Breast Cancer: Separating Myth From Fact

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer to strike women. Worryingly, the disease is now the main cause of death in women under 55.

Breast cancer has received a lot of media coverage recently, including conflicting reports over the safety of screening programmes and disturbing new evidence about the link between HRT and breast cancer.

Yet rather than helping to clarify the situation, all these scare stories have succeeded in doing is leaving many women feeling both anxious and confused as to the best way of protecting themselves against this potentially life-threatening condition.

Fortunately, there are safe and effective natural alternatives to help lower your risk of developing the disease. This advice applies to both men and women, as although breast cancer mainly affects women, men are at risk from getting it too.

Inaccurate test results can lead to unnecessary surgery

A major Italian study recently concluded that breast cancer screening (mammography) programmes are able to detect breast cancer early - thereby leading to more 'breast conserving surgery' (where just the tumour is removed) and fewer mastectomies (removal of the whole breast) (BMJ 325: 418, 2002).

This seems like good news. But relying on breast screening to detect a cancerous lump at an early enough stage for successful treatment may be giving patients and doctors a false sense of security. A Danish research team has questioned the value of screening programmes after analysing the results of all seven worldwide studies to have been conducted so far into their effectiveness (Lancet 358: 1340, 2001).

The researchers found that five of the studies were unreliable because the groups of women receiving screening and those used as controls were not strictly comparable. This means that any apparently positive effects of the screening programmes could have been due to chance alone. In the two remaining screening trials, the lives saved by early intervention were cancelled out by deaths from unnecessary treatment.

And a new study published just last month showed that annual mammography screening for women in their 40s had no effect on a woman's risk of dying from breast cancer (Ann. Int. Med. 137: 305-12, 2002).

An earlier study carried out in Canada concluded that mammography may do more harm than good overall, due to the high number of false positive results (that is, a diagnosis of possible cancer where none exists) (Lancet 346:29-32, 1995). The researchers discovered that only one in every 14 women with a positive result actually had breast cancer, leading to many unnecessary and traumatic surgical operations. Researchers have also found that breast cancer screening isn't a foolproof way of spotting the disease - it fails to detect up to 10-15 per cent of tumours.

What's more, breast self-examination may also be of limited benefit, according to another recent study (Canad. Assoc. Med. J. 164: 1837-46, 2001). After analysing the results of several well-controlled trials, the authors concluded that women who carried out this procedure regularly were at no less risk of dying from breast cancer than women who never examined their breasts.

Taking HRT could be increasing your risk of breast cancer by up to 40

Doctors routinely prescribe hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to help combat symptoms of the menopause. However, putting a stop to hot flushes in this way could come at a very high price i.e. an increased risk of breast cancer.

Recently, a major US study into the effects of HRT, conducted by the National Institutes for Health, was dramatically halted three years before it was due to end, after scientists found that HRT increased the risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke.

The US National Cancer Institute has looked at follow-up data from several studies between 1980 and 1995 in which a total of 46,000 healthy women took HRT. It found that women using combined oestrogen-progestogen HRT (as used in the above study) for four years had a 40 per cent higher risk of breast cancer (JAMA 283: 485-91 & 534-5, 2000).

How a substance found in broccoli can slow the spread of breast cancer by up to 90%!

The benefits of brassica vegetables don't end there. The vegtables also contain another anti-cancer substance called calcium-D-glucarate. One of the ways that your body removes excess oestrogen is by bonding it to glucuronic acid in your liver and excreting it in your bile. However, as the resulting complex passes through your gut, an enzyme (beta-glucuronidase) produced by the resident bacteria breaks the bond and releases the oestrogen again. Calcium-D-glucarate inhibits that enzyme, allowing excess oestrogen to be removed efficiently. Tests on animals have found that supplements of calcium-D-glucarate can prevent the development of experimentally induced cancers (Cancer Lett. 49: 51-7, 1990). Take 200-400mg a day as a preventive dose.

Antioxidants may help guard against the disease

Antioxidants eliminate reactive molecules called free radicals, which may cause cancer to develop by damaging the DNA inside cells. The major dietary antioxidants are vitamins C, E and A, selenium and the carotenes. Good protective daily dosages would be 2g vit C; 400IU vit E; 15,000IU vit A (7,500IU max in pregnancy); 200mcg selenium and 10,000IU beta-carotene.

A new study has shown that women with breast cancer have significantly lower levels of antioxidants in their blood than healthy women, with beta-carotene appearing to be especially low (J. Nutr. 132: 303-6, 2002). Co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is a powerful antioxidant that also boosts your immune system's natural defences against cancer.

In a Danish study, researchers gave 390mg of CoQ10 a day to a group of women with breast cancer that was already spreading to other parts of their bodies. After several months, the researchers found that the cancer went into remission for four of the women. In one woman the cancer completely disappeared after 11 months (Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 212: 172-7, 1995). As part of a preventive programme of antioxidants, 60mg a day is recommended.

Protection from breast cancer could be found from an unlikely source

Although free radicals are normally damaging to the body, new research on a compound called artemisinin, isolated from the herb sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) shows that in certain circumstances they can be targeted specifically to kill cancerous cells (Life Sciences 70: 49-56, 2001).

Breast cancer cells contain higher amounts of iron than healthy breast cells and when artemisinin combines with iron, free radicals are generated causing the cells to die. Although more research in this area is needed, laboratory studies conducted so far have shown that artemisinin killed about 30 per cent of breast cancer cells. And when combined with transferrin (a molecule that increases the uptake of iron by cells), a staggering 98 per cent of cancerous cells were destroyed. Normal breast cells were only minimally affected, suggesting that the artemisinin and transferrin combination could promise a safe, new treatment for breast cancer.

If further trials are successful, this treatment could soon become available. NHR promises to update you as soon as results are published.

Regularly checking your breasts for lumps is still recommended, and you should seek your doctor's advice if you discover anything abnormal. However, your best policy is to start taking preventive steps against breast cancer right now by following the advice outlined above. Please be aware that cancer is a serious disease and this advice is intended for prevention only. Cancer patients should inform their doctor before self-medicating with these supplements.