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Lumpectomy is the surgical removal of a cancerous lump (or tumor) in the breast, along with a small margin of the surrounding normal breast tissue. Lumpectomy may also be called wide excision biopsy, breast conserving therapy or quadrantectomy (this latter term is used when up to one fourth of the breast is removed). The procedure is often performed on women with small or localized breast cancers and can be an attractive surgical treatment option for breast cancer because it allows women to maintain most of their breast after surgery. Several studies have shown that women with small breast tumors have an equal chance of surviving breast cancer regardless of whether they have a lumpectomy, followed by a full course of radiation therapy, or mastectomy (complete breast removal, which generally does not require post-operative radiation treatment).

Myth: Chemotherapy Will Make a Woman’s Hair Fall Out.
Fact: The loss of hair (alopecia) is only one of the temporary side effects of chemotherapy. Hair loss and other side effects of chemotherapy depend on the types of drugs administered, their dosage, and the length of treatment. Some women experience few if any adverse effects from drug treatment. For women who experience alopecia, hair loss usually begins about three weeks after chemotherapy has begun. In most all cases, the hair will regrow after chemotherapy has ended. According to the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations, the early chemotherapy regimen of cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and flouracil (CMF) causes fewer side effects in most women than other regimens containing Adriamyacin (generic name, doxorubicin).

Detecting Breast Cancer Before It Starts
October 7, 2002
By: Susan M. Love
Source: New York Times

This has been a bad year for proponents of early detection of breast cancer. Not only have we seen debates about the effectiveness of mammography but last week a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that breast self-examination did not prevent deaths from breast cancer.

Once again women find themselves wondering what happened. For years we have been told that early detection is the only way to insure that you will find breast cancer at a curable stage. We have seen charts showing the size of cancers that can be felt by self-examination, with the implication that smaller is more treatable. This is true—to a point—but as the current debates suggest, the size of the tumor is not the only important factor.

Cancers do not grow in a nice, orderly fashion from the size of a grain of sand to a pea to a grape to an orange. They spurt and rest and spurt again. And all cancers are not the same. Some are so aggressive that it doesn’t matter when you find them because they will already have spread to other parts of the body. Others are so slow-growing that they may never spread.

There is also the problem that not all cancer tumors can be felt when they are small. Most of the time what you are feeling when you feel a tumor is not the cancer cells but the reaction the cells cause in the tissue around them. Lobular cancers, for example, are notoriously sneaky. The cancer cells march off into the breast tissue causing little reaction until the tumor is quite large. A woman could be performing regular self-exams and getting mammograms and still not find her cancer until it is the size of an orange!

Even so, what’s the harm of continuing to promote self-exams and mammography? The harm is that they give us a false sense that we have a good way to find cancers and thus cure them and that very sense may keep us from redirecting resources to finding a better approach.

For example, all the current tests—mammography, M.R.I., ultrasound and thermography—look for the presence of cancer tumors. But what we need to do is get in earlier in the process of malignancy. We need to be able to find cells that are abnormal but have not yet become cancerous.

In fact, that is what is done in the prevention and detection of cervical cancer and colon cancer. Pap smears detect abnormal cervical cells before the cells become cancerous; and removal of polyps with the colonoscope is done before cancer can develop.

This is possible with these types of cancers because we have access to where the cancer starts. In breast cancer we have not had that access until very recently. All breast cancer starts in the lining of the milk ducts. We now have tiny catheters and even scopes that can be threaded into the openings of milk ducts in the nipple to obtain and identify abnormal cells to determine whether a woman is at risk.

Some research projects are looking for changes in breast duct fluid (obtained by squeezing a drop or two from the nipple) that may prove to be early markers for malignancy. Others are working to develop blood tests that could indicate women at risk for breast cancer in the way that the P.S.A. blood test can detect prostate cancer in the earliest stages.

It’s time to move beyond the debates about the utility of breast self-examination and mammography and increase the resources and energy devoted to finding something that will truly give us early detection.

Come January, when the euphoria of the holidays has faded and the days are short, a sense of melancholy is pervasive among northerners. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), commonly referred to as the “winter blues,” is marked by feelings of lethargy, depression, lack of appetite and lack of desire to have sex.

It may surprise you to learn that sunlight deprivation can cause all of these symptoms and more. Though not often taken seriously, perhaps because it is perceived as temporary, seasonal depression can be debilitating. In some cases, it may even lead to chronic depression that does not go away with the onset of summer.

In a recent report from the Canadian Journal of Diagnosis (Canadian Consensus Guidelines for the Treatment of SAD; source: PsychDirect.com; 2006), studies show women are four times as likely as men to experience SAD. The study also showed that most people experience SAD during winter months over a 60-90 day period, and for at least two years in a row.

Sunlight is not just an aspect of the world we live in, or food for plants and trees. Sunlight is an essential ingredient in human health. Sunlight fuels serotonin production, a neurotransmitter that helps to regulate your mood. Inadequate serotonin production is a primary cause of chronic depression, and many of the anti-depressant drugs on the market are designed to increase serotonin levels.

Adequate exposure to sunlight is also required in order to produce Vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency is linked to many diseases and disorders, including osteoporosis, diabetes, and even cancer. The single best source of Vitamin D is sunlight; more than milk and other foods rich in Vitamin D. Studies show that Vitamin D supplements can help reduce symptoms of SAD.

While lack of sunlight is the main cause, other related factors contribute to seasonal depression. For example, with limited daylight and cold temperatures, people exercise less. Studies show that exercise releases endorphins, which give you a sense of well being. More importantly, regular exercise increases your serotonin and dopamine levels, which helps you to feel a sense of happiness and calm throughout the day.

The treatment of choice for SAD is light box therapy, specifically a fluorescent light box. With daily usage, patients usually feel noticeably better within one week. There are many different types of light boxes, and there are very specific guidelines to follow; position of the light box and duration of exposure are among the variables.

It’s always best to seek medical guidance rather than self-diagnosing and purchasing your light box online. People who suffer from depression or other mood disorders in other months of the year may need medication to treat SAD, or a combination of medication and light therapy. Light therapy boxes can be expensive, but some insurance companies will cover most or all of the expense if prescribed by a physician.

Of course, one of the best ways to treat a mild case of the “winter blues” is to get out in the sun. Make a practice of taking a thirty-minute walk in the sun each day, especially during mid-day when the sun is at its brightest. You will get the benefits of sunlight exposure, fresh air, and exercise, at the same time. Go for a walk during your lunch break, or take the dog for a longer walk after work. Whatever you choose to do outside, just get out. It can make a world of difference in your mood.

The Underlying Causes of Cancer
Cancerous cells are always being created in the body. It’s an ongoing process that has gone on for eons. So parts of your immune system are designed to seek out and destroy cancer cells.

Cancer has been around as long as mankind, but only in the second half of the 20th century did the number of cancer cases explode. Contributing to this explosion are the excessive amounts of toxins and pollutants we are exposed to, high stress lifestyles that zap the immune system, poor quality junk food that’s full of pesticides, irradiated and now genetically modified, pathogens, electromagnetic stress, lights, and just about everything that wasn’t here 200 years ago.

All these weaken the immune system, and alter the internal environment in the body to an environment that promotes the growth of cancer.

Cancer is not a mysterious disease that suddenly attacks you out of the blue, something that you can’t do anything about. It has definite causes that you can correct if your body has enough time, and if you take action to change the internal environment to one that creates health, not cancer, while at the same time attacking cancerous cells and tumors by exploiting their weaknesses.

Cancer tumors begin when more cancerous cells are being created than an overworked, depleted immune system can destroy.

Constant exposure to tens of thousands of manmade chemicals from birth onward, chlorinated and fluoridated water, electromagnetic radiation, pesticides and other toxins, leads to the creation of too many free radicals and excessive numbers of cancerous cells.

Alone this would be enough to raise cancer levels, but combined with an immune system weakened by a diet of refined and over processed food, mineral depleted soils, and too much exposure to artificial light at night, the immune system at some point no longer is able to keep cancer in check, and it starts to grow in your body.

Study Finds Link between Red Meat and Breast Cancer (dateline November 31, 2006) Format for Printing

Pre-menopausal women who frequently consume red meat may be at higher risk of developing a certain type of breast cancer than pre-menopausal women who consume less red meat, according to the results of a new study. Most women who develop breast cancer have already reached menopause, but a small percentage develop the disease in earlier years. Past studies about the association between red meat and breast cancer risk have largely been inconclusive. Researchers of the current study do not know why pre-menopausal women who consume red meat several times a week may have a greater risk of breast cancer and say that further researcher is needed to explore this apparent connection.

“This study suggests that dietary factors may be related to a woman’s chance of developing this type of breast cancer, a disease that is on the rise in American women,” said lead author, Eunyoung Cho, Sc.D, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, in a news release. The study was published in the November 13, 2006 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

To conduct the study, researchers studied 90,659 pre-menopausal female nurses between the ages of 26 to 46 who are participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II. The researchers followed the women from 1991 through 2003 and tracked their red meat consumption through a series of questionnaires. They also monitored whether the women developed breast cancer through the women’s self-reports and hospital records. In total, 1,021 of the women developed breast cancer.

Upon further analysis, the researchers found that how much red meat women consumed appeared to be linked to their breast cancer risk level. For example, women who consumed more than one and a half servings of red meat per day had nearly double the risk of a certain type of breast cancer compared with those with the lowest intake of red meat, which was less than three servings per week.

It should be noted that red meat only appeared to increase the risk a certain type of breast cancer called hormone-receptor positive breast cancer. Many breast cancer cells contain estrogen or progesterone receptors; these cancers are called estrogen-receptor positive or progesterone-receptor positive (broadly, either are called hormone receptor positive breast cancer). Approximately 80% of breast cancers are estrogen receptor-positive; that is, they contain estrogen receptors. The remaining 20% are estrogen receptor-negative-they do not contain estrogen receptors. Out of the 1,021 women in the studied who developed breast cancer, 512 of them had hormone-receptor positive breast cancer.

Previous studies on diet and breast cancer have largely yielded inconclusive results. In a 2002 British study of women who came to Britain from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, researchers found that those women who were lifelong vegetarians had a lower risk of developing breast cancer than those women who consumed meat. However, a 2000 study of nearly 400 women found no link between a high-fat diet and breast cancer. The researchers of the current study argue that many past studies focused on diet in women who had reached mid life or later, as opposed to younger women.

“The reason why the amount of red meat consumed by a pre-menopausal women was related to her breast cancer risk is unknown, but this study shows that it has a strong association and that more research should be done to further explore this connection,” said Cho.

The link between diet and breast cancer will likely continue to be controversial. However, researchers have found that there is a much higher incidence of breast cancer in areas with high fat diets (such as the United States) than areas with low-fat diets (such as Asia).

Researchers have identified other factors that seem to play a larger role in determining breast cancer risk (although 80% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no known risk factors).

Risk factors for breast cancer include:

Advancing age
Family history of breast cancer
Personal history of biopsy revealing pre-cancerous conditions, such as lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS)
Genetic mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes
Early onset of menstruation (before age 12)
Late menopause (after age 50)
Not having children, or having children after age 30