Can your emotions really affect breast health? This is probably one of the most highly debated topics – even more than the environmental impact on breast health.

Yet I would be remiss in not letting my readers know about some very interesting work done by a German doctor, Dr. Hamer. Back in 1978, Dr. Hamer’s son was unexpectedly shot and killed and shortly thereafter, Dr. Hamer developed testicular cancer.

His subsequent research led him to the conclusion that in the case of every one of his cancer patients’ histories, they all had experienced an unexpected shock of some kind. Dr. Hamer further believed that everything that happened within the body was controlled by the brain so he analyzed his patients’ brain scans.

Amazingly enough, he found a clear correlation between what he called “conflict shocks”, and how they manifest disease in certain organs. He concluded that everything is connected to the brain. This was brand new work in this field that Dr. Hamer pioneered as a result of his own tragedy. He went on to help thousands of people with cancer identify and resolve their conflicts and subsequently “cure” them of cancer.

Interestingly Dr. Hamer has had his medical license revoked and he has been imprisoned twice for his unconventional understanding of the origin of cancer. However, when his medical records were analyzed after MORE THAN five years, of 6,500 patients with mostly ‘terminal’ cancer, 6,000 were still alive. Obviously Dr. Hamer had something right in his findings. He called it German New Medicine.

So what did he find out about breast cancer?

Obviously there is an abundance of information on this subject. You can do more research on this subject at http://www.germannewmedicine.ca/documents/sp-breastcancer.html I am quoting directly from this page for the next few paragraphs as this is important information.

“In general, the conflicts linked to a breast gland carcinoma always relate to an argument conflict or worry conflict, while for milk duct ulcerations it is always a separation conflict.

A right-handed woman associates her left breast with her child, her mother, and her nest (dwelling, house). Her right breast not only relates to her partner (spouse or friend), but also to partners such as her father, brother, sister, mother-in-law, boss, neighbors, etc. She can also consider small children or animals as her ‘children’.

If a right-handed woman develops breast gland cancer in the left breast, then she has either a worry conflict related to her child, her mother, or her nest, or she has an argument conflict with her child, her mother, or in association with her nest. With milk duct ulceration, on the other hand, she is conflict active with a separation from her child, her mother, or her nest.

With a left-handed woman it is the reverse: the right breast relates to her child, her mother, or the nest, and the left breast relates to her partner or other partners, as described above. Therefore, if she has a breast gland cancer in the right breast, she has a worry conflict concerning her child, her mother, or her nest. With milk duct ulceration in the right breast she is active with a separation conflict related to her child, her mother, or her nest.”

Since writing Breast health Exposed, I have had the opportunity to do healing sessions with women with breast health issues. Inevitably there has been what Dr. Hamer would call a conflict as described above.

Many women simply accept conflicts such as a child leaving home, a divorce or the death of a parent as part of life and it is. However, is it possible that the body, in its infinite wisdom, cares for that natural grieving process in a way that medicine has misdiagnosed as wrong or unnatural? That is interesting food for thought.

There is an abundance of information about Dr. Hamer’s work on the internet if you are interested. Next month I will be speaking more about this fascinating subject. In the meantime, perhaps the best advice any doctor can give us is “be happy”.

While living in Ecuador almost 20 years ago, I still remember the question of a woman named Amanda Chavez. I can see her face clearly as if it was just yesterday and I can still hear the confusion in her voice. Amanda had a good little business selling eggs. Many of her customers were foreigners living in the city of Riobamba. But one day while purchasing my dozen eggs, handed to me most gingerly in a plastic bag, Amanda asked me a simple question that changed my life.

She said, “Jan, why do all you foreigners buy a dozen eggs? Why 12?” I looked at her in silence for a moment and then said, “We buy a dozen eggs because that’s how we buy them at home.” “But why 12?” she asked again as if I hadn’t answered her question. And for the life of me I couldn’t answer her. Honestly, a dozen eggs made no sense. And it really made no sense as we continued to buy 12 eggs at a time in a country that would have sold me 3 eggs, 7 eggs or 14 eggs in that precarious plastic bag.

Amanda’s question haunted me for a long time. It was innocent enough – a simple question from a woman selling eggs to foreigners with a habit to buy a dozen eggs. But I realized in that moment that I did lots of things because that’s how I was trained, taught, raised and told to believe. We all do.

There are very few places I have seen false beliefs more evident than in the arena of breast health. We have been told to have an annual mammogram after the age of 50 and when we hear the diagnosis of breast cancer, we are expected to have surgery, chemo, radiation and take drugs. It’s as standard as buying a dozen eggs at a time for people in North America.

However, just because we have always done something does not make it any way true. Otherwise many barbaric practices and beliefs from the past would still be around today, but they have been discounted as another truth was revealed.

As long as women today accept “the standard”, there won’t be any strong impetus to change the routine. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t work; it’s not effective and is actually counter-productive. People are slow to change when money is involved and there are billions of dollars involved in the breast cancer industry.

Yet, experts say that mammograms cause breast cancer. Specialists will tell you that you are more likely to die from chemotherapy than from breast cancer. Statistics prove that radiation doesn’t improve results and can cause further health damage. Every single drug has a side-effect which can be deadlier than the disease. So why are we accepting what doesn’t work? Is it just a bad habit that has become an integral part of our culture?

It’s time for us to stop believing that just because it’s the current treatment or it’s what the doctor recommended or worse yet, what the medical system pays for, is not a good enough reason to blindly accept a protocol or treatment.

There are far more effective screening tools to mammography that are safe and will let a woman know of issues up to a decade before a mammogram. Why are we not demanding that these tests are paid for, regulated and advertised? The number of amazing treatments for cancer boggle my mind. I hear about at least one every week. Why are we settling for treatment that is archaic and will surely be looked upon in horror very shortly? And why are we buying into the fear of cancer rather than understanding that we can heal ourselves and there are many doctors, practitioners, clinics and formulas having amazing success using non-standard treatments?

I get a thrill living in countries where I can buy 4 eggs or 10 eggs at a time. It reminds me that I have the power to choose solutions that make sense rather than doing what the masses are doing. And once enough of the masses stop following a protocol around their breasts that is not working, then we will see change. Will you be one of those trend-setters? I hope so!

This article in The Huffington Post was recently brought to my attention. It is something every woman who donates to the Susan G. Komen Foundation needs to be aware of. If the organization didn’t have enough black marks against them in 2010 with their Pink Buckets for the Cure campaign, this one sent me over the edge. Read what correspondent Laura Bassett has to say about their latest shenanigans.

“In addition to raising millions of dollars a year for breast cancer research, fundraising giant Susan G. Komen for the Cure has a lesser-known mission that eats up donor funds: patrolling the waters for other charities and events around the country that use any variation of “for the cure” in their names.

So far, Komen has identified and filed legal trademark oppositions against more than a hundred of these Mom and Pop charities, including Kites for a Cure, Par for The Cure, Surfing for a Cure and Cupcakes for a Cure–and many of the organizations are too small and underfunded to hold their ground.

“It happened to my family,” said Roxanne Donovan, whose sister runs Kites for a Cure, a family kite-flying event that raises money for lung cancer research. “They came after us ferociously with a big law firm. They said they own ‘cure’ in a name and we had to stop using it, even though we were raising money for an entirely different cause.”

Donovan’s sister, Mary Ann Tighe, said the Komen foundation sent her a letter asking her to stop using the phrase “for a cure” in their title and to never use the color pink in conjunction with their fundraising. What bothered her most about the whole ordeal, she said, was that Komen forced her to spend money and time on legal fees and proceedings instead of raising funds for cancer.

“We were certainly taken aback by it,” she told HuffPost. “We have partners running these kite events around the country. What if one of them uses, say, magenta? Is that pink? I mean, where are we going with this? We just want to raise money for cancer. What we don’t want is to have our energy misplaced by having our charity partners trying to police the good work that we’re doing.”

Sue Prom, who started a small dog sledding fundraiser for breast cancer called “Mush for the Cure” in Grand Marais, Minn., said she was shocked to hear from Komen’s lawyers this summer asking that she change the name of her event or face legal proceedings.

“I had to call the trademark helpline, because I had no idea what I was doing,” said Prom, who runs the annual sled race with her husband and friend. “We pay for the expenses out of our pockets, and we’ve never personally made a dime from it. We have t-shirts, sweatshirts, domain names, posters, stationery, all with ‘Mush for the Cure’ on it. What do we do with all the materials now? How are we gonna defend ourselves? We’re not like Komen.”

Prom said she’s been running the event for six years, and the most she has raised for the National Breast Cancer Foundation is $25,000. Before the NBCF could accept the money, they warned her to file for a trademark to protect her event legally against the Komen Foundation. But now that Komen has opposed Mush’s trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Prom is looking for a pro bono lawyer to help her figure out what to do next.

“I think it’s a shame,” she said. “It’s not okay. People don’t give their money to the Komen Foundation and they don’t do their races and events so that Komen can squash any other fundraising efforts by individuals. That’s not what it’s about.”

Komen’s general counsel, Jonathan Blum, told HuffPost that the fundraising powerhouse tries to be reasonable when dealing with small charities and nonprofits, but that it has a legal duty to protect its more than 200 registered trademarks.

“It’s never our goal to shut down a nonprofit,” he said, “and we try very hard to be reasonable, but it’s still our obligation to make sure that our trademarks are used appropriately so there’s no confusion in the marketplace over where people’s money is going.”

Blum told HuffPost that legal fees comprise a “very small part” of Komen’s budget, but according to Komen’s financial statements, such costs add up to almost a million dollars a year in donor funds.

“I think it’s important that charities protect their brand, but on the other hand, I don’t think the donors’ intent in giving their money was to fund a turf war,” said Sandra Minuitti, a spokesperson for Charity Navigator. “It’s very important that Komen treads carefully and is very transparent about how they’re spending money on these legal battles.”

Michael Mercanti, an intellectual property lawyer, said he is surprised by the large number of oppositions Komen has filed against other charities–a number he would expect from a company like Toys”R”Us or McDonalds, but not a charitable fundraising organization.

“They seem to be very aggressive in policing their mark, or what they’re claiming to be their mark,” he told HuffPost. “I guess there are a lot of ways to captain a ship, but it seems like there are ways they could protect and police their trademarks and also allow other charities to coexist.”

Mercanti said filing hundreds of oppositions is not only damaging to other charities, but could also be counterproductive for Komen’s brand.
“They could actually be seen as being a bully,” he said. “They’re going to alienate some donors who don’t appreciate them stepping on smaller, worthwhile charities.”

With the help of a team of pro bono lawyers, Kites for a Cure was able to reach a settlement with Komen: They agreed to only use the phrase “for a Cure” in conjunction with the words “lung cancer” to make the distinction clear. But Tighe said they reached a settlement only after many, many months of a free legal team working long hours each day.

“We were very fortunate because we had strong support from knowledgeable pro bono counsel, but it did seem like a misdirection of a lot of people’s energy,” she told HuffPost. “I don’t know what smaller organizations do without free representation.”

Sue Prom said Tighe has already put her in touch with her pro bono legal team, and she is prepared to fight for the name of her sledding event in court. The ordeal has changed her opinion of Komen.

“I used to give money to Komen all the time, but now I’m just kind of wary of them,” she said. “I’m not buying Yoplait yogurt or anything that has the word ‘Komen’ on it. They seem to have forgotten what charity is about.”

If there were three trains that went into a tunnel, how many trains need to come out? “Three” you say as if that is an obvious answer. Yet as obvious as that seems when it comes to trains, today the medical system defines constipation as anyone having less than three bowel movements a week! Yes, you read right. Not three bowel movements a day but three bowel movements a week!

In other words, you can eat 3 meals per day times 7 days in a week which equals 21 meals (or in other words 21 trains) and doctors will tell you that just three trains (or three bowel movements) coming out of the tunnel is just fine. As a matter of fact, they make it sound almost normal to be full of you-know-what.

However, if 21 trains literally entered a tunnel and only 3 came out, you would have a massive traffic jam. And that is precisely what most people have in their bodies – a major mess. Yet hardly anybody talks about proper bowel function except for nutritionists such as Brenda Eastwood. And it’s why the last chapter in my book Breast Health Exposed is called The Scoop on Poop.

For many women, they are completely ignorant of the correlation between bowel movements and breast health. Honestly, the two couldn’t seem any further removed from each other. But they are definitely related.

Physicians Nicholas L. Petrakis and Eileen B. King of the University of California, have found that women who have two or fewer bowel movements per week have four times the risk of breast disease (benign or malignant) as women who have one or more bowel movements per day.

In another study of 28,586 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 76 years, researchers observed a 46% decrease in breast cancer risk among women reporting very frequent (more than 3 bowel movements per day) than those reporting 1 bowel movement per day.

“The longer stool stays in the colon, the more one reabsorbs the metabolic products [such as estrogen] that have been excreted in the bile,” says Dr. Patrick Donovan, who treats people with cancer in his naturopathic clinic. “We can see increased risk of breast cancer in women with a history of constipation.”

Fat stores toxins. Our breasts are full of fat and therefore are full of toxins. Today, we are a walking chemical storehouse from the time we are in utero so there is no avoiding chemicals. However, those chemicals need to be moved through the system and if the system is plugged, not working properly or sluggish, the back-up is much like a plugged sink or toilet.

Your body has various ways to eliminate the toxins. The entire intestinal system is an important component of that system. When it isn’t working, the body’s health, including breast health, is seriously compromised.

What can you do? If you are not eliminating three times per day, then just know you are not at optimal health. There are several ways to increase proper bowel function that are safe and practical. It may take you a year or more to clean out the tunnel and have your intestinal tract at optimum but it is well worth it.

For more information on this subject, the last chapter in my book contains priceless information from Brenda Eastwood on this vital subject. You may be more full of #@&! than you thought, especially if you are listening to what the medical system is propounding. However, you will be amazed at how much better, more energetic and healthier you feel taking Brenda’s advice and at the end of the day, isn’t that the best result you could ask for?

It can be intimidating for many people to switch over to a completely organic diet. The cost or even the availability can definitely be issues many people need to consider. So here’s something that can help you choose healthier food that is a step in the right direction for optimal breast health.

The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit organization that advocates for policies that protect global and individual health. They currently tested 43 different fruits and vegetables, and found that these 12 carried the least amount of pesticides when grown conventionally.

* Broccoli

* Eggplant

* Cabbage

* Banana

* Kiwi

* Asparagus

* Sweet peas (frozen)

* Mango

* Pineapple

* Sweet corn (frozen)

* Avocado

* Onion

Of the 43 different fruits and vegetables tested, the following 12 carried the highest amount of pesticides when grown conventionally, and are therefore the most important to buy organic.

* Peaches

* Apples

* Sweet bell peppers

* Celery

* Nectarines

* Strawberries

* Cherries

* Lettuce

* Grapes (imported)

* Pears

* Spinach

* Potatoes

If you aren’t going to go 100% organic due to cost or availability issues, you now know which fruits and vegetables to make sure are organic, and which ones you can save a little on when necessary. Every step you take in the direction of eliminating toxins and pesticides from your life is a good thing. Rather than feel overwhelmed by everything you can’t do, focus on what you can do and celebrate your progress towards better health.

After speaking at the Women of Worth in November to a group of 90 women, over 90 copies of Breast Health Exposed were purchased by the women in the audience. A young woman who purchased the book emailed me to say that my brief talk had been enlightening, riveting and shocking. She loved the book and has passed it on to a 25 year old friend just diagnosed with breast cancer.

Once considered a disease of women over 50, today breast cancer is touching the lives of young women, pre-teens and women with families. Why the spread of this disease to women of all ages? Here are a few reasons why:

1. Estrogen is a major factor in breast cancer. Today children and teens are subjected to high levels of xenoestrogen through the chemicals in plastic combined with other toxins rampant in our society. Never before have young children been exposed from in utero to so many chemicals that can actually mimic estrogen in their young bodies.
2. The army that was designed to fight cancer in our bodies every day has been compromised by a diet that is nutritionally defunct, by stress, constant bombardment of sugar in most food products and obesity.
3. We are accustomed to using household and personal products that are a witches brew of deadly chemicals under the false pretense that they are safe. These products are creating serious problems in bodies that are already severely compromised.

There are many more reasons but these are three big reasons that need to be dealt with in every woman’s life. “Estrogen dominance”, the phrase coined by the late Dr. John Lee, is a reality that is killing women needlessly and most women don’t have a clue what that means. They are putting their teens on birth control pills for acne and saying yes to hormone replacement therapy still without fully understanding the implications of estrogen dominance.

Mammography, touted as the tool that will find the cancer, is completely unsafe, particularly for young women and no doctor, even an uneducated one, is going to recommend a mammogram for a teenager or prepubescent girl. Yet, with children, teens, and young women succumbing to breast cancer, there has to be tools we can use to protect our breasts starting at a young age.

It’s why I am a huge advocate of thermography. There are blog posts on xenoestrogen, estrogen dominance and thermography. Please take the time to educate yourself on these critical facts. It is so easy to think that it can’t happen to me, but every week I learn differently as I hear from women around the world.

Education is a fundamental factor that needs to be a priority. It is easier to stick one’s head in the sand and hope it doesn’t happen to us. But breast health is proactive. Step one is education. Learn about how your hormones work as the basis for everything you do. Hearing that a 25 year old received the diagnosis of breast cancer this week reinforces for me the need to continue the education process. It obviously isn’t too young to start!

Last week, the American Senate made a most heinous decision to not ban bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles and sippy cups. Despite overwhelming evidence of the dangers of BPA, the trade association for giant chemical companies blocked the amendment to the food safety bill.

Why is this of concern to every person on the planet? BPA is a known carcinogen in plastic bottles. More than 200 scientific studies show that BPA exposure, particularly during infancy, is associated with breast and prostate cancer, birth defects, infertility in men, early puberty in girls, diabetes, obesity and more. Sounds like something that every conscientious parent would want to protect their child from.

BPA is a known endocrine disruptor. Ten years ago, Dr. Frederick vom Saal, a reproductive scientist at the University of Missouri, discovered mice were being damaged by doses of BPA that were 2,500 times below what the government considered safe. Over 150 peer-reviewed studies determined BPA to be toxic at low doses in animal studies and could pose serious health risks to fetuses, infants and children.

Dr. Vom Saal, has dedicated his career to ensuring that one day, plastic corporations will be seen in the same light as tobacco companies. As an endocrinologist, his findings relate directly to breast health and they are alarming. He reports: “There are risks to everyone, but in babies they’re permanent,” said vom Saal. “Exposure of human or animal babies to bisphenol A is going to have a permanent, harmful effect. Once that effect occurs, you’re not going to be normal, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

The FDA in the US has sat on this information for decades. Finally in January 2010 it admitted there was reason for concern but said it was beyond it’s regulatory power to take action. Canada on the other hand was the first country to ban BPA in baby bottles and is the only country to have added BPA to its national list of toxic substances.

But the pendulum is swinging in favor of taking precautionary action, even though there is disagreement about just how dangerous BPA really is. As of June, 2011, the European Union is also banning BPA from baby bottles. Already, France and Denmark have taken this important step.

However, despite the fact that the US government has taken a flagrant stand in defense of the chemical companies in lieu of protecting babies and children, doesn’t mean mothers need to stand by helpless!

Consumers and retailers have far more clout than any government legislation. We just need to exercise our power and this is a perfect and appropriate place to do just that.

For example, after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published its series on the dangers of BPA, residents of southeastern Wisconsin began to demand that local businesses sell baby bottles that did not contain the chemical. Numerous businesses expanded their supply of safe bottles in response to consumer demands. NuturePure, a company that sells glass bottle online, reported that sales of their product increased by more than 500% from May to November 2007.

Walmart and other major retailers sensed that consumers were not going to risk their infant’s health even when government officials couldn’t or wouldn’t act. Therefore without government regulation, baby products containing BPA were removed from their shelves. This is very exciting because it shows how corporations will respond to the educated consumer demands despite the government’s lack of regulation. Consumers demand change and the marketplace has no choice but to respond.

What can every parent do? Demand baby bottles without BPA. If nobody buys bottles with BPA in them, the marketplace will listen. Definitely, don’t ever heat plastic baby bottles in the microwave as this only increases the amount of BPA in the liquid the baby is drinking. Pass on this article to every parent you know. Reprint it and help spread the word.

The chemical companies are reassuring the government and the public that BPA is safe, that it is mostly passed out through the body through the natural processes of elimination. However, scientists like Dr. Vom Saal, who have no vested interest in the industry, are proving otherwise.

This is one time where parents will want to be safe, rather than sorry. Your child’s health is depending on it.

This article was written by Christine Awram of www.wellpro.net It’s an excellent resource for important information every woman needs to know about how the environment is affecting her hormones.

If you’ve ever been held hostage by your hormones (bloating, mood swings, painful periods, night sweats, hot flashes), or frustrated by unwarranted weight gain, accelerated aging, dull skin, foggy brain, low energy – then you’re likely experiencing Estrogen Dominance, and one of the key culprits of that is Xenoestrogens. Xeno-who?

Read on to find out six simple strategies to easily reclaim the precious vitality and gorgeousness that are rightfully yours.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Xeno (pronounced zee-no) means foreign or alien. So Xenoestrogens are foreign or alien chemicals, and they are infiltrating your body via common products that you use every single day. This is wreaking havoc on your health and hormones, and you probably have no idea it’s happening.

The excellent news is that once you know about it, you can easily take empowered action. Knowledge is power!

Xenoestrogens are known as Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). They build up over time, accumulate in your fatty tissues, and cause water retention and excess fat deposits. They irritate your skin, weaken your hair, increase stress, affect your memory, accelerate the aging process, and have a negative impact on your ovaries so that you produce less progesterone and increase estrogen – all leading to Estrogen Dominance.

Xenoestrogens deceive your body’s cells into opening the door and letting them in, where they can now attach themselves to estrogen receptor sites. But they sure don’t work the same way as your natural estrogen, and will disrupt your delicate hormonal balance in a variety of ways that create toxic damage and negative side effects.

WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?

Over 100,000 registered chemicals are EDCs. You would expect some obvious sources like pesticides, plastics and other chemically-made products. We’ve all heard of DDT, which was banned – Xenoestrogens. And there’s been a lot of press on PCBs recently (because of plastic baby bottles) – Xenoestrogens.

We live in an industrial age, and reverting back to a simpler life isn’t likely to happen. So what’s the solution? (living in a cave sure isn’t the answer). I believe people want to resolve a problem if they’re aware of it, especially if they can find manageable solutions that make a real difference. So the following is intended to first bring you awareness, and then secondly to provide easy action steps that will positively impact and empower your health and vitality.

YOUR INNOCENT-LOOKING “BEAUTY” PRODUCTS

Phthalates and Parabens are just two examples of EDC ingredients still found in skin care products (and there are hundreds). Studies at Harvard have shown that Phthalates contribute to DNA damage. Topical applications of Parabens interfere with your hormones, cause allergic reactions, negatively alter your nervous system, accelerate aging and irritate your skin.

Rather ironic, don’t you think, that ingredients which accelerate aging and irritate the skin are put in your skincare products?

Then there’s Sodium Lauryl Sulfate which is commonly found in shampoo, toothpaste and bubble-bath – another chemical which is a cheap detergent originally designed as a garage floor cleaner and engine degreaser. Yuck!

PLEASE DON’T BUY INTO THE PARTYLINE

I am honestly bewildered by the standard response I hear from companies who use cheap toxic EDCs in their beauty and personal care products: “But we use these ingredients in such small amounts that they aren’t active or harmful at that dosage.”

Hogwash! Low doses matter!

Allow me to make this crystal-clear. Let’s look at just one ingredient that’s delivered at a dosage of 30ppb – that’s 30 Parts Per Billion. You’d think something administered at 0.00000000003% wouldn’t be active or would have zero effect, like big industry claims. But what’s just one example of an ingredient at 30ppb in a single dose? Cialis (tadalafil). For those who haven’t heard of this brand, it’s a drug marketed for erectile dysfunction. Not active at that dosage? I don’t think so!

It’s actually even more ironic, when a warning with this drug states, “If you experience a sudden decrease in hearing or vision, stop taking it immediately and seek medical help.” Followed by the more famous warning, “If you experience an erection lasting more than four hours, call your doctor right away.” All this from 30ppb. The question that begs to be asked, of course, is: If you get both these side effects at the same time, and you can’t see or hear, just how are you supposed to call a doctor?

All humor aside (and laughter is good for the immune system), if such a minuscule dosage can make such a profound impact in just ONE application, what about the products you’re using every single day?

IT’S ALSO ABOUT BUILD-UP

Shampoo, conditioner, skincare, bodycare, deodorant, toothpaste – women use an average of 12 personal care products per day, which exposes them to over 160 chemicals DAILY. Day after day, year after year, these chemicals are accumulating in your cells and fatty tissues, insidiously affecting your nervous system and raising your estrogen levels, all of which create symptoms that you’d never think to relate back to your personal products.

This doesn’t have to be the case, if you’re aware and make informed choices.

I know it’s hard to believe that what you’re putting on your skin is having such a significant impact on your health and vitality. But your skin is HIGHLY absorbent. If you don’t believe me, chop up some garlic very fine and stand on it in your bare feet – you’ll taste garlic in your mouth within minutes, if not seconds. So if you read an ingredient label on your personal care products, and see an ingredient that you wouldn’t eat, it has no business going on your skin.

ACTION STEP: Switch to all-natural hair and skin care products, and read my article “Having A Bad Hair Day”. This article has more info on what’s in your personal care products, and more insider secrets on how you can have beautiful shiny healthy hair and radiant skin naturally: http://www.wellpro.net/hair.html

CLEANING PRODUCTS

The benefits of switching to natural skin and hair products should be obvious by now, so let’s also look at the amount of chemicals you’re absorbing indirectly through contact with your clothes, sheets and pillowcases after washing them in commercial laundry products. And inhaling and absorbing from your household cleaning products. Again, you can make a big difference by switching to natural.

ACTION STEP: Review the cleaning and laundry products in your home – most big-name brands are LOADED with chemicals. You’ll find there’s a natural alternative for just about everything, and they’re usually cost-effective as natural products tend to be far more concentrated so you use much less.

WHAT ABOUT FOOD

Everyone knows that commercially-produced crops are sprayed with chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. We’re aware of this, and I know most people now try to make choices for organic and local produce to the best of their ability and budget.

But what about your meat, poultry and dairy products? The EDCs and hormones that go into an animal’s food also go into YOU. And you might not be aware that baked goods and processed foods are problematic, as over 3,000 alien substances can be legally added to food for preservation, colour, texture, flavour and more.

I’m not suggesting you become paranoid about everything that goes into your mouth, as that would be far too stressful. We’re all going to eat things from time to time that aren’t ideal – I certainly do. But for overall awareness and your regular routines, you can make informed choices that will positively impact your health, beauty and energy.

ACTION STEP: Make choices for fresh organic produce and organically-fed meats (including dairy and eggs) as much as possible. Minimize processed foods, and become an avid label-reader. For the most part, if you can’t pronounce it, steer clear. Avoid all artificial food additives, especially toxic artificial sweeteners and MSG (I often refer to both as rat poison).

IF YOU HAVE A MICROWAVE

If you aren’t using a microwave, give yourself a pat on the back. And if you are, I’m not going to tell you to stop using it. However, what you absolutely need to know is that you should NEVER use plastic containers or wrap in your microwave, as the microwave will leach Xenoestrogens and carcinogenic chemicals out of the plastic and into your food.

ACTION STEP: Only use tempered glass or corning containers in your microwave for reheating.

IN SUMMARY
Lowering the load of Xenoestrogens can actually be quite easy, once you’re aware and know WHY it’s the smart thing to do for you and your family.

• Become an avid label-reader (the small-print ingredient list).
• Start switching to all-natural personal care products.
• Use natural laundry soap and household cleaners.
• Minimize processed foods, and avoid MSG and artificial sweeteners entirely.
• Choose organically-fed meat/eggs/dairy as much as possible.
• Never use plastic of any kind in the microwave.

You have the power to easily make a significant difference and the payoff is great health and vitality. This is literally life-changing information, so please pass it on.

This week I interviewed an amazing woman who is a trailblazer in the area of woman’s health. Genie James is an award winning author. Her book From Hormone Hell to Hormone Well, co-written with her husband, a medical doctor, is a fabulous guide to what every woman needs to know about hormones, synthetic and bio-identical.

I highly encourage you to listen to the fascinating and empowering interview at www.blogtalkradio.com/breasthealthexposed but in the meantime, here are a few highlights that I learned from Genie. Some of these may shock you because it isn’t a pretty picture of what women have been subjected to. Instead it is one of greed and manipulation.

Synthetic hormones, such as the ones found in the birth control pill and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were originally developed for the Jewish women in Auschwitz. These unsuspecting women were fed daily doses of synthetic estrogen in their rutabaga soup. The goal: To sterilize non-Aryans. Unable to reproduce, the Jewish women would still be able to perform as slave labor for the Aryan race.

The pharmaceutical industry knew how to duplicate the natural hormones our bodies naturally produce. However, that couldn’t be patented so they had to modify the equation so the hormonal formula could be taken to market. This is an entire story on its own but it is again one that is laden with greed-induced decisions.

Consequently, a plethora of synthetic hormones flooded the market and women, believing that the FDA wouldn’t approve anything harmful, bought into the belief that they would look younger, feel better and avoid the ravages of menopause if they partook of the benefits of HRT.

Of course, it’s not what happened at all. Today, most women are aware of the repercussions of HRT and the increased rate of breast cancer, as just one of the side effects of HRT. Many women stopped taking HRT when they learned of the dangers but once the symptoms of hormonal imbalance came back into their lives, then many resumed taking them, weighing the hell of living without them to the risk of living with them.

However, as much as bio-identical hormone therapy (BHRT) has become more commonplace due to celebrities such as Dr. Phil’s wife Robin and Suzanne Somers speaking out about them, there is still a lot of misinformation about the pros and cons of BHRT.

It’s why I highly recommend every woman listen to what Genie had to say in the interview, and check out their website at www.hormonewell.com You will definitely learn something that could very well save your life or the life of a woman you love.

Today on my blog talk radio show Breast Health Exposed, I interviewed Nancy Cappello, founder of the not-for-profit Are You Dense? After more than a decade of so-called “normal mammograms”, Nancy was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. Outraged with a medical system that follows a protocol that failed her, Nancy is on a mission to educate women about dense breasts AND change a faulty system that is killing women needlessly.

What exactly are dense breasts? If you are asking that question, don’t feel bad. In all the research I did for my book Breast Health Exposed, I found very little information about breast density being a factor in breast health. Yet statistics prove that it is a factor that women need to be more aware of. As a matter of fact, 2/3 of pre-menopausal women and 1/4 of post-menopausal women have dense breasts so this is not a minor issue. Yet, most women and even most doctors are completely unaware of it.

Breasts are mostly fat. However, dense breasts have more connective tissue than fat. The problem is that connective tissue shows up as white on a mammogram – the same color as cancer. As Nancy says, it is like trying to find a snowman in a blizzard. It is absolutely impossible!

Unfortunately, most women don’t know about breast density. They certainly don’t know if they have dense breasts. Although the radiologists include this information in the report that goes to the doctor after a woman’s mammogram, most doctors aren’t educated about breast density and consequently don’t know it’s important information to convey. And of course, most women, never seeing the report from the radiologists don’t learn this information about their breasts either.

Nancy has been on a campaign since 2004 to get the laws changed so doctors are now required to tell women about their breast density. She has been successful in doing so in the state of Connecticut and is working on other states. However, every woman who has chosen to have a mammogram or mammograms in the past, can ask her doctor about her breast density.

By knowing this critical information, you can choose to have other breast cancer screening tools such as ultrasound or thermography which are ideal for dense breasts. Nancy is also campaigning to have ultrasound as a screening test covered by medical insurance. However, this may be one test that is worth paying for. It’s also one of the reasons that I am a strong advocate of thermography as dense breasts are easily screened with thermograms, unlike the issues with mammography.

With women dying needlessly of breast cancer every day, women like Nancy are a great inspiration to realize that you don’t need to be wealthy, famous, married to a rich tycoon or special in any way to make a difference in the arena of breast health. Nancy was simply outraged enough to do whatever it took to make a difference. What if more women took that initiative, and realized the massive effect they could have on the planet to make changes, even in daunting systems such as the legal and medical? We would undoubtedly see major changes much faster than we are currently seeing.

Dense breasts are just one issue that needs to be addressed around breast health but after hearing Nancy today on my radio show, I am more convinced than ever that it is an important one. If you want to hear the interview and learn more tips for healthy breasts, simply go to www.blogtalkradio.com/breasthealthexposed