Breast cancer affects 1 in 8 women. Men are not immune to this either as about 1% of breast cancers occur in males.
This episode offers insight into a proactive educational nutritional approach.
http://MitchelMD.com
As always, this show is educational in nature and the listener must see their regular healthcare practitioner for advice and care.
Transcript (machine generated/unedited)
[00:00] Welcome to the recharge podcast. This is October and breast cancer awareness month is upon us. I want to share a few statistics just to get things rolling and then I'm going to share a live interview with a patient. I recorded this a little bit ago and edited it out. It's an educational piece. Uh, the, the, uh, content, uh, don't be overwhelmed by the scientific part of it because we'll dive into the specifics of what it means for this particular patient. The takeaway point is that you really need to work hand in hand with your professional to address this issue. Sadly enough, one and eight women in the U s will develop some type of breast cancer over the course of their lifetime. The kicker here as this podcast is geared largely towards men, is that there are about 2,500 cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosed in men in 2018 alone. The risk remains about the same, about one percent or one in $1,000 for men having breast cancer. So I hope you find some value in this episode and as always a message if you have some concerns. And I hope you'll share it because undoubtedly this issue touches you or someone you know or love close friend or family member. [01:04] The title of this one hopefully grabbed your attention, Broccoli and breasts and obviously with breast cancer awareness month and wanted to shed some light on that issue. And, uh, this will be a little bit different episode. I actually have a live patient, um, someone to do the consult with, uh, regarding some breast cancer genetic risks. And so it's a, I'm trying to do my best to keep it a very limited or minimal in terms of the scientific terminology and jargon. I think you'll definitely get some value from it. But, uh, we just want to preface this that breast cancer not only affects women, but also men. There seems to be a rising percentage of men who are affected by breast cancer, somewhere between one and three percent depending on the, uh, the source of the data, but certainly is an issue that affects men as well. [01:50] And so the bottom line is that everybody, or a lot of people know about the breast cancer genes, Braca one and Braca two, that really comprises the minority of risk for breast cancer. Eighty percent comes from another set of genetic markers and these enzymes actually affect how a person processes estrogen estrogen, like many chemicals in the body can be converted into something beneficial or something detrimental. And if it's detrimental, we want to get rid of it. We want to pee it out or filter through the litter, liver or some other type of process to sort of clean it up and, um, minimize the risk of dangerous to the body. And so when a person has some abnormalities in terms of their machinery, their metabolic machinery, how their body processes things, that really can dramatically increase a risk of a condition. And for the purpose of today's podcast, talking about breast cancer. [02:42] And so, you know, depending on how many of these abnormalities show up for a given person or patient, the risks can really go, go up dramatically. And, uh, so in the example for today, this particular patient had five genes that had abnormalities and so her risk is substantially higher and there are specific things that can be done, terms of supplements, fish oil, dietary modifications, um, vitamin C, Glutathione, selenium, selenium, milk thistle, Indole, three carbinol. I've thrown a lot at you right now. I realize that we'll get into some more of that in the discussion in the recorded interview with one of my patients. So I hope you find some value in this. As always, you can reach out to me on twitter at Dr Mitchell and I love to answer your questions and if you're interested in obtaining a, some specific testing for yourself, I can kind of steer you in that direction as well. And so, um, sure to read the blog post that goes along with this, I give you some more information to some, some nuts and bolts that you really want to know in terms of breast cancer and trying to minimize risk. And so I hope you find this beneficial. And as always, I'd love to have a review on itunes from you. If you find some value in what I'm doing and sharing on the project you podcast and hope you have a fantastic week. So let's dive into the interview. [04:03] Thanks so much for uh, allowing me to record this. Um, we'll keep all your information confidential, but as you're well aware, it's breast cancer month and so just wanted to take a few minutes to go over your test. And the test is actually a test that measures how well your body metabolizes or processes estrogen, which is a huge impact in the risk of breast cancer. I think most women know about Braca one and two, which are sort of the genetic inherited breast cancers that everybody worries about from other family members, but that's really the minority of what, what comprises the risk of breast cancer. And so this test that you did, as you remember, was just a simple as swapping the cheek and it measured six different markers. Basically how well your body processes estrogen. I won't get into the specific genetic terms, but basically you can see from your test here, those are the six, six to eight that were measured in this particular test and so, um, the blue is normal, which means your body processes estrogen through that pathway normally and the pink are abnormal, which means that your body's enzymes may not be able to process certain components of estrogen into a, what we call favorable metabolite. [05:15] What that means is basically we can take part of estrogen and make it into something that is easy for your body to get rid of, whether you pee it out or detoxify it through the liver versus something that accumulates in the body and can potentially increase your risk for breast cancer. So that's sort of the test in a nutshell. I don't know if you have any, any specific questions about what you see on the report in front of you? [05:37] I guess, yeah, I do. I'm worried. I see that I have many variants detected and I just like to know if that means that I have breast cancer or, or I'm going to get breast cancer. [05:47] Sure. I mean, it's a, it's a, uh, a multifactoral questions. So let me get. The first thing is, are there other cancers in your family or do you have breast cancer in your family or other? [05:57] A breast and other. [05:59] Okay. And so, I mean, certainly there is a hereditary component of breast cancer. If you have a first degree relative that has breast cancer, that certainly increases the risk. And then there are certain syndromes where there are multiple cancers, for example, like a thyroid cancer combined with several other cancers in one person. So those are fortunately very rare. But to get to the, uh, answer your question is, um, just because you have these markers, that doesn't mean that you have breast cancer or that for sure you're going to get breast cancer. We know that, that, uh, people who have more abnormalities in their, their machinery, if you will, their metabolic machinery that their risk of breast cancer can go up significantly. And so the more abnormalities you have, a certainly a could increase your risk. But the real issue is just to kind of get the head of the, uh, the whole process is that the ability of, of things that you do to yourself and what you put into your body and really has a substantial impact on your risk. [06:57] And what I mean by that is just simple lifestyle things like what you eat, the kind of food you eat, whether you smoke or drink alcohol. I know it sounds like a simple approach to, uh, you know, potentially a fatal and devastating disease such as breast cancer, but it really kind of gets to the heart of the matter of what we call Epi genetics or another word that we throw around is nutrogenomix. And not to get all scientific, but really food is powerful in terms of using food as medicine. And so by changing what you put into your body, you really have the, the ability to impact these abnormalities in. So for example, you know, we, we sort of harp on our kids to eat green vegetables, but by consuming, for example, cruciferous vegetables, Broccoli as an example, you really have the power to sort of turn on and off some of these genetic abnormalities and so just by altering your diet based on specific abnormalities you see there, you really can can take a risk that might be as high as 13 fold and really scale that back down to something more along the lines of just a few percentage of increase risk so it doesn't wipe out the risk, but it certainly can help your body turn on and off some of these, these abnormalities or these abnormal pathways which can really improve your risk, decrease your risk, which is what it's called [08:15] about. As far as as diet goes. Is it, are there other lifestyle changes such as sleep or stress reduction or. [08:24] Yeah, absolutely. I mean straight sleep is critical. Sleep is sort of the starting block. Everybody wants to jump ahead to, you know, can I take a thyroid pill and tired or can I take a pill or a supplement or something to really fix everything, but if you're not sleeping properly, if your body's inflamed, your body can repair itself. And the, uh, effects of sleep deprivation are widespread and detrimental. It's not just fatigue, but also affects the way your body processes sugar and carbohydrates the way you're, you're a growth hormone is able to not repair the damage that occurs to your body throughout the day. And so sleep is sort of the cornerstone or the foundation of health that people often overlook. And then he kind of asked about specific, specific things. I mean, obviously not everybody loves Broccoli and there are some supplements, so there's one called dm or dim pro and it's got a long chemical name for it, but that's basically the active ingredient of Broccoli that you can take in a pill form, um, that sort of a, a proprietary name. [09:20] The other common name that you may have seen before, is it [inaudible] or Indole? Three carbinol. Most people just call it [inaudible]. That's just a simple supplement that you can take on a daily basis to really kind of shut off some of these abnormal pathways and to help your body process estrogen more effectively so that you can. You can turn an estrogen into something that's beneficial not to bore you with the chemistry of it, but when the estrogen passes through the body, it's shunted into different pathways, whether it's a a different chemical structure, there's a four, there's a 16 and I won't get into the specifics of the chemistry, but that really has a huge impact on whether or not this could be a potentially cancer causing substance or is it something that's beneficial and actually decreases your risk for cancer and also it also has an impact on your mental health in bone health as well. So I'm just a few simple changes in your diet can really have a dramatic impact on your longevity. Essentially. That's what this is all about, is avoiding cancer and in increasing your longevity. So I don't know if that makes sense or not. [10:25] Yeah, so basically this report is telling me that I have a higher risk factor for developing breast cancer, but there are things that I can do that can decrease my risk in my daily life as well. Well, [10:39] yeah, absolutely. I think that's sort of the key thing to know is is not that this test gives you a specific roadmap to avoid cancer, but it does point out some things that are problematic in your body. It's. It allows an individualized approach to your diet and your supplements to decrease your cancer risk and so by knowing that you can take steps to implement some of the changes, whether it's, you know, limiting your alcohol to no more than one drink a day. I'm really thinking hard about whether you're going to use a hormone supplementation or considering some people considering in vitro fertilization. The risk for that really dramatically increases in terms of breast cancer, particularly if you have some of these abnormalities where you get huge doses of a female hormones. The body doesn't process and properly and it's converted into the dangerous forms of estrogen which can dramatically increased risk of breast cancer. And other problems, so just knowing the information ahead of time really allows women to make some, some informed decisions about whether they're going to take birth control or if they're gonna use hormones with former hormones and uh, you know, certainly if there's family history of breast cancer, um, abnormal genetics certainly really want to consider and have an intelligent discussion with your fertility specialists, whether in vitro fertilization with the hormones is really the safest option for you. [11:58] I suppose that's something to consider too, when going through menopause and, and some, uh, hormone replacement during that time as well. [12:06] Absolutely. And do you know, depending on the training of the physician in classically trained physicians rely on Oral Estrogens, which has a functional physician, we know that that particularly is a, not the route to go. The topical estrogen is really the safest route in terms of trying to, a decreased risk of complications. Um, we know that oral estrogen can cause blood clots and increased heart disease and obviously very detrimental health effects. We haven't really found that with the topical estrogen. And the other side of the coin is it's always about balance. Estrogen and progesterone are the two primary female hormones and see a lot of women who don't sleep well at night, particularly when they get to the perimenopausal menopausal stage and oftentimes some supplementation with, with oral estrogen, sorry, oral progesterone, oral progesterone, which is safe, can really improve the quality of sleep. So a combination of some topical estrogen cream in oral estrogen is certainly an option to discuss with, uh, what's your personal physician regarding, you know, what's your desired effect is in terms of lifestyle. [13:11] And it also, again, the risk based on what we know about your genetics. So definitely important things to consider. And then the last point I wanted to bring up as we know that you have some abnormalities on your test here, and so what do you do next? And the next step would be to get the urine test, is to look at some of the metabolites of estrogen and see if you have abnormal amounts in these estrogens. It really needs to take the steps now to improve that if you ignore it in and just let the cumulative effects build up, at least in my opinion, the risk of breast cancer and other disasters outcomes certainly as a, as well stated in the literature. So I think just giving patients the information they need to really make some decisions about how they live, what they put in their body, and whether they're going to take supplements to really improve the metabolism and try to decrease some of the risks is, is just, you know, information is powerful. And uh, that was the purpose of this test for you. It's really kind of shed some light given your family history of breast cancer, a use of birth control pills in the past and uh, and some other factors. So, um, do you have any other questions about the report? [14:17] No, I think that pretty much goes over most of it. The questions that I didn't have. Thank you. [14:21] Yeah, and just the, I mean because the recommendation for you based on your report would be to either use dim or I C on a regular basis. Really take a hard look at very your vegetable cruciferous vegetable intake and the alcohol, a limitation you don't smoke, so that's a positive thing and there's some other supplements that, that, uh, we can talk about, uh, in the future that you might want to increase or may want to add to your diet and your regimen to really kind of improve sleep and other things that are, are critical. All right, you thank you so much for spending some time with me today. If you found value in this episode and the show, please share a review in itunes as it really helps the show get discovered. Please share your biggest takeaway, and as always, I want to help you answer the burning questions in your mind. So reach out to me. I mentioned Linda Dot com or on social media wherever you hang out. Make today incredible and I'll see you on the next episode of the recharge podcasts.
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