The thought here is that the benefits outweigh the risks but as time marches on, the jury is more and more out on this one. Those who stand to make a profit from mammograms still want tyou to have regular ones. The most up to date thought is that early breast cancer cannot really be detected and therefore, your own breast exams are AS effective as mammograms and much safer (and cheaper). In conclusion....
- The jury is still out on whether mammograms find more cancer or cause more cancer
- Mammograms often show something which is not cancer
- Regular breast exams have been shown to also identify early breast cancers and there is no risk with a self exam (it's even more fun if you have your Significant Other do the breast exam!)
- Mammograms are being sold like many other medical procedures.
When you first become pregnant (before you even know you are pregnant), your body does many things to prepare you to carry and take care of a baby. One thing done is to increase the tissue in the breasts. When the new tissue first grows in, it is, what the doctors call, 'undifferentiated' meaning that it's not really breast tissue yet. During the pregnancy for several months, your body changes this new tissue to breast tissue to prepare you for nursing your baby. When you have an abortion, you become 'unpregnant' in five minutes (most early abortions like suction abortions). This confuses your body and it doesn't get rid of the 'undifferentiated' tissue it has formed in your breasts. That tissue remains there and is a prime candidate (like any stray growth) for breast cancer.
No, women who have had miscarriages do not have a higher risk of breast cancer according to several studies observing thousands of women. This may be because since the body has naturally aborted the pregnancy, it takes care of the 'other details' like removing the undifferentiated tissue from the breasts.
Our bodies have an automatic system which kicks in when food is not available. This is basically an emergency system designed to merely keep the body alive for short amounts of time until food becomes available. When employed as nature intended it, as an emergency system during short periods of famine, it works well. In today's society, however, where excessive 'thinness' is a fashion statement, many women abuse this automatic system to keep their bodies at a lower than healthy fat level (The fashion standard dictates 6-12 percent bodyfat - 23 percent bodyfat is healthy).The way this bodily anti-starvation system works is that the body basically cannibalizes itself to provide itself with the food which is not available from eating. It cannibalizes first from the areas less needed for basic survival. This likely includes the higher thinking processes of the brain and might, in part, explain the high incidence of Alzheimer's in our society (dieters have been observed to have dulled mental functioning as compared to non-dieters).
When the body is undermined by starvation, the immune system is also challenged. And our immune system is our greatest protection against cancer.
Women athletes pressured to be thin are ofter, less well nourished than the average woman - this may explain in part the sudden deaths and cancer we sometimes see in young women athletes.
Breast Cancer is deadly because the breasts are a silly millimeter away from one of the largest lymph nodes in the body (literally inches). Cancer in the breast often spreads to the lymph nodes and from there, can easily and quickly metastasize (become systemic)
Remember the media is selling product. If knowing about a certain risk might make you avoid buying a hot seller like abortion or the hormone pills, that would be opposed to what the media (and its sponsors without which there would be no media) desires. There are (for example) 80 million women on Premarin for menopause. Imagine the financial disaster which would occur to the company making Premarin, if those on Premarin suddenly no longer bought the product.Other risks (like drinking and smoking) we don't hear about because people don't want to hear that they should give these things up and also because the tobacco lobby and the liquor lobby are powerful political forces, heavily financing the media as well as medical research.
Finally, since the diet industry feeds on the fact that 95 percent of women are, at any given time, restricting their food intake (and buying diet industry products), it's obvious that the diet industry (which makes over 40 billion a year) does not wish women to stop dieting!
Susan G. Komen is allied to the largest provider of abortions in the world, Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood raises money for them and they give thousands of bucks to Planned Parenthood every year. One might question how they can be finding a cure when they are supporting the cause (abortion and birth control medications which are Planned Parenthood's biggest sellers.
Source:various medical sources including the Merck Manual,
nursing journals, research and more
more info about abortion
breast cancer link