The total number of women in the United States diagnosed with invasive breast cancer rose by 5.5 percent during 2009.
Approximately 192,000 women reported an estrogen positive or an estrogen negative type of invasive breast cancer during the past year, compared with 182,000 during 2008, according to American Cancer Society published statistics.
This past December, Teresa Heinz Kerry, philanthropist and wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, wrote an op ed column in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, announcing her own recent breast cancer diagnosis. As a longstanding advocate and philanthropist supporting a better understanding of how environmental pollutants are linked to our high national breast cancer rates, she has been a steadfast friend to breast cancer prevention proponents.
But Heinz's recent editorial was disappointing at best; Heinz, now 71, urged all women to have an annual mammogram, beginning at age 40; something that even Dr. Susan Love, along with the U.S. Prevention Services Task Force and the American College of Physicians, believe is a foolish practice, given the safer alternatives to mammography, which exposes women to harmful radiation, results in more false that correct readings, and too often subjects terrified women to unnecessary treatment.
Last week, Heinz, interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America, thankfully expanded her message as she encouraged women to also focus on "prevention, prevention, prevention" instead of on just imperfect mammograms.
But what are some of these daily lifestyle changes that actually help prevent breast cancer from ever starting or recurring?
Find alternatives to contraceptive drugs and to hormone replacement drugs if you are past 40. Taking such chemical hormones after age 40 increases ones risk of Her2 positive and estrogen positive invasive breast cancers.
Have a vitamin D3 blood test; then take 2,000 to 5,000 IUs of vitamin D3 supplements every day until you have raised your blood serum levels to 60-80 ng/ml.
Undergo a full-body thermogram to detect areas of inflammation, or pretumor or possible tumor formation hot spots.
Filter your home's drinking and shower water. Make sure it is free of chlorine and other carcinogenic materials that exist in most Cape Ann municipal water supplies.
Stop using heavy estrogen or placenta-based hair straightening, processing and, or conditioning products — especially if you are trying to get pregnant, or are already pregnant.
Limit your alcohol intake to three glasses of wine or beer a week and stop smoking. If you are trying to avoid a recurrence, limit your alcohol further and absolutely stop smoking, whatever it takes.
Lose those 20 extra pounds of body fat you're carrying around.
Test your body's estrogen level. If it is high, eat and drink only milk and diary products that are rBGH free; then find ways to cut back on even these types of dairy products; eat a small amount of miso or tempeh every day.
Research shows that no one habit or drug is going to absolutely cause breast cancer; instead breast cancer seems to happen when a mixture of such individualized risk factors come together into a personalized toxic cocktail. Each of us needs to understand this range of factors as we work to keep our own risk levels low.
Men and their partners should also note that following most of these guidelines can also help prevent prostate cancer.
Many organizations, such as Breast Cancer Fund, Silent Spring Institute, Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Environmental Working Group and The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, are focused on research or legislative changes that can limit breast and prostate cancer in the future, by making consumer products as well as our air and water less carcinogenic.
But each of us can also use 2010 as a time to work on lowering our own personal risk levels, one day at a time.
Susan Wadia-Ells, a Manchester resident, is a longtime wellness advocate with graduate degrees in politics, energy economics and women's studies. She is the founding director of the national nonprofit organization, Know Breast Cancer, www.knowbreastcancer.net, writes the blog www.thetruthaboutbreastcancer.com, and can be found on Twitter at susanwadiaells.
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