Healthy Breasts For Every Woman

The results of a new European report into the benefits of eating your five-a-day of fruit and vegetables has been published.  The research was conducted amongst 478,478 men and women ages 25 to 70 over more than eight years in 10 European countries.

The findings have concluded that there is “a very small inverse association between the intake of total fruits and vegetables and cancer risk.”   However, other research has continued to show that diets high in fruits and vegetables are important for preventing conditions such as obesity and cardiovascular disease.

I have looked at a number of different reports online and I find the most informative and easy to read to be from Scientific American.

From what I can tell the report did not look at organic versus intensively grown fruit and veg, which will have been sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals.  It also did not look at whether the participants changed their eating habits after the start of the study.  Furthermore, I don’t think that it looked at the other foods which were included in the diet which may have had a counter-effect.  We are also told that our food has much lower vitamin and mineral content than it did pre-war due to intensive farming.  So it may be that we need to be eating more than five-a-day to get the same benefit.  I also believe that our chemical overload these days is so much greater too and so natural cancer-fighting foods have a much harder job.

We hear so many conflicting stories these days that it is difficult to know which advice to take sometimes.  All I can say is that I will not be changing my diet, which will consist of a high intake of vegetables, a good level of fruit and grains together with moderate amounts of fish, dairy and meat.  All of these foods, importantly, are organic or, in the case of the meat, bought from a reliable and traceable source.  I also take daily supplements, such as probiotics, antioxidants, fish oils and aloe vera.

I believe that all cancers are multi-faceted diseases and that there is no one thing which will cause or prevent cancer.  This is why, as part of my campaign Healthy Breasts For Every Woman, I promote a healthy lifestyle which encompasses all aspects of our lives, from our food, to our water and the products we put on our skin and breathe into our lungs, not to mention the control of stress in our bodies and minds.

Nikki Mattei

Mushrooms have long been used in medicine, the earliest records go back 4,000 years in China.  Countries such as China, Japan and Taiwan have even built the use of ´medicinal mushrooms´ into their treatment of cancer.  Medicinal Mushrooms contain high levels of glycoproteins and polysaccharides (Beta Glucan Polysaccharide being a particularly active ´health´ contributor). Research, including 4 Nobel Prizes, shows that these can help cellular commumnications. So they help your hormones do their job better, they help receptor sites receive the messages they are supposed to receive, and they help your immune system ´see´ the rogue cells and differentiate them from the healthy cells.  There are all types of different medicinal mushrooms - Maitake mushrooms, Cordyceps, Shitake, Reishi, Coriolus Versicolor and so on.

Even the humble button mushroom has been shown to be beneficial in breast cancer prevention.  Research from Perth University in Western Australia showed that women who ate 10 gms of button mushrooms a day, developed one third of the breast cancers of non-eaters!

The reason given was their content of linoleic acid, which acts like an aromatase inhibitor and restricts the production, and action, of oestrogen. The same study noted that if these women also drank green tea, their breast cancer rates fell to just 1 in 10 of the norm!

A study by UCLA in 2009 showed that breast cancer patients who ate medicinal mushrooms two times per day, prevented their cancers returning. Again this was concluded to be due to the mushrooms´ anti-oestrogen activity.

This information appeared originally in the February Cancer Watch from CancerActive www.canceractive.com.

Again and again the need to regulate oestrogen activity in the body comes up when we are talking about breast cancer prevention.  As I have said many times before, we need to take personal action to reduce the effects of ostroegen in our bodies by eating the right foods and avoiding oestrogen mimickers in our every day personal care and beauty products.  To find out more, order my Breast Health Pack.

Nikki Mattei

Healthy Breasts For Every Woman Campaign

I have questioned the safety of mammograms in the past and always make women aware of digital infrared thermal imaging as a safe screening method.

Independent charity, Canceractive, has examined the safety of mammograms for women with a higher risk of breast cancer due to genetic factors in its January 2010 Cancerwatch.  Research presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America warns that annual mammograms can be dangerous and actually cause more cancers in this at risk group, especially amongst the under-40’s.  These women have known mutations in BRAC1 or BRAC2 genes (mutations that put women at a much higher risk for developing breast cancer).

To read the full article and find out about the study done in Europe with 1600 high-risk women, click here.

Nikki Mattei

We hear so much about diet these days.  There are always new wonder foods.  The government in its Change 4 Life campaign is telling us to eat more fruit and veg, eat less and exercise more.  We all lead busy lives and convenience foods and ready meals are so much quicker (or so people think) and a lot of them now exclude hydrogenated fats, artificial preservatives etc.   It is still confusing.

My personal philosophy has always been to eat the freshest and most natural ingredients.  To me this means eating as much organic food as possible which hasn’t been sprayed with pesticides or includes ingredients to lengthen its shelf life and has been grown locally, where possible.

I have just read an article in Canceractive’s February newsletter where we can learn about the reasons why it makes sense to have a slightly alkaline body.  In a healthy body with an efficient immune system, the cellular systems all need a pH of about 7.4 (7.2 is neutral) to operate at their maximum. This means, in simple English, that they need to be slightly alkaline.  You may be surprised to know that every day we each make 200 or so pre-cancer or potential cancer cells. If our immune system is working effectively it can ’deal’ with these.

Unfortunately, the British common diet these days encourages our cells to be acidic and cancerous cells thrive in an acidic environment.  Also cancerous cells do not need oxygen to grow and spread - in fact, oxygen can destroy them.

So if you want to keep your cells healthy, look at avoid acid-making food and keep your body oxygenated through exercise.  The biggest culprits are eating too much salt, dairy products and sugar.

To read more about keeping your cells healthy through what you eat and how you exercise, go to http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=1025&Title=Acid%20bodies%20increase%20cancer%20risk.

You can also order the book, “The Rainbow Diet”, through the Canceractive website.  It is written to be cancer-beating but is also a great basis for a healthy diet for anyone wanting to maintain a strong immune system and healthy body.

Diet is such a huge area but I think if we follow the simple rules of fresh, pure and good quantities of alkalising food, then we are on the right track. 

Nikki Mattei

Cancer Research UK scientists have developed a system to identify faulty or missing genes that could prevent specific chemotherapy regimes from working.

The research shows it is now possible to rapidly pinpoint genes which prevent cancer cells from being destroyed by anti-cancer drugs and use these same genes to predict which patients will benefit from specific types of treatment.  This will allow for personalised treatments for women with breast cancer.

Lead author Dr Charles Swanton, head of translational cancer therapeutics at Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, said: “A great challenge in cancer medicine is determining which patients will benefit from particular cancer drugs and it is hoped that this research is a step towards more rapid developments in this type of personalised medicine.”

To read the full article, you can go to http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/pressrelease/2010-03-01-gene-test-hope-breast-cancer.

As always, I am concerned with breast cancer prevention and I would like to know what is causing women to have faulting or missing genes in the first place.  We know that DNA is not fixed and can mutate during a lifetime.  So what has happened to these women?

Nikki Mattei

I recently read an article in The Sunday Times about the huge sums of money cometics companies are paying scientists to endorse the efficiency of their moisturising creams.  The British Journal of Dermatology is about to publish a scientific study showing that an anti-ageing cream made by Proctor & Gamble is as effective at reducing wrinkles as prescription-only treatments.

Firstly, I am surprised that you can get a prescription for wrinkles!  Secondly, the drug they are referring to is called tretinoin and one of the side affects (name me a drug which doesn’t have side affects?) is skin inflammation!  Apparently, Proctor & Gamble have improved the tolerability in their cream.  So buy this cream for your wrinkles, but you may end up with inflammed skin - great!

There are concerns that doing these type of paid-for endorsements presents scientists with a conflict of interests and the advertising watchdog is concerned that consumers may be misled by claims for cosmetics.

There is huge competition in the moistursing market, worth £700m in the UK, and I am concerned that women will try anything to improve their skin without really knowing what is in the products they are buying.  As we can see, women will continue to be bombarded with science.  Most moisturisers are a mixture of oil and water.  They will have some “miracle” ingredient too, probably in very small amounts, and synthetic perfume to make them smell nice.  Some of the harmful ingredients are liquid paraffin, triethenaolamine, propylene glycol, carbomer, dimecithone, trisodiuam and parabens (hormone disrupting chemicals).  If you want to find out more about the ingredients in your skincare products are click here.

Rather than having ingredients in my skincare products which I don’t understand, I would much rather be putting on my face ingredients like organic aloe vera, organic essential oils like ylang ylang and orange and organic flower extracts like marigold and chamomile, wouldn’t you?  Nature really does provide everything we need to look after our skin.

If you agree with me and you would rather put natural and organic ingredients on your skin which have not been grown using pesticides rather than a cocktail of greasy, cheap synthetic chemicals, then have a look at my recommended certified organic range.

You know you’re worth it!

Nikki Mattei

Most of our breast tissue should be fat but more and more women seem to have lumpy breasts.  There are two conditions which may be contributing to this.  They are Lobular Carcinoma In Situ (LCIS) and Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS).  With LCIS there are changes in the cells lining the lobules or lobes of the breast, where milk is produced.  There are no symptoms or signs.  It is more common in women who have not reached menopause and does give them an increased risk of breast cancer in the future but this does not happen for most women.  It does not show up on a mammogram and is only discovered when a biopsy is taken or a breast lump removed.

DCIS means that there are cancer cells lining the ducts which carry milk to the nipple but they are completely contained and have not spread anywhere else in the breast or elsewhere in the body.  Some women with DCIS can go on to have Invasive Ductal Carcinoma where the cells spread and can become cancerous. Not every woman will go on to develop breast cancer but doctors cannot predict who will.  DCIS is discovered via mammogram and then the usual follow-on investigation is to undertake a biopsy using a needle to extract a small piece of breast tissue.  As this is an invasive procedure, the DCIS has been “entered” and the cells may be able to escape into the rest of the breast.  This is why I recommend the use of Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging as a possible way for monitoring DCIS - see my last blog on Breast Screening False Alarms.

Doctors do not know the causes of LCIS or DCIS.

In my work to empower women to take control of their breast health,  I advise women to do twice-daily breast massage as it is a great way of feeling “in touch” with your boobs, is great for skin tone and encourages detoxifying lymphatic drainage.  However, I am beginning to wonder whether it would help women who have “lumpy” breasts.  I talk to so many women who tell me that they find it very difficult to check their breasts because they are too “lumpy”.  I recommend breast massage using a special cream containing spirulina algae and the ladies who have used it, time and time again, come back and tell me that their breasts are less lumpy.  They also report that their breasts are firmer and that any discomfort has improved or disappeared.

If you would like to know more about breast massage and the breast cream with spirulina algae, please contact me by phone or email.

Nikki Mattei

I recently heard about a new book written by Barbara Ehrenreich who was diagnosed with breast cancer.  In “Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World”, she describes how surprised she was following her diagnosis that the current attitude towards breast cancer seems to be so upbeat and “fluffy pink”.  You can’t use the words patient or victim, you are meant to be “battling” or “fighting ” bravely.  When you get through it, you become a “survivor”.  She feels annoyed that no-one writes about the outrage over the disease and the inadequacy of available treatments.  It would seem that breast cancer is a disease to be embraced, almost a “gift”. 

She also talks about the need for a “positive” attitude and that it seems that if you have that, then everything will be fine.  She is concerned that women with cancer hide their feelings under a cheerful front and then it becomes a lot harder to cope if the cancer comes back somewhere else (which is the big worry with breast cancer) and then the woman can blame herself because she wasn’t positive enough.

This is an interesting viewpoint and one about which I have mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I do believe in a positive mental attitude and I don’t think you will make yourself feel any better if you sink into self-pity and depression.  I think that, if everything else is equal, what makes the difference between someone surviving a life-threatening illness and someone else succumbing to it is down to the way they approach it.  In the worst case it could give you extra time.  In my opinion, the people who overcome illness against all the odds are not those who just sit back and wait but those who decide to stand up to it and do everything they can to beat it - having a positive mental attitude is one of the things you can do for yourself.  I believe very strongly that with any illness, you need to be in control as much as you possibly can, of your treatment and medication, your diet, your environment, your support network, your thoughts.

However, I do agree that the “breast cancer industry” has become very commercialised with all the pink things you can buy in the name of breast cancer.  Breast cancer has almost become mainstream - something that women get like the menopause or a skin disorder, not an injustice or a tragedy.  This may be why less women are questioning why more and more of us are getting breast cancer.  This is one of the reasons that I launched my campaign, “Healthy Breasts For Every Woman”: to make women more aware of the facts surrounding breast cancer, to question why the disease continues to increase and to take a proactive approach towards looking after their breasts. 

Many women can find having breast cancer a life-changing experience, as with any illness, but I am sure they would still have preferred to keep their breast and, even if the experience was character-building for them, what about the anguish and worry their loved ones go through - I am sure they would never choose to see this cherished woman go through the same pain, doubt and trauma again and I am sure the woman herself would not want her family and friends to go through that again either.

Nikki Mattei

More than 7,000 women a year screened for breast cancer are wrongly told they have the disease, it was claimed yesterday.

The misdiagnoses lead to unnecessary treatment, including mastectomies.

After an independent review of the NHS programme for women aged 50 to 69, scientists concluded that the benefits of screening have been exaggerated and women are not warned of the potential harms from having regular checks.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244333/Thousands-women-undergo-unnecessary-gruelling-breast-cancer-treatment.html#ixzz0dLtYv7eY

It is believed that women are not given the full facts about the risks of breast screening by mammogram, such as over-diagnosis leading to unnecessary biopsies and even mastectomy when ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is found.  DCIS is found in the cells lining the milk ducts and often does not spread.  Many women are given a mastectomy even though it is not known for sure whether the carcinoma is malignant and whether it will spread.  In fact, many women die with DCIS rather than of it.  I would also add the potential risks from the radation (a mammogram gives a much greater exposure than a normal X-ray) and a woman is exposed to this high level of radiation over the period of breast screening, from age 50-70 in this country.  You can read more about the whole issue of the safety of mammograms at the CANCERActive website http://www.canceractive.com/cancer-active-page-link.aspx?n=1420

As part of my campaign, Healthy Breasts For Every Woman, I still advocate that women should be checking their own breasts as most breast cancer cases are discovered by the woman or her partner.  This is particularly important for women under 50 who are not being called for mammograms and the younger you are the more aggressive any cancer is likely to be.

However, it would seem that more and more women are being diagnosed with DCIS and are having a mastectomy as a matter of course.  They are not being given the option of a lumpectomy or of monitoring the carcinoma to see if it spreads and becomes active.  In my work I recommend that women consider Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging as an alternative breast screening method.  DITI is pain-free, radiation-free and non-invasive.  It can identify abnormal cells by the level of heat showing in the breast tissue.  It could be a useful way for monitoring DCIS to see whether the cells change and/or spread within the breast.  The problem if a woman has a biopsy for DCIS is that the cells are then “open” and if there is malignancy, this is then “let out”.

Unfortunately, DITI is not available on the NHS in this country but the cost is certainly not prohibitive.  Take a look at this website for more details and a list of clinics offering the treatment (click on Locations) http://www.meditherm.com/.

As always, nothing is clear cut but at least if women are give the full facts, then they can make their own decision rather than being convinced that they need radical surgery when they may not have needed to.

Nikki Mattei

As you may know, Breast Cancer UK (BCUK) is one of my preferred charities.  It has just launched a new campaign, “No More BPA”.

BPA (also known as Bisphenol A) is a mass produced chemical used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics that are clear and nearly shatter-proof.

Over the last decade numerous scientific studies have highlighted the potential health effects of low level exposure to BPA - at levels that people in the UK and the rest of the developed world are exposed to every day.  BPA can leach from the plastic when heated, ie when a baby’s bottle is heated in a microwave or when the plastic becomes scratched and damaged.

The vast majority of these studies have raised public health concerns, especially about the exposure of very young children to BPA as they are less able to eliminate the chemical from their bodies, and scientists have linked exposure to increased risk of breast cancer as well as many other chronic diseases.

To read more go to http://www.nomorebpa.org.uk/.

BPA can also be found in everyday plastic bottles for drinking water. Plastics use a numbering system to inform what they are made of and it is recommended to only opt for plastics with the following number/symbols:

1 -PETE         2 - HDPE      4 - LDPE     5- PP

Avoid heating plastics and discard any bottles of water which have warmed up whilst in the car - Sheryl Crow, who has had breast cancer, is convinced that she got the disease because she regularly drank bottled water which had been left in her hot car and then cooled down.

If you are concerned that this chemical is still allowed in our plastics in this country, then please visit the BCUK website at http://www.nomorebpa.org.uk/ and register your support by using the easy link to contact your MP.

Nikki Mattei