11 Tips for Breast Cancer Prevention

It's Breast Cancer Awareness month, so here are a few simple tips for prevention!

1. Exercise: Women who do aerobic exercise 3-5 times per week have a 37-60% less risk of breast cancer. Exercise lowers the amount of estrogen and dangerous estrogen metabolites.
2. Stress Reduction: Chronic stress is a huge risk factor not only for heart disease, high blood pressure, ulcers, and depression but also cancer. Breast cancer frequently follows a period of severe, constant stress…a bad marriage, the death of a child, abusive work conditions, and bankruptcy. Cortisol, the stress hormone increases estrogen dominance. Getting rid of stressors, consciously acknowledging them, and altering your response to those stressors is critical in disease prevention. Walk, talk, meditate, laugh, and BREATHE! People who ‘go with the flow' and ‘let it go' rarely get cancer. Release the anger, forgive.
3. Low Carbohydrate Diet: Elevated insulin levels from a diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates, increase ‘estrogen dominance' by increasing the amount of free estrogen and stimulating the estrogen receptor directly. Tumor cells over express insulin receptors allowing more glucose in to feed the tumor. Breast, and other cancers are stimulated by sugar and other refined carbohydrates. Women diagnosed with breast cancer, who have high insulin levels, have an increased risk of breast cancer coming back and are more likely to die from breast cancer.
4. Whole food, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds: “Let food be your medicine. ” Hippocrates Much of what you need to prevent cancer is a gift from the earth. It's your choice. The more refined the food, the less nutrition, the more chemicals. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds contain Phytonutrients, which naturally balance your hormones. They contain usable minerals, vitamins, and fibers which also lower the estrogen burden and create healthy estrogen metabolites. Eat 5-8 servings a day.
5. Avoid Partially Hydrogenated Oils and Tran fats: They are found in almost all processed foods. They not only increase the dangerous estrogen metabolites they stimulate the breast cancer cell directly. Use olive oil or coconut oil instead.
6. Omega 3 Fatty Acids: Essential fatty acids (flaxseed and high quality fish oil capsules) inhibit breast cancer cell proliferation. Flax seed (2 Tbsp. /day) has been shown to reduce the size of breast cancers between the time of diagnosis and surgery. Flaxseed also increases the good estrogen metabolites and binds to the estrogen receptor directly preventing the strong and chemical estrogens from stimulating the cell. I also recommend chia seeds.
7. Fiber: Fiber lowers the amount of estrogen and estrogen metabolites which are available to stimulate the breast tissue. It also lowers insulin and glucose levels which feed tumor cells.
8. Get the Chemicals out of your home and off of your body: Chemical estrogens are very stimulatory to the breast tissue, acting as very strong estrogen. Lotions contain all types of chemicals which get absorbed into your body through the skin.
9. Limit or avoid Alcohol: Limit alcohol if you have breast cancer. Alcohol is not only toxic to the cell but increases the amount of estrogen made in the fatty tissue.
10. Avoid obesity: This will lower the amount of estrone, a stimulatory estrogen, made in the fatty tissue. It will help prevent the conversion of testosterone (breast protective) to estrogen.
11. Sleep: A low melatonin level has been associated with an increased risk of breast and other cancers. Poor sleep affects the immune system. Hormone imbalance affects sleep.

Photo courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Saturated Fat Is NOT The Enemy

Nutrition advice has performed some pretty spectacular flip-flops over the past few decades. First nuts were thought to cause heart disease, then eggs were banished from the breakfast table only to be welcomed back later. Margarine was first deemed healthier than butter—until researchers determined that the trans fats were much harder on the arteries.

Saturated Fats De-Villainized

Yes you heard me right... the time has come for saturated fats to be de-villainized as cause of all heart disease. 

 "The mantra that saturated fat must be removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four decades," says Dr Aseem Malhotra author of a recent editorial in BMJ.  And it's time for that to change!

Scientists universally accept that trans fats—found in many fast foods, bakery products, and margarines—increase the risk of cardiovascular disease through inflammatory processes. But “saturated fat” is another story. The mantra that saturated fat must be removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four decades. Yet scientific evidence shows that this advice has, paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risks. Furthermore, the obsession with levels of total cholesterol, which has led to the overmedication of millions of people with statins, has diverted our attention from the more egregious risk factor of atherogenic dyslipidemia.

Saturated fats, like butter, provide essential nutrients

Recent studies have not supported any significant association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk. Instead, it has been found to be protective. The source of the saturated fat may be important. Organic butter is a great provider of vitamins A and D and there is a link between vitamin D deficiency and a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular mortality.

Butter is a key source of the most easily utilized form of Vitamin A, required for support of skin and organs, including endocrine glands, the immune system and the brain. And butter is loaded with antioxidants! It contains vitamin E, good cholesterol (the type that is not oxidized) and is important for brain function. It is a natural source of conjugated linoleic acids (CLA), which show promise in research for holding weight to a normal range and preventing diabetes.

Processed meats, not organic, pasture-raised dairy and beef, are dangerous...

One study showed that higher concentrations of plasma palmitoleic acid, a fatty acid mainly found in dairy foods, was associated with higher concentrations of high density lipoprotein, lower concentrations of triglycerides and C reactive protein, reduced insulin resistance, and a lower incidence of diabetes in adults.  Red meat is a major source of saturated fat. Consumption of processed meats, but not red meat, has been associated with coronary heart disease and diabetes mellitus, which may be explained by nitrates and sodium as preservatives.

Carbohydrates, especially processed ones may be a bigger risk factor for inflammation & heart disease.

Saturated fat may raise LDL cholesterol. But compared to carbohydrates, it also raises HDL cholesterol and lowers triglycerides. If we looked just at LDL, we would predict that saturated fat raises heart disease risk. If we looked at the effect of saturated fat on HDL and triglycerides, we would suppose that saturated fat lowers that risk. If we looked at the combination, we would predict that saturated fat is relatively neutral for heart disease risk compared to carbohydrates.

Dr. Malhotra's editorial suggests the following: 

• Low-saturated-fat diets cut levels of lower-risk large, buoyant LDL particles rather than the small, dense LDL particles thought to worsen cardiovascular disease. 
• Dietary saturated fat may actually protect against cardiovascular risk. 
• Low-fat diets promote an atherogenic pattern of blood lipids and worsen insulin resistance. 
• Low total-cholesterol levels are "associated with cardiovascular death, indicating that high total cholesterol is not a risk factor in a healthy population."
• Even in secondary prevention, no cholesterol-lowering drug besides statins has shown survival benefit, supporting the hypothesis that the benefits of statins are independent of their effects on cholesterol. 
• The "Mediterranean diet" confers three times the survival benefit in secondary prevention, compared with statins; it led to a 30% improvement compared with a "low-fat" diet in the PREDIMED study.

So here's my list of the Top Ten Saturated Fats you can enjoy guilt-free!

1. Coconut oil 
2. Egg yolks
3. Avocado
4. Organic pastured, cultured butter or Ghee
5. Organic dark chocolate
6. Sardines
7. Raw organic cheese
8. Brazil nuts
9. Macademia nuts
10. Cashews

Read the BMJ editorial here