A German study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology compared 6,386 healthy women with 3,074 breast cancer patients who had been diagnosed after the onset of menopause. The researchers then calculated the percentage of cancer cases attributed to a particular risk factor or a particular combination of risk factors.
The researchers determined that about 37 percent of all postmenopausal breast cancers are caused by factors women can't change, such as their family history, their age, or the age of their first and last menstrual period. But they also determined that nearly 30 percent of breast cancers could be prevented by modifying certain lifestyle habits. The other 33 percent of breast cancers have undetermined causes.
The lifestyle habits that play the biggest role in breast cancer risk are the use of synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and a lack of physical activity, according to the study. Interestingly, excess body weight and alcohol consumption – two lifestyle habits that have also been attributed to breast cancer risk – played only a minor role, at least in the breast cancer patients who took part in this study.
Dr. Grout’s comment:
At least the lay press is beginning to get the idea that cancer is an environmental disease.
The only significant drop in breast cancer rates since the 1970s came in 2002 when headlines told women the synthetic form of HRT was causing some amount of cancer, heart disease, and strokes; taking the combination therapy for a long period of time increased the risk of getting breast cancer by 25 percent. Many women switched to natural, bio-identical hormones. In October, 2010, a long-term follow-up study found that HRT doubled the risk of dying from breast cancer because women developed deadlier forms of breast cancer. So we know that taking synthetic hormones, a lifestyle choice, can produce an environmentally-induced cancer.
Breast cancer incidence rates in the United States increased by more than 40 percent since 1973. Experts point out that this parallels the rise in chemicals in our environment, and the decrease in the nutrient quality of the food we eat.
According to a 2009 report in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, "A substantial body of scientific evidence indicates that exposures to common chemicals and radiation, alone and in combination, are contributing to the increase in breast cancer incidence observed over the past several decades.”
Radiation. That includes the kind of radiation many women are encouraged to get every year with a mammogram. The mammography campaign is a cruel hoax to which women are subjected. Most recently, the Norwegian breast-cancer screening program analyzed data from 40,075 women with breast cancer. They found that the reduction in mortality that can be attributed solely to screening mammograms is a surprisingly low 2%, indicating that the decline in mortality attributed to screening alone may be as few as 2 deaths prevented per 100,000 women screened. In plain language – mammography doesn’t work yet it is heavily promoted because the industry is heavily invested in it. We know radiation causes cancer, and we know that thermography is a much better breast cancer screening method. We also know radiation causes cancer – read more here.
The one pink ribbon group that works to reduce the rate of breast cancer is the Breast Cancer Fund. Their motto: “Help us expose and eliminate the environmental causes of breast cancer.” They have a wonderful downloadable report that identifies many of the carcinogens in our environment that, once you know what they are, you can avoid.
The problem with openly admitting that breast cancer is an environmental disease is that such an admission will greatly alter many existing revenue streams and bring pressure to bear on groups like the chemical manufacturers and big food producers.