Breastfeeding may protect at-risk women from cancer

Women with a family history of breast cancer may have a new weapon against the disease: breast-feeding. In a new study of more than 60,000 women, nursing a baby for at least three months cut the risk of breast cancer in half for those who had a family history of the disease.

For women with at least one close relative with breast cancer, nursing cut breast cancer risk by 59 percent.

The researchers say that breast-feeding could be the equivalent of taking the drug tamoxifen for five years, which is a well-known way to cut breast cancer risk in women with a family history of the disease.

“For women at high risk right now, the things we have to offer are tamoxifen, prophylactic mastectomy — that’s about it,” says Alison M. Stuebe, M.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who conducted the research while at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “This study is really good news for women with a family history of breast cancer who are looking to reduce their risk.” The study was published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine.

The most devastating loss of life from breast cancer occurs between the ages of 30 to 50. Fortunately, you have more options available to you today to help detect breast cancer than in the past decades.

Unfortunately, education and awareness of these options and their effectiveness in detecting breast cancer at different stages in life are woefully deficient.

Beyond Mammography

In the first part of the in-depth article linked below, Beyond Mammography, Dr. Len Saputo explores the latest findings on the effectiveness and shortcomings of various detection methods used by the mainstream medical community, including mammography, clinical breast exams, ultrasound, and to a lesser extent, magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) and PET scans.

The second part goes beyond mammography, exploring a highly advanced but much maligned detection tool for breast cancer — breast thermography.

Breast thermography, which involves using a heat-sensing scanner to detect variations in the temperature of breast tissue, has been around since the 1960s. However, early infrared scanners were not very sensitive, and were insufficiently tested before being put into clinical practice, resulting in misdiagnosed cases.

Modern-day breast thermography boasts vastly improved technology and more extensive scientific clinical research.

In fact, the article references data from major peer review journals and research on more than 300,000 women who have been tested using the technology. Combined with the successes in detecting breast cancer with greater accuracy than other methods, the technology is slowly gaining ground among more progressive practitioners.