The Dark Side of Breast Cancer (Un)Awareness Month
'Hidden Dangers' of Mammograms Every Woman Should Know About
Mammography False-Positives Result in 84% Higher Rate of Breast Cancer Death, JAMA Oncology Reveals
Eating Flaxseed May Reduce Breast Cancer Mortality By Up To 70%
Did you know that AstraZeneca, manufacturer of two blockbuster breast cancer drugs (one of which is classified as a known human carcinogen), was the originator of Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
Why is it, do you think, that during Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) you never hear the word "carcinogen" mentioned, but are barraged a million times over by the word "cure"?
Truth be told, BCAM should be renamed Breast Cancer Un-Awareness Month, as it has very little to nothing to do with generating awareness about the true causes and solutions for the breast cancer epidemic and everything to do with making the public focus on a presumably not-yet-existent "cure" to be produced through the pharmaceutical pipeline somewhere off in the future only after enough money is raised.
Instead of identifying and addressing the known causes of cancer, like the many mammary carcinogens now identified in body care products, GMO and processed foods, and our polluted environment, the mission of BCAM is to make people think that the best way to prevent breast cancer is to "detect it early."
And how?
By subjecting their breasts to radiation-based diagnostic screening that we now know actually causes breast cancer, and which has lead to over one million cases of falsely diagnosed and unnecessarily treated breast cancers in the past 30 years in U.S. women alone. One recent review on the topic of mammography concluded that they are harmful and should be avoided, and yet you will hear countless messages this month that breast screenings are safe and effective for reducing breast cancer mortality -- technically, a lie.
This viral meme describes the underlying agenda succinctly:
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Back in 2012, when we first wrote "The Dark Side of Breast Cancer [Un]Awareness Month," in order to shed light on this travesty, the real history of Breast Cancer Awareness Month's origins was still relatively unknown despite the fact that it was a matter of public record. According to the Wikipedia page on the topic:
"NBCAM was founded in 1985 as a partnership between the American Cancer Society and the pharmaceutical division of Imperial Chemical Industries (now part of AstraZeneca, maker of several anti-breast cancer drugs). The aim of the NBCAM from the start has been to promote mammography as the most effective weapon in the fight against breast cancer."
The reference link listed on Wikipedia for the paragraph above comes from the BCAM website, but is now dead. For reasons that remain a mystery, the BCAM website was taken offline by AstraZeneca in the intervening years. Despite this, the BCAM domain name -- www.nbcam.org -- still links directly to AtraZeneca's HealthCare Foundation page; astounding evidence that AstraZeneca owned and controlled BCAM and still does. You can still view the WayBackMachine's archived NBCAM website here if you are curious.
And so why is this connection so important?
What is so disturbing about AstraZeneca's founding role in BCAM is that it "just happens" to make two blockbuster breast cancer drugs, Tamoxifen and Arimidex -- a conflict of interest so flagrant, its hard to ignore. Even more disturbing is that Tamoxifen is actually classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a known human carcinogen! A carcinogenic "treatment" for breast cancer? No wonder BCAM won't allow the word "carcinogen" mentioned in any of its campaigns.
Back when AstraZeneca kept the BCAM website functioning, it was easy to prove how BCAM and AstraZeneca had pinkwashed the concept of the true causes of cancer (carcinogens) from the public mind. You used to be able to plop the word "carcinogen" into the site's search engine feature and you would retrieve the following highly suspect results:
Your search - carcinogen - did not match any documents. No pages were found containing "carcinogen".
Likewise, back in 2012, on Susan G. Komen's website, the term "carcinogen" only emerged twice, and both in the context of denying the likelihood of there being a connection between smoking and breast cancer. If you search the site today, the term has been further scrubbed, with few informative results retrieved with the term, and most articles referencing the term striking an apologetic or minimizing tone, as far as the real risks such exposures have.
Clearly this is strategic. There are literally thousands of possible and known carcinogens identified in various public databases, such as Toxnet.gov. Roundup herbicide, for instance, was recently reclassified as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. If the goal is really to protect women and reduce breast cancer morbidity and mortality, shouldn't Breast Cancer Awareness Month focus on identifying and reducing exposure to probable and/or known carcinogens? Failing to do so is equivalent to deceit, if not malfeasance, is it not?
This all makes greater sense when you understand the history behind BCAM's founder AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca was formed through the merger of Astra AB and Zeneca Group (a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries) in 1999. Imperial Chemical Industries, a multinational corporation responsible for producing breast cancer causing petrochemical derivatives such as vinyl chloride and pesticides, founded National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985, in partnership with the American Cancer Society, in order to promote the widespread adoption of x-ray mammography, whose failings if not horrors we have documented extensively elsewhere.
This means the very corporation that contributed significantly to accelerating the breast cancer epidemic also profited and still profits from new diagnoses of breast cancer and their treatment.
Sadly, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of increasing awareness not of the preventable causes of breast cancer, but of the breast cancer industry's insatiable need to both raise money for research into a would-be "pharmaceutical cure," and to promote its primary means of "prevention": early detection via x-ray mammography.'It's also a cause-marketing feeding frenzy with a disturbingly vast array of carcinogen-containing products sporting Susan G. Komen's pink ribbon, presumably "in support" of raising awareness, including the hot pink fracking drill bit pictured above.
Please, before you consider going on a march, donating to the "cause," or buying a pink-ribbon-bedecked product this month, consider the true origins of the year's most widespread brainwashing event. You can also use our Cancer Research database with thousands of articles and study abstracts on treating cancer naturally.
Learn more by reading: 'Hidden Dangers' of Mammograms Every Woman Should Know About.
Finally, please share the meme below (save to desktop and re-upload to Facebook and other social media platforms), with the link to this article: https://tinyurl.com/gmipinkwash.
Article originally published: 2017-10-02
Article updated: 2020-10-26
The Dark Side of Breast Cancer (Un)Awareness Month
Sadly, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of increasing awareness not of the preventable causes of breast cancer, but of the breast cancer industry's insatiable need to both raise money for research into a pharmaceutical cure, and to promote its primary means of "prevention": early detection via x-ray mammography
[Part II: Benign Lesion or Tumor?]
The history of Breast Cancer Awareness Month's surprising origins is a matter of the public record:
"NBCAM was founded in 1985 as a partnership between the American Cancer Society and the pharmaceutical division of Imperial Chemical Industries (now part of AstraZeneca, maker of several anti-breast cancer drugs). The aim of the NBCAM from the start has been to promote mammography as the most effective weapon in the fight against breast cancer." ~ Wikipedia
If you doubt Wikipedia as a reliable source, visit the NBCAM website and try to contact them. It will be AstraZeneca that you will required to connect with, as evidenced by the screenshot below:
[Note: the NBCAM website was taken down since this article was first written, likely in response to growing awareness of their ulterior motives.]
AstraZeneca, manufacturer of the blockbuster breast cancer drugs Arimidex and Tamoxifen, was formed through the merger of Astra AB and Zeneca Group (a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries) in 1999. Imperial Chemical Industries, a multinational corporation responsible for producing carcinogenic petrochemical derivatives such as vinyl chloride and pesticides, founded National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 1985, in partnership with the American Cancer Society, in order to promote the widespread adoption of x-ray mammography, whose horrors we have documented elsewhere.
Sadly, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time of increasing awareness not of the preventable causes of breast cancer, but of the breast cancer industry's insatiable need to both raise money for research into a pharmaceutical cure, and to promote its primary means of "prevention": early detection via x-ray mammography.
On first account, a pharmaceutical "cure" is as unlikely as it is oxymoronic. Drugs do not cure disease anymore than bullets cure war. Beneath modern medicine's showy display of diagnostic contraptions, heroic "life-saving" procedures, and an armory of exotic drugs of strange origin and power, it is always the body's ability to heal itself - beneath the pomp and circumstance - that is truly responsible for medicine's apparent successes. Too often, in spite of what medicine does to "treat" or "save" the body, it is the body which against invasive chemical and surgical medical interventions, silently treats and saves itself.
If it were not for the body's truly miraculous self-healing abilities, and the ceaseless self-correction process that occurs each and every moment within each and every cell, our bodies would perish within a matter of minutes. The mystery is not in how our body succumbs to cancer; rather the mystery is in how, after years and even decades of chemical exposure and nutrient deprivation our bodies prevail against cancer for so long.
The primary causes of breast cancer: nutritional deficiencies, exposure to environmental toxicity, inflammation, estrogen dominance and the resultant breakdown in genetic integrity and immune surveillance, are entirely overlooked by this fixation on drug therapy and its would-be "magic bullets."
Billions of dollars are raised and funneled towards drug research, when the lowly turmeric plant, the humble cabbage and the unassuming bowl of miso soup may offer far more promise in the prevention and treatment of breast cancer than all the toximolecular drugs on the market put together. (To view several dozen substances, visit our Breast Cancer page)
When it comes to the breast cancer industry's emphasis on equating "prevention" with "early detection" through x-ray mammography, nowhere is the inherently pathological ideology of allopathic medicine more clearly evident. Not only is the very ionizing radiation used to discern pathological lesions in breast tissue one of the very risk factors for the development of breast cancer, but the identification of the word "prevention" with "early detection," is a disingenuous way of saying that all we can do to prevent breast cancer is to detect its inevitable presence sooner than would be possible without this technology.
If women succumb to the idea of prevention as doing nothing but waiting for the detection of the disease, many will find a similarly deranged logic reemerge later when the self-fulfilling prophecy of prevention-through-doing-nothing is fulfilled and "treatment" is now required. "Treatment," when not strictly surgical, involves the use of very powerful chemicals and high doses of ionizing radiation which "poison" the cancer cells.
The obvious problem with this approach is that the application of either form of death energy is not suitably selective, and in the long run, many women die sooner from the side effects of toximolecular "therapy" than from the cancer itself. Why is the obvious question never asked: if exposure to the genotoxic and immune system disabling effects of chemicals and radiation is causative in breast cancer, then why is blasting the body with more poisonous chemicals and radiation considered sound treatment?
The answer to this question has much more to do with ignorance than it does an intentional desire to do harm. But the results are the same: unnecessary pain, suffering and death.
Faced with a situation where medieval notions of prevention and treatment of breast cancer are the norm, it is no wonder that when polled over 40% of women believe they will contract breast cancer sometime in their life - well over three times their actual risk. After all, have any of them been given a sense that there is something they can do to actually prevent their disease other than "watchful waiting"?
Obfuscating the real preventative measures available to women to combat breast cancer, and all cancers for that matter, trusted "authoritative" sources like the Susan G. Komen Foundation publish irresponsible statements like this:
"It is unclear what the exact relationship is between eating fruits and vegetables and breast cancer risk...little, if any link was found between the two in a pooled analysis that combined data from eight large studies."
Have we really come to the point where the commonsense consumption of fruits and vegetables in the prevention of disease can so matter-of-factly be called into question? Do we really need randomized, double-blind and placebo controlled clinical trials to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that our bodies can benefit from the phytonutrients and antioxidants in fruits and vegetables in the prevention of cancer?
Another atrocious example of this conspiracy against identifying the obvious causes and cures for diseases like breast cancer is the National Breast Cancer Foundation's website. Go to the top of their homepage and type in "carcinogen" in their site wide search box. This is what will appear on the results page:
Your search - carcinogen - did not match any documents. No pages were found containing "carcinogen".
On Susan G. Komen's website the term only emerges twice, and both in the context of denying the likliehood of there being a connection between smoking and breast cancer.
If you can remove the reality of carcinogenicity by erasing from the mind's of would-be cancer sufferers the word carcinogen, and thereby conceal the link between environmental and dietary exposures of a multitude of toxins, then the obvious "cure" these massive organizations are vacuuming in billions of dollars of donations every year to find, namely, the removal of carcinogens and detoxification of the system, will never be discovered.
Examples like these make it increasingly apparent that orthodox medicine, and the world view it represents, is approaching a theoretical end-time perhaps most accurately described as Pharmageddon. Within the horizon of this perspective vitamins are considered toxic, fruits and vegetables simply a source of caloric content (a poor one, at that), and cancer-causing drugs are understood as the only legitimate and for that matter, legal, way to combat cancer. Are we really at the tipping point, or is there still hope?
Fortunately there are thousands of scientific studies extant today on the therapeutic value of foods, herbs and spices in breast health, many of which can be found on the government's own biomedical database known as MEDLINE. Decades of research have confirmed the veracity of the Hippocratic phrase: "Let food be thy medicine," and until a prescription is required to obtain and consume organic food, we can still draw from a vast cornucopia of natural substances whose safety and efficacy that the conventional pharmacopeia to shame.
'Hidden Dangers' of Mammograms Every Woman Should Know About
Millions of women undergo them annually, but few are even remotely aware of just how many dangers they are exposing themselves to in the name of prevention, not the least of which are misdiagnosis, overdiagnosis and the promotion of breast cancer itself.
A concerning study published in the Annals of Family Medicine titled, Long-term psychosocial consequences of false-positive screening mammography, brings to the forefront a major underreported harm of breast screening programs: the very real and lasting trauma associated with a false-positive diagnosis of breast cancer.[1]
The study found that women with false-positive diagnoses of breast cancer, even three years after being declared free of cancer, "consistently reported greater negative psychosocial consequences compared with women who had normal findings in all 12 psychosocial outcomes."
The psychosocial and existential parameters adversely affected were:
- Sense of dejection
- Anxiety
- Negative impact on behavior
- Negative impact on sleep
- Degree of breast self-examination
- Negative impact on sexuality
- Feeling of attractiveness
- Ability to keep 'mind off things'
- Worries about breast cancer
- Inner calm
- Social network
- Existential values
What is even more concerning is that "[S]ix months after final diagnosis, women with false-positive findings reported changes in existential values and inner calmness as great as those reported by women with a diagnosis of breast cancer."
In other words, even after being "cleared of cancer," the measurable adverse psychospiritual effects of the trauma of diagnosis were equivalent to actually having breast cancer.
Given that the cumulative probability of false-positive recall or biopsy recommendation after 10 years of screening mammography is at least 50%,[2] this is an issue that will affect the health of millions of women undergoing routine breast screening.
The Curse of False Diagnosis and 'Bone-Pointing'
Also, we must be cognizant of the fact that these observed 'psychosocial' and 'existential' adverse effects don't just cause some vaguely defined 'mental anguish,' but translate into objectively quantifiable physiological consequences of a dire nature.
For instance, last year, a groundbreaking study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that, based on data on more than 6 million Swedes aged 30 and older, the risk of suicide was found to be up to 16 times higher and the risk of heart-related death up to 26.9 times higher during the first week following a positive versus a negative cancer diagnosis.[3]
This was the first study of its kind to confirm that the trauma of diagnosis can result in, as the etymology of the Greek word trauma reveals, a "physical wound." In the same way as Aborigonal cultures had a 'ritual executioner' or 'bone pointer' known as a Kurdaitcha who by pointing a bone at a victim with the intention of cursing him to death, resulting in the actual self-willed death of the accursed, so too does the modern ritual of medicine reenact ancient belief systems and power differentials, with the modern physician, whether he likes it or not, a 'priest of the body.'; we must only look to the well-known dialectic of the placebo and nocebo effects to see these powerful, "irrational" processes still operative.
Millions Harmed by Breast Screening Despite Assurances to the Contrary
Research of this kind clearly indicates that the conventional screening process carries health risks, both to body and mind, which may outstrip the very dangers the medical surveillance believes itself responsible for, and effective at, mitigating. For instance, according to a groundbreaking study published last November in New England Journal of Medicine, 1.3 million US women were overdiagnosed and overtreated over the past 30 years.[4] These are the 'false positives' that were never caught, resulting in the unnecessary irradiation, chemotherapy poisoning and surgery of approximately 43,000 women each year. Now, when you add to this dismal statistic the millions of 'false positives' that while being caught nevertheless resulted in producing traumas within those women, breast screening begins to look like a veritable nightmare of iatrogenesis.
And this does not even account for the radiobiological dangers of the x-ray mammography screening process itself, which may be causing an epidemic of mostly unackowledged radiation-induced breast cancers in exposed populations.
For instance, in 2006, a paper published in the British Journal of Radiobiology, titled "Enhanced biological effectiveness of low energy X-rays and implications for the UK breast screening programme," revealed the type of radiation used in x-ray-based breast screenings is much more carcinogenic than previously believed:
"Recent radiobiological studies have provided compelling evidence that the low energy X-rays as used in mammography are approximately four times - but possibly as much as six times - more effective in causing mutational damage than higher energy X-rays. Since current radiation risk estimates are based on the effects of high energy gamma radiation, this implies that the risks of radiation-induced breast cancers for mammography X-rays are underestimated by the same factor.[5]
Even the conventional breast cancer treatment protocols themselves have recently been found to contribute to enhancing cancer malignancy and increasing mortality. Chemotherapy and radiation both appear to enrich the cancer stem cell populations, which are at the root of breast cancer malignancy and invasiveness. In fact, the prestigious journal Cancer, a publication of the American Cancer Society, published a study performed by researchers from the Department of Radiation Oncology at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center showing that even when radiation kills half of the tumor cells treated, the surviving cells which are resistant to treatment, known as induced breast cancer stem cells (iBCSCs), were up to 30 times more likely to form tumors than the nonirradiated breast cancer cells. In other words, the radiation treatment regresses the total population of cancer cells, generating the false appearance that the treatment is working, but actually increases the ratio of highly malignant to benign cells within that tumor, eventually leading to the iatrogenic (treatment-induced) death of the patient.[6]
What we are increasingly bearing witness to in the biomedical literature itself is that the conventional breast cancer prevention and treatment strategy and protocols are bankrupt. Or, from the perspective of the more cynical observer, it is immensely successful, owing to the fact that it is driving billions of dollars or revenue by producing more of what it claims to be fighting.
The time has come for a radical transformation in the way that we understand, screen for, prevent and treat cancer. It used to be that natural medical advocates didn't have the so-called peer-reviewed 'evidence' to back up their intuitive and/or anecdotal understanding of how to keep the human body in health and balance. That time has passed. GreenMedInfo.com, for instance, has over 50,000 abstracts and articles in support of a return to a medical model where the 'alternative' is synthetic, invasive, emergency-modeled medicine, and the norm is using food, herbs, minerals, vitamins and lifestyle changes to maintain, promote and regain optimal health. For more in-depth research on the topic of x-ray mammography and breast cancer, view our databases on the topic:
Additional References [1]John Brodersen, Volkert Dirk Siersma. Long-term psychosocial consequences of false-positive screening mammography. Ann Fam Med. 2013 Mar-Apr;11(2):106-15. PMID: 23508596 [2] Rebecca A Hubbard, Karla Kerlikowske, Chris I Flowers, Bonnie C Yankaskas, Weiwei Zhu, Diana L Miglioretti. Cumulative probability of false-positive recall or biopsy recommendation after 10 years of screening mammography: a cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2011 Oct 18 ;155(8):481-92. PMID: 22007042 [3]Research: Some Diagnoses Kill You Quicker Than The Cancer, April 2012 [4]30 Years of Breast Screening: 1.3 Million Women Wrongly Treated, Nov. 2012 [5]GreenMedInfo.com, How X-Ray Mammography Is Accelerating the Epidemic of Breast Cancer, June 2012 [6]GreenMedInfo.com, Study: Radiation Therapy Can Make Cancers 30x More Malignant, June 2012
Originally published: 2017-09-29
Article updated: 2019-04-11
Mammography False-Positives Result in 84% Higher Rate of Breast Cancer Death, JAMA Oncology Reveals
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A new study published in JAMA Oncology reveals that mammograms -- a common cause of false-positive breast cancer diagnoses -- result in a much higher rate of breast cancer deaths (84% higher over a 20-year surveillance period) than those who are not diagnosed with cancer mistakenly.
False positive diagnoses have long been known to have deleterious effects to both the physical and psychospiritual health and well-being of those who undergo them, especially in the case of highly touted mammograms which form the basis of breast cancer awareness marketing campaigns like Breast Cancer Awareness Month ("Pinktober") that drive hundreds of millions around the world to undergo them annually or biannually, yet few of which are being properly informed about their rather concerning unintended adverse effects.
After all, when you are told by a trusted medical authority that you have a deadly disease that may require harsh, or even life-threatening treatment with chemotherapy, radiation, or invasive surgery, including possibly the removal of tissue (lumpectomy) or an entire organ (mastectomy), this profound shock alone is itself a form of trauma that has physiological consequences that produce new disease in those who were actually healthy before the incorrect diagnosis occurred. Learn more about this underreported problem here: 'Hidden Dangers' of Mammograms Every Woman Should Know About.
Breast cancer is, after all, one of the most feared and commonly diagnosed diseases, with about 240,000 cases being diagnosed each year in the United States alone, and with 42,000 deaths attributed to breast cancer, annually, according to CDC statistics.1 It also constitutes a massive global industry, expected to grow to about 74 billion dollars in revenue by 2032.
The primary preventive strategy used today is x-ray mammography, which has a wide range of unintended, adverse effects, the most significant of which are its associated radiological risks and harms related to the gamma rays used, which are a known breast carcinogen. This is especially a concern for those with the so-called BRCA1 and BRCA2 'mutations' which actually increase the risk of developoing radiation-induced breast cancer.
The latest guidelines put forward by the US Preventive Services Guidelines, which are highly controversial and which I have critiqued recently here, are now recommending that all women get screened every other year starting at age 40. These guidelines put millions more healthy women at risk of radiation-induced adverse breast changes, as well as the psychobiological harms addressed in this article.
The conventional medical establishment is notorious for overlooking these risks, which include X-ray radiation exposure, false positive diagnoses, and overdiagnosis and its corrollary overtreatment. In fact, over a decade ago, it was estimated that over 1.3 million women have had their breasts removed due to a diagnosis known as ductal carcinoma in situe (DCIS), which is no longer considered equivalent to cancer by many health professionals due to its intrinsically benign nature; an archetypal example of overdiagnosis and overtreatment.
Overdiagnosis can be distinguished from false positives in that in overdiagnosis screen-detected abnormalities are observed in asymptomatic and ostensibly healthy women which would not cause harm if left undetected, or would cause more net harm to be diagnosed and treated than if left undiscovered or left to progress untreated (so-called "watchful waiting.")
False positives, on the other hand, occur when there is a positive screening mammography assessment that leads to more diagnostic work-up but no diagnosis of breast cancer. While false positives are ultimately discovered as such, the damage may already be done, given the power of the subconscious mind and the so-called nocebo effect, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, to do profound emotional and bodily harm to those who think they have a life-threatening diagnosis of cancer but are not actually sick. (Learn more here: The Nocebo Effect and Cancer)
Also, in the US, false positives are disturbingly common, with about 11% of women receiving a false-positive result from a single screening,2 In Europe, cases are far lower at 2.5%, but this still corresponds to a large cumulative risk because after 10 screenings approximately 1 in 5 women in Europe will experience at least 1 false-positive mammography result.3, 4
The latest population-based study published in JAMA Oncology looked at the data from 45, 213 Swedish women who received a first false-positive mammography result between 1991 and 2017 in comparison to 452,130 controls matched on age, calendar year of mammography, and screening history (no previous false-positive result).
The major finding was that, after being tracked for 20 years, 11% of women in the false-positive group later developed breast cancer, versus only 7% of women without a false-positive. This amounts to an 84% higher rate of breast cancer death in the false-positive group versus the control group.
The reason why false-positives may result in a higher death rate are likely multifactorial, and may include the following reasons:
- The psychospiritual/nocebo effects of being told one has or may have cancer (even if shortly corrected once identifed), can cause high stress/immune dysfunction, and as a result, contributing to poorer health/higher breast cancer risk, over time. In other words, once the seed is planted that one may have cancer, or is at greater risk, the shock of this medical trauma may continue forward for years, or even decades, undermining that individual's health.
- The patient may believe that having received a false positive, they are at greater risk/higher vulnerability and will seek more preventive services than those who are not as concerned, resulting in more x-ray exposure, additional false positives and the increased likelihood of unnecessary treatment (not all false positives will be caught, leading to higher risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment), which ultimately increases their risk of iatrogenic (doctor- and medicine-caused morbidity/mortality) harm, including the culmintative burden of increased radiotoxicity/carcinogenicity of the mammograms themselves which can result in the formation of new cancers.
- According to the JAMA researchers, they believe that these findings indicate that more intensive screening and individualized programs are needed, and not less. (I am skeptical of this approach, as it ignores the reasons I just brought up).
Ultimately these results bring into question, once more, the net benefit of mammography. Mammography, as a “prevention” tool is no longer so clearly effective in preventing either breast cancer diagnoses or breast cancer associated deaths, given an accumulating body of research the contrary.
"Effectiveness" should be evaluated by looking at the balance of potential harms and benefits, which is not often done by the conventional medical system which aggressively promotes mammograms to healthy women without highlighting their real risks, nor providing sufficient information on alternative approaches.
There are time-tested, and increasingly reearch-backed food-based, nutraceutical, and lifestyle-based ways to prevent and even treat breast cancer. There is also the diagnosis alternative of thermography, which has no radiation risk, and can detect metabolic abnormalities and pathologies many years before an imbalance will present as a screen-detected abnormality. This can give someone a multi-year advantage versus waiting until a problem associated with toxicity, inactivity, and a disease-promoting diet presents itself as an “organic lesion” in the body.
For more information on either breast cancer prevention strategies, and the inherent down sides of mammography, you can visit the following resources on www.Greenmedinfo.com:
- Research on natural substances and approaches researched for breast cancer.
- X-Ray Mammography Harms.
- 30 Years of Breast Screening: 1.3 Million Wrongly Treated
- Covering Up The Causes of Breast Cancer Since 1985: AstraZeneca's BCAM
- Ladies, Ditch the Bra
References
1. Basic Information About Breast Cancer, Centers for Diease Control and Prevention
2. Brewer NT, Salz T, Lillie SE. Systematic review: the long-term effects of false-positive mammograms. Ann Intern Med. 2007;146(7):502-510. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-146-7-200704030-00006
3. Nelson HD, O’Meara ES, Kerlikowske K, Balch S, Miglioretti D. Factors associated with rates of false-positive and false-negative results from digital mammography screening: an analysis of registry data. Ann Intern Med. 2016;164(4):226-235. doi:10.7326/M15-0971
4. Tsuruda KM, Larsen M, Román M, Hofvind S. Cumulative risk of a false-positive screening result: a retrospective cohort study using empirical data from 10 biennial screening rounds in BreastScreen Norway. Cancer. 2022;128(7):1373-1380. doi:10.1002/cncr.34078
Eating Flaxseed May Reduce Breast Cancer Mortality By Up To 70%
Mainstream medicine continues to push women to get yearly mammograms (recently, adding women as young as 40 to their recommendations) in order to "fight" the epidemic of deadly breast cancer affecting women at an alarming rate. However, an underreported body of evidence shows that mammograms do nothing to prevent the disease or improve survival rates. But the amazing little flaxseed does.
Scores of studies reveal the anticancer effects of flaxseed, across a wide range of cancers. Researchers from the University of Toronto reviewed the literature to answer questions about the compounds found in flaxseed and how effective they are in reducing breast cancer risk and tumor growth, and whether flaxseeds interact beneficially with breast cancer drugs.
They reviewed in vitro, animal, observational, and clinical studies on flaxseed and flaxseed oil, as well as lignans found in flaxseed.
Lignans are a class of phytoestrogens or plant estrogens that also act as antioxidants. Other foods also contain lignans including sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, grains (rye, barley, wheat and oats), broccoli and beans. But flaxseed has hundreds of times the amount of lignans as any of the others.
The University of Toronto review documents the amazing power of flaxseed to prevent and slow the growth of breast cancer. Here's what the studies tell us:
- The majority of animal studies show a diet of 2.5%-10% flaxseed or the equivalent amount of lignan or flaxseed oil reduces tumor growth.
- Diets consisting of 10% flaxseed and the equivalent amount of lignans do not interfere with but rather increase the effectiveness of tamoxifen. A diet of 4% flaxseed oil increases trastuzumab/Herceptin effectiveness.
- Observational studies show flaxseed and lignan intake, urinary excretion, or serum levels are associated with reduced breast cancer risk, particularly in postmenopausal women.
- Lignans reduce breast cancer mortality by 33% to 70%. They also reduce all-cause mortality by 40%-53%. In both cases, lignans do not reduce the effectiveness of Tamoxifen.
- Clinical trials show that taking 25 grams per day of flaxseed (containing 50 mg lignans) for 32 days reduces tumor growth in breast cancer patients.
- Taking 50 mg of lignans for one year reduces breast cancer risk in premenopausal women.
Flaxseeds protect women from breast cancer in a variety of ways. Here are just a few:
- Flaxseeds decrease tumor cell proliferation. When eaten, lignans in flaxseeds are broken down by bacteria in the gut into 2 estrogen-like compounds that circulate through the liver. These compounds have been proven in animal studies to help prevent breast cancer by preventing tumor growth.
- Lignans block tumor blood supply. Tumors need angiogenesis - new blood vessels - to supply oxygen and nutrients for growth. Flaxseeds inhibit the growth factor needed to stimulate angiogenesis according to animal studies.
- Lignans lower estrogen production. Lignans block aromatase, the enzyme involved in the production of estrogen. Blocking the enzyme lowers estrogen production. High estrogen levels have been linked to the growth of breast cancer.
- Lignans block estrogen receptors. Phytoestrogens like lignans have been estimated to be hundreds of times weaker than human estrogen. But these plant estrogens dock on estrogen receptors and prevent the activity of stronger cancer stimulating human estrogens and environmental or xenoestrogens. In that way their effect is similar to the cancer drug Tamoxifen.
- Lignans help generate more protective estrogens. Estrogen is broken down in the liver into three different metabolites. Two of those metabolites are linked to the growth of breast cancer cells. But the third type – 2-OH estrone – does not stimulate cancer growth and is considered protective. Lignans influence how the liver breaks down estrogen and encourages more of the protective 2-OH estrone and less of the other cancer producing metabolites.
- Flaxseeds lower the risk of metastasis. Flaxseeds may substantially decrease cases of metastasis. In one animal study, a high flaxseed diet reduced the incidence of metastasis by 82% compared to the control group.
An earlier meta-analysis showed that flaxseed can prevent and kill breast cancer. It cited observational studies suggesting the consumption of flaxseed may:
- Decrease risk of primary breast cancer by 18%
- Improve mental health of breast cancer patients by 76%
- Lower mortality among breast cancer patients by 32%
Adding cancer-protective flaxseed to your diet is easy.
Many of the studies show just 25 grams (2.5 tablespoons) per day is effective. Studies also show that up to 40 grams per day are safe in postmenopausal women.
Choose either golden or brown flaxseeds but make sure they're organic to avoid agrochemical laden varieites.
Grind the seeds in a coffee bean grinder. But ground flax will go rancid so grind only a week's worth and store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.
Add 1 or 2 tablespoons to cereals, smoothies, yogurt or salads. You can also add it to baked breads and muffins. Aim for 2 to 4 tablespoons per day but work up to that gradually so that your digestive system adjusts to the high fiber content.
For more information on flaxseed, use our database on the subject above. For more information on natural substances that may be of value in the prevention and treatment of cancer. Use our Cancer database on the topic to search thousands of studies.
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Originally published: 2014-06-08
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