Right now, the health care debate, as far as breast cancer and mammograms is concerned, is centered around women worried that they will no longer be covered for mammograms between the ages of 40 and 50.

Scores of women came into the public eye to make announcements that if they had not been tested at 40, their cancer would not have been detected and they could have been dead by now. The debate rages on, with the new published guidelines.

But, what’s not so much in the public eye, and never has been, is the rising amount of young teenagers, or teens, with breast cancer. No one seems to be able to come to a consensus as to why women, younger and younger, are getting a disease usually reserved for those near or after menopause.

According to a story on CNN.com, only about seven percent of breast cancer cases occur in patients under the age of 40. Check out the full story here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/26/tweens.breast.cancer/index.html

Though there is no way for sure to tell if you will get breast cancer or not, there are several printed guidelines as to what you can do to reduce your risks. Among those are

1.    maintaining a healthy weight,

2.    eating real foods like fruits and vegetables, and

3.    exercise, as well as

4.    limiting alcohol consumption.

Too much estrogen in the body as well as inflammation and lack of natural protection factors as vitamin D, for example, contributes to breast cancer risks. Checking how your body is at getting rid of excess estrogen can considerably helpful. This works by checking the gut, as it is the gut that estrogen elimination depends on. If the gut is working properly, the right bacteria is helping to get rid of estrogen.

There are tests available to see if estrogen is contributing to your or your child’s breast cancer risk, and they are available at our offices.

It is possible to survive breast cancer at any age. Here is another uplifting story. http://www.wvec.com/home/Teen-breast-cancer-survivor-raises-awareness-raises-concerns-about-panels-findings-70680522.html.

Call the office of Doctor Kalitenko to find out more about checking your child’s estrogen elimination and overall gut function.

There has recently been a rise in the amount of breast cancer cases where the cancerous lump is small. The question then becomes what to do with them? What are options? Where do we go now? May be prevention of breast cancer is better, then treatment?

The risk of breast cancer can actually be assessed by the way that the body works with estrogen. If estrogen is metabolized in the right way, the risk is low. But if it is in the wrong ways, then the risk goes up.

Once that risk is checked, doctor and patient can then work to modify the way it is metabolized and bring the risk down with right food and supplements. Tests need to be done but unfortunately few regular doctors or labs will do these tests that show women what their bodies are doing with estrogen.

I encourage you to let us know what future topics you are interested in. Also check out www.doctorkalitenko.com for news, tips, tricks and more blogs on everything from sex and beauty to health and nutrition.

Statistics show that incidents of breast cancer fell in 2003 by 6.7 percent in comparison with 2002. This is most likely the result of hormone replacement therapy decrease, which consists of equine estrogens and progestins.

Is it good? Of course – less women died because of a deadly disease. Is it bad? Yes, because there is no widespread intention to stop using carcinogenic pills and switch to something else.

Companies cannot patent natural substances and hence make money from them, and in order to obtain a patent they need to modify the original molecule. That’s what they did with estrogen and progesterone. And what did we get? Equine conjugated estrogens and progestins (not progesterone). Example – Prempro.

Stuffed? On Pizza? A nice, hearty risotto? Mushrooms can make your meal delicious. But how much sweeter would it sound knowing that eating just a little bit can cut your breast cancer risk by more than half?

According to an article published in Telegraph.co.uk on March 16, of this year, a study in China found that eating at last a third of an ounce of fresh mushrooms daily cut down cancer risk by impressive 64 percent. The result was even better if green tea was added.

It’s important to note that not everyone agreed with the findings. Researchers at the International Institute of Cancer did not confirm this finding, saying that more studies are needed.

A first-suggested explanation of the mushroom anti-cancer effect is that fungi inhibit enzyme aromatase, which increases estrogen level.  That’s hard to believe, since young women have high estrogen levels and still are at risk of getting cancer. So there has to be something else that explains the mushroom effect.

Mushrooms contain a lot of glutamate, giving us pleasure from eating.  It very well may be possible that mushrooms are just substitutes for tasty, but more expensive food like carbs, fatty foods, etc. We already know that carbs and fat lead to obesity, which is a well-known cancer risk factor. So substituting mushrooms for carbs makes sense in explaining why eating mushrooms can cut down cancer risk. The answer may be as simple as that.

Should you have any thoughts please let us know.

Good news! The scientists from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University found, that regular exercise helps preventing breast cancer in women. Explanation?

So do we need to rush to the gym and run a few hours a day to protect yourselves from cancer? I doubt it. Because as per my knowledge the most powerful cancer fighter is

Vitamin D. So the link between exercise and cancer prevention might be as follows:

More exercise — more sun exposure — more vitamin D — more cancer protection.

Bottom line: if you decide to do your workout, do it outdoors, not indoors. But not too much, because chronic skin sun exposure can lead to skin cancer. I suggest no more than, then 15 — 20 minutes sun exposure a day. But do not forget to make sure, that you have enough vitamin D in your body by taking supplements if necessary. Remember, that with age our ability to produce vitamin D  decline. So we have to take supplements.

Any suggestions? Ideas? Solutions? Please let us know.

[tag]health, cancer, cancer prevention, breast cancer, exercise, workout, vitamin D[/tag]

Most of my female patients wear bras, but how many of them wear the wrong size?

According to the recent study from University of Portsmouth irreparable damage to the breast ligaments can be done by wearing the wrong bra size. Apparently the biggest problem is ill-fitting bras that are too tight. Another problem identified is the change in breast size and shape because of breastfeeding and menopause. But how can we choose the right size and type?

In my opinion the best solution is to go back to nature — do not use bra at all, if possible. If you need to wear bra, then the best choice is one not tight at all, just used for support.

[tag]menopause, breast, breasts, bra, bras[/tag]

Do you know which vitamin to use to lessen the risk of breast cancer? Colon cancer? Prostate cancer?  Vitamin D. And there is new data from Heidelberg, Germany to support this concept.Sascha Abbas and colleagues, who represent the research group from the German Cancer Research Center, found that women who have low level of vitamin D are at higher risk of getting breast cancer.

This group also found that the effect of low levels of vitamin D was the strongest in the women who are not on hormone replacement therapy. However, other factors like lack of sunlight and prolonged bed rest may play a role.

Bottom line: get enough vitamin D daily! Hormone replacement therapy may be a good addition to breast cancer defense, provided that hormones used have the same molecular structure as our own hormones.

According to a recent study from the University of Missouri under the guidance of Professor Salman Hyder, synthetic progestin use may increase the risk of breast cancer.

The explanation is as follows:

Normally there is a protein p53 in our cells, which is responsible for killing cancer cells. However if there is no active protein p53 in the cell, which is exposed to synthetic progestin, cancer may develop. The synthetic progestin, used in this study was medroxyprgesterone acetat.

As we know, there is a problem with synthetic conjugated (horse) estrogens as well, because they are mainly metabolised via 4 OH pathway, resulting in production of metabolites, linked to breast cancer.

The bottom line seems to be that if our body is exposed to synthetic products, it does not know how to get rid of them.

Solution of the problem: think twice before using synthetic products, use them only if it absolutely necessary. Otherwise use the products with the same molecular structure as our own. Bioidentical Hormone Replacement is a safe alternative here.