What Promotes Breast Cancer?

by Susun Weed, Susan Weed's Wise Woman Center

Adapted from the book, Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way.

Things strongly implicated in the initiation, promotion, or growth of breast cancer.

Hormones, especially estradiol and progesterone

• Sources: Your ovaries, commercial meat and milk, hormone pills, progesterone creams, steroids, cortisone
• Reduced by: Strenous physical activity, pregnancy and lactation, menopause, wise lifestyle and food choices, high levels of phytoestrogens in the diet..

Organochlorines, pesticides, herbicides, bleach, plastics

• Sources: By-products of bleaching paper, drinking and bathing in chlorinated water, use of bleached tampons, chemical farming practices, water pollution.
• Reduced by: Eating organically-grown food, filtering drinking and bathing water, using unbleached paper, using less plastic, buying fresh (not canned) food.

Radiation, especially when young

• Sources: Mammograms, fallout, x-rays, cell-phones.
• Reduced by: Avoidance. Doses are cumulative.

EMFs (Electromagnetic Fields)

• Sources: TVs, hair dryers, microwave towers and ovens, computer monitors, all electrical appliances and lines.
• Reduced by: Distance; shielding does little.

Vegetable oils, hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated fats

• Sources: Corn, sesame, canola, sunflower, soy, flax, and other seed oils; margarine, commercial baked goods and snacks.
• Reduced by: Avoidance; read labels. Use organic butter and olive oil exclusively.

Excessive calories in the diet

• Sources: Easy availability, peer pressure, convenience.
• Reduced by: Wise food choices, herbal infusions, hugs.

Growing older

• Source: Living long.
• Reduced by: Dying young. (Not worth it.)

© 2002 Susun Weed

Susun Weed has been living the simple life for more than 30 years as an herbalist, goatkeeper, homesteader, and feminist. In addition to being the author of four highly-acclaimed books on herbs and women's health, Susun lectures world-wide as the voice of the Wise Woman tradition, personally supervises 400 correspondence students, is editor-in-chief of Ash Tree Publishing, and directs the activities of the Wise Woman Center, where she trains apprentices (240 to date) in the shamanic arts, and plays with the fairies. Her four books Healing Wise, Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way, Breast Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman Way, and Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Years are used by more than a million women, and have been translated into German and French. Visit the author's web site at http://www.susunweed.com.