So, was YOUR mind blown last week with the new recommendations about mammograms? In case you didn’t hear it, last week came the new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Screening Task Force, for mammograms. And the annual mammogram which had been de rigeur for women annually over the age of 40, was recommended to be halted until the age of 50. And that screening every two years when a woman was over the age of 50 years old would be more than sufficient. And it recommended against teaching breast self-examination. After looking at data from over 150,000 women, they came to the conclusion that more testing “caused more harm from overscreening and overtreatment.” (Here’s the full article).

You would have thought they told everyone to shave their heads and chop off their pinkies, the screaming and upset was so loud.

Seeing the posts of people reacting on Facebook and in the news made me realize how many people are reacting with their guts more than with their heads. And part of the flipping out is because there are a few pieces of vital information missing that, if people knew, might have them see not just the big picture, but also give them options that are just as good, if not better, than mammograms. (Really!)

The Gut Reaction

Here’s the very first thing that people aren’t acknowledging: we are not very good at treating cancer. In fact, I would say we suck at it, considering that we’ve been trying to cure it for decades centuries, and have only improved the death rates by 5% across the board. Check out this post I wrote about it.

This leads to some semblance of panic, at a deeply emotional level. It is truly life-altering when someone is given a cancer diagnosis, and there is a very real feeling of helplessness. So, in an effort to possibly prevent a diagnosis, people want to feel proactive and that means getting tested. Early and often.

The Problems And Risks With Testing

There’s just a couple of large hiccups to testing. One is that there is not one piece of evidence that shows that more testing is better. The reasoning is this: The testing can catch abnormalities that aren’t cancer, and won’t turn into cancer but will cause a whole host of further testings and surgeries. Here’s a hell of a statistic:

You need to screen 1,900 women in their 40s for 10 years in order to prevent one death from breast cancer, and in the process you will have generated more than 1,000 false-positive screens.

Now, if you’re that one person whose death was prevented, you might say it was totally worth it, and I would certainly understand. And, as a friend of mine said, if women want to pay for these mammograms out-of-pocket or with a private insurer, then they should go ahead. But what has not been talked about yet in the mainstream media is this:

A mammogram irradiates sensitive breast tissue at ONE THOUSAND times the radiation of a chest x-ray.

A THOUSAND TIMES.

Even the American Cancer Society lists high-dose radiation to the chest as a medium-to-high risk factor for developing cancer. (And just last week, this article in the New York Times talked about the risk of radiation from mammograms for young women — but reading between the lines, why not the same or more risk for older women?)

And radiation is cumulative. Which means that if you get yearly mammograms, all of that radiation is slowly but surely impacting breast tissue. And, in case that’s not enough, the radiation risks are about 4 times greater for the percentage of women who are silent carriers of the AT gene (ataxia-telangiectasia) which, by some estimates, accounts for 20% of all breast cancers diagnoses annually. And I’ll bet you don’t know if you’re a silent carrier. I sure as hell don’t.

So now I bet you’re wondering what you should do — the one form of “preventive” testing is now possibly the cause, or at least contributing to, the problem. Well, there is actually a Western medical testing alternative and it’s called thermography.

What’s Thermography? And Why Haven’t I Heard Of It?

Thermography, in recent studies, has shown that as a single test, has 99% accuracy in identifying breast cancer in women ages 30 to 55. For women over the age of 55, it’s still an impressive 95%. Mammography, on the other hand? only catches 70%. Thermography can detect signs of breast cancer as much as 10 years earlier than a mammography or a physical exam. And as for false positives, thermography is 98% correlated with biopsy results, so there are nearly no false positives at all. (Apparently, the other 2% is where the surgeon couldn’t find what the thermography saw). Mammograms? 11%.

What mammograms measure are anatomical changes like lumps or masses. What thermography measures is angiogenesis — the increase in blood flow that has to happen for a tumor to form. That angiogenesis creates infrared heat which the test translates into anatomical images. Which is why it can find a problem far earlier than waiting for a lump to occur.

And it’s been approved by the US FDA as an effective test for breast cancer screening. Check out BreastThermography.org which can explain more, and help you find a lab near you.

So there ARE alternatives (and ones more accurate than mammograms) that will not leave you without testing options, but have you noticed that you don’t hear this in the news reports? I don’t actually know why people haven’t heard about thermography, other than most people think that the mainstream media must always be giving them the full story. I was just at a party the other day and a man I was talking to about this very issue actually got annoyed and said, “How come more people don’t know about this?” And I said, “You really want to know what I think? (poor guy – he didn’t know what was coming). I think most people aren’t critical thinkers – they believe what they hear, and think that must be the whole truth. And people are somewhat lazy, to be honest — it’s easier to just believe what’s given to them, than to look up other facets of the issue.” (I wrote a blog post on this, on being a lemming). And he admitted he did just that… most people do, until something large and unfortunately often tragic jars them from their comfortable spot.

So What Else CAN You Do?

All right, so what else IS there? We actually sent out a newsletter from my office on this just a few weeks ago. And there were 4 basic things I wrote about that people should incorporate, if you wanted to actually DO something to prevent cancer, besides just waiting for a diagnosis. Because isn’t that what most people are doing? Just waiting?

Those Tumor Cells Are Starving For Sugar

When people ask me what’s the first thing I’d recommend, it would be to reduce carbohydrates in the diet. And by reduce, I mean to 70 – 100 grams a day. Most people are eating 3 – 5 times that, and often more. The reason this is so important is because cancer cells have a fast metabolism, up to 4 times faster than a normal cell, and they need sugar to support that. Carbs turn into sugar. And those tumor cells have more insulin receptor sites on them than normal cells, so they can get that sugar.

Studies have been done by Johns Hopkins and by Duke University confirming the correlation between high carbohydrate diets and increased cancer rates, and if you asked doctors about this, they would agree, and yet it is not commonly discussed in oncology offices.

The problem is, most people change their diet AFTER they get a diagnosis — if people changed it beforehand, maybe they wouldn’t GET that diagnosis.

800 Studies Showing Vitamin D Can Help Prevent Cancer? SHUT UP!

Another important link to cancer rates has been tied into Vitamin D levels. According to Dr. William B. Grant of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC), there are over 800 studies confirming that low Vitamin D levels increase rates of cancer. And to give you some perspective on how prevalent low D levels are, the national statistic is that 85% of people are deficient (95% of seniors) and our experience bears that out — in all the Vitamin D blood tests that we’ve run, we’ve had only one that has come back normal without supplementation. We recommend in the office at least 4,000 I.U.’s of D3 and you should consider a blood test to make sure of your levels.

Specifically For Breast Cancer

A third VITAL nutrient in the fight against cancer is iodine. Many people think that Japan’s low breast cancer rate is because of their soy intake, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s actually because of their high iodine intake, found mainly in seaweed. Yes, we have iodized salt in this country, but that’s just to prevent goiter, not enough for optimal health. Iodine is essential for thyroid health, eliminates fibrocystic breasts (a precursor to breast cancer) and prostate health, and after adequate levels are established in those tissues, is used throughout the body. Most people certainly aren’t eating much seaweed besides occasional sushi, and the only other source is from the soil, which is so depleted that the presence of iodine is almost non-existent. Supplementation is one of the only ways to regain normal levels of iodine. It’s dangerous to self-medicate on iodine without a blood test, so drop me an email if you have a question.

Estrogen Is NOT Your Friend

Lastly, estrogen levels directly impact breast cancer in a very negative way, and western drugs have mixed results on lowering those levels. (This is also where the constant recommendation to eat more leafy greens comes in). Cruciferous vegetables help modulate estrogen, and doing an effective liver cleanse (not a fast, but a cleanse) can allow the liver to convert estrogen to be removed safely from the body. Which is why we prescribe our cleanse specifically to remove excess estrogen, although people like it for lots of other reasons. Click here if you want more information, including a link to FAQ’s like the difference between a fast and a cleanse. The health of your liver and it’s ability to remove excess hormones from your body is directly impacting your ability to deal with cancer.

Just Start

There are, of course, other recommendations that you read about — Omega 3′s are helpful, and selenium (which you can get from 5 Brazil nuts every few days), exercise, etc. Of course they are all important. But these four things I’ve mentioned above can, and will, have a profound effect on your ability to prevent cancer, and perhaps have you NOT be like so many others, waiting and praying that it doesn’t hit you. Will and I personally do all of these things consistently and reliably — take D and iodine every morning, do our Cleanse every 6-8 months, and eat low-carb at least 85% of the time.

And when someone says, “How did so-and-so get cancer? They did EVERYTHING right!” you might, at this point, think to yourself:

Did they really? Did they have optimal D levels for decades? Have they eaten low-carb for years? Did they exercise consistently, month in and month out? Eat healthy fats? Do liver cleanses?

Chances are, probably not.

The most all of us can do is educate ourselves and just start wherever we are. I have no idea what the future holds, but I know that I’m doing everything I know to do to prevent myself from getting a dread diagnosis, just like you. Now you know what I know, so just go start. I don’t know if every moment counts, but I’m not willing to wait.