Everything I read these days has an article about Breast Cancer,  October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I was particularly interested in an article in Maclean’s Oct 9 06 featuring the author Samantha King and her recent book “Pink Ribbons Inc”.  Dr. King, PhD, is a professor at Queen’s University and she reminds us that heart disease kills six times as many women as breast cancer does: 5300 women die of breast cancer per year and over 31,000 women die of heart disease per year in Canada. There seems to be an endless supply of pink ribbons but what symbol do we have to remind women that heart disease is their number one killer? This discrepancy may be due to the fact that heart disease is rightly or wrongly related to bad lifestyle choices and breast cancer is not. The pink ribbon symbol according to Dr. King, is connected to survivor identity and winning involvement. What gets lost behind the “pink” is that it is a really horrible disease and people still die from it. The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation is the biggest recipient of funds from the pink ribbon fund raising and only a very small amount of this research money is spent researching the primary causes of breast cancer. Wendy Mesley in her report (see my article April 19 2006) also found that no one was interested in what caused her breast cancer especially when she was following the 7 steps of cancer prevention outlined by the Canadian Cancer Society. What needs more research is the fact that our environment is estrogen dominant and the humans living within it are too!

Think about it. Ever since the birth control pill was invented in the 1960’s women have been ingesting and excreting into our environment different forms of estrogens that end up in our water supply and food supply. (Did you know that human waste is a common fertilizer for vegetables and while they are purifying the waste of micro-organisms they are not purifying it of estrogens?) Now with more and more women taking estrogens for menopause over the last 20 years, even more estrogens are getting into our environment. It is not enough that we ingest these hormones knowingly or not, we also ingest chlorines and plastics which are hormone mimicking, causing disruption of our immune and endocrine systems.

We have only to look at young girls getting their menstrual cycles by age 8, rather than age 12 to 13 to realize that these hormones are rampant in our society.

Rather than wait 10 or more years for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation to issue recommendations on how to avoid and treat Estrogen Dominance, I will give you my list now:

Avoid bottled water stored in plastics. Store water only in glass!

Avoid micro waving plastic containers. Always use glass, (especially plastic formula bottles for babies!)

Avoid storing food in plastic containers, plastic wraps and cellophanes.

Avoid the use of Birth Control Pills/Hormone replacement/ Fertility Drugs for more than 5 years total in a lifetime.

Avoid dioxins (by products of chlorine bleaching) found in diapers and sanitary products and avoid chlorine in general.

Avoid chemicals in your food, in your house and on your garden.

Do eat organic animal products to eliminate another source of exogenous estrogen

Do get tested regularly for 2, 4 and 16 hydroxyestrogen ratios to determine your risk

Do have your liver checked to ensure that you are detoxifying normally

Do purify your water using Reverse Osmosis method

Do consume 30 grams of fiber per day to eliminate estrogens through the bowel.

Do maintain a healthy weight. Insulin resistance, the body’ s inability to metabolize sugar increases cancer rates.

Do consume healthy fats such as omega 3 purified fish oils

Do contact your doctor (in this case an ND) if you have symptoms of estrogen dominance: cysts of breast, uterus, ovary; heavy periods with clotting, PMS and weight gain. The last thing you need is to be put on the birth control pill to control these symptoms so see a naturopathic doctor (ND) instead!

PS: Please give this list not only to all the women in your life, but all the men too. They don’t get breast cancer, they get prostate cancer!