Enough is Enough

I met this morning with a friend of mine, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  We talked a long time about what the doctor said and about what she wanted to do. 
As I write this, I feel frustrated that I have so many of my friends with breast cancer.  Sometimes it just makes me want to scream, "Enough is Enough"  Not another one of friends, no cancer back off, go away, leave my friends alone.
I know that yelling at the cancer will not make it go away, but I wonder is there something we can do?  Can we make the cancer go away without subjecting ourselves to chemo, radiation or surgery.  Are there other ways to fight back?  And what about the cancer in the first place, can we lower our odds of getting cancer altogether?
Well there may be ways to fight back, ways to put you in control, to not have to play the victim to breast cancer. 
As women we have two dominate hormones, we have more than two, but women have two dominate ones they are Estrogen and Progesterone.  To understand the part that these two hormones play in breast cancer we must first understand how they work.  If you think of your car, you have two main pedals, the brake and the accelerator.  The brake of course makes your car stop and your accelerator makes your car go.  Both are important and both have their function in operating the car.  Well in your body Estrogen would be like your accelerator, but instead of making your car go, Estrogen is a growth hormone that makes things grown.  Think breasts, hips, the lining in your uterus, Estrogen is what makes us soft and curvy, a good thing.  And Progesterone is a like your brake, it helps make you calm, happy, slows down the growth that Estrogen started.  Both are needed in our bodies. 
So what's the problem?  The problem comes when we have too much Estrogen and not enough Progesterone.  Think back to your car, if you only had an accelerator and not a break that would be very bad, as you're driving down the freeway and come up on stopped traffic.  Like your car, if you have too much Estrogen and not enough Progesterone, then instead of getting in an accident, you get all kinds of bad side effects: PMS, Hot-flashes, heavy periods, migraines, etc. and of course you can get breast cancer, because what is cancer but uncontrolled growth.
So why do we have too much Estrogen?  There are several factors that contribute to an over abundance of Estrogen or what is known as being Estrogen Dominant.  This first being prescription drugs, if you are like most women, probably at sometime in your life you went to the gynecologist and he put you on birth control.  Maybe it was to prevent pregnancy, maybe to regulate your periods, maybe for some other reason, but what he didn't tell you was that he was that he was giving you a Hormonal contraceptives (the pill, the patch, and the vaginal ring) all contain a small amount of man-made estrogen and progestin hormones.  So two things, not only was he giving you estrogen, he was also giving you a man-made form of progestin.  You notice that I did not say Progesterone.  Progestin is not Progerterone and it does act the same way in our bodies, in fact it is very dangerous and has been known to cause, what? Breast Cancer.  So we are getting more Estrogen, that our bodies do not need and we are getting something that is dangerous to our bodies.
Another reason that we become Estrogen Dominant is from what we eat.  Ok think back to what I said about what Estrogen does, it grows things.  So if you wanted grow cows, chickens etc. faster to get them to market faster to make more money what would you give the cows to make them grow faster?  That's right, you would give them Estrogen.  So in turn when we eat these animals we are ingesting the hormones.
The third thing that contributes to Estrogen dominance is what is called Xenoestrongens or false Estrogen.  This can be found in so many products that you use everyday.  Your shampoo, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, the list can go on and on.  False Estrogen gets into your body and your body does not know what to do with it.  It can start growth that the body will not be able to turn off.
The final thing I want to talk about today is the role of stress and hormone imbalance.  When you are stressed you actually deplete that amount of Progesterone in your body.  So you are Estrogen dominant by virtue of the fact that you have less Progesterone.  Which of course is you calming, happy hormone, which makes you more stressed.  Wow what a vicious cycle that can be.
So we know the problem, now what can we do?  Come back tomorrow.