On breast cancer , part I

The rate of breast cancer is augmenting in the present times: an increase of 138% of number of breast cancers in 25 years between 1980 and 2005 has been observed only in France. Breast cancer is responsible for cancer death in women, of which about 30% are younger than 50 years of age. Cancer affects younger women more and more often, i.e. 50 % of cases affect women before 40 years of age. All cancers on their own are the second cause of death after cardiovascular diseases.

According to Prof. Henri Joyeux, an internationally recognized oncologist and digestive surgeon at Montpellier University , Cancer Institute and Hospitals, whenever a woman affected by breast cancer is operated, nobody tells her that the definite cure can be established only after 27 years beyond her first treatment. In the meanwhile it is possible to get new tumors. However, this recurrence and the onset of cancer itself are avoidable if one addresses the primary causes of such cancer.

Causes of breast tumor are several, identifiable and different for each woman:
 - genetic risk: 5 to 8% of women with breast cancer present the genetic risk [with such low values I wonder if it’s worth going through preventive surgery if one has the risk genes!], 
- risk caused by tobacco and drugs. (For women, due to their lower lung capacity being 30 to 50 % lower than men, the effect of smoking is catastrophic. Tobacco and marijuana are also immuno-depressant, thus they further weaken the system in face of other risks), 
- risk caused by chronic stress 
- risk caused by bad nutrition
- risk caused by artificial hormones
- and other risks: lack of physical exercise , atmospheric pollution, pesticides, insecticides, 

In regards to bad nutrition, I would just state here two major obvious facts, supported by Professor Henri Joyeux, active educator on the dominant importance of nutrition in the prevention and treatment of cancer and the first to alert French women on the danger of the pill with a book published in 2001. 
Here are the two facts: 
1.being overweight and obesity are conditions in which the fat (from excess sugars, milk products and excessive animal fats) is stored in the mammary glands, and this fat is a carcinogen. 
2. According to Prof Joyeux, use of milk and milk products is strictly linked to the explosion of the number of breast and prostate cancers of the last decades. More specific information on food for cancer will be given at the end of this post. However, consider this: researchers estimate that 40 % of breast cancers could be avoided in US by simple life style modifications!

As for the risk due to artificial hormones, .i.e. those NOT produced naturally by our own body… Hormones are steroids and these are growth factors. Growth factors induce cellular division in all cells. Cancer is uncontrolled cellular division. Hormonal treatment, such as the contraceptive pill and hormonal replacement therapies, increases the risk of breast cancer. For menopaused women under HRT this risk is calculated to be up to 30%.

The use of the contraceptive pill has been proven to be linked to the appearance of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer (showing earlier and earlier in life) as well as to vascular problems, phlebitis, cerebral thrombosis, heart infarction. Other ‘side effects’ of the use of synthetic hormones are libido changes, immune depression, allergic reactions, candidiasis, anxiety, insomnia, skin problems, acne, hirsutism, loss of hair, breast tenderness and headaches, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, water retention, liver tumor, ovarian cysts.
 
The awareness of the link between hormones and cancer has a long history (at least in the research arena). In 1932 Dr Antoine Lacassagne at the Institute Curie of Paris caused breast cancer in mouse with oestrogens. In 1971 diethylstilbestrol (DES), an oestrogenic anti-progesterone prescribed in the 60s and 70s to prevent natural abortions, was found to be responsible for giving genital cancer to the baby girls of the mothers who took it at the beginning of their pregnancy. It is now abolished for the undesired « side effects ». In 1987 the scientific journal Cancer showed that oral contraceptives increase the cellular mitosis of normal and carcinogenic breast cells in vitro. In 1998 the International Centre of Cancer Research, depending on the World Health Organization, classified oral contraceptives and replacement therapy hormones as « carcinogenic of class I - i.e. of whose the action on humans is certain ».
 
More recent research: last year, in a study including more than 50,000 women, the epidemiologist Lynn Rosenberg (Boston University) found that the risk of developing a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer increased to 65% in women who took the pill. In 2002 during the Women Health Study on hormonal replacement therapy the tests had to be stopped when the researchers realized that the women who were taking synthetic hormones developed a much higher risk to get breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, embolism.

Respectful organizations and scientific journals at international level such as the WHO, the American Cancer Society, the US National Cancer Institute, the International Centre of Research of Cancer , The Lancet Oncology  connect the use of the pill and hormone replacement therapy to breast and cervical cancer and benign liver tumors, among other undesired effects such as thromboembolism, coronary events, stroke.

All these risks need to be further weighed by considering that, as stated in the New England Journal of Medicine, the rate of success of oral contraceptive pill protection wobbles between 80 and 95% (i.e. like a condom).