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 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

A company in Australia, Neopac, are working on a technique which will enable a woman to regrow her own breast after a mastectomy.  If it works, it could also be offered as an alternative to silicone implants for women who want larger breasts.

The procedure involves inserting a breast-shaped scaffold underneath the skin.  This is then connected to blood vessels under the arm and injected with the woman’s own fat cells, which grow to fill the chamber within about eight months.  The operation has already succeeded in pigs, which grew new breasts in just six weeks.

Dr. Phillip Marzella of the Bernard O’Brien Institute told the Daily Telegraph. “What we are hoping to do in the next two years is develop a biodegradable chamber so that the fat can grow inside the chamber, and then the chamber will vanish naturally.”

There is now a trial planned using women who have had a full or partial mastectomy.

I am not sure where I stand on this one - it would be dependent on what the chamber was made of and I haven’ t discovered that yet.  But if it is a safe way of making use of the body’s own ability to regenerate fat (and our breasts are mostly fat!), then it could be a good way of allowing women to refind their feminity after the trauma of having breast cancer. 

When it comes to changing the breasts which nature gave you, I would never recommend invasive surgery.  Through my “Healthy Breasts For Every Woman Campaign” I encouage women to love the boobs they have and use natural methods to protect and enhance them, such as breast massage, which encourages lymphatic drainage and is also great for skin tone and firming.  I offer my clients a special breast cream containing spirulina algae and women report firming and toning usually within the first month of using the cream, even after having breastfed children!  If you want to know more about this cream, then go to www.protectmybreasts.com.

Nikki Mattei

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/11/13/2009-11-13_new_breastgrowing_technique_neopac_may_offer_alternative_to_implants.html#ixzz0YcxdTIgD

I have been talking to women for some years now about the dangers of potentially harmful chemicals in our everyday products.  I talk about oestrogen mimickers, hormone disruptors or endocrine disrupting chemicals.  This may sound a bit daunting and scientific.  Well, if you want to know how these chemicals could be affecting our breasts, then Breast Cancer UK have put a simple explanation on YouTube.  I have been a supporter of Breast Cancer UK ever since I discovered them over two years ago and they are the only breast cancer charity who are putting the spotlight on breast cancer primary prevention.  Why are more and more women getting breast cancer every year despite on the millions which have been put into research?  This is why I have launched my own campaign, Healthy Breasts For Every Woman, which you can read about here in my other pages.

Take a look at the BCUK video - it makes a lot of things seem very obvious.

Nikki Mattei

Every week there seems to be another story surrounding cancer and different things sufferers have done.

I heard about a photographer who is doing nude photography of people who have suffered from cancer, including breast cancer survivors.  Even the photographer herself and the husband both were diagnosed with cancer soon after the birth of their first child.  One of the women photographed had had breast cancer and she said that she did not feel like a real woman anymore even though she had had reconstructive surgery.

I applaud efforts like these but why don’t we hear more about breast cancer prevention?

I guess it is the old adage that bad news sells.  Unfortunately most people, including me, don’t do anything to protect their health until something happens to them.

Why do women not want to take preventative measures, particulary as breast cancer is the most feared disease amongst women and the most common too?

Perhaps, it is because they don’t hear enough about it and the practical things they can do for themselves, which is where my campaign comes in!

Nikki Mattei

www.healthybreastscampaign.co.uk