breast cancer | Dr. Soram's Integrative Medicine

Breast Cancer and Environment- The latest in Integrative Medicine Confirmation

As many of you know, I work very often with women with breast cancer to keep them healthy, and I also now see women who are coming to protect against getting breast cancer. One of the main things we do is help them clean out their environmental toxins, as Integrative doctors know that this plays a big role in the epidemic of breast cancer. I’ve spoken to most of you about the role of environment in our health and especially in regards to breast cancer. And many of you have listened to my podcast about the role of environment in our health.

Now at long last a governmental agency called the Interagency Breast Cancer & Environmental Research Coordinating Committee has issued a new report. The title of this report is Breast Cancer and the Environment – Prioritizing Prevention.

Finally, the National Institute of Health is acknowledging the most important role of environmental toxicity in the causation of breast cancer. In addition they state they are changing their focus from diagnosis and treatment to a focus of prevention. As many of you know I have been saying for many years that this focus needs to change.

In addition finally they are stating “Despite decades of productive breast cancer research, the number of women diagnosed with the disease continues to rise”. For years the cancer agencies have been saying that breast cancer is going down. That is NOT what my colleagues and I have seen. Now, finally they are admitting that the rate of breast cancer IS continuing to increase.

Here is the link to the site of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the announcement. Please download the PDF near the bottom of the page for more details.

Breast Cancer and Vitamin D-More information!

More and more studies are coming out about the benefits of vitamin D. The study I mentioned on my Dr Oz interview shows the relationship between vitamin D and breast cancer. A new study by my colleague Cedric Garland, Ph.D. is just out again showing the relationship between low vitamin D and increased incidence of breast cancer. This is why I am so careful about measuring all your vitamin D levels regularly throughout the year. And encourage you to get yours tested at least once or twice a year.
Read about it here. And get your friends on Vitamin D !

My do-it-yourself Home Test Kit can be purchased HERE.

Soy Consumption LOWERS Risk For Breast Cancer

October is breast cancer awareness month and I post this article in honor of the women who have had this disease.

For years now my patients with breast cancer or who have risk for breast cancer have repeatedly asked me if it is safe to take soy products. Oncologists have repeatedly told them that soy products have “hormones” and that these could contribute to breast cancer, and therefore women should AVOID soy products at all times.

I extensively researched this soy issue, and talked with many colleagues in integrative medicine all over the world and found that this explanation from their oncologists was not correct.

I explained to my patients, that the “hormones” in soy were not real hormones but that they were Phyto-hormones, and that these hormones actually help protect the estrogen receptors from the woman’s own estrogen. Therefore there would be no increased risk whatsoever for getting breast cancer when eating soy products.

However the oncologists have persistently told my patients the opposite and I understand that my patients would be confused and might err on the side of “safety” and NOT eat soy products.

Now we have three solid studies showing the exact opposite of what my patients have been told by other doctors. Specifically that soy consumption improves the prognosis of women who had breast cancer, and actually women eating soy with a history of breast cancer had a REDUCED incidence of death. In one study, women on Tamoxifin, who consumed the most soy, had a 60% reduction in breast cancer recurrence compared to women who did not eat soy.

Below you will find a video from my colleague Michael Gregor, M.D. explaining all this from the medical journal articles. He has given me permission to use his videos which also appear on YouTube on my website, whenever I would like.

You may ask “Well how much soy is safe then?” The answer as Dr. Gregor explains in this video is 3 -5 servings a day is safe. So that would mean you could safely have soy with every meal and be safe, even with a history of breast cancer.

Dr. Gregor has a wonderful website which is NUTRITION FACTS and a daily newsletter with the latest updates in subjects directly related to integrative medicine as appearing in the traditional medical literature. His bias, like mine, is to encourage patients to eat a Whole Food Plant Based diet. I highly recommend you subscribe to his daily newsletter. It is amazing that he can read every medical journal article that is published and sift out the essence and present it to us in a two-minute video on a daily basis.

Dr. Gregor has also written an article on Soy and Breast cancer which you can find HERE.

I look forward to hearing your comments about this new information. Are you a breast cancer survivor? What do you think of this information? Will it change your dietary habits? Put a note in the comments below please.