A diagnosis of breast cancer is one of the most frightening, and life changing events for any woman and her family. Though available treatments continue to improve, and survival rates continue to rise, it remains as traumatic and life threatening as ever. That is why regular self-exams and healthy lifestyle choices are so important to women of all ages. Early detection and treatment greatly increases a patient’s chances of survival, and of returning to a positive healthy life. Women facing the breast cancer battle have few options when it comes to possible treatments, and conventional medicine still turns to surgery and chemotherapy as the best tools available to beat the cancer. Adding complimentary therapies however, have been proven to improve a patient’s prognosis while helping to alleviate some of the more unpleasant side effects of conventional treatments. For many women facing the battle against breast cancer, the right supplementary therapy can offer relief from the pain and nausea associated with chemotherapy and can help strengthen their bodies for the all-important fight.

Diet and the Battle against Breast Cancer

A healthy diet is integral to the well-being of any person, regardless of sex or disease. But making precise dietary changes can help women augment their body’s natural cancer fighting abilities. Much of the food that we ingest on a regular basis is treated with pesticides, hormones and other chemicals intended to increase yield and shelf stability. These chemicals can act like estrogen in the body, and can lead to the growth of hormone dependent tumors. This is particularly harmful when a woman’s body is already compromised by breast cancer and chemotherapy. Step one in altering your diet to fight breast cancer is to increase the intake of wholly organic foods, and eliminate as many of these harmful chemicals from your diet as possible.

As patients begin to redesign their diets, it is important to begin adding foods that help the body to perform well, and to heal itself. Dark green leafy vegetables, such as kale, broccoli, water cress and daikon help to stimulate the kidneys and liver which are vital to the elimination of toxins from the bloodstream. This is particularly important for women undergoing chemotherapy, as once the drugs have done their work it is vital they be eliminated safely from the body. Adding probiotics also help to strengthen the digestive system, which in turn will help the body absorb much needed nutrients from the organic foods being added to the diet. Holistic clinicians and alternative cancer treatment centers also suggest that breast cancer patients increase the amounts of anti-inflammatory foods such as garlic, curcumin, flax seeds, hemp seeds and green leafy vegetables in their diets. These foods help to prevent the formation of new blood vessels, which in turn may prevent tumors from metastasizing. (more…)

As soon as people adopt the typical Western diet and way of life they become prone to a devastating risk of heart and cardiovascular disease. And it has been estimated that 80% of deaths resulting from cardiovascular disease are in fact preventable, if people were to make better lifestyle choices. In this case our future is really in our own hands!

As time passes atherosclerosis sets in. Our once clean, flexible blood vessels start to clog up with deposits of plaque. When this happens the flow of blood is constricted and eventually a blood vessel can become completely blocked. Areas of the body are starved of oxygen and disease follows. High blood pressure (hypertension), strokes, thrombosis and heart failure are some of the consequences of this process.

What to do?

• Exercise more! Being a couch potato is simply bad for our health.

It is important to choose activities that you enjoy so that they do not become too much of a chore to sustain. And finding a team, group or buddy to ‘play’ with is a really good idea, as it keeps you going when the going gets tough.

• Stop smoking. There is nothing to recommend this habit from a health point of view. And if there is an aesthetic advantage, it certainly escapes me. Someone once said that kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray – a picture that should put anyone off the habit for all time!

• Choose to eat differently. The advice will almost certainly have a familiar ring to you:

o Eat lots of vegetables and fruits. They are the source of a whole range of important nutrients, but here the focus is on the antioxidants that they supply. These are found in brightly coloured varieties especially, including tomatoes, beets, berries, broccoli red peppers, spinach, mangoes, papayas, red grapes and so on. They prevent the LDLs (low density lipoproteins) in the blood from becoming oxidized and sticky so they will no longer deposit on the walls of the blood vessels as plaque. (more…)