DIETARY LINKS & LIFESTYLE
Exercise lowers everyone's risk of breast cancer, and even a little helps a lot. In a recent study, ten hours of exercise a week lowered the risk of breast cancer by 37%. But walking for an hour and a quarter a week - that's just a bit more than ten minutes a day - lowered risk by 30%.
"A Brisk Walk for Breasts," Nutrition Action Healthletter, December 2003.
"... inhibiting angiogenesis can arrest the growth of advanced tumors, even when they have become resistant to all other available therapy."
Green tea not only helps prevent cancer but actively represses it and stops its metastatic spread. Anti-angiogenetic factors in green tea, such as epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) reduce new blood vessel growth to tumors by up to 70% with as little as 3 cups of green tea a day.
Nature, 398:381, 1999; British Medical Journal, 318:1086, 1999; Medical Tribune, 39, #9:13, 1998 and 40, #9:2, 1999.
"According to the survey, Mexican women with breast cancer self-reported a significantly higher intake of total calories, proteins, carbohydrates, sucrose and fructose ... The women with the highest carbohydrate intake [57 percent or more of calories] had more than twice the risk of breast cancer than women with the lowest carbohydrate intake ... But women who ate a great deal of insoluble fiber, found in whole grains, fruits and vegetables had less risk of developing breast cancer."
"Carbohydrates and the Risk of Breast Cancer Among Mexican Women." Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, August 2004, vol. 13, pp 1283-1289.
Iodine protects breasts, according to David Derry, MD. After reading a report in a 1993 issue of Canadian Journal of Surgery, he suggested to over 200 female patients with cystic breasts that they take extra iodine. Within two months to two years, their cysts completely disappeared.
Instead of taking supplements, I keep my breasts healthy by using lots of high-iodine kelp (seaweed) in my diet. I cook beans with kombu, add wakame to soups, and eat Nereocystis fronds like potato chips. Look for seaweed recipes in my book Healing Wise.
"Iodine Combats Breast Cysts," Victoria Times Colonist, Sept. 9, 1997
Find a history of bras and their influence on breast disease via Dr. Ralph Reed's research (http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/de... ).
Some highlights from his collection of scientific articles: In 2000, researchers in Japan found that wearing a girdle and a bra lowered melatonin levels by 60 percent. (Melatonin plays an important part in preventing breast cancer.) Also in 2000, researchers looking at the connection between hot breasts and breast cancer found that wearing a bra causes localized heating of breast tissues. In 1995, women who stopped wearing bras reported their fibrocystic breast disease and pain was relieved or eliminated. In 1991 researchers at Harvard noticed that women who did not wear bras had a 60% lower rate of breast cancer than women who wore them.
