It is easy to think that mammograms save lives when so many women espouse their belief that the mammogram saved their life because it detected their breast cancer much earlier on than say a self breast exam would have.

But I just read a very interesting perspective from another specialist who says that mammograms may not actually save as many lives from breast cancer metastatis as you would think – when you look at it his way at least.

Keep an open mind, I’m sure this is just the beginning of our understandings of this potentially deadly disease, and we are only now beginning to crack the codes on various types of cancer to begin with.

One perspective is that mammograms do detect breast cancer very early, however, many of these extremely early detections may actually be for breast cancers that are not very agressive, are very slow growing, and may have never come to a point where they would be life threatening.

In other words, many women may carry the seeds for potential breast cancer, but the cancer cells in their breasts are so slow growing that they likely would not be a threat to their lives.  His take is that these very early detections of non-agressive cancer cells may actually lead to unnecessary treatment as well as unnecessary biopsies and partial masectomies in women as well.

In other words, perhaps women are being scared into getting therapies that, themselves are dangerous to our health such as chemotherapy and radiation, when they are told they have very early breast cancer.  They may be getting these treatments, which can lead to other health issues, when in fact their breast cancer would likely have never grown out of control or ever even become symptomatic.

However, many consider that  big “if”.  It’s a very controversial view of course, but if you take a step back and really examine it, it has a lot of valid points and if you keep an open mind it is definitely something to contemplate and consider.

Huh? Wait what?  That was how I looked at the headline that suggested that drinking alcohol, something that has long been linked to increasing the risk of developing breast cancer in women, may actually help to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.

I though I was either reading it incorrectly or that it may be one of those cleverly titled misleading news items that really wasn’t what it seemed at all when you really started to read the substance of it.   But no, it really did mean just that. Alcohol apparently helps to stop the spreading of breast cancer, once a woman has already gotten it though.

That’s the rub here. Women who already have active breast cancer are the only ones who may actually benefit from drinking alcohol. It has shown promise as helping to halt the metastatis (spreading) of cancerous cells.  However, the link between women developing breast cancer and drinking alcohol still stands.

It sounds like some very illogical reasoning if you ask me, but I’m not the scientist and I guess we’ll just have to leave that up to the lab men and women who come up with these intresting findings. Then again, this theory may soon be proven wrong, as so many are eventually about this hot topic.

The study on alcohol and breast cancer was carried out on mice. Often times studies are carried out on this animal because they have some physiological similarities to the human body, and they are very useful for determining how the human body might react to similar situations, although they are not 100% reliabel and alike.

The mice that had breast cancer tumors were given small amounts of alcohol. The other group of mice had the breast cancer tumors and were not given the servings of alcohol. The mice who got the alcohol actually showed that their breast cancer growth was slowing down or stopping whereas the non-alcoholic group did not show any benefit.

The alcohol-mice were showing about a 60% reduction in the spread as compared to the other group, so it’s not small potatoes either. Still baffling is why alcohol would be a causal factor for getting breast cancer, but may help to halt its spread once it has initiated into the body.

When it comes to most types of breast cancer, there is one fact that is pretty much undisputed. That fact is that excessive estrogens, especially those of a synthetic nature that did not originate in the female body itself, via its own natural processes, may actually accelerate breast cancer.

However, it is unknown specifically what types of hormones. For example, we now know that synthetic hormones in HRT, Hormone Replacement Therapy, can acccelerate breast cancer and even cause heart problems.  There has been no definitive link between hormones used in IVF, or In Vitro Fertilization, or birth control pills or drugs.

However, that doesn’t mean that they certainly are not under a cloud of suspicion by not only doctors, but natural health specialists, consumer advocates, and patients and informed consumers themselves.

The question was really brough to light when an anchor for a popular television show, Giuliana Rancic, was diagnosed with breast cancer and publicized it.  She also happened to be undergoing fertility treatments, and was only tested for breast cancer because her fertility doctor refused to put her on fertility hormones until he confirmed 100% that she did not have breast cancer.

She did not even think there was a chance she could have breast cancer since she’s still fairly young at age 36. Most women have the conventional thought process that they are not at risk for breast cancer until after they hit their forties and fifties.

The current conventional wisdom is that the risk goes up after age forty and the risk is very low for women under forty. However, there are instances where women can get breast cancer “younger”. Often times when diagnosed younger, it may be a more serious form of breast cancer.

However, the cases we’ve seen so far in the public spotlight haven’t been that way.  Cases like Christina Applegate and other younger actresses seemed to be resolved very quickly and were easily treatable. So it seems very unthreatening. But in reality, when younger women get breast cancer, it can be a real cause for concern.

Hormones that are given for medical purposes should be carefully considered, whether they are for birth control reasons or for some other reason like the control of menopausal symptoms.  The reason is, they can very well fuel breast cancer if it is already present, or they perhaps can even initiate the growth of breast cancer cells.

We just don’t know enough about them yet, so it’s best to play on the side of caution.

Well, the month of breast cancer and breast health awareness if officially over, and this time it appears that the month dedicated to one of America’s favorite subjects in both health and obsession, breasts, has garnered a lot of following.

There have been numerous news stories about breast cancer awareness month of October 2011.

From the news story about highschool chearleaders getting chastised for wearing t-shirts in support of breast health, to the story about teens wearing “boobie” bracelets at school getting kicked out, breast cancer awareness month has been allover the news in one way or another.

You can’t watch a football game in October without seeing a ton of pink everywhere. Of course, pink is the symbol of breast health and the pink ribbon is a symbol of supporting breast health – as to what that means exactly, is up to the person.

Some people wear it simply to support women and acknowledge that breast cancer is something that needs to be greatly reduced and eventually stamped out. Some people wear it in support of a family member who has had breast cancer, or died from it.

Some wear it in support of organizations that are supposed to provide support to women who have breast cancer, or who financially support the companies that do the majority of the research on drugs and other therapies that might help to somehow erradicate the disease.

It seems that just about everyone has some tie to breast cancer. I myself have a couple ties to it. A beloved aunt of mine passed away from it almost twenty years ago.  Another aunt got breast cancer and was successfully treated for it and is doing very well still today.

Most people I talk to have a relative or friend or acquaintence whos life has been hit by breast cancer.  It’s unfortunately a pervasive disease that strikes too many women – whether young or old. 

It can be more successfully treated if detected early of course, but it can also be reduced in likelihood if one follows certain dietary and exercise guidelines.  Of course, there are some genetic predipositions that cannot be changed, but you can help reduce the likelihood of any type of cancer through certain lifestyle modifications.

I’ve been reading some very interesting things on Susan G Komen and other breast cancer nonprofit organizations that likely started off as meaning well.

They have, however, evolved into organizations that may be giving a lot of their money to pharmaceutical companies to come up with drugs that can be more toxic than the cancer itself to the female body. That is the concern.

There are several articles out there on the “pinkwashing” of our society when it comes to these organizations that seem very good on the surface, but may not be contributing equally to nontoxic, more natural solutions to eradicating or greatly reducing breast cancer in women.

I would be remiss to say that I had never thought of this before, but I guess I always assumed these organizations gave equally to companies and persons who are researching a cure for breast cancer, not giving the majority of it to toxic medications.

We know that cancer medicines like radiation and chemotherapy are toxic to the human body. Sure, they kill cancer cells, but they also kill normal, healthy cells. They compromise the immune system further, and many times cause the death of the patient.

They can hasten death instead of putting it off in some cases as well. This is all my opinion, so I’m really saying how I feel. Many people corroborate on this as well, as more and more evidence is showing that chemotherapy and other toxic cancer therapies may be doing more harm than good.

There are some organizations that will donate to companies that are looking for healthier alternatives to treating breast cancer. There are also others that help to financially support women going through cancer treatment or to give them hope as well as some sort of financial support, and those are the organizations that I will support.

If you have questions about specifically where your money is going, and you are donating to an organization, I suggest you write to them and express your concern about a one sided approach. You can always suggest other organizations for them to include in any financial support as well.

Critters for the Cure is a great organization that helps to fund financial support for women going through breast cancer treatment. It also helps to fund breast cancer research in an effort to help defeat and treat this disease which has become so pervasive in American culture for women.

If you’d like to help support this great cause visit CrittersfortheCure.com and see how you can purchase their new calendar. The money all goes straight to women who need it the most.

This organization is based on people and pets, something that is near and dear to my heart because I know how much my two cats mean to me. They are healing to have around, and the bond we share is soothing and mending to the soul.

Having a pet around that you love can really help you to heal faster, and studies have even shown that having a beloved pet can help regulate things like blood pressure which is vital to your health.

As with most other cancer and pre-cancer screenings, the breast cancer screening techniques have had their fair share of criticism and doubts over the years. The latest argument over whether women at a certain age should get mammograms has really muddied the waters more for women who are concerned about their breast health.

It’s actually a shame that we don’t have any really definitive evidence that mammograms done at a certain age or to women only so often has a real, tangible effect, or prevents a lot more women from dying of breast cancer.

What we do have, however, is a suspicion cast on the medical community, and some women even choosing not to undergo routine breast cancer screenings that involve the radiation that is given off my the mammography machine because they believe that in and of itself may trigger some sort of cancerous cell growth.

The latest technology is causing the same sort of controversy because it adds even more complexity, false positives, and worry for women who are getting breast cancer screenings. It is called CAD Mammography. It’s basically a mammogram that is Computer Assisted in its diagnoses of potential problems in the breast tissue.

What it does is use digital, enhanced imaging that is marketed as a more thorough way of detecting breast cancer lesions and getting cancerous lumps and other masses out before they really grow and spread.

The problem is, some organizations are saying that studies have shown that not only do these CAD mammographies not produce any better of a result or assist in getting real breast cancer out of the breast, but they often have false positives, which leads to a whole lot of patient worry and mental anguish.

Because a computer is employed in enhancing the images that are reviewed for potential cancer in the breast, the procedure adds even more cost to the already expensive procedure for the health care industry. Some say that cost is not justified as the procedure really isnt’ helping out proportionately more women to justify it.

Not only are women induced to worry more, but they are often called back for more expensive testing to clarify results that cannot be read with certainty. It sounds like a giant money and worry pit to me, but that’s just me, who’s a cynic about the medical establishment.

I happen to believe that prevention is the best weapon. Anything else, to me, is secondary to living a healthy lifestyle.

The mammogram debate never seems to stop raging. Today we hear that they aren’t as necessary as the medical profession would have us believe, and tomorrow we may hear that they are the worst thing you can do for your body, and actually cause breast cancer. The next we may hear that it’s all hooey and we should get them every six months.

You just never know, and it’s always wise to use your own judgement, your own knowledge of your family history, your knowledge of your own body, and your intuition, which can always be a powerful thing when you choose to listen to your own instincts about what is right for you and your personal health.

The latest coming out of the medical establishment is a finding that lower risk women may actually benefit more from having a mammogram only once every three years instead of the recommended one to two years now.

They may not need them as often as women who have been identified as a part of a higher risk breast cancer group, since their likelihood of ever developing cancerous tissue in their breasts is a lot less.

Women who have a family history of breast cancer, especially on the female side of their family (meaning on their mother’s side), are probably still going to be told to follow the same guidelines and get them at the more often recommended intervals.

Also, women who take genetic testing and are identified as having the right genetic markers for breast cancer would still have the same recommendations that are in place today.

Women who have denser breast tissue may even be recommended to have them more often, for the sheer chance that something such as a lump or mass could go undetected in normal hand-feeling breast exam routines.

Mammograms do offer a more detailed look at the breast tissue, and women with very dense breast tissue often are a lot harder to find cancer in.

While we consider dense breast tissue as a blessing when we are younger, since it gives us much firmer, more lifted breasts than when we get older and lose that tissue density, it can really make for a much harder to detect tissue mass that may be cancerous.

The scenario may present itself where women are in a very low risk group all the way around for breast cancer – no family history, less dense tissue and a great genetic background, and those women may not even get them but once every four years.

There are more and more findings in breast cancer research, and many of them point to the fact that some women have such high predispositions to get the disease that they might as well do something to significantly lower their risk early on in life.

There was actually even an episode about a woman who had almost certain risk of breast cancer on Grey’s Anatomy, who ended up getting a radical masectomy (removal of both breasts, all the breast tissue), because she had the genetic mutations that resulted in almost positive breast cancer when she got a little older.

This has become more and more common, women who get tested for the “breast cancer” gene and get a masectomy because they are found to be in such a high risk category.

But it may not be necessary for women who are in these high, high risk categories to always do this, as there are drugs being developed, such as the one we will talk about today, Aromasin, which lower the hormones in the body that are responsible for breast cancer aggravation and development, so the risk of developing it are lowered significantly.

The thing that sets the hormone blocking drug apart from it’s competitors such as Tomoxifen and other hormone blockers, is that it showed significantly less side effects that make the other hormone blocking breast cancer drugs not as desirable, even for women who may take it and be saved, at least may have a 65% reduction in their risk.

There were also actually life threatening side effects for some of them, such as blood clots and risk of stroke. Aromasin had significantly lower risks of these types of side effects, and the subjects that it was tested on reported good quality of life while taking the drug, suggesting that the patient’s quality of life would be virtually unharmed.

The problem with these aromatase (the hormone that causes breast cancer to form and become more agressive in some cases) blockers is the cost as well. They can cost upwards of $300 per month to take, and the patients usually would not be willing to take such an expensive drug if they were not certain they would get breast cancer.

The drug must be taken on a daily basis as well, and some patients would find this to be a nuisance for something that is merely preventive, not used as a therapy yet. Should be interesting to see if this drug is used as a preventive breast cancer drug or not…

Soy has been bandied about as both a breast cancer fighter, and a good thing for women to eat to help ward off breast cancer for it’s natural phyto (plant based) nutrients, and as the bad guy, something that should be avoided by women, especially women who already have or have had breast cancer.

Soy, in its unadulterated state, is actually a very healthy food. It’s when it gets adulterated and turned into fake meats and such that it may have a negative effect. That’s what I’ve read so far, and I trust what I have read, as it makes sense logically and scientifically.

The soy bean is a small, bioactive bean, that has some properties that naturally make it an estrogenic plant. That is, some of the chemicals in it that naturally occur actually act like the hormone estrogen in the body. 

Some feel this estrogen can be protective against breast cancer, while others feel it may actually aggravate it, since breast cancer is often an estrogen driven cancer.  The compounds found in soy beans, called isoflavones, have been though to help protect breast health.

However, when you eat that veggie burger, you may not be getting the benefit of the isoflavones since the soy bean has been processed beyond belief.

It is always best to eat any natural vegetable or fruit in its natural state, with minimal processing – as nature intended it, and the soy bean is really no different.  I actually enjoy putting soy beans and another close relative, the edamame bean, in some stir fries and eating them in other various foods, usually of Asian origin.

The good news about this latest study on whether women who ate soy had a higher recurrence in their breast cancer is that it did not show an increased risk by eating soy products such as tofu and soy milk, which are even fairly adulterated soy products.

This means that breast cancer survivors may not have to shun their favorite soy products. Soybean oil is used in a TON of foods we eat today as well, so that’s a relief  as well.