90 per cent of the risk factors that determine optimal breast health lie entirely in your hands
Dr Kristi Funk is the surgeon to the stars whose revolutionary new book reveals the simple secrets of keeping your breasts healthy for life
YOU have the power to change your body’s future. I know this for a fact. How? Because as a breast cancer surgeon, who has helped tens of thousands of women navigate breast health issues – including stars like Angelina Jolie and Sheryl Crow – I have seen that we can reduce our breast cancer risk in achievable and dramatic ways.
Up to 90 per cent of the risk factors that determine optimal breast health lie in your hands. So you are in control – not your doctors, genes or fate. You are with your breasts all day long, every day. If you spent that much time with anything or anyone – a child, spouse, pet, even a car – you’d make sure they were in good shape. Why treat your breasts differently?
These two organs are perched front and centre on half the population’s chests; yet breast health remains mysterious. Everyone knows that breasts can grow cancer – it’s the No 1 killer of women aged 20 to 59 – yet there’s never been an informed conversation about how to reduce risk factors and why certain precautions might help.
That’s why I’ve written my book – Breasts: An Owner’s Manual. Rigorous science and first-hand experience back up everything I know to be true about breast cancer risk reduction and care.
I’ve operated on breasts for 22 years and was Director of Patient Education at the Breast Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for seven years. In that time I delved into risk reduction and discovered all sorts of lifestyle game changers.
In 2007, I founded the Pink Lotus Breast Center, fusing cancer screening and diagnosis with preventative strategies and holistic care.
The women I treat are like you. They share your concerns about any new mammogram finding, pain, lump, itch or discharge.
They want to know if there’s anything they can do to ward off this disease.
I tell them 50 per cent – and perhaps more – of all breast cancer could be eliminated if women understood that lifestyle choices create the environment inside the very cells of our breasts which stay healthy or turn malignant. Every day, those choices bring us closer to cancer or move us farther away.
Research tells us that if, before reaching menopause, women embrace a lifestyle that prioritises exercise, not smoking, not drinking alcohol and a balanced diet that keeps them a healthy weight, their odds of getting breast cancer are reduced.
Depending on the changes they make, women improve their breast health: they might also notice that any lumps and pain disappear and that their obesity or diabetes improves. Some cancers outwit the best army, but others can be halted or reversed. Our bodies are not defenceless. So here is some of my best advice to keep you – and your breasts – healthy.
TOP 10 FACTS AND MYTHS THE TRUTH ABOUT CANCER RISK
MOST women believe that family history determines who gets breast cancer, but for most, it doesn’t. Inherited genetic mutations, such as a faulty BRCA gene, only cause five to ten per cent of breast cancer: 87 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer do not have a first-degree relative with breast cancer.
The identical twin sister of a woman with breast cancer has only a 20 per cent chance of getting breast cancer – which is the same risk as anyone with an affected sister. Since these twins share the same DNA, if heredity called all the cancer shots, risk should approach 100 per cent but it doesn’t, because genes aren’t the be-all and end-all.
Also, a woman’s lifetime risk of getting breast cancer is one in eight, but your risk right now, today, this minute, is not one in eight. That’s the lifetime roll of the dice to a newborn.
One in 68 women will get breast cancer in their 40s. But if you’re 42, the chance is one in 680. That’s a far cry from one in eight, isn’t it?
WHY DIET IS IMPORTANT
IMAGINE a normal cell happily humming along when, unexpectedly, in a matter of days, what was normal becomes mutated by factors such as the sun’s UV rays, cigarette smoke, or other carcinogens. This mutated cell turns into a cancer seed. Whether or not that seed takes root and blooms into a fullblown cancer capable of destroying your life depends on the microenvironment, the soil in which cancer seeds either flourish or fail.
How do we make this soil? Nutrition is infinitely more important in controlling cancer growth (the soil) than the dose of whatever caused the cancer. Powerful plant compounds that could reduce your
risk of cancer are found in broccoli and kale, soy, garlic, berries and walnuts. The ideal meal is plantbased, low fat and high fibre, with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lentils and beans, with a cup of green tea – or sometimes wine – on the side.
YOU KNOW YOUR BREASTS BEST
HEALTHY breasts require regular at-home breast examinations, in my opinion, but don’t let them stress you out. Breasts are naturally lumpy, and can change through your menstrual cycle, so the goal here is to get a lay of the land and learn what all your lumps feel like. This way, if you develop something new or different, you’ll be the first to find it. Trace your fingers over your breasts the same way every time. If anything seems out of the ordinary, trust your intuition and see your doctor.
MOST LUMPS ARE BENIGN
YOU feel a lump and your mind likely unravels. Yet 95 per cent of palpable breast masses in women under 40 are not cancer, and in women of any age who get a biopsy for a palpable mass, over 80 per cent are benign.
So when’s a girl to panic? OK, never panic. Anxiety adds nothing useful. But see your doctor if a mass persists throughout your menstrual cycle, feels gritty and firm, doesn’t hurt, can’t be defined at the edges because it blends into the surrounding tissue, or it has no matching lump in the same place in the opposite breast. Even then, it’s more likely to be benign.
CANCER CAN VANISH
SOME women live and die with, but not from, cancers they never knew they had. Other cancers might disappear on their own. How do I know this? From autopsies on women without known breast cancer who died from something else, such as an accident.
A survey of 852 post-mortems on women showed that 39 per cent of those aged 40 to 49 had early stage breast cancer and only ten per cent aged 50-70 had the same. Could this mean that cancer regresses? Similarly, researchers in Norway and Sweden think some of the cancers detected through mammograms may spontaneously regress. Don’t misunderstand: once you’re diagnosed with cancer, we aren’t smart enough (yet) to know which ones will regress with no treatment at all, so ‘better safe than sorry’ is the best course of action.
THESE THINGS DON’T CAUSE IT
DEEP breath… breast cancer is not conclusively linked to any of the following: coffee, dairy, bras, antiperspirants or deodorants, relaxing lotions for hair, nipple piercings, tattoos, mobiles, power lines, contraceptive pills, IVF, abortions or stillbirths, or even implants. And relax.
SCANS ARE A PAIN BUT WORTH IT
SOMETIMES patients decline mammography, fearful that radiation exposure from the X-rays involved causes breast cancer. You know what I tell them? They’re right. In a lifetime’s worth of mammogram screening, 8.6 out of 10,000 women will get a radiation - induced breast cancer. However, screening finds about one hundred times more cancers than it causes. If you’re hesitant to get a mammogram because it hurts, sometimes in life, the pain is worth the gain. Taking ibuprofen 30 minutes before the scan might help.
THINK YOURSELF HEALTHY
WHEN I ask a patient newly diagnosed with breast cancer if she faced a stressful or heart-breaking situation five to ten years ago, she all too often responds, ‘Yes, how did you know?’ Loss, disappointment, emotional pain, regret, illness, suffering – life happens, and everyone passes through difficult times. But it’s tragic when that ‘something’ occurred during the five- to ten-year window when cancer cells were too few to detect, but ready to gain momentum. Not all stress announces itself like a massive earthquake; chronic stress results from the cumulative effect of tiny shocks. It sets off a chain reaction, elevating hormone levels and decreasing the number of natural killer cells. Smile, and make it a point to forgive those who hurt and upset you. Do it for your health.
DON’T PANIC ABOUT SORENESS
NEARLY 70 per cent of pre-menopausal women complain of breast pain but the good news is, it doesn’t always mean cancer. If it’s the only symptom, it’s likely to be benign in 90 per cent of cases. In fact, two-thirds of breast pain is cyclical – monthly hormonal changes in a woman’s menstrual cycle cause breast tissue to swell and hurt for a few days before menstruation and mid-cycle at ovulation. The other third can be linked to stress, HRT, ill-fitting bras, weight gain and myriad other causes.
MOST LEAKS CAN BE IGNORED
BREAST ducts naturally contain tiny amounts of fluid and discharge is so common that I can squeeze drops of fluid from 50 per cent of nipples. You can ignore the discharge (other than bloody, red, brown, or clear, like water) as long as it only happens when you squeeze around your nipples. It can be (honestly) amber, yellow, green, blue, grey, white and black. These colours, when associated with discharge only elicited by squeezing, come from benign conditions like cysts and hormone imbalances. You only need a check if discharge emerges spontaneously.
LOSE THE FAT, SLASH YOUR RISK
BEING overweight or obese is the single most preventable contribution to breast cancer. Let’s work out your risk of post-menopausal breast cancer. What was your weight in high school? Now subtract that from your current weight. If you gained less than 8lb, there is no increased risk; a 9lb to 14lb gain yields a 25 per cent increase in risk; a 14lb to 29lb gain 60 per cent; and over 21lb nearly doubles your risk, with a 90 per cent increase in breast cancer. If you lose fat, you will lose your risk. It’s that simple.
Breasts: An Owner’s Manual, by Dr Kristi Funk, is published by HQ, priced £14.99. Offer price £11.24 until July 15. Order at mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 5710640; p&p free on orders over £15.