Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (81 page)

Bromocriptine.
Bromocriptine is also used to suppress lactation after childbirth. It can cause nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, dizziness, and depression.

Birth control pills.
These are all made from synthetic hormones, with no bioidentical contraceptive available. There are far better options for the treatment of breast pain.

All drugs have the potential to cause side effects, depending on the individual. Some statin drugs (cholesterol-lowering medications), SSRIs (antide-pres sants), and cardiac pills can cause breast pain, so women should look at what new drugs they have been taking.

Exercise regularly.
It is well documented that women with a lean body mass index (less than 22.8) who exercise regularly have a breast cancer risk that is reduced by a whopping 72 percent.
⁹⁰
Research from Norway found that women who exercise regularly (four hours per week) had a 37 percent reduction in risk for breast cancer compared with sedentary women.
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Data from the Nurses’ Health Study (covering more than 85,000 women) showed that those who did daily moderate to vigorous exercise were 20 percent less likely to get breast cancer than those who exercised less than one hour a week.
⁹²
This is true even for women who were not regular exercisers in the past.
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The most likely reason for the reduced risk is that regular exercise is associated with lower levels of body fat and less total circulating estrogen. (Body fat itself manufactures estrone, a type of estrogen, through the conversion of cholesterol to androsterone.) There’s no drug that even comes close to the benefits of regular physical activity.

Get plenty of sleep.
Some of the newest research shows that getting adequate sleep (in a dark room) is more important to breast health than most of us realize. A 2005 Finnish study of more than 12,000 women found that those who consistently sleep nine hours or more a night have less than one-third the risk of breast tumors compared with those who get seven or eight hours of sleep nightly.
⁹⁴
Several other recent studies have shown that exposure to bright light late at night may increase the risk of breast cancer (and indeed, female night-shift workers have about a 50 percent greater risk of developing breast cancer than other working women).
⁹⁵
Researchers discovered that nighttime light (if it’s bright) interrupts the production of the hormone melatonin. Inadequate melatonin levels can promote breast tumor growth.
⁹⁶
Women with above-average melatonin concentrations are less likely to develop breast cancer.
⁹⁷

Accept support and nurture yourself.
Be open to accepting support from others in your life. Breast symptoms are often the body’s way of getting us to nurture our selves more fully and allow others to help. Remember, all human beings deserve and need social support. There’s nothing to be gained by suffering in silence! Have compassion for yourself. And learn how to say no to what you don’t want.

I can’t think of a better way to illustrate this last point than by sharing an inspiring story from my friend Barbara, who was, I’m certain, headed for cancer. She was able to completely turn her situation around, and she did it relatively quickly. Here’s her story:

While on a trip with my husband to celebrate my fiftieth birthday I received a phone call from the clinic where I had recently gone for my comprehensive annual exam, including my first thermogram. The report from my breast thermography was back—and it wasn’t good. At first I was shocked. I am physically very active, have good eating habits, and lead a healthful lifestyle. I have no family history of breast cancer—and I have had annual screening mammograms since I was thirty-four. But as I reflected honestly, I knew deep within myself that these abnormal cells were just a warning. Despite the healthy exercise and eating, I had spent the past decade in an unhealthy pattern of overworking, over-caretaking, overgiving, and feeling resentful and angry. In the past year I had made major strides in self-care and releasing resentment. In fact, it was ironic that I found out the news while on a birthday trip with my husband! That trip was the first time we had done something alone for ten years.

My doctor suggested that I immediately get a digital mammogram and an MRI to get more information about the nature of the situation, but I still had five more days of the trip. So I decided to completely immerse myself in pleasure as a way to jump-start my healing process. I knew instinctively that the more appreciation and pleasure I could feel, the more healing my body would be able to do. I let my husband know what my intentions were so that he could be my partner in healing. As he and I hiked in the Rocky Mountains, I focused on the beauty of the changing aspen leaves, the feel of the crisp breeze, the sound of mountain streams, and the clean, fresh scent of the mountain air. I allowed myself the luxury of long naps in my husband’s arms. I enjoyed every bite of food as if I had never tasted it before. I prayed for the ability to release any residual resentments, and I enjoyed sacred intimacy with my husband. Those five days, which could have been frittered away with worry and fear, were magical.

When I returned home, I had a knowing that any abnormalities that had been in my breasts were now gone, but I continued to follow up with more diagnostics. The digital mammography indicated something suspicious, so I also had an MRI. The MRI showed nothing. Nothing at all. My health care team told me that no further testing was needed. A follow-up thermogram six months later was completely normal.

I am so grateful for the breast thermography and intend to have one every year. Meanwhile, my new mantra for staying healthy is: “I take care of myself with the same loving care that I give to my husband and son.” When I follow my mantra, I can feel every cell in my body glowing with health!

Family History of Breast Cancer
and the Breast Cancer Gene

Certain women have been identified as having genetically higher chances of early-onset breast cancer and sometimes ovarian cancer because their families carry mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.
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The men in these families may have increased rates of not only breast cancer but also testicular, pancreatic, and early-onset prostate cancer.
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Because 60 percent of women who have inherited the mutated breast cancer gene will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives (compared to 12 percent of women in the general population), those testing positive for the mutation are opting more and more often to have a preventative bilateral mastectomy (the removal of two, usually healthy, breasts).
¹⁰⁰

It’s clear that the genes we are born with are only one part of the story. How they get expressed is another matter entirely. Genes don’t operate in a vacuum. They’re turned on and off by environmental factors.
¹⁰¹
According to one recent study of 2,000 women from different countries headed by Colin Begg, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, several other factors contribute to a women’s risk, including family history, diet, and lifestyle choices.
¹⁰²
This means that testing positive for the gene mutation doesn’t mean you will get breast cancer
and
that testing negative for the genes doesn’t mean you are protected from developing breast cancer.

The first thing I tell women who have a positive family history—usually of a mother with breast cancer—is that they are
not
their mothers and that genetics is only
one
part of whether somebody gets a disease. In fact, the majority of women diagnosed with breast cancer
don’t
have a positive family history of the disease, nor do they have the genetic mutation. (In one major study, only 10 percent of young women with breast cancer had the gene.) But women who test positive for the mutation
and
who have more than one close relative (a mother, sister, and/or daughter) with breast cancer have a greater than 60 percent risk, according to the National Cancer Institute.
¹⁰³

If you fall into this category, your doctor will most likely recommend vigilant breast cancer screening, including mammography and breast exams (and possibly MRI or sonography), every six to twelve months. Conventional medicine believes in more radical treatments as well, such as:

Preventative mastectomy (an option that isn’t 100 percent failproof)