There are tools other than mammography to monitor breast health.
Digital infrared thermographic imaging, DITI, is a procedure to gauge a woman’s risk for developing breast cancer before the change in mammogram recommendations.
Breast thermography is not a replacement for mammography but simply another way doctors can track subtle changes in a woman’s breast tissue, she said.
“If someone has their blood checked for cholesterol levels and it comes back that they have high cholesterol, that means that person is at a higher risk for having arterial blockages and, later on, a heart attack,”
“It is the same thing with thermography. Woman’s risk is identified. It doesn’t mean that the patient has cancer; it just means this patient is a higher risk.”
Mammograms and breast cancer have been on many women’s minds since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine mammography screening in women ages 40 to 49 years, and screening only every other year for women ages 50 and over.
Dr. Nicole Schertell, a naturopathic doctor, is approached by women to have breast thermograph done for a number of reasons.
Women chose not to have mammograms. Some women have very dense breast tissue and have been told not to have mammograms and some women don’t like the idea of the compression and radiation (in a mammogram).”
Schertell might refer patients found by a thermograph test to be at higher risk to have a traditional mammogram as a follow up.
The digital breast thermography procedure takes 15 minutes and works by detecting infrared heat patterns emitted by the body. It translates those heat patterns into a digital image, which is sent off-site from the Newington medical practice to be interpreted by radiologists specially trained in thermography. The procedure involves no radiation and is a non-invasive approach.
“It’s easy; you don’t feel anything, you don’t even feel warmth,” Schertell said.
The digital breast thermography is FDA approved and has been extensively studied and found to have a 90 percent accuracy rate, Schertell said. There have been 800 peer-reviewed studies done with more than 300,000 women included, she said.
Some insurance companies cover a small portion of the cost for the procedure. If it’s not covered, the out-of-pocket cost for the first screening is $150 and the follow-up screening three months after is $100. If a person is having trouble paying out of pocket, Schertell works with the United Breast Cancer Foundation, which can pay up to $300 a year per person for breast thermography testing.
The first screening establishes a baseline, while the follow up looks for any changes from that baseline, Schertell said. After the first two screenings, a yearly screening is recommended.
“Thermography is looking at what’s going on in the cellular activity and new blood vessel growth,” she said. “Thermography has the ability to see things eight to 10 years earlier than mammograms.”
That early detection might not necessarily be breast cancer but more an indicator that someone is more at risk of developing breast cancer.
If someone is deemed a higher risk, they might be monitored more closely. The important thing, she said, is that it is another tool to help measure breast health.
“Thermography has always been every woman’s choice and every woman’s responsibility,” she said. “You can come on your own and take this extra preventative measure.”
Article with courtesy from: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20091126-NEWS-911260425

Japan offers a perfect illustration of the detrimental effects of an unhealthy diet on a population. Formerly a very healthy nation, Japan’s traditional diet was rich in nutritious, unprocessed foods, many of which were derived from the sea. As Japan has slowly adopted a more Western diet over the years, its rates of cancer have begun to increase, exemplifying the link between dietary habits
and health

It is imperative for every health-oriented individual that a wide variety of whole, natural foods be consumed as opposed to processed foods high in unnatural sugars and refined flours. Fortifying the body with nutrients, minerals, and vitamins from natural, balanced sources is vital to maintaining optimal health.

A recent French study published in theAmerican Journal of Epidemiology has revealed that a “Mediterranean” diet rich in fruits and vegetables, fish, and olive and sunflower oils will reduce the risk of post-menopausal women developing cancer. Findings implicated the “Western” diet as contributing heavily to incidences of breast cancer.

The Mediterranean diet is replete with foods that are rich in vital nutrients. Olive oil, for instance, contains high levels of oleic acid, an anti-cancer fatty acid that blocks oncogene HER-2/neu, a cancer-causing agent. Other anti-cancer nutrients include high levels of selenium, glutathione, fiber, polyphenols, vitamins E and C, and a highly favorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

On the other hand, the Western diet consists of many highly-refined, nutrient-depleted processed foods. Grain-fed meats high in harmful fats, excess refined flours and starchy foods, processed sugars, and gluttonous alcohol intake are some of the typical staples in the unhealthy, cancer-inducing Western diet.

Prior to the study, few scientific inquiries had been made into the correlation between breast cancer risk and diet. Though the link should be obvious to everyone, the study illustrates the obvious fact that diet plays a crucial role in keeping the body healthy and free of disease.

Adopted with courtesy from: http://www.naturalnews.com

Juice fasting is a powerful detoxification method and an easy way to lose weight quickly. With juice fasting, you’ll consume considerable nutrition through freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, but forgo any solid foods. Juice fasting is a powerful detoxification method because when your body isn’t digesting food, your body can divert its extra energy to cleansing itself and eliminating old, unneeded tissue.

Most people don’t know it, but our bodies use considerable amounts of energy just to digest our daily meals. It’s estimated that up to thirty percent of all of the energy a person produces each day is used to digest food. Common meat and carbohydrate heavy meals require considerably more energy to digest than meals consisting primarily of fruits and vegetables.

In addition to giving your body considerable stores of energy to cleanse and heal itself, juice fasting can be a very easy way to lose weight quickly. In fact, if you have weight to lose, you’ll find pounds and inches melt off in just a few days. It’s not uncommon to lose 10 pounds with a week of juice fasting, if you have weight to lose. However, if you’re already lean you simply won’t lose much weight. It’s amazing how intelligent our bodies are when we return to natural methods.

Juice fasting is beneficial for weight loss because your liver, your prime detoxification organ, is also your prime fat burning organ. So when you detoxify your body, you are freeing up your liver’s resources to burn fat. However, when your body is overwhelmed with the need to detoxify itself, which is common these days, your liver will have a difficult time getting around to burning fat.

Our bodies are designed to fast occasionally. Many studies have shown that reduced caloric intake leads to health and longer life. A 1930’s study from the University of Chicago found that worms who fasted regularly lived 19 generations longer than their non-fasting and regularly fed relatives. In human terms that’s equivalent to having a 600-700 year life expectancy. Interestingly, that’s about the same life expectancy quoted in the Bible for humans when human life began on earth.

In fact, it’s likely that when humans were first around fasting was a regular occurrence simply due to the lack of established food production and distribution systems. At that time the things we regularly poison ourselves with (pesticides, chemical drugs, hormones in foods, plastics, vaccines, and virtually all man-made chemicals) weren’t in existence either. Today, many of these poisons are difficult to avoid and it’s challenging to even understand what our potential could be since most of us consume poisons with each meal, glass of water and breath - and have been since day one.

Understanding Fasting and Detoxification

Especially if you’re new to cleansing and detoxification, you may experience detoxification symptoms when juice fasting. This can mean you might have headaches, nausea, or feel a bit out of it. It’s important to understand that this is part of the detoxification process, and simply how people feel when they have large amounts of toxins and poisons in their bloodstream. However, to remove those poisons from your body they’ll need to temporarily be in your bloodstream before they can exit, which is the reason you might feel a bit badly. In any case, it’s important to know what’s going on.

To help ease detoxification symptoms and really detoxify your body, colon cleansing and liver cleansing (with coffee enemas) work wonders when combined with fasting. These methods will help you remove more gunk than you can imagine and they’ll help you feel better while cleansing too.

Article courtesy:
http://www.naturalnews.com/027576_juice_fasting_weight_loss.html