Huffington Post article by Dr. Weiss

Rubyeye, we are talking about Dr. Weiss' article and her intimating about "placing blame" on why we "got" bc. What are YOU talking about???????? No one said WHAT???

We don't care about the "scientific articles", this thread is about Dr. Weiss' article. Focus.....

No one is blaming anyone, just passing along information.  Barbe - if only want to hear one Dr.'s point of view, you are very closed minded.

If your life is as good as it gets....why don't you release your hostilities elsewhere and enjoy yourself 

Close minded?????  That's funny!!!!

Thanks Barbe for actually noticing my post about how these articles mislead others who then point the finger at us.  It was my sister who said to my face that I caused my own cancer by repressing my feelings.  Something she had read in a book.

I'd just like these articles to clearly state that the causes are unknown and the risk factors quoted are not significant.  So many women are obese and drink but they don't get BC.  Everyone is stressed or has unresolved issues.  Some women on these boards express their emotions freely and others swallow them and everything in between.  

Junk science and pop psychology have done immeasurable harm to so many many ill people who have to hear comments like those. It's truly incredible. And don't get me started on this "positive psychology" nonsense. My club recently began offering a group exercise class that it says is modeled on the tenets of positive psychology. I almost threw up when I read about it in the monthly newsletter. It's called something silly like "infinity" or "desiderata" or some tripe like that. I suppose the class consists of people just standing there "wishing" themselves fit - lol! I am not able to find out, since I work at that time. Imagine the disappointment of those people when they end up looking just as imperfect as us spinning class masochists!

Good for you for speaking up Sheila!

We all need to do that more often to rebut some of this crazy stuff.  I've decided too many people really don't think ... they just spout off with whatever they have heard or read.  Out the mouth without going through the brain for processing.

I have a Masters degree in Health psychology/Behavioral medicine. Positive psychology is not just "thinking positive thoughts" but is a new branch in the psychological field. There is so much more to positive psycholgy than a pollyanna attitude--which it is not. The history of psychology has always focused on the negative emotions and how they affect us--such as depression, mental illness etc. Positive psychology is trying to understand how positive emotions affect us also. For example, by using our signature strengths, we cope better than by trying to use coping skills we aren't good at, and we all have different personal strengths.  For example--research is now showing that women who have good social support, have better long term outcomes than women with poor social support---that does not mean to "think positive" and you will do better but having an outlet to express emotions, both negative and positive helps in ways that we are just being to understand--for some social support is a church group, I go to a Gilda's club and for others--it's these discussion boards. So a socail supprt can be in seen in different ways--some need person to person contact (like a support group), for others--writing (on these boards) is better for them. Positive psychology is just a field of study trying to figure out how to help people cope in the ways that suit them best.

The interplay of psycological, social and physical issues is the forefront of learning how our health is affected in complicated ways, which includes the question---are positive emotions beneficial?. Positive emotions are not just the absence of negative emotions but can co-exist together. Savoring a good cup of coffee or smelling the flowers, can bring just a moment of "happiness" during a time of intense struggle--will it cure you---no, but it won't hurt either. We know that individuals that struggle with depression, will have poorer outcomes than individuals without a major depression, so the opposite is a question worth pursuing as well---can positive emotions make a difference as well.

The old paradym about health was that good health was the absense of disease, it is now changing to realize that the nervous system, the immune system and our hormonal system are all inter-related. The old adage was that stress caused cancer--not true but what we do know is that when we are stressed, our bodies release "stress hormones" which affected the functioning of the immune system--if you throw in genetic vulnerabilities and exposure to environmental toxins--they all work against a person staying healthy.

I hope that some of this makes sense and is helpful.

Phew - I thought I was going to have to reboot this old crone of a computer because my keyboard had disconnected - it would have been an hour, at least, to get this arthritic machine back in working form.

I think it's definitely possible to improve our attitude but not everyone responds well to the idea oir even derives much benefit one way or the other. The same with crying. Some people who cry say they feel better afterwards because they have let it all out, whereas others feel worse. I have had both experiences, and sometimes find that holding it in would be preferable (and research shows that some repression is actually good, contrary to long held beliefs).

I had what could probably be considered a very "positive attitude" towards my cancer dx and mastectomy, but I couldn't have forced it on myself for the world and I would never dare to tell someone to even seek it. It would be almost disrespectful, IMO. There is a certain sanctity to people's feelings in adversity. Positive attitudes are not always the source of strength and buoyancy, IMO. Some of us are motivated by other feelings. Chronically "positive" thinkers could also be denyers and could hurt those around them. I think therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be helpful, but they must be considered a process and the person can only change her views at her pace. What I really object to is people who are ill or in dire straits being told to "keep a positive attitude" or to "think positive." It is sometimes well meant. It can be a substitute for "cheer up," but it can also come across as insensitive. It also depends on who says it. If someone who has never walked in your shoes or read up on the subject of x or y illness comes and preaches a positive attitude, they are being insensitive. And that is what we are talking about here, with BC. Besides, the body and the mind are one, and the question of whether attitude causes or leads to something is probably impossible to resolve because the opposite may well be the case and we are left with the classic chicken and egg riddle.  

I understand the mind body connection and agree that overall health includes mental health. What bothers me is people who tell me to stay positive as though it is my fault once again. If only I stayed positive, then everything will be fine. If I don't stay positive, then I'm to blame for the illness. That is once again blaming the victim and that bothers me.

Beautifully put hrf.  If only we could have a publicity campaign for the general public.

That's what I said Barbe.  Take them off! 

Hello BCO Community Members,

We recently launched the section, Lower Your Risk For Breast Cancer (http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/) to share risk-reduction recommendations based on the most current knowledge and research. To read more about risk, as well as established risks and emerging risks, please visit these pages: http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/understand/ and http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/. 

 

Lower Your Risk was conceived and reviewed by Marisa Weiss, M.D., and Joan Ruderman, Ph.D.  Marisa Weiss, M.D. is director of breast radiation oncology and director of breast health outreach at Lankenau Hospital, part of Jefferson Health System in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Weiss is also president and founder of Breastcancer.org.  Joan Ruderman, Ph.D., is Nelson Professor of cell biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA and member of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

 

In addition, to further our mission of making reliable health information available to everyone affected by breast cancer and concerned about breast health, and to keep our online community free of charge, we accept corporate sponsorships under strict guidelines. We refuse any sponsorship or messaging that we believe is incompatible with our mission. If you are interested in reading our Sponsorship Policy and Guidelines, please visit this page: http://www.breastcancer.org/policies/sponsorship_guidelines.jsp. 

 

 

As always, thank you for your constructive feedback and respectful dialogue. 

 

Melissa and the BCO Team

Hi, Melissa and the BCO Team; thank you for introducing this section.  I read through it (briefly so far) and I think it contains a great deal of useful info.

My mom died from breast cancer (diagnosed at 43 and died on her 60th birthday).  She took DES with all six children.

I'm the oldest; I have three sisters, all of us have always known we are at extraordinary risk: no pregnancies, early menarche, mom with ER+ BC, and then of course we smoked, drank, ate all the wrong stuff, and so on and so forth, through our respective misspent young adulthoods.  But my mom always warned us to not take birth control pills or HRT, and I think I'm the only one of us who did--birth control pills very briefly at menopause, to control unbearable breast pain.  That may have been a bad idea.  I am the only one so far to turn up with BC. 

I like that you have provided lists of risk-minimizing behavior both for me to avoid recurrence, if that is possible, and for them to avoid the conditions that may increase an already high risk.  I can't do them all, in fact I won't remember them all.  But I can refer the sisters to the section, and I can decide what I can try to do to stay healthier.  

I don't blame myself for cancer any more than I blame my mom for the sad legacy.  Her mother and her mother's three sisters lived to their late nineties. My mom was the first to get cancer in her family--either side.  She was quite sure it was the DES and then the high estrogen birth control pills that were intended to prevent any further pregnancies, which had become dangerous for her.

Thank you for providing this information all in one place and with suggestions for me, and my beloved (and with so-far-healthy-breasts) sisters to consider.

Warmly,

Cathy 

Melissa or whomever you are

When you refuse to include abortion as a risk factor you are doing a huge disservice to the future generation of women

Do your research......if your goal if prevention, then give our young women, teenage girls another risk factor that can be completely avoided

A leading breast cancer researcher says abortion has caused at least 300,000 cases of breast cancer causing a woman's death since the Supreme Court allowed virtually unlimited abortion in its 1973 case.

With tens of millions of abortions since the high court's decision and research confirming abortion increases the risk of contracting breast cancer, undoubtedly a large number of breast cancer cases, caused by abortion, have occurred over the last 38 years.

Professor Joel Brind, an endocrinologist at Baruch College in New York, worked with several scientists on a 1996 paper published in the Journal of Epidemiol Community Health showing a "30% greater chance of developing breast cancer" for women who have induced abortions. He recently commented on how many women have become victims.

"If we take the overall risk of breast cancer among women to be about 10% (not counting abortion), and raise it by 30%, we get 13% lifetime risk," Brind explains. Using the 50 million abortions since Roe v. Wade figure, we get 1.5 million excess cases of breast cancer. At an average mortality of 20% since 1973, that would mean that legal abortion has resulted in some 300,000 additional deaths due to breast cancer since Roe v. Wade."

Brind said his estimate excludes deaths from the use of abortion to delay first full term pregnancies - a recognized breast cancer risk.

Karen Malec, the head of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, a public awareness group, says the number of studies showing the abortion-breast cancer link continues to grow in the years since Brind's groundbreaking 1996 analysis of the major studies at that time.

"During the last 21 months, four epidemiological studies and one review reported an abortion-breast cancer link," she noted. "One study includedNational Cancer Institute branch chief Louise Brinton as co-author. We count nearly 50 published epidemiological studies since 1957 reporting a link. Biological and experimental studies also support it."

"Experts proved in medical journals that nearly all of the roughly 20 studies denying the link are seriously flawed (fraudulent). Like the tobacco-cancer cover-up, these are used to snow women into believing abortion is safe," Malec added.

Surgeons like Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey who has extensively explained how abortion increases the breast cancer risk, have seen first-hand how abortion hurts women.

In 2002, Angela Lanfranchi, MD testified under oath in a California lawsuit against Planned Parenthood that she had private conversations with leading experts who agreed abortion raises breast cancer risk, but they refused to discuss it publicly, saying it was "too political."

As the co-director of the Sanofi-aventis Breast Care Program at the Steeplechase Cancer Center, Lanfranchi has treated countless women facing a breast cancer diagnosis. Lanfranchi was named a 2010 Castle Connolly NY Metro Area "Top Doc" in breast surgery.

In an article she wrote for the medical journal Linacre Quarterly, Lanfranchi talks about why abortion presents women problems and increases their breast cancer risk:

Induced abortion boosts breast cancer risk because it stops the normal physiological changes in the breast that occur during a full term pregnancy and that lower a mother's breast cancer risk. A woman who has a full term pregnancy at 20 has a 90% lower risk of breast cancer than a woman who waits until age 30.

Breast tissue after puberty and before a term pregnancy is immature and cancer-vulnerable. Seventy five percent of this tissue is Type 1 lobules where ductal cancers start and 25 percent is Type 2 lobules where lobular cancers start. Ductal cancers account for 85% of all breast cancers while lobular cancers account for 12-15% of breast cancers.

As soon as a woman conceives, the embryo secretes human chorionic gonadotrophin or hCG, the hormone we check for in pregnancy tests.

HCG causes the mother's ovaries to increase the levels of estrogen and progesterone in her body resulting in a doubling of the amount of breast tissue she has; in effect, she then has more Type 1 and 2 lobules where cancers start.

After mid pregnancy at 20 weeks, the fetus/placenta makes hPL, another hormone that starts maturing her breast tissue so that it can make milk. It is only after 32 weeks that she has made enough of the mature Type 4 lobules that are cancer resistant so that she lowers her risk of breast cancer.

Induced abortion before 32 weeks leaves the mother's breast with more vulnerable tissue for cancer to start. It is also why any premature birth before 32 weeks, not just induced abortion, increases or doubles breast cancer risk.

By the end of her pregnancy, 85% of her breast tissue is cancer resistant. Each pregnancy thereafter decreases her risk a further 10%.

A woman can use this information to make an informed decision about her pregnancy. If she chooses to abort her pregnancy for whatever reason, she should start breast screening about 8-10 years later so that if she does develop a cancer, it can be found early and treated early for a better outcomes.

I have a pair of Wood ducks every year.  The male has ruby red eyes, unfortunately it doesn't show up in the picture.  They just arrived 2 weeks ago.

I will leave...I do wish everyone would open their mind and do some research on their own

I'm with Blue. Give it a rest please. Those who are interested will do their research. Those who aren't won't. This is about the article.