Read Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being Online
Authors: Dr. Christiane Northrup
Goddesses Never Age: The Secret Prescription for Radiance, Vitality, and Well-Being (16 page)
BREAST CANCER SCREENING
Regular mammograms are considered the gold standard for the early detection of breast cancer, but it’s important to know the truth about mammograms and breast health.
First, there’s little to no evidence that getting a yearly mammogram starting at age 40 saves lives. This is why, back in 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) published new guidelines, recommending less frequent mammograms for breast cancer screening.
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While its previous guidelines had called for screenings every one to two years, starting at age 40, the USPSTF’s new guidelines call for screening every other year for women ages 50 to 74. The American Cancer Society did not update its recommendations in response, so despite the USPSTF’s findings, most women still follow the American Cancer Society’s older guidelines and get a mammogram annually, beginning at age 40.
Second,
screening mammography is not benign.
In a groundbreaking study published in the
New England Journal of Medicine
in 2012, which I mentioned in
Chapter 3
, Gilbert Welch, M.D., a renowned medical authority on the risks of cancer screening, pointed out that routine mammography screening over the last 30 years has resulted in 1.3 million women being
diagnosed with “cancer” because their mammograms picked up ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).
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As I explained in
Chapter 3
, DCIS is not cancer but a type of cellular anomaly that women are more likely to die
with
than
from
because in the vast majority of cases, it will never progress to actual breast cancer. Autopsy studies of healthy women in their 40s who died in car accidents have shown that as many as 40 percent have evidence of DCIS in their breasts. Terms such as “cancer” and “precancerous condition” drive women and doctors to be overly aggressive in reacting to the presence of DCIS.
The problem is that once you find DCIS—especially with the newer high-resolution mammography that can pick up very early instances—there’s tremendous pressure to do something about it. Hence, scores of women are having radiation, surgery, mastectomies, and chemotherapy treatments that are unnecessary. This is hardly benign! Plus, a recent study showed that having radiation of the breast increases your risk of heart disease down the road.
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Thankfully, a working group of the National Cancer Institute has recommended that DCIS should be renamed so that patients are less frightened and less likely to seek unneeded and potentially harmful treatments that can include the removal of the breast. The researchers suggested that these anomalies—along with the many lesions found in prostate, thyroid, lung, and other cancer screenings—should not be called cancer at all, but instead be reclassified as IDLE conditions, which stands for “indolent lesions of epithelial origin.” Sanity at last prevails!
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We don’t need to be so aggressive about finding these IDLE conditions and addressing them because very often, the body simply heals itself. The data support this, which is why, in the spring of 2014, the Swiss Medical Board recommended abolishing all new mammography screening programs on the grounds that they do more harm than good. Its report in the
New England Journal of Medicine
stated: “For every breast-cancer death prevented in U.S. women over a 10-year course of annual screening beginning at 50 years of age, 490 to 670 women are likely to have a false positive mammogram with repeat examination; 70 to 100, an unnecessary biopsy; and 3 to 14, an overdiagnosed breast cancer that would never have become clinically apparent.”
I realize this may be shocking to you, but it’s important to look closely at the newest information and not make decisions based on old information and scare tactics.
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It has been very easy to sell mammography to women over the years because so many have been led to believe that early diagnosis via mammography saves lives. This was indeed the hope of many when mammography was first introduced. Unfortunately, like the use of Premarin and Provera in the Women’s Health Initiative study to prevent heart disease, that hope simply hasn’t lived up to its initial promise. Despite this, surveys still show that up to 70 percent of women believe that mammography saves lives.
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In fact, it’s better breast cancer treatments—
not
early diagnoses from mammograms—that are saving more lives than ever. It’s time for women to make truly informed decisions about mammograms and the harm that can ensue from using them routinely. You can’t be truly informed as long as you continue to believe these two things: one, that your breasts require constant surveillance to remain healthy, and two, that the benefits of mammographic screening outweigh the risks.
Recently, a woman asked my advice about continuing to get mammograms, which her ob/gyn was pressuring her about. She had developed microcalcifications along the milk duct in her right breast ten years previously after a rough year of taking care of others and neglecting herself (symbolically, the right side is the “giving” side of the body). A biopsy showed that the microcalcifications were benign, and they didn’t increase for another five years or so. Then a screening mammogram she had during another particularly stressful year of caretaking for others showed that a few more microcalcifications had appeared. She refused a biopsy, which would have cost her thousands of dollars out of pocket, but agreed to more mammograms in the future to keep an eye on the condition. In the meantime, in a couple of deep meditation sessions, she noticed a dark, heavy spot in the energy field above her right breast and imagined drawing in pure love and exhaling it into that spot until she felt it dissolve. A session with an energy healer, who picked up on inflammation in that breast before the woman mentioned any medical conditions, further allowed her to influence the energy field that was affecting
the cells. The next mammogram showed one new microcalcification, and in subsequent years, no more appeared. After ten years of worrying about her breast, being pressured to do more invasive, expensive tests that would put more radiation in her body, she decided she had had enough and was seeking my advice on whether she ought to say no to more screenings. She told me her heart, her head, and her instincts told her to continue the practice of loving her body and her breasts and being aware of any breast changes that she could detect. So far, she’s had none. I told her that she should listen to her inner healer on this decision. Now that is an ageless goddess approach to loving and caring for the breasts!
BETTER BREAST CARE
There’s a better way to screen for breast health. Unlike mammography, which involves exposing the chest and breasts to radiation, thermography detects heat in the breast tissue that may be due to cellular inflammation. It is a functional test: the results change as blood flow to your tissues changes. When blood vessels are being formed to support a cluster of abnormal cells with DNA mutations, the process releases heat that can be picked up on an infrared imaging camera. In essence, you’re seeing potential problems long before they become actual diagnosable disease. You can respond to inflammation in the breast by taking action to improve your breast health and doing another thermogram three months later to see if the inflammation has reversed.
If you have dense breasts, a mammogram may show a problem where there is none simply because it’s harder to get a clear mammogram picture of dense breast tissue, which is not the case with thermography. Thermograms are also completely comfortable since they do not involve breast compression of any kind. There are more than 40 years of research studies and more than 800 peer-reviewed studies supporting breast thermography. Using thermography can help you and your health care practitioner be proactive in improving breast health long before a problem in the breasts occurs. Of course, the very best approach is to work with someone who understands both mammography and
thermography and knows the limitations and benefits of both technologies. One of the best resources for this is Dr. Tom Hudson, who is board certified in both radiology and thermography. He helps women all over the world interpret their results and has written an excellent book on the subject called
Journey to Hope: Leaving the Fear of Breast Cancer Behind
(Brush and Quill, 2011).
Paying attention to your breasts and caring for them is important—whether or not you have a history of breast cancer in your life or in your family. But please note that only 2 percent of all breast cancers involve an inherited gene mutation such as the BRCA1 or the BRCA2 (the first has a higher risk than the second). Mutations of both of those genes are associated with ovarian cancer too.
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That said, if you have a strong history of breast or ovarian cancer but test negative for gene mutations associated with breast cancer, the family history may be a bigger indicator of your breast cancer risk than the gene is.
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Our families’ emotional legacies may be a factor in this discrepancy.
In discussing the risk of the BRCA1 gene mutation, the notion that it conveys an “87 percent chance of developing breast cancer” has been promoted often. If we look more closely at that figure, we can see it’s a great example of our misunderstanding of the genetic connection to disease. First, the number 87 sounds frightening, because it is so large and so specific. A little research shows that the number is based on old estimates that have been disputed by the National Institutes of Health. In fact, a 1997 study showed the risk of breast cancer for variations on the BRCA1 gene to be closer to 56 percent, and only 16 percent for ovarian cancer. Also, the original figures of 84 to 87 percent at the highest were based on studies of women who had both the gene variations
and
a family history of breast or ovarian cancer
over two generations,
not just one.
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Furthermore, we have no idea how many women in the original research had low levels of vitamin D (again, adequate levels can cut breast cancer risk in half), or were regular drinkers (which raises breast cancer risk), or exercised regularly, maintained a healthy weight, got enough iodine, or ate plenty of fruits and vegetables (all of which lower risk). The more carefully you look at the research, the more you
realize that you can’t simply assign a number to your risk of developing breast cancer—and you have to factor in lifestyle choices.
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Even if you have had breast cancer in one breast, the odds of your developing it in the other, healthy breast in the next ten years are as low as 4 to 5 percent, especially if you don’t have the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation. Again, you really have to look carefully at the statistics to get an accurate sense of what research shows your risk is.
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If you’re considering genetic testing, think carefully about why you want to do so. As with any genetic testing, whether the results are negative or positive, there are no guarantees. Regardless of what your choice is, or what your results may be, the most powerful thing you can do for your breast health is to cultivate a loving relationship with them, make breast-healthy lifestyle choices, and, if you’re concerned, monitor your breast health with an attitude of self-love and self-care, not a search-and-destroy attitude. If you want to find a practitioner who performs and interprets thermograms so you can monitor your breasts regularly as part of your plan for loving self-care, visit
www.breastthermography.com;www.breastthermography.org
; or the websites for the International Academy of Clinical Thermology,
www.iact-org.org
, or the American College of Clinical Thermology,
www.thermologyonline.org
.
THERE’S ALWAYS HOPE: CALLING IN DIVINE ORDER
There’s nothing like illness to get your attention. The soul comes to us through our bodies. And the good news is that there’s always hope, no matter what. Anita Moorjani, author of
Dying to Be Me,
quite literally was pronounced dead of cancer, with lemon-size tumors throughout her body. During her near-death experience, she discovered a loving reality awaiting her. When she returned to her body, she knew that she would be well. And indeed, all of her tumors disappeared. When asked if she still sees her doctors, she said in a recent lecture that she no longer sees them because they always tell her she’s in “remission”—as though they are waiting for the cancer to return. Since she has already experienced dying, why worry? She also said she’s not afraid of getting cancer again. There is a reality beyond what our
physical senses can perceive, and when we are really “up against it,” that reality becomes stronger.
I came across a story on Tosha Silver’s Facebook page and was so moved by it that I contacted the poster to ask if I could share it with you here. It sums up this idea of surrendering to love and joy, not fear, very much the same as Anita Moorjani did. Here is what Annette Perez had to say about her experience with stage 4 breast cancer:
I was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, which had already spread to the lungs, liver, kidneys, spine, and brain, and given an “expiration date” of six months. I opted not to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments as the treatments would have been extremely aggressive and at that point, I was more concerned about my quality of life versus quantity of life. At the time of the diagnosis, I felt as if I had that illness pulsating throughout my body. I was experiencing all of the typical symptoms. As I have always done in life, I immediately began working on moving out of that dark corner, or what I often referred to as “the abyss.” A month later, a friend sent me a copy of
Outrageous Openness
by Tosha Silver. I couldn’t wait to dive into it! The wisdom in those pages was exactly the spark I needed to move forward through this latest challenge. At the onset of this journey, I knew I wanted to do battle and delved into researching what I could do to help myself as I began this challenge. As I spoke to others and did my research, I became overwhelmed and found myself taking action but in a frantic, frenzied way. But as I learned how to let go and move out of the way so that the Beloved Divine could work, beautiful moments and powerful opportunities began to happen. I let go and allowed the Divine to lovingly guide me as to what the next best step was for me and what action, if any, I needed to take. Information showed up for me, light was shed upon any new direction or action I needed to take, and people showed up on my path. Early on, I turned over everything to the Beloved Divine because this was just way too much for me to carry and it was not necessary that I carry it. Two months after my diagnosis, I was pain free and had energy, and all of the symptoms had vanished. I did have to undergo a mastectomy four months in, and I passed
through that challenge in an extremely effortless manner. I experienced three days of pain immediately following the surgery and after that—nothing. I had bottles of prescribed pain medication that went untouched as it was not needed. After I surpassed my six-month “expiration date,” I continue to feel amazing, experiencing no symptoms of the illness, and have been able to get busy living! The oncologist and surgeon are amazed at my progress and beyond baffled that I am even able to get around. Most important, I am experiencing such peace, a peace that I have searched for all of my life and did not find, nor truly experience, until now. I continue to do well, long past my “expiration date.”