH Causes 16 Different Medical Problems in Dairy Cows
As mentioned above, the cows receiving this synthetic hormone suffer massively high rates of mastitis, a painful infection of their udders. Monsanto’s own data show up to an 80 percent incidence of mastitis in hormone-treated cattle, resulting in the need for routine administration of antibiotics and other drugs. This increases the frequency of allergic reactions and fuels antibiotic resistance. But mastitis is not the only adverse veterinary effect. The Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research (2003) found 16 different harmful medical conditions resulting from rBGH administration to dairy cattle, including:
40 percent increase in infertility
55 percent increased risk for lameness
Shortened lifespan
Hoof disorders
Visibly abnormal milk
From the data presented in this meta-analysis, I think it’s a reasonable conclusion that injecting animals with rBGH is cruel and inhumane treatment, besides producing milk that is not fit for human consumption.
RBGH Raises Levels of IGF-1 in Milk by Up to 70 Percent
IGF-1 is a potent hormone that acts on your pituitary gland to induce powerful metabolic and endocrine effects, including cell growth and replication. Elevated IGF-1 levels are associated with breast and other cancers. When cows are injected with rBGH, their levels of IGF-1 increase up to 20-fold, and this IGF-1 is excreted in the milk.
According to some confidential, unpublished industry studies, IGF-1 levels consistently elevate by 25 to 70 percent in rBGH milk. In reality, it is probably worse than that, since standard calculation techniques used by the dairy industry underestimate IGF-1 levels by a factor of four.
Not only are IGF-1 levels elevated in the milk of rBGH-treated cows, but a significant portion of this IGF-1 is in the free, or unbound, form, which may be about 10 times as potent as the IGF-1 in untreated milk. And not only does pasteurization NOT destroy this protein, but studies show it actually increases IGF-1 levels by about 70 percent, presumably by disrupting protein binding. There is a glaring absence of safety margins for IGF-1 in milk, and assurances by industry and government regulators to establish these parameters have been nothing more than empty promises.
Ok, so the levels of IGF-1 are higher in rBGH milk. But does the IGF get absorbed into your system when you drink it, or does your digestive tract break it down and render it inert?
Science tells us unequivocally that you do NOT break this down when you swallow it, but you DO absorb it into your bloodstream, as evidenced by both human and animal studies. Infants and young children absorb IGF-1 in even higher concentrations than adults, because their gut wall is more permeable to proteins. Infants and young children show higher levels of cow’s milk protein antibodies. The IGF-1 in dairy products appears to be protected during digestion by casein and by dairy’s buffering effects.
How Elevated IGF-1 Levels May Raise Your Breast Cancer Risk
Only one of every 10 breast cancer cases is attributed to genetics—the other nine are triggered by environmental factors, some of which are dietary. The fact that increased IGF-1 levels in hormone-treated milk increase your risk for breast, colon, and prostate cancers as has been documented in about 50 scientific publications over the past three decades. Among them is the 1998 Harvard Nurses Health study, which showed that premenopausal women with elevated IGF-1 levels had up to a seven-fold increase in breast cancer. And women younger than age 35 who have elevated IGF-1 have more aggressive breast cancer.
How does IGF-1 contribute to breast cancer?
IGF-1 regulates cell growth, cell division, and the ability of cancer cells to spread to your distant organs (invasiveness). In other words, IGF-1 has potent mitogenic effects in human breast tissue, especially in the presence of estradiol (a form of estrogen). Growth factors such as IGF-1 are “catalysts” for the transformation of normal breast tissue into breast cancer tissue, and are critically involved in the aberrant growth of human breast cancer cells. The following two findings have direct bearing on this link between elevated IGF-1 levels and breast cancer:
Specific IGF-1 mammary cell receptors are elevated by a factor of 10 in malignant human breast tissue.
IGF-1 plasma concentrations are higher in breast cancer patients than in healthy patients. (As an aside, this is how the breast cancer drug tamoxifen exerts its action—by reducing blood IGF-1 levels.)
According to Dr. Epstein, IGF-1 blocks your natural defense mechanisms against early microscopic cancers—it prevents apoptosis of cancer cells, or programmed cellular self-destruction.
The breast tissues of female fetuses and infants are especially sensitive to hormonal influences and cancer-causing chemicals. Infants and children exposed to high IGF-1 early on may become “sensitized,” leading to health problems later in life, such as breast enlargement in infants and young children, and breast cancer in adult women. Yet, despite these elevated risks to children, few schools make rBGH-free or organic milk available, nor do most state governments under low-income food programs. A study authored by Dr. Epstein demonstrated that IGF-1 in rBGH milk is a potential risk factor for both breast and gastrointestinal cancers. And a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention concluded that diet can impact cancer risk by influencing IGF-1 level.
The risks don’t end with breast cancer.
Ten studies show that consuming milk from rBGH-treated cows raises your risk for colon cancer. Seven studies document this for prostate cancer. If you want more information on this topic, I recommend reading Dr. Epstein’s 2006 book, What’s In Your Milk?
Are You Drinking rBGH Milk?
You very well may be drinking rBGH milk, or eating rBGH cheese or yogurt, as no labeling is required. This is despite the fact that surveys show that more than 80 percent of Americans want it labeled, but the government, as usual, continues bowing to industry lobbyists. The good news is, as increasing numbers of consumers and dairies choose to avoid rBGH, you can find labels that say “rBGH-free” or a similar variation. Organic milk is also rBGH-free. According to the Hartman Group, organic milk is now among the first organic product consumers buy.
Organic milk is enjoying an annual growth rate of about 20 percent, while overall milk consumption has dropped by about 10 percent.
Organic milk is certainly preferable to milk that contains this dangerous hormone. However, I still don’t recommend drinking any milk that is pasteurized—organic or otherwise. You can avoid the risks of rBGH, as well as pasteurization, by drinking only raw milk that comes from a small farmer you know and trust. The milk issue is really part of the larger problem of genetic manipulation of our food supply. The more you can avoid genetically modified (GM) and highly processed foods, the healthier you and your family will be.
HERE ARE THREE THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Do not buy milk from cows treated with rBGH. Unless the milk-label states “NO rBGH”, you can assume the milk is contaminated. rBGH has become so widely used by dairy farmers. Most health food stores sell rBGH-free milk.
2. Contact your local supermarket and find out if they have a policy regarding rBGH and milk. Make clear that you would like rBGH-free milk.
3. Write to the FDA and express your concern that they are restricting the labeling
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Let’s focus on Breast Health, exploring ways to prevent cancer at a cellular level and minimize our exposure to radiation.
While commonly performed, mammograms are uncomfortable and use ionizing and cancer-causing radiation. It is true that mammograms have saved lives and been helpful in detecting cancer. Many women are still alive today because the cancer was found at a treatable stage, and many are also firm believers in the Pink Ribbon campaigns. And rightly so, because they are survivors of this wicked disease!
Mammograms have been touted as the Gold Standard for over 35 years, yet they are far from perfect. But they’re what women are being offered, and everything else is shunned as misinformation or not scientific.
Mammograms have come under scrutiny over the past 10 years and rightly so. Millions of women are subjected to ionizing radiation every year at the directive of their health care providers. Many women, including some doctors, fear mammograms are causing over-treatment and resulting in more cases of cancer.
According to a 2012 study, The Effects of Three Decades of Screening Mammography on Breast Cancer Incidence, published by scientists in the New England Journal of Medicine, 1.3 million women have received unnecessary and invasive cancer treatments including surgery, radiation, mastectomies, hormone treatment and chemotherapy over the last 30 years. This is largely due to mammograms detecting harmless tumors, lumps, bumps, or cysts.
Also, a study by the Journal of American Medicine found that mammography misses about 50% of tumors in women with dense breasts! This is not a good track record.
The current dialog on breast cancer focuses on finding it and treating it. Treatment and more treatment is being done. However, the risk of breast cancer is four to five times greater in women who have increased density in more than 75% of their breast tissue than in women with little or no density in the breast. One-third of all breast cancers are found in women who have increased breast density in over 50% of their breast.
What exactly is dense breast tissue?
Having dense breast tissue is very common but not abnormal. After a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI a woman may be told she has “increased breast density.” Increased breast density, as detected through these screening techniques, is a strong known risk factor for breast cancer. So what does it mean?
Let’s start by addressing dense breasts and mammograms. Dense breasts make it difficult to identify the tumor on the mammogram.
It is difficult to see a lump, cyst or tumor on a mammogram or ultrasound when there is dense breast tissue present. (See Category C and D in the chart.) Notice how white the breasts are? A tumor is white and so is connective tissue, so it’s a lot like looking for a snowball in a snowstorm!
Types of Dense Breasts
Types of Dense Breasts
Breast tissue is made up of fat, glandular, and fibrous connective tissue. Fat is less dense and appears dark on a mammogram, while glandular and connective tissues are denser and appear light. Your breast will be seen as dense if you have a lot of fibrous or glandular tissue and not much fat in the tissue.
Lobules produce milk and are often called glandular tissue.
Ducts are the tiny tubes that carry milk from the lobules to the nipple.
Fibrous tissue andfat give breasts their size and shape and hold the other structures in place.
Your breast tissue may be called dense if you have a lot of fibrous or glandular tissue and not much fat in the breasts. For most women, breasts become less dense with age, but in some women, there’s little change. Although, there seems to be a link between density and older women who were exposed to Phthalates and BPS’s from hard plastics.
What about breast ultrasound or MRI?
Studies have shown that breast ultrasounds and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help find some cancers that can’t be seen on a mammogram. But the risk is that both ultrasounds and MRIs show more positive findings that turn out not to be cancer. That could result in an unnecessary biopsy.
So, getting extra tests isn’t the solution. Ultrasounds and MRI may not be covered by insurance, as such a policy for dense-breasted women would cost the insurance company a lot in extra tests and false alarms for a small benefit.
What about 3D mammography?
3D mammography, or tomosynthesis, has about a 60% sensitivity, still uses compression and will expose you to 38% more ionizing radiation, which is the most dangerous kind of radiation. This is what you are trying to avoid. So getting extra tests is not necessarily the solution.
The good news is that breast density can diminish over time. However, women whose breast density does not diminish over time are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer if they are depending only on anatomical screenings via a mammogram or an ultrasound.
Thermography detects heat and does not detect anatomical structures. So if a woman has a lump or bump and thermography does not detect heat, then it is most often benign—and up to 80% of biopsies can be avoided. Thermography is an adjunct to an anatomical screening, preferably used with ultrasound because it is radiation free—and isn’t that what you are trying to avoid?
The mammogram on the bottom right shows a woman with a very dense breast.Notice how white it is. The thermographic image about clearly shows the heat of the tumor on her breast.
What Causes Increased Breast Density?
Breast tissue develops primarily during puberty and is altered during pregnancy, breastfeeding, and menopause. Dense breast tissue can be linked to genetic factors; menstrual and reproductive factors; environmental factors; exposure to higher estrogen levels in utero; dietary and lifestyle habits; and hormonal indicators.
Birth control pills can increase density. The longer you use contraceptives, the more density there will be in your breasts. Increased weight gain in adulthood is a factor, as is hormone use starting from age 22 to 28. Alcohol consumption, red meat, sugar and caffeine also increase density.
Is there anything to make your breasts less dense? If you take limited advice from mainstream medicine, the answer is no! There is no diet, no yoga pose, no type of strength training, no pills, no shots—you are stuck with what nature gave you. Unacceptable!
How can you reduce breast density?
Breast feed for at least six months.
Increase healthy fats: olive oil and flax seed oil, for example. Use these oils raw, as these have a low burn point.
Eliminate red meat or greatly reduce it.
Limit alcohol to one drink a week.
Sugar has no redeeming value, so cut it out. It feeds cancer cells.
Eliminate caffeine. Coffee turns into estrogen within 45 minutes.
Increase fiber intake through flax, chia seeds and psyllium. The more fiber you eat, the more estrogen is removed from the body
Move toward a plant-based diet. Breasts love all things green—especially the cruciferous family of vegetables.
Restrict carbohydrates as they turn into sugar.
Drink organic green tea.
Try breast massage with specific oils for breast health.
As you can see, breast density is a very common condition, and there is an environmentally safe solution for both screening and alleviation.
Be proactive when it comes to your breast health, especially if you have dense breasts. Here’s to happy healthy breasts!
Share this information with your friends. We all want to have healthy breasts and keep them for the rest of our lives!
During my many years as a thermographer, I’ve learned that a great majority of women who seek out thermography have dense breasts. Many have had years of mammograms and/or biopsies with benign results, and all of them want to avoid radiation and compression.
In fact, more than 40% of women have dense breast tissue. If a woman relies on anatomical screenings of mammography and ultrasound, her chances of getting breast cancer are around 70%. For women with dense breasts and/or breast implants this has always been a problem, but this is still the standard of screening.
The Disadvantages of Mammography for Dense Breast Tissue
A mammogram uses radiation and finds a tumor after it has been in state of angioneogenesis, or producing heat as cells are replicating. So, mammograms find tumors after they have become large enough to be seen on anatomical studies (mammogram, ultrasound or MRI).
This means that by the time a mammogram finds breast cancer, it has been in the stages of “cells on fire” for anywhere from 7 to 10 years. This is NOT prevention!
Mammography is also a highly ineffective examination for women with dense breasts, with a sensitivity between 28% and 50%.
Tumors are even harder to detect, because both a tumor and the connective tissue of dense breasts appear white on a mammogram. To find a tumor on a mammogram with dense breast tissue is like looking for a snowball in a snowstorm!
Thermography is beneficial because it picks up a tumor as heat. This gives you time to make lifestyle changes and explore early intervention—before a tumor is big enough to appear on an anatomical study.
In a 2008 study by The American Breast Surgeon Department of Surgery at the New York Presbyterian Hospital–Cornell, researchers concluded that thermography was highly beneficial for women with dense breast tissue.
So why don’t doctors give us the option of thermography? They still recommend mammograms, despite them being an ineffective screening method for dense breasts and delivering more cumulative and potentially cancer-causing radiation.
Adding the Power of AWBUS to Thermography
Women with dense breasts who screen with thermography are recommended to follow up with an ultrasound. Thermography is an adjunct to an anatomical screening. While the ultrasound is not that effective for dense breasts, a new anatomical technology is now available to improve the detection of cancer in women with dense breasts and implants.
AWBUS (Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound Screenings) is a supplementary ultrasound examination of both breasts that can find small cancers that mammography may miss. AWBUS can increase confidence in your diagnoses. When done in conjunction with a thermogram, it can find more cancers in women with dense breasts than by mammography or standard ultrasound alone.
Watch this TEDx Talk with Dr. Kelly who explains:
3D tomosynthesis is also recommended for women with a breast density grade of 2-3. 3D tomosynthesis improves the visualization of calcifications and small cancers that can be hidden by overlapping tissue. Yet it delivers 38% more ionizing radiation than a standard mammogram. Again, Ionizing radiation is the most dangerous radiation. Radiation is cumulative and can be a risk factor for creating cancer.
The combination of AWBUS and thermography are environmentally safe, radiation free and provide early detection. This makes it a game changer in breast screening technology. AWBUS is most advantageous for women with a breast density grade of 3-4.
Please share this information with your women friends!
Note: At this time, there is no guarantee that your insurance company will cover an Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound. I recommend you contact your insurance company to find out if you are covered under your specific program.
Thermography is an excellent screening for early prevention of breast cancer because it detects heat associated with pathological processes years before it can be detected with conventional anatomical screening.
Many women, including some doctors, fear mammograms are causing over treatment.
According to a recent study published by scientists at The New England Journal of Medicine, 1.3 million women have received unnecessary and invasive cancer treatments including surgery, radiology, hormone therapy and chemotherapy over the last 30 years.
This is in large part due to routine mammograms detecting harmless tumors.
Thermography may reduce the number of false positives by demonstrating whether a tumor is metabolically active or not when combined with anatomical testing.
So what that means is thermography is an adjunct to an anatomical test. Our doctors recommend environmentally safe ultrasound with thermography.
But what if you need more comprehensive screening or are told you need a biopsy?
MEET THE FUTURE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE SONOGRAPHIC IMAGING
Advanced Digital Imaging technologies such as high-powered Sonograms, Spectral Doppler, Sonofluoroscopy, 3D/4D Image Reconstruction provide accurate use of sound waves to produce real-time images inside the body.
It is used to find anomalies and help diagnose the causes of pain, swelling and infection in the body’s internal organs while allowing the diagnostician the ability to zoom and “travel” deep within the body for better exploration.
Digital imaging sonogram technology is also used to help guide biopsies and, in many cases, even replicate much of the same reports of a clinical invasive biopsy.
Sonograms and ultrasounds offer the highest accuracy in dense (cystic) breast. Like thermography, it is radiation-free with out physical pressure or pain.
It distinguishes cysts (fluid filled masses) from cancerous tumors without needle sampling.
For those near the NYC area, please meet Dr. Robert Bard of Bard Cancer Diagnostics for Advanced Breast Scanning and Cancer Screening Programs.
Bard Cancer Diagnostics
121 E.60th St. #6A
212 355 7017 www.breastcancerNYC.com
New York, New York
Remember the old canary in the coal mine? Miners used to carry caged canaries down into the mines with them, and if there was methane or carbon monoxide, the canary would die before the gas became hazardous to humans.
When it comes to our breast health, we can’t wait for the canary! Did you know that 1 out of 7 women will get breast cancer in her lifetime? That means that you and/or someone you know – your daughter, mother, friends, co-workers – will develop it. We can’t afford to wait around!
How Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Promote Cancer
Our constant exposure to environmental toxins may be partially attributed to the alarming increase in cancers. The class of chemicals that affect breast tissue the most are called xenoestrogens (also known as endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDCs) since they imitate and enhance estrogen activity.
They’re also sometimes referred to as the 3 P’s: Pesticides, Plastics, and Petroleum. These EDCs have been called a potential breast cancer risk because they interfere with or mimic the body’s natural hormonal system, and hormones have been shown to affect breast cancer risk.
These chemicals can increase susceptibility to breast cancer by:
Feeding a breast tumor that’s already present.
Changing the composition of the breast, leaving it more vulnerable to carcinogens.
Don’t Panic, Be Proactive
Xenoestrogens can be detected on thermography, because synthetic estrogens and hormones affect breast and fatty tissue with distinct heat patterns that can only be seen on Infrared Thermal Imaging. Usually, these estrogens show up as leopard spots or mottling in thermographic images.
Thermography is a radiation-free screening procedure that uses infrared heat to detect breast disease or possible tumors. It can detect changes in your breasts five to eight years before a diagnosis.
Every woman should know the condition of her breast. Let us help you detox and restore breast health.
Organic milk is enjoying an annual growth rate of about 20 percent, while overall milk consumption has dropped by about 10 percent.
Our constant exposure to environmental toxins may be partially attributed to the alarming increase in cancers. The class of chemicals that affect breast tissue the most are called xenoestrogens (also known as endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDCs) since they imitate and enhance estrogen activity.
