Hormone therapy, long shunned for a possible breast cancer link, is now seen as safe

HRT

Click the link above to read an article in The Washington Post, about Hormone Therapy.  This is good news for women who are experiencing a difficult Menopause.

Understanding Breast Implant Safety

Understanding Breast Implant Safety:

 Recently, the Food and Drug Administration recommended that patients considering breast implants — whether for reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy or cosmetic surgery — receive detailed information about potential complications and rare health risks that can occur.

Surgeon Edwin Wilkins, M.D., a professor of plastic surgery at Michigan Medicine, discusses the new recommendations and talks about breast implant safety more generally.



Newswise — Recently, the Food and Drug Administration recommended that patients considering breast implants — whether for reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy or cosmetic surgery — receive detailed information about potential complications and rare health risks that can occur.
If adopted, the newly proposed FDA breast implant guidelines would require that standardized patient decision checklists be shared with women to help ensure they understand the involved risks and benefits.

“We believe women should have thoughtful and balanced discussions with their health care providers about both the benefits and risks of breast implants based on clear and current information,” the FDA said in a news release. “This draft guidance is an important step in making that happen.”
Surgeon Edwin Wilkins, M.D., a professor of plastic surgery at Michigan Medicine, discusses the new recommendations and talks about breast implant safety more generally.

“These recommendations are a positive step,” Wilkins says. “I’m confident that we, and many other providers, already do a good job talking to patients about the risks and benefits of implants — but there’s always room to do even better. A checklist approach could help ensure a consistent experience for patients across the country.”

Risks from breast implants are real, but low
Millions of women have breast implants and about 400,000 women in the United States get breast implants each year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Of those, 300,000 are cosmetic surgeries and 100,000 are reconstructive surgeries.

The largest risk for patients are local complications — problems at the site of the implant, Wilkins explains. These can include pain, changes in nipple and breast sensation, leakage, or tightening of scar tissue around the implant.

“What’s not as well understood is that breast implants usually do not last a lifetime,” he says. “The longer you have them, the more likely it is that leakage or other complications will develop and that you will require additional surgeries to remove and potentially replace them.”
The good news, Wilkins says, is that with modern, semi-solid silicone gel implants, leaks are usually contained and easily treated; replacing them can usually be done in an outpatient setting.
Additionally, according to American Society of Plastic Surgery data, approximately 48,000 breast implant removal procedures occur each year.

Rare health problems

Public concern has also been raised about systemic symptoms related to breast implants, sometimes called “breast implant illness,” which can include fatigue, joint pain and memory problems. Some women have reported relief of these symptoms after having their implants removed, and the issue continues to be studied by scientists.

“Overall, there’s a lot of scientific evidence to show that breast implants are safe,” Wilkins says. “Large, epidemiological studies in thousands of women over the last few decades have demonstrated this.”

For example, an Institute of Medicine committee reviewed all of the available evidence and, in 1999, issued a report on breast implant safety finding that cancer, neurological and other systemic “diseases or conditions are no more common in women with breast implants than in women without implants.”

“But we may discover that there is a small group of patients with predisposing factors that may give rise to what we now call ‘breast implant illness’,” Wilkins adds. “More research is needed, but if it’s true, it’s likely an extremely small subset.”

In recent years, evidence has emerged linking breast implants with textured surfaces to a rare type of immune-system cancer called breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or BIA-ALCL. As of July 2019, the FDA had reported 573 cases of BIA-ALCL worldwide and 33 deaths from the cancer. At Michigan Medicine, textured implants haven’t been used in more than a decade.
“At the University of Michigan, whether it’s with our breast reconstruction patients or our cosmetic patients, we spend a lot of time going over the pros and cons — not just about implants, but also about the primary alternative, natural tissue reconstruction,” Wilkins says.

Seek out reliable information

Wilkins cautions patients with concerns to seek out trustworthy sources of information.
“Is there a lot of concern out there? Yes,” he says. “Is a lot of it backed up by scientific evidence? Not as much as we’d like.”

Although the best source of information might be a conversation with your doctor, Wilkins says, the main online source he recommends is the FDA’s information on breast implants, which includes straightforward, detailed information about risks, complications and the new proposed guidelines.

New Weapon Against Breast Cancer | Newswise: News for Journalists

New Weapon Against Breast Cancer | Newswise: News for Journalists:

 New research from the University of Delaware suggests pairing two forms of minimally invasive, light-triggered therapy may be a powerful new option in combatting a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer.



Newswise — Two University of Delaware researchers have developed a new approach to attack cancer, using two light-activated treatments that appear to be more effective together than when applied independently. More research is needed, but the findings point to promising new approaches against an especially challenging kind of cancer — triple negative breast cancer — which was the focus of their recent studies.
Triple negative breast cancer is a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer that accounts for 10 to 20 percent of patients. It is called triple negative because the cancer cells do not have three biomolecules commonly found on other breast cancer cells – receptors for the hormones estrogen and progesterone and another receptor known as HER2. This means there are no targeted treatments for triple-negative breast cancer, so it is usually managed with surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy. Each of these options has negative side effects with less than ideal patient outcomes.
Now UD researchers Emily Day, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Joel Rosenthal, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and their labs have shown that a combination of two minimally invasive therapies could give doctors a more powerful weapon against this cancer as well as others.
Both treatments are activated by near-infrared wavelengths of laser light, but each accomplishes its mission differently. One — called photodynamic therapy (PDT) — uses light-sensitive agents called photosensitizers to produce a lethal form of oxygen (singlet oxygen) to accomplish a combustion-like destruction of the cancer cells. The other therapy — called photothermal therapy (PTT) — uses light-sensitive gold nanoshells that heat up when irradiated with light and can essentially ‘cook’ cancer cells to death.
Because the cancer-killing effects of these treatments are achieved only when the photosensitizers or nanoshells are combined with light at the tumor site, both phototreatments can be directly and selectively applied to tumor sites and cancerous tissues. As a result, they are expected to show fewer side effects than more conventional radiation or chemotherapy treatment options.
“Photodynamic and photothermal therapy are not new concepts and there are probes and nano-based materials that have been developed and used for such applications, but there are limitations and drawbacks associated with  those existing systems,” Rosenthal said.
Some are not effective in deeper tissue because the necessary light cannot reach it, while others can damage white blood cells or cause problems in other nearby healthy tissue.
When used together, though, the UD team found that these treatments show powerful synergy, meaning they provide greater than an additive therapeutic effect when compared to the individual treatments. Together, they required lower dosages and produced more natural cell death (apoptosis) than the kind of cell death caused by injury or disease (necrosis). The latter, which can often trigger harmful inflammation and lead to recurrence of disease is a cell death mechanism that Day and Rosenthal were actively trying to avoid.
This dual approach has not been used in clinical trials yet and more research is needed before that step can be taken. The agent used in the photothermal therapy is already in use in clinical trials, Day said. But the PDT agent — a water-soluble biladiene complex synthesized in Rosenthal’s lab — is new.
The connection between these two UD labs started about two years ago when Day heard a presentation by one of Rosenthal’s doctoral students, Andrea Potocny, during the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student Seminar Series. Potocny was discussing efforts to develop water-soluble molecules to use in photodynamic therapy.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) works by turning the regularly stable oxygen molecules (triplet) within a cell into a more energetic form (singlet) that rapidly reacts with and degrades organic material. This therapy has been used to kill viruses and bacteria and treat some kinds of malignant cancers.
Rosenthal’s lab had developed a complex that would produce the toxic singlet oxygen that could trigger destruction of cancer cells. They needed a water-soluble molecule that could be used in a real tumor in its regular biological context.
Day, whose lab was working with nanoparticles for photothermal therapy (PTT), realized she could help. She had extensive experience working with models of triple-negative breast cancer with which to test the new PDT approach, as well as examine its combined application with PTT.
It was a remarkable success – a hat trick of advances, including easy preparation, biological compatibility and excellent potency. The new biladiene complex was effective in a small dose and had a much higher phototoxicity score than PDT agents in current use.
Upon demonstrating that the biladiene PDT agent developed by the Rosenthal lab was both extremely safe and effective, another question emerged – what would happen if they combined the photodynamic therapy with the photothermal therapy?
That work led to uncharted territory and two  publications – one in the journal Inorganic Chemistry on the new PDT approach and one in the journal Nanomaterials on the combined PDT and PTT approach.
To combine the two approaches, the labs used nanoshells (silica spheres coated with thin, gold shells) to enable photothermal therapy and used the biladiene photosensitizer developed by the Rosenthal lab to enable photodynamic therapy. The treatments were applied either independently or together to cell culture models of triple-negative breast cancer, and their safety and efficacy were then examined.
An undergraduate student in Day’s lab — senior Rachel O’Sullivan — noticed unexpected results.
“When we were testing the treatments, out of the blue I noticed that when we put them together it was more effective at killing cells than each on their own,” she said. “I went and talked to Rachel [Riley] in the lab about it and she was surprised. I asked her if I did something wrong and she said, ‘No! If it’s working synergistically, that’s really good!’”
Further studies by the Day and Rosenthal team demonstrated this was indeed the case. The combined therapies could synergistically inhibit triple-negative breast cancer cells.
Support for the research came from the University of Delaware Strategic Initiative Grant, the Delaware Federal Research and Development Grant Program, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, a University of Delaware Graduate Fellowship and the American Association of University Women.
About the researchers
Emily Day is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, who earlier won a National Science Foundation Early Career Award. Her research focuses on nanomedicine, gene regulation, photothermal therapy and translational cancer research. She earned her bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Oklahoma, her doctorate in bioengineering at Rice University and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University before joining the UD faculty in 2013. The students in her lab who worked on this project include Rachel O’Sullivan (a senior undergraduate in biomedical engineering) and Rachel Riley (a 2018 doctoral graduate from biomedical engineering who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania).
Joel Rosenthal is an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry and associate chair of Graduate Studies and Research. He is an expert in photochemistry and electrochemistry and through his research seeks to address issues related to catalysis, molecular energy conversion and the improvement of human health. He earned his bachelor’s degree from New York University, his doctorate in inorganic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as an NIH postdoctoral research fellow at MIT before joining the UD faculty in 2010. Among his awards to date are an NSF Early Career Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and selection as a Gerard J. Mangone Young Scholar. The student in his lab who worked on this project is Andrea Potocny, a doctoral student in chemistry and biochemistry.

Vitamin D Test Safer Than Mammograms

Safer Than Mammograms

 Interesting Study!

Story at-a-glance

• October is national Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the U.S. National Mammography Day is October 19. Vitamin D optimization could potentially eliminate a vast majority of breast cancers, yet this key information is completely ignored by conventional breast cancer awareness campaigns
• Most cancers occur in people with a vitamin D blood level between 10 and 40 ng/mL, and the optimal level for cancer protection has been identified as being between 60 and 80 ng/mL
• Research shows having a vitamin D blood level above 60 ng/mL lowers your risk of breast cancer by more than 80 percent, compared to having a level below 20 ng/mL
• Recent research shows postmenopausal women who receive a diagnosis of breast cancer are more likely to have low vitamin D and be overweight than women who receive a negative diagnosis
• This year, do your breast health a real favor and get your vitamin D level checked. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of doing this is to enroll in the D*Action Breast Cancer Prevention project, which now includes both vitamin D and omega-3 testing

October is national Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the U.S., and with it comes the annual clarion call of pink-ribboned¹ breast cancer awareness campaigns.² National Mammography Day³ falls on the third Friday of October, which this year is the 19th.
Chances are, you've been barraged with reminders that mammograms save lives. Unfortunately, little effort is made to educate women about actual prevention. Detecting cancer has nothing to do with prevention. At that point, it's already too late.
Mammograms also have serious health risks, none of which are addressed by the conventional breast cancer awareness campaigns. Importantly, vitamin D optimization could potentially eliminate a vast majority of breast cancers, yet this key information is being completely ignored.

Vitamin D Optimization Could Eliminate a Majority of Breast Cancer Cases

Generally speaking, research has shown that once you reach a minimum serum vitamin D level of 40 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), your risk for cancer diminishes by 67 percent, compared to having a level of 20 ng/ml or less.⁴
Research shows most cancers occur in people with a vitamin D blood level between 10 and 40 ng/mL, and the optimal level for cancer protection has been identified as being between 60 and 80 ng/mL.
Vitamin D also increases your chances of surviving cancer if you do get it,^5,6,7,8 and evidence suggests adding vitamin D to the conventional treatment for cancer can boost the effectiveness of the treatment.⁹
Several studies also show that higher vitamin D levels are protective against breast cancer specifically. Importantly, a 2005 study¹⁰ showed women with vitamin D levels above 60 ng/mL have an 83 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those below 20 ng/mL, and I cannot think of any other strategy that can offer that kind of risk reduction. Mammograms certainly cannot.
More recently, a pooled analysis¹¹ published in June 2018 of two randomized trials and a prospective cohort study came to a near-identical conclusion. The objective was to assess whether there are any benefits to having a vitamin D level above 40 ng/mL, as most studies do not venture into these higher levels.
Indeed, mirroring the 2005 findings, women with vitamin D levels at or above 60 ng/mL had an 82 percent lower incidence rate of breast cancer than those with levels of 20 ng/mL or less.
Pooled data were analyzed in three different ways. First, incidence rates were compared based on vitamin D levels ranging from 20 to 60 ng/mL. Next, statistical analysis using Kaplan-Meier plots were done. Third, multivariate Cox regression was used to examine the association between various vitamin D levels and breast cancer risk. According to the authors:

"Results were similar for the three analyses. First, comparing incidence rates, there was an 82 percent lower incidence rate of breast cancer for women with 25(OH)D concentrations ≥60 vs <20 ng/mL.

Second, Kaplan-Meier curves for concentrations of <20, 20–39, 40–59 and ≥60 ng/mL were significantly different, with the highest proportion breast cancer-free in the ≥60 ng/ml group (99.3 percent) and the lowest proportion breast cancer-free in the <20 ng/ml group (96.8 percent). The proportion with breast cancer was 78 percent lower for ≥60 vs <20 ng/mL.

Third, multivariate Cox regression revealed that women with 25(OH)D concentrations ≥60 ng/ml had an 80 percent lower risk of breast cancer than women with concentrations <20 ng/mL, adjusting for age, BMI, smoking status, calcium supplement intake, and study of origin …

Higher 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with a dose-response decrease in breast cancer risk with concentrations ≥60 ng/mL being most protective."

Other Studies Linking Vitamin D Status With Cancer Risk

Several other studies also support the hypothesis that higher vitamin D levels are powerful cancer prevention, including but not limited to the following:¹²

Menopause, 2018 — Just last month, research13,14 published in the journal Menopause found that postmenopausal women who receive a diagnosis of breast cancer are more likely to be vitamin D deficient and overweight than women who receive a negative diagnosis. Overall, breast cancer patients were 1.5 times more likely to have low vitamin D.

The BMJ, 201815 — Earlier this year, a Japanese study published in The BMJ concluded that higher vitamin D levels were associated with a 20 percent lower relative risk of internal cancers in both sexes. Equally important, they found there was no increased risk for any type of cancer associated with higher vitamin D levels.

PLOS One, 201616,17 — This pooled analysis of a randomized trial and a prospective cohort study found that women aged 55 and older who had a vitamin D serum level of 40 ng/ml or greater had a 67 percent reduced risk of cancer compared to those with a vitamin D level of 20 ng/ml or less.

Cancer Causes & Control, 201318 — In this case control study, those who had a vitamin D level of 35 ng/mL or higher were 70 percent less likely to develop breast cancer compared to those with a level of 15 ng/mL or less.

PLOS One, 201119 — Here, women with a vitamin D level of 30 ng/mL or higher had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with a level of 20 ng/mL or below. Among post-menopausal women, the risk was 71 percent lower.

Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 200920 — In this case control study, premenopausal women with a vitamin D level of 34 ng/mL or higher had a greater than 60 percent reduction in breast cancer risk compared to those with a level of 24 ng/mL or lower.

Carcinogenesis, 200721 — Postmenopausal women with a vitamin D level of 30 ng/mL had a nearly 70 percent reduced risk of breast cancer compared to those with levels of 12 ng/mL or less.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2007 — Women over 55 who raised their average serum level to 38 ng/mL lowered their risk of all invasive cancers, including breast cancer, by 77 percent.22

Anticancer Research February 2011 — In this study, breast cancer patients with high vitamin D levels were twice as likely to survive than those with low levels.23,24,25 (Higher vitamin D levels are also associated with a lower risk of severe peripheral neuropathy in cancer patients.26)

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Get Your Vitamin D Level Checked

This year, do your breast health a real favor and get your vitamin D level checked. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of doing this is to enroll in the D*Action Breast Cancer Prevention project, which now includes both vitamin D and omega-3 testing.
Their new myData-myAnswers personalized health software is now able to "give you feedback on your health conditions compared to thousands of others so you can make more informed decisions on your actions." GrassrootsHealth also has a handy vitamin D calculator that can help you determine how much vitamin D you need per day to get to 60 ng/mL or above.
You can enroll in this cancer prevention project either on the GrassrootsHealth website, or by ordering the vitamin D testing kit, either alone or in combination with the omega-3 test, from my online store. All revenues from these kits go directly to GrassrootsHealth. I make no profit from these kits and only provide them as a service of convenience to my readers.
As noted on GrassrootsHealth's D*Action Challenge²⁷ webpage, before you donate money to a breast cancer prevention group, find out whether the group has any focus on primary prevention, opposed to just mammograms. Are they actually trying to eliminate breast cancer, or are they just pushing for detection? Secondly, check to see whether the group recommends vitamin D testing as a key prevention strategy.
Again, research has clearly demonstrated that having a vitamin D level of at least 40 ng/mL, and ideally between 60 and 80 ng/mL,²⁸ can massively reduce your risk of breast cancer.
As noted by GrassrootsHealth, "If the answers are 'YES' to both challenges, then the women stand to gain quickly, significantly, safely and inexpensively." If not, your money is probably not going to do much good, seeing how there's been no change in breast cancer incidence in over a decade, despite the many millions collected in donations.
According to data published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,²⁹ 75 percent of American adults and teens are deficient in vitamin D, based on a sufficiency level of 30 ng/mL. This means at least three-quarters of the female population in the U.S. could lower their risk of breast cancer by 60 to 80 percent.
If the sufficiency cutoff were to be moved to 40 or 60 ng/mL, deficiency rates in the U.S. would likely be in the high 90 percent bracket. The take-home message is that the vast majority of people do not have vitamin D serum levels that are high enough to prevent cancer, and this is so easy and inexpensive to fix!
So, please, if you haven't done so already, make vitamin D optimization your goal during this year's breast cancer awareness month, and share the news with all the other women in your life.

Be Mindful of the Interplay of Vitamins D and K2, Calcium and Magnesium

As for how to raise your vitamin D level, remember that the best way is through sensible sun exposure. That said, many will need oral supplementation to achieve an optimal level, especially if you're pregnant in the wintertime.
Just remember that if you take high-dose oral vitamin D, you may also need to increase your intake of calcium, magnesium and vitamin K2 as well, as these four nutrients work in tandem and rely on sufficient amounts of each to work properly. Importantly, inadequate levels of vitamin K2 in combination with high vitamin D intake may cause overabsorption of calcium, which in turn can result in calcium deposits in your heart and kidneys.
Maintaining an appropriate calcium-to-magnesium ratio³⁰ is also important, as magnesium helps keep calcium in your cells so they can function better. A ratio of 1-to-1 appears to be ideal.
Magnesium is also required for the activation of vitamin D. Without sufficient magnesium, taking a vitamin D supplement may be ineffective,^31,32 essentially making it appear you need unnecessarily high amounts. If your magnesium level is too low, the vitamin D will simply get stored in its inactive form, doing you absolutely no good.
According to recent research,³³ as many as 50 percent of Americans taking vitamin D supplements may not get significant benefit due to insufficient magnesium levels. On the other hand, when you have an optimal magnesium level, your vitamin D level will rise even if you're taking a much lower dose.³⁴ To learn more about this, see "Without Magnesium, Vitamin D Supplementation May Backfire."

Pink-Washing — Beware the Pink Ribbon Scam

While there are many different breast cancer prevention charities, the Susan G. Komen Foundation³⁵ is perhaps the most well-known. It has done a great deal of harm to women by obfuscating the authentic preventative measures available to combat breast cancer and downplaying the preventive role of a healthy diet, vitamin D optimization and limiting chemical exposures, while heavily promoting mammography.
By ignoring the role your lifestyle plays in the development of cancer, organizations such as these can continue to collect billions of dollars of donations in the name of "finding a cure." Meanwhile, effective prevention could eliminate the need for finding a cure altogether. As noted in a 2014 article by Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action:³⁶

"Few people realize that Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) was launched by Astra Zeneca, a pharmaceutical company that sells cancer treatments on the one hand and carcinogenic pesticides on the other. So BCAM has all along been one big marketing campaign — arguably the most successful marketing campaign of the 20th century.

This is why at Breast Cancer Action, we call October 'Breast Cancer Industry Month,' the month when corporations make money professing how much they care about breast cancer by selling pink ribbon products ...

How many of the ingredients contained in a random selection of pink products are toxic and bad for our health? No one knows because of weak chemical regulation in the United States that's outdated ...

We can't waste another October watching corporations make money off pink ribbon products that contain toxins linked to breast cancer. If you are outraged, take a stand to protect all of us from toxic chemicals that are making us sick because the manufacturers of pink ribbon products certainly won't."

Mammograms Do More Harm Than Good and Have No Impact on Mortality Rates

Mammography can detect invasive breast cancer in women. This is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether or not routine mammograms are really the right tool to reduce breast cancer rates, and whether it might harm more women than it helps in the process.
A growing body of evidence suggests that it does in fact, on the whole, do more harm than good by generating high rates of false positives that lead to unnecessary treatment and associated emotional trauma.³⁷ Those who opt for aggressive treatment such as a mastectomy, radiation and/or chemotherapy after a false positive diagnosis undergo physical pain and suffering "for nothing."
However, since you're unlikely to ever find out that you didn't have life-threatening cancer after all, women who believe their lives were saved by mammography will be hard-pressed to buy into the idea that routine mammograms are more harmful than helpful.
Still, statistics suggest many breast cancer survivors are not actually survivors of breast cancer, they're survivors of breast cancer treatment.³⁸ Several studies have completely demolished the notion that mammograms save lives. For example:

• A 2015 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine³⁹ found mammography screenings lead to unnecessary treatments while having virtually no impact on the number of deaths from breast cancer.
• Another 2015 study⁴⁰ published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine declares its conclusion right in the title, which reads: "Mammography screening is harmful and should be abandoned."
In short, decades of routine breast cancer screening using mammograms has done nothing to decrease deaths from breast cancer, while causing more than half — 52 percent — of all women undergoing the test to be overdiagnosed and overtreated. According to lead author Peter C. Gøtzsche, had mammograms been a drug, "it would have been withdrawn from the market long ago."
• A 2012 study⁴¹ in The Lancet concluded that for every life saved by mammography screening, three women are overdiagnosed and treated with surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy for a cancer that might never have given them trouble in their lifetimes. Additionally, no positive correlation with mortality could be found.

Computer Analysis Does Not Improve Accuracy of Mammograms

Research⁴² also shows the use of computer-aided detection (CAD) for mammography, which is used in 90 percent of U.S. mammograms at a cost of $400 million a year, does nothing to improve the accuracy of the test.
The study looked at more than 625,000 mammograms from nearly 324,000 women to determine whether CAD actually improves a radiologist's interpretation of a mammogram or not. As it turns out, CAD had no beneficial impact on mammography interpretation, leading the authors to conclude that: "These results suggest that insurers pay more for CAD with no established benefit to women."
In fact, radiologists were actually more prone to miss cancer when using CAD compared to when not using it. Overall, radiologists correctly identified cancer 90 percent of the time when CAD was not used, and only 83 percent of the time when they used CAD.

Take Control of Your Cancer Risk

In closing, remember to get your vitamin D level checked, and if below 60 ng/mL, take steps to raise your blood level. If you're looking for a scientifically proven way to avoid being a breast cancer statistic, optimizing your vitamin D is at the very top of the list.
Again, the level you're aiming for is between 60 and 80 ng/mL, with 40 ng/mL being the low cutoff point for sufficiency to prevent a wide range of diseases, including cancer.
As for dosage, you need to take whatever dosage required to get you into the optimal range. Research⁴³ suggests it would require 9,600 IUs of vitamin D per day to get 97 percent of the population to reach 40 ng/mL, but individual requirements can vary widely. As mentioned, your magnesium status is a very important factor that can play a role in your required dosage, but there are many other individual factors as well.
If you've been taking a certain amount of vitamin D3 for a number of months and retesting reveals you're still not within the recommended range, then you know you need to increase your dosage. Over time, with continued testing, you'll find your individual sweet spot and have a good idea of how much you need to take to maintain a healthy level year-round.

Prophylactic Mastectomy

Prophylactic Mastectomy A Myth

A very worrying finding!

Posted on:

Friday, January 12th 2018 at 2:30 pm

Written By:

Sayer Ji, Founder

This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2018
Visit our Re-post guidelines

A powerful new Lancet study reveals that the so-called breast cancer susceptibility genes -- BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 -- do not, in fact, cause breast cancer.  Jolie's prophylactic mastectomy, for instance, was for naught. 

A new Lancet Oncology study, reported widely in the mainstream media, confirms that the so-called “breast cancer genes,” i.e. BRCA1/2, do not have the power to determine breast cancer survival outcomes, as widely believed by the medical profession.  

The study titled, "Germline BRCA mutation and outcome in young-onset breast cancer (POSH): a prospective cohort study," found,

“[There is] no significant difference in overall survival or distant disease-free survival between patients carrying a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation and patients without these mutations after a diagnosis of breast cancer.”

The BBC broke down the study's findings in greater detail, in their online article titled, "Breast cancer survival 'unaffected by faulty gene'"

“The study, published in The Lancet Oncology, found 12% of 2,733 women aged 18 to 40 treated for breast cancer at 127 hospitals across the UK between 2000 and 2008 had a BRCA mutation.

The women's medical records were tracked for up to 10 years.

During this time, 651 of the women died from breast cancer, and those with the BRCA mutation were equally likely to have survived at the two-, five- and 10-year mark as those without the genetic mutation.

This was not affected by the women's body mass index or ethnicity.

About a third of those with the BRCA mutation had a double mastectomy to remove both breasts after being diagnosed with cancer. This surgery did not appear to improve their chances of survival at the 10-year mark.”

The study has powerful implications for the future of breast screening programs and the standard of care for ‘breast cancer’ patients. So powerful is the belief that BRCA genes 'cause' breast cancer, that millions around the world consider it fact. Celebraties like Angelina Jolie have added fuel to the fire of this dangerous myth, by electing to have her breasts removed 'prophylactically' due to her BRCA status and the recommendations of her physicians. I discussed questionable nature of this decision in a previous article titled, Did Angelina Jolie Make A Mistake By Acting On The 'Breast Cancer Gene' Theory? I elaborated further on the topic in an article titled, "Pinkwashing Hell: Breast Removal as a Form of 'Prevention'." 

In the excerpt below from the Discussion portion of the new Lancet Oncology paper, researchers not only failed to find a causal link between the BRCA genes and overall breast cancer survival, but noted that some BRCA mutation carriers (diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer) may actually have improved survival relative to non-mutation carriers:

Many Women Uninformed About Breat Cancer Surgery Options

Need For Information About Breast Cancer Surgery Options


 Helpful advice to be better informed about the options when needing breast cancer surgery!

Many women uninformed about breast cancer surgery options

Lisa Rapaport

5 Min Read

• 
  

(Reuters Health) - - Women with breast cancer often feel rushed to make a decision about surgery, and some of them might benefit from more time and better educational materials to inform their treatment choices, two recent studies suggest.

Pink balloons are displayed in front of an artificial waterfall during the "Pink Ribbon" breast cancer awareness campaign at Cheonggye Stream in central Seoul October 5, 2011. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak

One study surveyed 487 women after they underwent either a lumpectomy that removes malignant tissue while sparing the rest of the breast, a mastectomy that removes the entire breast, or both procedures.

Regardless of what path they took, at least one in five women said choosing quickly was more important than making an informed decision, and at least as many patients felt like they didn’t have all the facts before their operations.

“A breast cancer diagnosis can feel like an emergency when you are the patient,” said lead study author Dr. Sunny Mitchell, a breast surgeon in Stratford, Connecticut.

“There is actually plenty of time to review all treatment options since survival rates are very high for early-stage breast cancer and do not change if a woman starts treatment within a few weeks,” Mitchell said by email.

Most early-stage breast cancer patients have either a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, and many of them get chemotherapy or radiation afterward to destroy any remaining abnormal cells and reduce the risk of cancer coming back.

For Women with Genetic Risk, Bi-Annual MRI Beats Mammograms

For Women with Genetic Risk, Bi-Annual MRI Beats Mammograms:

 Great news for women concerned about genetic risks of cancer.

 Intensive surveillance including a dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) exam every six months was far more effective in detecting breast cancer in younger women with a high-risk genetic profile than an annual mammogram. DCE-MRI every six months performed well for early detection of invasive breast cancer in high-risk women.

Infertility Caused By The Environment

Infertility Caused By The Environment



Curiously, 'The Handmaid's Tale', was recommended to me recently.  I will now relish reading it.

Written By:

Anne Marie Fine, ND

This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2017
Visit our Re-post guidelines

In the Emmy Award-winning new series The Handmaid’s Tale, a chilling new picture of a dystopian society emerges. Environmental contaminants are causing decreased sperm production among men, couples having difficulty conceiving and children being born with numerous health concerns.  When I first read Margaret Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale in the 80’s, I thought it was a science fiction novel. Never did I imagine that it was a plausible vision of the future.

The troubling reality is that we are seeing a huge increase in both chronic disease (over 50% of adults have at least one) and reproductive health issues.  The primary force behind the increase in chronic diseases has been unmasked.  The sheer amount of toxins overwhelming our body’s own detoxification systems, while simultaneously dysregulating the immune and endocrine system, is making us all sick. The CDC reports that over 100 toxic chemicals and metals out of the 212 that were measured (which is but a small fraction of the thousands of chemicals humans are exposed to daily) are present in the average U.S. resident.[i] This load is a prime causative factor for the majority of the epidemic of chronic diseases in the U.S. and must be addressed.  Studies have shown that even our babies are being born pre-polluted. Heavy metals like lead and mercury, flame retardants, pesticides, herbicides, Bisphenol A and phthalates have been found in their cord blood, amniotic fluid, and breastmilk.[ii],[iii],[iv]
Major medical associations are becoming aware of this problem. FIGO, the international Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics representing 125 different countries reports that:

This Is How Belly Fat Could Increase Your Cancer Risk

 Belly Fat is a concern many of us have so I wanted to share the article below:

This Is How Belly Fat Could Increase Your Cancer Risk: A new Michigan State University study now offers new details showing that a certain protein released from fat in the body can cause a non-cancerous cell to turn into a cancerous one. The federally funded research also found that a lower layer of abdominal fat, when compared to fat just under the skin, is the more likely culprit, releasing even more of this protein and encouraging tumor growth.

Losing Weight May Keep Breast Cancer From Returning

Losing Weight May Keep Breast Cancer From Returning

Being diagnosed with Cancer brings such profound changes and soul searching and investgations.  It is therefore vital that the body is in a very healthy state to prevent it coming back once Cancer has been conquered.  Losing Weight if you are obese is one of  those important issues.  Healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle contribute to this.

Being overweight puts women at greater risk for breast cancer. It also increases the chance the cancer will come back. New research shows shedding extra pounds can help protect women under 60 from a cancer recurrence.
"I had never had a mammogram. And I found a lump," said San Antonian Gina Capparelli. At age 50, she was stunned by a breast cancer diagnosis that led to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
​

Listen

Listening...

2:26

"It’s hard," she described. "Physical. Mental. Spiritually. Everything. It’s a life-changing experience."

Breast cancer patient Gina Capparelli talks with her medical oncologist Virginia Kakalmani, MD, at the UT Health San Antonio Cancer Center.

Credit Wendy Rigby / Texas Public Radio

Capparelli’s oncologist, Virginia Kaklamani, MD, of UT Health San Antonio Cancer Center, is a big advocate of controlling weight to stave off the return of breast cancer.
"Lifestyle may actually help treat breast cancer as successfully as our chemotherapy does," she stated.
Kaklamani was part of a study published in the journal Cancer that showed women under 60 diagnosed with breast cancer can increase their chance of survival by losing weight.
She says fat contains growth factors and hormones that can fuel cancer cells. "We store estrogen in our fat," the doctor explained. "So the more fat we have, the more estrogen we have and the more estrogen we have, we increase our risk of breast cancer coming back."
Women often gain weight during cancer treatment. They’re sometimes prescribed steroids. Maybe they stop exercising. Some get depressed and turn to food for comfort.

Virginia Kaklamani, MD, said some women gain weight during breast cancer treatment due to the use of steroids, lack of exercise, and depression that leads to eating as a source of comfort.

Credit Wendy Rigby / Texas Public Radio

However, many physicians believe cancer therapy isn’t the time to stop healthy habits. "I think it’s extremely important. Just because you’re on chemotherapy doesn’t really mean that the rest of your life needs to be on hold,"  Kaklamani said.
Patients like Capparelli says it’s difficult to live life as usual. "It’s scary. It’s a very scary disease," she said. "I live every day in fear that that’s coming back."
But she’s taken her doctor’s advice. "I started walking. Every day I walk. I have to fight the fight," she added.
Kakalmani acknowledges losing weight is not an easy task for most people. "It’s a very hard conversation. What I typically say is, ‘listen if it was easy, we would all be a size two.’
Hard, maybe. But Kaklamani believes breast cancer survivors who potentially have decades left to live will do hard things to decrease the risk of dying from the disease.

Tags: 

Bioscience-Medicine

breast cancer

TweetShareGoogle+Email

Related Content

ing breast cancer.

Preventing Disease Before It Starts

Preventing Disease Before It Starts


This article shows us ways to prevent diseases, it's worth paying attention!

Preventing Disease Before It Starts

The human body has over 60 trillion cells, and every one of them is vulnerable to the development of multiple diseases. One of the biggest problems facing medicine is how to diagnose these diseases earlier, in order to improve the chances of stopping and reversing them.
Here are a few classic examples of the challenges of early detection. ¹

• Liver cancer – Studies have established that the liver is a very resilient organ. In fact, it is the only organ that can rebuild itself if a part of it is damaged or diseased². Unfortunately, it is so resilient that up to 70% of it can be diseased before the body emits liver enzymes to signal that something is wrong.³ By that time, a person is likely to be diagnosed with late stage cancer with very little chance for recovery.⁴
  
  
• Diabetes – The classic tests for diabetes are for total glucose levels or the AIC test, which provides a 90-day window of glucose fluctuations.⁵ If patients are diagnosed with pre-diabetes, there is still a chance for reversal of the condition, but this will rarely happen by using prescription medications. However, there is another test called the glucose tolerance test that can detect problems in cells 5 to 7 years before someone is diagnosed as pre- diabetic.⁶ By using this test, a person diagnosed with a weakened pancreas, or insulin resistance, could make changes in their diet and exercise program and never be diagnosed as pre-diabetic
  
  
• Breast cancer – Women depend on mammograms to detect breast cancer, but this test has several serious shortcomings. In order to see a tumor, mammograms need 4 billion cells, and this is usually diagnosed as Stage 2 or Stage 3 cancer. Even at 4 billion cells, the diagnosis is only 65% accurate, which leads to many inaccurate assessments and far too many unnecessary and overly invasive treatments.⁷ Also, mammograms expose women to terrible pain and to harmful radiation. Some scientists have even stated that mammograms cause more cancers than they find.⁸ There is a better way to detect problematic breast cells about 8 to 10 years before mammograms can see anything. In fact, when only 200 breast cells have become stressed, it is possible to detect the presence of these cells with a very scientific and accurate tool called thermography.⁹
  

Traditional Calais Lace Can Help Women After Breast Cancer

Traditional Calais Lace Can Help Women After Breast Cancer

 Amazing new technique will help new cell growth after Breast Cancer Surgery.  This has to be a marvellous breakthrough and give hope to so many women who have had a mastectomy.


Innovative technique allows new cells to grow and reconstruct ‘natural’ breast

Traditional lacemakers in Calais could help thousands of women cope after a mastectomy as their craft is being used to help create a new natural reconstructed breast that grows from their own cells.
Leavers lace is being used as a ‘scaffold’ matrix to allow the body to grow the woman’s own fat cells to recreate the breast shape inside a 3D-printed natural fibre mould.

After breast cancer and a mastectomy, women looking for breast reconstruction have previously chosen a silicone prosthesis that has a high risk of rejection and needs changed every few years or ‘lipofilling’, where fatty tissue is transplanted from elsewhere in the body in a series of surgeries.

Breast Cancer Cover-Up Continues

Breast Cancer Cover-Up


It is important to choose the right bra.  The article highlights the link between wearing a tight bra and getting breast cancer.  Not only that but the excerpt below shows many more conditions as the result of wearing a bra that is too tight.  Apart from the health issues, a bra that is too tight means bulges under the arms and looks most unattractive.

Fortunately, more women are questioning the need for a bra, and that leads to questioning the need to accept the discomforts and diseases bras cause. Headaches, backaches, nerve damage to the hands, deep shoulder grooves, droopy breasts, breast pain, cysts and lumps, and breast cancer are some of the problems bras cause.

New Genetic Test Could Help Women With Breast Cancer Avoid Chemotherapy

New Genetic Test Could Help Women With Breast Cancer Avoid Chemotherapy
Great that these tests are ongoing in finding a solution to stop the spread of cancer in the breast.  It would be wonderful if women could avoid the dreaded Chemotherapy which, albeit can stop the spread of cancer, does seriously undermine the Immune System from which it can take years to recover.


More women with breast cancer could be spared chemotherapy if doctors switched to a new genetic test, research shows.

The EndoPredict test can more accurately predict whether a woman's cancer will spread around the body than the standard test used on the NHS.

It also can produce results in just a few days compared to around 14 days for the current test, Oncotype DX, which has to be posted to the the US.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3683763/New-genetic-test-help-women-breast-cancer-avoid-chemotherapy.html#ixzz4E7E8xv29
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Scientists Block Breast Cancer Cells From Hiding in Bones

Scientists Block Breast Cancer Cells From Hiding in Bones

Although I never like the idea of animal testing, this article did catch my eye since Breast Cancer appears to be so wide spread.

Hormone receptor-positive breast cancers are the most common type of breast cancer, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and grow by exploiting the body’s estrogen or progesterone.

Important News on Mammograms

News on Mammograms


Here is some important news on mammograms.  It pays to double check if breast cancer is suspected at all.

• "Happygram” reveals the oft-ignored side of breast cancer screening with mammography — the fact that more often than not, it fails to identify cancer in women with dense breast tissue
• 49 percent of women have high breast tissue density, and nearly 75 percent of dense-breasted women are at risk for a cancer being missed if they rely solely on mammography
• Dense-breasted women are also up to six times more likely to develop breast cancer than women with less dense breasts

This is an interesting study on the effect of Protein and the connection to breast cancer.

Protein Research Uncovers Potential New Diagnosis and Therapy for Breast Cancer

Scientists at the University of York, using clinical specimens from charity Breast Cancer Now’s Tissue Bank, have conducted new research into a specific sodium channel that indicates the presence of cancer cells and affects tumour growth rates.

Protein Research Uncovers Potential New Diagnosis and Therapy for Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer Shock

 Interesting findings!

 Do annual mammograms save lives?

Several studies over the past few years have concluded that mammograms do not save lives, and may actually harm more women than they help, courtesy of false positives, overtreatment, and radiation-induced cancers.
According to research¹ published in 2010, the reduction in mortality as a result of mammographic screening was so small as to be nonexistent — a mere 2.4 deaths per 100,000 person-years were spared.
Another study² published in The Lancet Oncology in 2011 demonstrated, for the first time, that women who received the most breast screenings had a higher cumulative incidence of invasive breast cancer over the following six years than the control group who received far less screenings.
Now, researchers from Harvard and Dartmouth have published a paper³ in which they present similar conclusions.

Mammograms, how effective are they?

Ovarian and Breat Cancer Gene

 Helpful information about Ovarian and Breast Cancer Mutations.  It always pays to be informed.

Ovarian and Breast Cancer Mutations

Mammography False Alarms Linked with Later Tumor Risk

 Interesting article on Mammography.  It really is so important to keep yourself informed.


Mammography False Alarms Linked with Later Tumor Risk