Breast Health:
Fresh Perspectives on Prevention

By Linda Hegstrand, M.D., Ph.D.

One of my MD colleagues told me: “Once you enter the world of complementary medicine, you cross an abyss with no turning back.” How correct she is! Most physicians are so busy practicing medicine the way they were taught in medical school that they do not take the time to investigate natural alternatives to drugs, surgery, and radiotherapy. They have faith in the medical education system to keep them current on the latest and the best. Events beyond my control encouraged me to look outside of the box. As a leading edge baby boomer, I was concerned about maintaining my excellent health rather than following the path to chronic disease—all too common amongst my contemporaries. This article shares with you my informed and educated perspectives on breast health.

There are numerous alarming facts related to healthcare in the U.S. Several of them include: Women have a 1 in 7 chance of developing breast cancer. The leading cause of death in women 40 to 44 years old is breast cancer. President Nixon declared War on Cancer in 1971. While spending billions of dollars on cancer research from 1971 to 2002, breast cancer increased from 70,000 to 194,000 cases. The breast cancer death rate remains virtually unchanged between 1920 and 2000. Does this mean we should explore alternatives to chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation to win the 30+ year War on Cancer? Would we reap more rewards by spending money on prevention rather than intervention? There is an old saying that seems to have merit: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

The medical literature abounds with studies on the effect of hormones on female cancers. Or does it? All the large scale studies over many years, look at the effects of either horse estrogen, Premarin, and/or Provera, a synthetic drug with some progesterone activity. Do you know that the chemical structure similarity between testosterone, a hormone that produces masculinity, and estradiol, a hormone that produces femininity, are more similar than between estradiol and Premarin or between progesterone and Provera? I wonder why we spent and keep spending many dollars looking at the effect of drugs rather the effect of natural hormonal balance.

Progesterone receptors are on many different cell types. Why would they be there if the only role for progesterone is to maintain a healthy pregnancy? Some of progesterone’s roles include helping to prevent uterine and breast cancers (opposite of Provera which increases breast cancer risk), stimulating bone formation, facilitating thyroid function, and preventing coronary artery spasms and plaques.

Bio-identical hormones are NOT drugs. Their biologic activity is different from synthetic drugs that have some hormonal activity. Achieving hormonal balance with natural hormones is preventive medicine.

Conventional medicine has traditionally used drugs with hormonal activity for prevention, not bio-identical hormones. Their recommendation for breast cancer prevention is annual mammograms and breast examinations beginning at age 40.

Mammography is an anatomic scan that detects cancer when a mass has already formed. It exposes the breasts to harmful cumulative radiation and painful compression and is limited by dense breasts, HRT, and breast implants. A recent long-term Canadian study demonstrated annual breast examinations alone are as effective as annual breast examinations and mammograms in detecting breast cancer. Lancet recently published a review by Danish physicians that came to a similar conclusion.

Why then are annual mammograms recommended? Do the math! If mammograms are done on 62 million women over 40 years old at $150 each and 1 to 2 million have breast biopsies at $1000+ per biopsy, how big a business is this? That’s a $10 Billion per year industry!

Mammography’s partner is thermography. Thermography is a physiologic scan that uses a high resolution digital infrared camera linked to a computer to detect differences in body emitted heat. It is painless. There is no contact and no radiation. Thermography is not limited by dense breasts or breast implants. It detects angiogenesis, new blood formation, which is necessary to feed hungry cancer cells so they can form a mass. Angiogenesis becomes apparent with 1 million cancer cells, a pinhead size mass, whereas a palpable or mammographically detetable mass is composed of 1 billion cancer cells forming a grape size mass. At this early stage in the progression of disease, angiogenesis can be stopped naturally before breast cancer is diagnosed. That is not a false positive, but rather true prevention.

Angiogenesis can be reversed by customized nutrition based on an individual’s metabolic balance indicators, hormonal balancing by natural means, toxic load reduction, electrohomeostatic balance, and jaw and spine alignments.

Neither mammography nor thermography is diagnostic. A diagnosis can only be made by a pathologist on a biopsy. Thermography was approved by the FDA as an adjunctive screening procedure in 1982. It provides 100% safe early detection, the ability to monitor abnormal physiology, and to assess risk for the development of cancer.

Correcting the above listed parameters along with other lifestyle changes provides a fresh approach to prevention. Remember: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Linda Hegstrand M.D, Ph.D. is a board certified and licensed physician. She serves as Medical Director for The Complete Wellness Center in Grand Rapids where thermography is available. For personal consultations contact 616.464.0470 or 616.443.3571 or e-mail her at DrLindaMD@comcast.net.