<http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/08/07/major-confusion-on-how-to-do-breast-checks.aspx>Major
Confusion on How to Do Breast Checks
breast exam, breast awareness
Is there a right way to check your breasts for
early signs of cancer? Many women remain confused
as experts now say there is no evidence that
rigorous monthly "self-examination" -- widely
recommended in the United States -- reduces
breast cancer deaths. Plus, it can lead to unnecessary biopsies.
Two large studies looking at a total of more than
388,000 women found that death rates from breast
cancer were the same among women who rigorously
self-examined as those who did not, while there
were almost twice the number of biopsy operations
in the self-examination group.
According to some experts, the best way for a
woman to check her breasts is not to follow a
strict examination routine, but to get to know
what is normal, and feel them regularly for signs of any changes.
Sources:
* <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7507850.stm>BBC News July 15, 2008
*
<http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD003373/frame.html>Cochrane
Database of Systematic Reviews July 2008, Issue 3
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Breast self-exams have long been recommended as a
simple way for women to keep track of anything
unusual in their breasts. Now, after studies have
found that such exams do not reduce breast cancer
death rates, and actually increase the rate of
unnecessary biopsies, many experts are
recommending a more relaxed approach known as “breast awareness.”
Breast awareness is really self-explanatory. It
means women should regularly check their breasts
for changes, but can do so in a way that feels
natural for them. In other words, you don’t have
to do it on the same day each month, or using any particular pattern.
Simply be aware of what’s normal for you so you
can recognize anything out of the ordinary. What
should you keep an eye out for?
* A new lump or hard knot found in your breast or armpit
* Dimpling, puckering or indention in your breast or nipple
* Change in the size, shape or symmetry of your breast
* Swelling or thickening of the breast
* Redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin
* Nipple discharge, especially any that is
bloody, clear and sticky, dark or occurs without squeezing your nipple
* Changes in your nipple such as tenderness,
pain, turning or drawing inward, or pointing in a new direction
* Any suspicious changes in your breasts
Are Mammograms a Good Idea?
Aside from breast self-exams, the other mainstay
in the U.S. medical system is the mammogram. The
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends
women get a mammogram every year or two after age 40.
But I strongly disagree.
The benefits of mammograms are highly
controversial, while the risks are well
established. Back in 2001, around the time that
U.S. health officials widened the use of
mammograms to included women over 40 (previously
it was only women over 50), a Danish study
published in The Lancet revealed some startling data.
The study concluded that previous research
showing a benefit was flawed and that widespread
mammogram screening is unjustified.
Specifically, the Danish researchers argued that
earlier studies in Europe and North America were
improperly randomized and that they used a faulty
definition of breast cancer survival.
Meanwhile, the technology carries a first-time
false positive rate of up to 6 percent. False
positives can lead to expensive repeat screenings
and can sometimes result in unnecessary invasive
procedures including biopsies and surgeries.
Just thinking you may have breast cancer, when
you really do not, focuses your mind on fear and
disease, and is actually enough to trigger an
illness in your body. So a false positive on a
mammogram, or an unnecessary biopsy, can really be damaging.
Not to mention that women have unnecessarily
undergone mastectomies, radiation and
chemotherapy after receiving false positives on a mammogram.
An Amazing Deception
That mammograms are still recommended at all
speaks volumes about the state of modern medicine.
Decades ago in 1974, the National Cancer
Institute (NCI) was warned by professor Malcolm
C. Pike at the University of Southern California
School of Medicine that a number of specialists
had concluded "giving a women under age 50 a
mammogram on a routine basis is close to unethical."
Why?
Well for starters mammograms expose your body to
radiation that can be 1,000 times greater than
that from a chest x-ray, which poses risks of
cancer. Mammography also compresses your breasts
tightly, and often painfully, which could lead to
a lethal spread of cancerous cells, should they exist.
“The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to
radiation, each 1 rad exposure increasing breast
cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative
10 percent increased risk for each breast over a
decade's screening,” points out Dr. Samuel
Epstein, one of the top cancer experts.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1933057092/optimalwellnessc>Dr.
Epstein, M.D., professor emeritus of
Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the
University of Illinois School of Public Health,
and chairman of the
<http://preventcancer.com/>Cancer Prevention
Coalition, has been speaking out about the risks
of mammography since at least 1992. As for how
these misguided mammography guidelines came about, Epstein says:
“They were conscious, chosen, politically
expedient acts by a small group of people for the
sake of their own power, prestige and financial
gain, resulting in suffering and death for
millions of women. They fit the classification of "crimes against humanity."”
Not surprisingly, as often happens when anyone
dares speak out against those in power, both the
American Cancer Society and NCI called Dr.
Epstein’s findings “unethical and invalid.”
But this didn’t stop others from speaking out as well.
* In July 1995, The Lancet again wrote about
mammograms, saying "The benefit is marginal, the
harm caused is substantial, and the costs incurred are enormous ..."
* Dr. Charles B. Simone, a former clinical
associate in immunology and pharmacology at the
National Cancer Institute, said, "Mammograms
increase the risk for developing breast cancer
and raise the risk of spreading or metastasizing an existing growth.”
* "The high sensitivity of the breast,
especially in young women, to radiation-induced
cancer was known by 1970. Nevertheless, the
establishment then screened some 300,000 women
with Xray dosages so high as to increase breast
cancer risk by up to 20 percent in women aged 40
to 50 who were mammogramed annually,” wrote Dr. Epstein.
Safe Screening Methods do Exist: The Benefits of Thermography
But you’re not likely to hear about them from your general practitioner.
“ … The establishment ignores safe and effective
alternatives to mammography, particularly trans
illumination with infrared scanning,” Dr. Epstein points out.
Most physicians continue to recommend mammograms
for fear of being sued by a woman who develops
breast cancer after which he did not advise her
to get one. But I encourage you to think for
yourself and consider safer, more effective alternatives to mammograms.
The option for breast screening that I most
highly recommend is called thermography.
Thermographic breast screening is brilliantly
simple. It measures the radiation of infrared
heat from your body and translates this
information into anatomical images. Your normal
blood circulation is under the control of your
autonomic nervous system, which governs your body functions.
Thermography uses no mechanical pressure or
ionizing radiation, and can detect signs of
breast cancer years earlier than either mammography or a physical exam.
Mammography cannot detect a tumor until after it
has been growing for years and reaches a certain
size. Thermography is able to detect the
possibility of breast cancer much earlier,
because it can image the early stages of
angiogenesis (the formation of a direct supply of
blood to cancer cells, which is a necessary step
before they can grow into tumors of size).
<http://naturalhealthcenter.mercola.com/services/thermography.aspx>Visit
Dr. Mercola's Thermography Diagnostics Center NOW
Related Articles:
[]
New Federal Guidelines Ignore Dangers of Mammography
[]
When Will the Insanity of Mammogram Recommendations End?
[]
Can Professional Breast Exams Replace Mammography?
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Community Comments ( 199 )
Rita Rimmer
[ Joined on 10/06 ] [ Posted on August 7, 2008 ]
<http://v.mercola.com/user/Profile.aspx?DisplayName=Rita%20Rimmer>View
Rita Rimmer's Profile
Novice User
Thank you, Dr. Mercola. I am a Thermographer and
have providing Breast Thermography for 8 years
and working hard to make women aware, not only of
the dangers of mammograms, but of the
misinformation heaped on women from the "cancer
industry" and government agencies. Yes,
thermography is simple, non-invasive and safe.
But more than that, it gives us so much more
information that can help in preventing the
disease, or at least find it so early, one has
the opportunity to manage it much more gently.
Women should start having thermography at the age
of 20 or so since the environment of the breast
can change for the coming event of a tumor years
later. And, thermography is the only screening
modality to pick up Inflammatoty Breast Cancer,
which involves the whole breast rather than
forming a tumor. Women (and men) must get
proactive and not wait for mammograms to find and
established, late-stage disease! Early detection
is not what you want to say about screening mammograms!
<*}}}>< <http://www.holypostage.com/>Holy Postage <*}}}><
<*}}}><<http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Half the Kingdom!<*}}}><
Prayer for Unborn Life:
O GOD OF LIFE AND LOVE, You have given us the
gift to participate with You to bring new life
into the world. But, all too often, the mother's
womb, which should be a nursery of life, becomes
instead a place of it's destruction.
Help us to remove this evil and ensure respect
for all life made in Your image and likeness,
called to fulfill its promise on this earth,
and destined to find a home with you for all eternity.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our God, Our Savior, and Our ALL.
Amen.
<*}}}>< <http://www.holypostage.com/>Holy Postage <*}}}><
<*}}}><<http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Half the Kingdom!<*}}}><
Prayer for Unborn Life:
O GOD OF LIFE AND LOVE, You have given us the
gift to participate with You to bring new life
into the world. But, all too often, the mother's
womb, which should be a nursery of life, becomes
instead a place of it's destruction.
Help us to remove this evil and ensure respect
for all life made in Your image and likeness,
called to fulfill its promise on this earth,
and destined to find a home with you for all eternity.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our God, Our Savior, and Our ALL.
Amen.
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