Breast Cancer - working to prevent it and to cure it

[Mackay]

It seems that some members here are having a struggle with this issue. My sister in law recently went through it all and now has mets to the bone and she is learning to live with cancer. Although not killing her yet, it will. There is no cure for mets to the bone. Her plan is to work with chemo and prolong her life as long as possible. It seems that people are now starting to live longer with some of the medical therapies. I have not been able to get her to look at this information but She has used acupuncture to assist with chemo toxicity successfully.

I just wonder how much longer women could live if they really took to heart the alternative therapies that are out there, and this does not mean quitting on regular medicine either, and how many women could prevent getting the disease if they did some simple preventative nutritional treatments.

I've never had BC but I can't say that I have not worried about it as I have had cancer in the past and I know that my body does not work as well as it could or should.

I've had very lumpy breasts. Fibrocystic disease may indicate an increased risk for breast cancer. I have been through all the mammography and sonograms, the aspiration of fluid filled cysts and all the fear.

Now I am taking a different approach. I cannot say that this approach is for you but you may find something here that clicks for you and may in the long run save your life.

The first thing I did that made a real difference in my breast health was to start Lugol's iodine supplementation. After a few months on Lugol's all my breast lumps went away...and let me tell you, some of those lumps had been there for many many years. All the pms breast symptoms went away too!

So I thought I would present these videos on the use of lugol's iodine. I have been supplementing for at least 3 years now, as well as my husband and it is suppose to be very beneficial for prostate also. I have had several successes treating different cyst conditions with lugol's and most remarkabley, my thyroid cysts disappeared! The thyroid specialist I saw about them said they would never go away and he would gladly remove the forward one if it got to poking out too much on my neck!!

My current medical doctor, who is into alternative medicine also, she monitors my thyroid and supports my decision on iodine supplementation. She says she actually has most of her patients on it.... I figured out iodine supplementation without her advice and I was actually afraid to tell her about it. I was quite surprised at her knowledge of it. Iodine therapy is the single most important thing you can do for breast health.

So have a look. I hope it turns out helpful to someone. And I can answer some questions on iodine therapy if you have any.

You will find the videos here and you may have to download the realplayer. They give you a link to do so and it is free:
http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/videos/#BROWNSTEIN

Shirley's Wellness Cafe will present other Breasat Health ideas as well.
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/breastcancer.htm

 

[Cybercat]

HI Makay,

I wanted to thank you for posting these ideas and links for both cancer and thyroid treatments...

I just went through my excisional biopsy today, and wouldn't you know, just before the surgery, the surgeon saw another area she'd like to look at in six months...dang it! I also have the lumpy bumpy breast tissue. I REALLY don't want to go through this again and again....so I think I'll try the iodine. Gonna run it by my doctor first, as I am hypothyroid as well. My thyroid was removed 15 years ago and will be on pills the rest of my life.. :/ I don't want to do anything that messes up my Rx...I've been underdosed for the last three years, so we're catching up each year...

I have not looked at the Shirley's Wellness Cafe site yet, but I wonder if they have anything to say about vitamin D deficiency and if it affects breast and thyroid... My doc found I'm critically deficient and now I'm taking concentrated doses to replenish...my joints have been aching, and they are feeling a bit better now...and the big thing is that recent heart palpatations are disappearing. We had originally thought the heart stuff was due to a drug interaction, but when I started the vit D, my heart settled down. I stopped taking the vit D before the biopsy, and the flutters are back. I am going to record my symptoms when I resume the dosage this week...

DON'T ASSUME that being outside is enough to satisfy the need your body has for vit D. I am outside with my animals twice a day and thought I wouldn't have a problem...my doc is actually amazed that I haven't developed adult rickets

Thanks so much!

Leanne

Oh, and PS- please give my regards and prayers to your sister in law and family.

 

[Mackay]

Leanne,

I can't say what your doc will say or do regarding iodine. I do know this, and after you watch the Beirnstein videos you will understand, that many parts of the body need iodine to function properly and to eliminate toxins and heavy metals.

Often when people go on iodine therapy they get their thyroids checked because it can alter your thyroid readings. As a general rule, if you have a healthy thyroid taking the iodine does little to change the hormone levels. It did not budge mine, even though I had benign thyroid cysts, that the iodine did cure. Generally, iodine supplementation spurs the thyroid to produce more of its own hormone if there has been a shortage.

If you are hypothyroid it can reduce the need for synthyroid or what ever type of hormone replacement you have been taking. Most hypothyroid conditons are merely subclinical goiter, but not recognized as such by doctors.

So that needs to be watched. Most often a decrease in medication is called for. Sometimes a complete elimination of medication can occur...but you won't know unless you test. Generally, 6 weeks after initation of therapy a test is called for, as well as a base line in the beginning.

Did you know that thyroid disease is the unspoken epidemic in this nation?

If you have no thyroid gland at all I would think that it would not make any difference at all. I do not see that it would affect your medication what so ever.

What the iodine will do is to start to saturate your breast tissue, your uterus, your brain with essential iodine. I belong to a forum that discusses iodine use for professionals only. I will take this question to them...But I have already stated what I think the answer will be.

I am leaving soon for week or so so I may not get back to you with an answer right away.

and when it comes to Vitamin D I will send you to this site to read. You cannot produce the vitamin d you need for our toxic world. And the older you get the worse it gets. You will find links to about 10 articles on vitamin D here that will actually take you to a blog that I work on. Because I have a history of cancer I take huge amounts of vitamin D. I like to keep my level around 90 to 100.
http://tiny.cc/6tUzK


Best,
Mackay

Ps you can go to this page and read post #10 on the thread. There you will get an idea about how to dose on vitamin D. The nine step plan is my creation, pulling together various therapies for osteoporosis so I have some good notes on vitamin D here. In general you can take very large doses for a couple of weeks then reduce to a baseline dose. So I took 50,000 IU frequently then went down to 5,000 IU maintenance. I'll have to look around for what exactly I did...it took about 3 weeks to get up to super theraputic levels. When I took 2,000 IU a day for almost a year nothing budged. I've talked with others that got the same response from the low dose.
http://www.natmedtalk.com/general-discussion/3105-horsetail-osteoporosis.html

 

[Wifezilla]

The best way to prevent cancer is to avoid a diet high in carbohydrates...especially refine carbohydrates...

"Of all the carbohydrate compounds, sucrose and fructose demonstrated the strongest association with breast cancer risk in the study. Sucrose is derived from sugar cane, sorghum and the sugar beet; it is most commonly found in table sugar and sweetened prepared foods and beverages. Fructose is a component of sucrose and is also found in fruit.

Eating sweets and starches causes a rapid rise in the bodys blood sugar levels, which in turn cues the production of insulin and triggers a biological process that ultimately can influence carcinogenesis by causing cells to proliferate.

Insulin and an insulin-like growth factor also may contribute to higher circulating levels of biologically active estrogens, a risk factor for breast cancer in pre-menopausal women. Ninety percent of breast tumors are insulin-receptor positive and over-express the insulin-like growth factor. "
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/08/040806094822.htm

"In 1924, the German Nobel laureate Otto Warburg first published his observations of a common feature he saw in fast-growing tumors: unlike healthy cells, which generate energy by metabolizing sugar in their mitochondria, cancer cells appeared to fuel themselves exclusively through glycolysis, a less-efficient means of creating energy through the fermentation of sugar in the cytoplasm. Warburg believed that this metabolic switch was the primary cause of cancer, a theory that he strove, unsuccessfully, to establish until his death in 1970.

To the two researchers in Wrzburg, the theoretical debate about what is now known as the Warburg effect whether it is the primary cause of cancer or a mere metabolic side effect is irrelevant. What they believe is that it can be therapeutically exploited. The theory is simple: If most aggressive cancers rely on the fermentation of sugar for growing and dividing, then take away the sugar and they should stop spreading. Meanwhile, normal body and brain cells should be able to handle the sugar starvation; they can switch to generating energy from fatty molecules called ketone bodies the body's main source of energy on a fat-rich diet an ability that some or most fast-growing and invasive cancers seem to lack."
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1662484,00.html

 

[Mackay]

I think sugar can promote tumors but I don't really think it is the primary cause of cancer. Tumors do thrive on sugar though, and it is a common medical fact that oncologist just don't bother telling their patients about it. go figure...

One of the sometimes more effective cancer treatments called IPT creates a hypoglycemic state in the patient then they give them a small dose of chemotherapy along with a rush of sugar. The cancer cells in many tumors will open their cell doors wide when the sugar hits and then the chemo slips in easily.

I think that the causes of cancer may be numerous, starting with an immune system that does not know how to deal with a particular virus such as you see in cervical cancer and melanoma, to toxic exposures such as you see in lung cancer, as well as breast cancer. Did you know that the leading pocket of breast cancer in this nation is on Long Island? They think it is because of the high level of benzines found in the water and environment in general. If you live on Long Island your risk of getting breast cancer is unusually high. A lot of cancer has been traced to environmental factors...remember Love Canal? Around here we have a lot of lung cancer in people who never smoked. My theory is that it has to do with radioactive dust from all the nuclear testing they did back in the 50's and 60's. Many pockets of cancer in Nevada. I once met a family visiting their dying mother. There were about 20 people in the room, aunts uncles, brothers, kids, nieces. They ALL currently had or have had cancer. They knew it had to do with the neck of the woods they lived in.

I have seen many people leave sugar behind in their cancer therapy. I use to hang out at the Hippocrates Institute in San Diego years ago where a raw food diet was implemented for the treatment of cancer. In fact when I first got cancer I had been on a no sugar diet over 2 years, also eliminating all grain carbs, and I still got cancer. The people at the Hippocrates Institue did not do all that well on their pure and low carb diet.

But yes, I also think that avoiding refined carbs will do much to improve the health and prevent disease.

I also think that vaccinations play a big role, especially in childhood leukemia. Look into the SV40 virus that has been spread around in the polio vaccine and see what you find. Its the big non secret that nobody talks about. Now, some researchers are saying that this virus is sexually transmitted....and I suppose it could possibly spread in blood donations too.

This could be a start on the polio SV40 virus. Its not conspiracy theory or just rant against vaccination. This is really happening. http://www.healthsalon.org/193/193/

 

[Wifezilla]

I just went to their website. They advocate a plant-based diet. They also avoid dairy and promote raw food and blame cancer on meat consumption. While it is possible to do low carb vegetarian, what they are promoting is hardly what I would consider a nutritionally complete low carbohydrate diet. In fact, if they are not eating any saturated fats and are getting their protein from plants, it is no wonder they don't do well.

I found this chart:
http://www.naturodoc.com/library/nutrition/Hippocrates_diet.htm
It also looks like their fat sources are high in omega 6's.

Also, no sugar doesn't mean low carb. Not trying to argue, but this is a pretty common mistake. People give up sugar, but still eat oats, corn, potatoes, and fruit and have no clue they are STILL getting plenty of sugar because these items rapidly convert to glucose during digestion. That is why the carbohydrate count is so important.

Over the past 2 years I have done a lot of research in to native diets and how the health of isolated populations changed after switching to a "Western" diet. There were quite a few cultures who did not even have a word for cancer and missionaries would only see a few rare cases of cancer per year. Once the natives started eating flour, sugar and other "civilized" foods, after a period of about 10-20 years, suddenly cancer, diabetes, and heart disease started to become common.

There is quite a bit on this in the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.

 

[Cybercat]

I just thought I'd announce that my biopsy is ALL CLEAR!!!...I have another small area that they want to check out in 6 months, but pretty sure its just a cyst...

I asked my surgeon about the iodine treatment...reminding her that I was born and raised in the Midwest (The Goiter Belt) and lost my thyroid to tumors 15 years ago...hypothyroidism and fibrocystic breasts run in my family and can have links to each other. She is quite positive about me trying the iodine treatment! She thinks there is definitely something to the body's need for iodine and that conventional medicine just hasn't had enough controlled studies to accept it.

So this will be interesting...I'll get the iodine going asap, and in six months, let's see if the newly found spot in my breast has changed or not!

Leanne

Edited to add smilies...

 

[Wifezilla]

GREAT news

 

[me&thegals]

That's wonderful news, Cybercat! Have to say that cancer is my biggest health fear.

Avoiding toxins seems like a good step. That's one thing I like about all these homemade cleaning products on this site.

Eating organic food couldn't hurt.

Breastfeeding is supposed to lower the risk of breast cancer. I know many of us are probably past that possibility, but I think it would be great if doctors shared that with new moms to help encourage them in that direction.

Anything that helps the immune system: Lots of clean water, good sleep, great friends and family relationships, a spiritual life, physical activity, balanced stress load, time in nature, music, etc.

Thanks for the information you all are providing in this thread!

 

[Beekissed]

I've not gotten the chance to read up on this website but it seems to have alot of info on the subject:

http://www.cancertutor.com/index.html

My folks had some books by a Doug Kaufman that I found highly interesting about fungus and cancer. As an oncology and hospice nurse, I've seen a lot of things that seem to support the information found in his books.

I do know this....if ever the time came that I was diagnosed with cancer, I would not be choosing traditional, Merck-approved treatments.