10 Strategies to Prevent and Treat Breast Cancer

Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to my weekly house call, your chance to ask me your questions. And this week's question is, Dr. Hyman, I have people in my family with breast cancer and I'm at risk for breast cancer. Is there anything we can do to help reduce our risk or prevent cancer or even reverse it? Well, breast cancer is a scary problem. It affects one in eight women and that's up from one in 20 in the 1960s, which means that there's a lot of environmental factors that are driving cancer, which is what we're eating, it toxes the environment, other changes we'll discuss. And the good news is there is a lot you can do to help prevent cancer and even help support you if you have cancer. This week I was at Cleveland Clinic where we started the Center for Functional Medicine about a year ago. And I've been meeting with various leaders in Cleveland Clinic who want to collaborate to use functional medicine to help deal with the chronic conditions that they face. And the woman I met with this week was the head of the Breast Health Center at Cleveland Clinic. And she takes care of patients who are at risk for cancer, who get mammograms 80,000 a year. She takes care of women who've had cancer and wanna hopefully prevent cancer. They do something called active surveillance, which is where they have people back for regular checkups. Well, that's not really active surveillance, that's inactive, meaning they don't do anything in between visits, and you come back and hopefully you don't have cancer. that's not good. You want to do something to change the conditions in which the cancer grew. And that's really possible with breast cancer because we know a lot about what causes it. So let's go through what causes it. First, diet has a huge role to play in cancer. And the number one driver is sugar. You've heard me talk about sugar over and over again because it's one of the most potent toxins in our food supply. We each consume about 150 52 pounds of sugar, 146 pounds of flour, which acts worse than sugar in your body. And those substances drive up insulin. Insulin is a growth hormone. It makes cancer cells grow and it creates inflammation, both of which drive cancer cells. In fact, when you do a study to see if someone's got cancer spread in their body, you deprive them of sugar for a few days, and then you give them an injection of radioactive labeled sugar, and guess what? The sugar labeled with radioactivity goes right to the cancer because the cancer loves sugar and it fuels the cancer. It increases insulin, which is driving the whole process of cancer risk. So getting a low glycemic diet like I've written about in the blood sugar solution and the 10 day detox diet is a great way to reduce your risk. Also, we know that not having adequate amounts of fiber plays a role. Why? Because fiber is so critical for your gut health. and we know that if you have imbalances in your gut flora that you are at higher risk of breast cancer. And that may not make sense, but I'm actually working with leading researchers at Cleveland Clinic. One of them is Dr. Kiarash Ang, who's a researcher in genomics. And she's studying the microbiome, the gut flora, and how that influences the expression of cancer genes. Meaning the gut bacteria you have aren't just sitting there as waste in your gut, they're actually dynamically interacting with your immune system. and with your genes. And so by understanding what gut flora you have or don't have and how that influences cancer, we can create a program to restore your gut health. So having enough fiber is critical. There's in fact studies where you look at bad bugs that grow from taking antibiotics like Clostridia and those are linked to breast cancer. We know that women who take more antibiotics are at higher risk for breast cancer. And that's because it changes the gut environment. so tending your inner garden is also critical with fiber, probiotics and other things that actually help your digestion heal. The other big factor are toxins. Toxins is a huge driver of cancer in general and particularly breast cancer. Why? Because plastics, petrochemical derived products, pesticides, phthalates, flame retardants, PCBs, DDT, all these things that are still in the environment, still in our water supply and our food supply are driving cancer. Why? Because they act like estrogen in the body. They're called xenoestrogens or foreign estrogens. Xeno means foreign. And they actually bind to the receptors that are for estrogen and they activate estrogen in the body. And when that happens, you get stimulation of these pathways that drive cancer. And you know what? They're up to a thousand times more powerful than estrogen. And when you combine them together, they're synergistic. so it's pretty frightening when you look at the load of toxins we are exposed to and how they affect us. I mean, even if you get your credit card receipt, it's full of BPA, which is a toxin. When you have water from a plastic bottle, unless it's not a cloudy plastic bottle or if it's a BPA-free bottle, you're going to get phthalates in it, which drive your cancer risk. If women put cosmetics on their face, they're putting in all sorts of toxins that are actually driving your cancer risk. So We have to learn how to live clean and green and detoxify our bodies from these environmental chemicals. And that means doing some simple things like filtering your water, like having organic food if you can. I mean, I encourage you to go to the website ewg.org where you can look at the dirty dozen and clean 15 foods so you can maximize your budget by choosing the foods that you really should eat organic all the time and the ones you can kind of get away with with not organic. You should definitely have organic meat because Not only are there more toxins in there, but there are also more hormones that drive cancer risk. So you really want to reduce your overall exposure to environmental toxins, filtered water, organic food, reducing your household products that have toxins in them or plasticizers or chemicals. And you can do that by looking at EWG as well. They have great guides on cleaning products for your house that are not toxic. Same with skin products. They have a website there called Skin Deep, which is a database of all your skin care products. very simple solutions to minimize the toxins that you put in you and put on you. And you can't control everything, but you can control those things. And there's another big driver of cancer risk, particularly breast cancer, and that's alcohol. One glass of wine a day increases your risk of breast cancer by 40%. Why? Because alcohol is a liver toxin and affects your ability to metabolize estrogen so you get higher levels of estrogen. So anything that drives higher levels of estrogen, whether it's bad gut bugs, whether it's environmental toxins, whether it's sugar, whether it's alcohol, all increase your risk of breast cancer. So there are some very simple things you can do to reduce your risk of breast cancer. The first is create a healthy soil. And how do you do that? Well, first you clean up your diet. You get rid of the sugar and the flour and the processed food and you eat real food. And that cuts the spikes in insulin, which drives the cancer. Also, limit your alcohol to at least no more than one glass three times a week of alcohol or wine. Next, tend your inner garden, which is so critical by eating more fiber, taking prebiotics, and keeping a healthy gut and avoiding antibiotics. Next, live clean and green. Get rid of environmental toxins by making sure you eat organic and sustainably raised animal products if you're eating animal products. Use the Environmental Working Group's website to learn how to actually not use toxic skin care products, household products, or foods. Very simple strategies, very powerful. There's lots more you can do, but this is a start. So if you're really concerned with reducing your risk of breast cancer or trying to manage your risk as you go forward if you have breast cancer, simple things make a big difference. And I encourage you to check out my books, Blood Sugar Solution is a great resource because it goes through a lot of things I was just talking about and it's really focused on getting healthy as well as fixing diabetes, but it really also addresses the cancer risk. So if you have breast cancer and you found things that work for you or you found ways to reduce your risk, why don't you share it with our community? Because we all have a lot to learn from each other. And if you like this video, share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. If you like this video, sign up for our weekly newsletter at drhyman.com and submit your questions to me @drhyman.com so that next week I may make a house call to you.